Retailer | featured news

The California tax man cometh, and he's headed for the Internet. State tax collectors are preparing to crack down on renegade Internet merchants who don't collect sales taxes, and nearly 100 new state auditors, lawyers and other specialists are being hired to help over the next three years.

Most retailers, including Costco Wholesale Corp and Limited Brands Inc , posted better-than-expected sales gains at existing stores in August, in what is expected to be a healthy month as parents and students wrapped up back-to-school purchases.

In an effort to follow trends, students and their families are delaying back-to-school purchases, which could hurt an economy heavily dependent on consumer spending to stay afloat.

Best Buy Co. Inc. and its founder and former chairman Richard Schulze say they have an agreement that will allow Schulze to pursue his plan to try to buy the nation's largest consumer electronics chain.

U.S. electronics chain Best Buy Co Inc named Hubert Joly, the former head of hospitality and travel company Carlson, as its new chief executive on Monday, hoping to tap the French businessman's acumen in turning around ailing businesses.

AMERICANS are obsessed with their scores. Credit scores, G.P.A.'s, SAT's, blood pressure and cholesterol levels -- you name it. So here's a new score to obsess about: the e-score, an online calculation that is assuming an increasingly important, and controversial, role in e-commerce.

U.S. consumer sentiment improved in early August to the highest in three months as sales at retailers and low mortgage rates spurred Americans to boost their buying plans, a survey showed on Friday.

Best known for its budget flat-pack furniture, Scandinavian retailer Ikea is planning to launch a chain of budget hotels in Europe. The property division of Inter Ikea - the company that owns the Ikea intellectual property rights - is planning hotels in 100 locations across Europe. The first two hotels are expected to open in Germany in 2014. Other locations earmarked for hotels include Belgium, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Britain and Poland.

A bevy of big-name retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best-Buy Co. and Target Corp., are teaming up to create a company that will give customers another way to make purchases: with their cellphones.

Best Buy Co Inc founder and former Chairman Richard Schulze offered to take the struggling electronics retailer private on Monday in a deal that values the company at between$8.16 billion to $8.84 billion.