Cambridge

Stuart Weitzman's strappy sandals have graced the feet of actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Lupita Nyong'o. The Duchess of Cambridge sports his wedge heels. Now, Coach wants in on the action. Coach, the New York-based luxury fashion house, said on Tuesday that it would buy Stuart Weitzman, the maker of midrange luxury shoes, for up to $574 million in cash. Coach also said it would retain Mr. Weitzman, the company's 72-year-old executive chairman and creative director, to lead the team whose styles have been in high demand on red carpets and in stores.

Staples bought e-commerce software startup Runa, looking to use the San Mateo, Calif., company's offerings to personalize its online store. "With Runa, we're adding technology to better serve our customers with personalized items, offers and delivery estimates, all in real time," said Staples Chief Executive Ronald Sargent. "Runa will allow us to tap into the wealth of engineering and e-commerce expertise in the Silicon Valley area."

Overall retail sales are down, and the catalog/multichannel sector is no exception. The housing market stinks. And while in the past you could often find promising trends in sales of home furnishings when housing sales were down and consumers reverted to nesting, that’s not the case now. That’s reality, and I’m afraid we can’t mask all this bad news with a runaway success story on the cover this month. But there are plenty of things you can learn from Frederick’s of Hollywood about weathering tough times. Although there are bigger success stories out there, Frederick’s has been trying to dig itself out

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