Sears struggles to compete with Macy´s & Target

Affordable department stores Sears struggles to

redefine itself as a provider of apparel as it is increasing losing market share to Macy’s, Target and other department stores in terms of fashion apparel.

 Sears still accounts 15% of its revenues to apparel in terms of its overall sales. In the last quarter, Sears suffered a net loss of nearly $146 million due to price slashing as it tried to compete against other discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. According to some analysts, Sears should look into redefining its brand and focus on its core strengths. According to Paul Swinand of Morningstar, the push to redefine their fashion brands is taking away from their core business.

Meantime, G-III Apparel Group hit a new 52-week low Tuesday as it is currently trading at $21.22, below its previous 52-week low of $21.25 with 170,567 shares traded as of 1:35 p.m. ET. Average volume has been 202,900 shares over the past 30 days. The urban youth´s clothing brand has a market cap of $449.1 million and is part of the consumer goods sector and consumer non-durables industry. Shares are down 37.4% year to date as of the close of trading on Monday.

Finally, and one  day before releasing its interim results, Next plc announced that, pursuant to the contingent forward purchase contract it entered into with Barclays Bank Plc on 12 July 2011, it purchased on Tuesday 25,000 ordinary shares for cancellation at a price of 2273.51 pence per share. Following the purchase, the Company's registered share capital consists of 172,389,787 ordinary shares of 10 pence each.  All of the ordinary shares have equal voting rights and there are no shares held in Treasury.