Gap

Between social media, e-commerce, and emerging technology, the way we shop has changed dramatically. At yesterday's Fashion Tech Forum, hosted by Gap, Karen Harvey, and partner Elle Magazine at Chelsea Piers in New York City, many panels discussed millennial shoppers-a group born between the ages of 1982 and 1996 that is two billion strong. Millennials grew up accustomed to a certain immediacy and sufficiency and as a result, can be quite demanding. Jamie Gutfreund, the chief marketing officer of

Ikea, the iconic home furnishings chain, plans to announce Thursday that it will raise its minimum wage by 17 percent, joining a growing national movement to boost the pay of low-wage workers. The Gap, whose stores include Gap and Old Navy, also has announced plans to increase its pay floor this year. The privately held Ikea plans to raise its average minimum wage from

Gap's pay pledge has gotten the attention of job seekers. After announcing plans in February to increase hourly wages to $10 by 2015, employment applications at the Gap and Old Navy chains have surged by at least 10 percent from a year earlier, the San Francisco-based company said. The clothing seller has seen applications increase across all of its brands — including Banana Republic and Athleta — though the effect has been especially striking at the lower-end Old Navy chain, where the number of job seekers had been declining. 

Just as the Mr. Softee jingle and the distinct smell of suntan lotion instantly evoke summer days, Old Navy deems its annual $1 flip-flop sale, which launches on Saturday, a staple of the season. It's also become big business for the Gap's lower priced spin-off chain. The flip-flop promotion marks the retailer's second biggest sales windfall of the year behind Black Friday. Ivan Wicksteed, global chief marketing officer for Old Navy, spoke with Forbes about its first ever flip-flop vending machines, which rolled out to 36 locations in New York and Los Angeles. 

The arrival of omnichannel has the retail industry drawing new battle lines in the sand. Pundits predicted e-commerce would eventually crush brick-and-mortar, with Amazon.com as the big gun and other popular pure-plays falling in line behind. Omnichannel commerce is retail's direct answer to the Amazon era. If traditional retailers can leverage their core strength — their brick-and-mortar stores — and master the integrated online and offline experience, they may indeed have the upper hand. 

There's been a lot of talk recently about the eyebrow-raising pay gap between retail company CEOs and the store employees below them. At last week's Code Conference, Wal-Mart's CEO (who reels in $10 million per year) said he was no different then Wal-Mart's store employees, including the 30,000 who are paid at minimum wage. Two days before that, the Los Angeles Times ran an unforgiving piece on the subject, saying that "… many CEOs now pull down so much more than their own employees that it's an ugly insult to working families." 

Jeans giant Gap fell victim to a web hoax on Tuesday, with a fake corporate website set up to shame the retailer for its response to Bangladesh worker deaths. The convincing-looking GapDoesMore.com surfaced to coincide with the annual Gap Inc. shareholder meeting, where the San Francisco clothier celebrated its recent decision to boost minimum worker wage to $10. The site, still live as of

Since 1969, Gap has rallied around fun, joyfulness, optimism and inclusivity. It's a brand that was launched for the youth of America, and it still speaks to that demographic today. Even though target consumers aged over the decades, Gap's founding principles are unchanged and remain relevant. "Your long-term purpose and the tone of your brand and belief system should never change, but the way you express it can change time and time again," says Gap Chief Marketing Officer Seth Farbman. 

The brick-and-mortar storefront is no longer the only place customers can see the personal face of the business. Today's e-commerce is graduating into a new phase of personalization where customer segmentation capabilities and the ability to serve targeted content in real time are a viable reality for most online businesses.

Some of the nation's largest retailers are banding together in hopes of protecting consumers' personal and financial information from hackers and thieves. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, along with several top retailers, like Gap and Walgreens, on Wednesday opened an intelligence-sharing center focused on the prevention of cybercrimes against retailers. According to the retail group, the center will allow retailers to share