Matt Townsend | The Seattle Times

September 12, 2018 at 4:53 pm

Command centers, relief teams: How the home-improvement industry preps for hurricanes

Storms like Hurricane Florence have a big financial impact on home-improvement stores. That’s why Lowe’s and Home Depot are manning their emergency command centers to...

Business

September 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm

Trump threatens new tariffs on $267B of Chinese imports

American retailers haven’t been hit that hard by President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But that could be about to change, just as they are preparing for...

Business

July 5, 2018 at 7:18 am

Amazon takes a page from Toys ‘R’ Us with a holiday catalog

Amazon.com is looking more and more like a traditional retailer. In a drive to win the business up for grabs after the demise of Toys...

Business

July 3, 2018 at 12:54 pm

Walmart draws fire for ‘Impeach 45’ T-shirts

Shirt-maker Old Glory says it sold thousands on Tuesday alone, but more pro-Trump items sell than anti-Trump ones, company says.

Business

$A fraction of Everett-based Funko’s product line, on display in the lobby, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016. Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times)$

December 5, 2017 at 6:37 pm

Funko looks to rebound from IPO fiasco with overseas push

After the Everett pop-culture company made unfortunate history with the worst IPO debut in 17 years, Funko stock has edged up. Its first report as...

Business

People walk by the Nike SoHo store, Thursday, June 15, 2017, in the SoHo neighborhood of New York. Nike said Thursday that it plans to sell more shoes directly to customers online as part of a restructuring in which it plans to cut about 1,400 jobs. It will also reduce the number of sneaker and clothing styles it makes by a quarter and focus on hot sellers. (AP Photo/Michael Noble Jr.)

October 24, 2017 at 6:20 pm

Retail headwinds take air out of Nike’s sales bluster

Nike has struggled in the past two years. The Oregon retailer didn’t foresee that the boom in athletic footwear and apparel would fizzle or that...

Business

People walk outside the Nike SoHo store, Thursday, June 15, 2017, in the SoHo neighborhood of New York. Nike said Thursday that it plans to sell more shoes directly to customers online as part of a restructuring in which it plans to cut about 1,400 jobs. It will also reduce the number of sneaker and clothing styles it makes by a quarter and focus on hot sellers. (AP Photo/Michael Noble Jr.)

October 12, 2017 at 6:47 pm

Nike’s 40 percent off sale is sign of sneaker giant’s woes

Amid slowing demand in the U.S., the Beaverton, Oregon-based company announced a 48-hour sale of as much as 40 percent on more than 200 items...

Business

September 6, 2017 at 5:28 pm

Kohl’s enlists Amazon as ally in bid to drive store traffic; Home Depot signs deal with Google

Kohl’s aims to turn an e-commerce threat into an ally by offering Amazon.com products in some of its stores. Home Depot, meanwhile, will sell goods...

Business

July 27, 2017 at 6:17 pm

Republican leaders give up on border-adjusted tax on imports

While several Republican leaders had spent more than a year championing the border-adjusted tax, and Boeing had lobbied strongly for such a tax, retailers’ groups...

Business

In this Tuesday, March 1, 2016, photo, people walk past a Staples store in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

June 28, 2017 at 6:18 pm

Staples sold for $6.9B in bid for turnaround

The publicly traded office-supply chain is trying to shift from its retail roots, and the sale to investment firm Sycamore Partners will put that process...