Direct Sales Drop 5.4% at Frederick’s of Hollywood

| Tim Parry

Bucking a trend seen by b-to-c retailers, poor sales in its direct channels has hurt apparel merchant Frederick’s of Hollywood. Though company chairman and CEO Thomas Lynch attributed a net sales decrease for the second quarter ended Jan. 28 to post-Christmas clearance sales, it was the second straight quarter that direct channels have put Frederick’s sales in the red.

Quad/Graphics to Close Arkansas Facility

| Jim Tierney

Printer Quad/Graphics announced plans to cease production at its Jonesboro, AR facility in the fourth quarter of this year as it continues to consolidate work onto its most efficient and competitive manufacturing platforms. Here’s why the 600,000-sq.-ft. Jonesboro plant, which prints catalogs and magazines, employs about 600 workers, will close.

Why Merchants Need to Take a Look at Pinterest

| Blair Lyon

According to Shareaholic, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. Given the power of Pinterest to drive website traffic, it is critical for brands to consider a strategy for using Pinterest. Here are some tips to get started.

A 4 Step Approach to an Improved SEO Ranking

| Daryl Logullo

Depending on your business model, a conversion might be an opt-in, a form completion, a lead inquiry, a customer sale or something else. And whether you optimize for 200 keywords or 20,000, the end result in driving traffic organically from Google is to get people engaged early and have them convert. Here’s how to know if that’s the right approach to improve your SEO ranking.