Retailers

'When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled," goes the African proverb. The same can be said for the epic battle between banks and retailers over interchange fees - what retailers pay to accept credit and debit cards for payment. This battle has resulted in harm to consumers, community banks, and mom-and-pop retailers as Congress injected itself into the fight. Fortunately, this battle is finally drawing to a close. Last year the payments and retail industries resolved their differences through the court system, negotiating a $7.25 billion settlement to their dispute.

T'was the Sunday before the Sunday before Christmas, and all through the stores, so few consumer-creatures were stirring . . . well, I barely waited for a food-court burrito, hardly broke a sweat for parking, and saw virtually none of the long checkout lines retailers expect and need during the holidays. Uh-oh , I thought to myself. That bad feeling I'd had on Black Friday, after retailers pulled out the stops with Thanksgiving store openings - only to see less-than-killer crowds the next day - had apparently been a sign of more troubling news to come.

Since 1980, American retailers have been carrying on a love affair with imported clothing makers and spurning the products of domestic apparel manufacturers. But over the past six months or so, the U.S. garment industry has enjoyed a renewed flirtation with retailers, partly in response to the dollar's falling value overseas and partly because of a new perception by consumers that clothing made in the U.S.A. is better. "There's definitely movement in the direction of domestic clothing makers," said Bob Swift, executive director of Crafted with Pride in the USA Council, the non-profit group that developed the "Made in the USA" campaign.

Wallace Oversby had a big decision to make - what kind of lingerie to buy his girlfriend for Valentine's Day. A teddy? A bustier? The 23-year-old Embassy Suites guest services clerk was torn. He said he wanted to get her something sexy but not too risque. "You don't want her to think you're some kind of a freak or anything," he explained, as he left Secrets on South, an intimate-apparel store. Thanks to customers like Oversby, who already had purchased a pair of $70 black Reebok athletic shoes for his sweetheart, many retailers yesterday breathed a collective sigh of relief.

To hear some retailers, it won't be the decorations going up, or the carolers singing that will inspire Philadelphians to begin their Christmas shopping. Rather, it's the inevitable end of this year's political campaigns, which have preoccupied customers for months, that may encourage them to get out and spend. "I don't think Bush is going to win, and I think that'll give a real boost to the economy," said Larry Glauser, co-owner of the Sports Favorites apparel store on Cottman Avenue in the Northeast.

Attention Yupscale shoppers: Sharper Image, the executive toy catalog business that also operates 30 retail stores, is racing into Ardmore for an October opening - maybe aboard a pair of its $99 "Frollerskates with Innershoes. " J. Bildner, a hybrid grocery caterer and gourmet operation based in Boston, is renovating a store on Rittenhouse Square, where it will sell things like Ethiopian Harar coffee and goat cheese, side by side with toothpaste and toilet paper. Honeybee, which sells brand-name and designer women's career clothes, is coming to 1711 Walnut St. by early October.

NEW YORK - A last-minute surge in spending saved the holiday shopping season. Major retailers, including Costco, Gap and Nordstrom, on Thursday reported better-than-expected revenue in December. That comes as a relief for stores, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue in the last two months of the year. Americans spent cautiously early in the season as the Northeast recovered from Superstorm Sandy. Then they held back because of fears that the U.S. economy would fall off the "fiscal cliff," triggering massive budget cuts and tax increases that would have amounted to less money in their pockets.

They were developers, Realtors and retailers and nearly all of them had one thing in common: But for nine or 10, almost none were registered to vote in Philadelphia. They weren't necessarily campaign contributors, either, and the event was not a fund-raiser. But that doesn't mean that either candidate for mayor could afford to be absent. Nope. If you're going to be mayor in Philadelphia, you need these guys on your team. "They represent important development interests in the city of Philadelphia," said Republican mayoral candidate Sam Katz yesterday after addressing several hundred members of the International Council of Shopping Centers, who were holding their annual regional meeting at the Convention Center.

Nyeemah Davis pulled away from her mother's hand, bounded through Cherry Hill Mall's newest children's clothing store, 77kids, and marched up to the electronic kiosk. Nyeemah, only 4 years old and dressed in a hooded, navy blue 77kids sweat suit, punched the oversize buttons on what looked like a giant iPod touch and snapped a digital self-portrait. Then she wandered over to the leopard-print hoodies. "Oh my God, Ny absolutely loves this store," said Laverne Davis, 28, of Clementon, who shops at the store's slightly grown-up predecessor, American Eagle.

The nation's major merchants turned in solid sales performances in February, they reported yesterday. Industry analysts said the retailers were helped in large part by women's strong responses to new spring fashions. Jeffrey Feiner, a retail analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co., said the results "were slightly ahead of expectations and reflected the continued improvement that was evident during the Christmas and January selling seasons. " The retailers' sales in stores open for more than a year rose an average of 7 percent to 8 percent in February over the same month a year ago, while total sales were up about 16 percent on average, the analysts said.

NEW YORK - Some of the world's largest retailers have agreed to a first-of-its-kind pact to improve safety at some of Bangladesh's garment factories. The move comes nearly three weeks after a building collapse in the country killed more than 1,100 workers. H&M, a trendy Swedish chain that's the largest clothing buyer in Bangladesh, on Monday said it would sign a five-year, legally binding contract that calls for retailers to take on a greater role in ensuring the garment factories in Bangladesh are safe.

  Heidi Tirjan's schedule was packed. There were visits to a new bakery and a soon-to-open bookshop in Bryn Mawr, then off to Philadelphia to drop in on a couple of chic Northern Liberties retailers she thought should launch outlets in Lower Merion. She also found time to revel in a luscious victory: persuading the owners of the highly regarded Philadelphia restaurant Melograno to open another eatery on the Main Line. After years of wooing, Rosemarie Tran and Gianluca Demontis had succumbed to Tirjan's blandishments and their own desire, and are putting the finishing touches on Fraschetta, a restaurant they are opening near the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

On paper, the proposed Soko Lofts project promises to do for its South Kensington neighborhood what the Piazza at Schmidts did for Northern Liberties. Like its paradigm-shifting predecessor two blocks south, Soko Lofts would rim its large block with a dense array of mid-rise apartment buildings, smartly broken up into manageable segments. The spaces between the buildings would become passageways, beckoning the public into a landscaped interior courtyard. It is a pretty good plan, but it is no Piazza.

ATLANTIC CITY - It takes effort and money to stay No. 1. And Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, the top-grossing gambling palace here every year since its debut in 2003, has been willing to put in both. Borgata is revamping its offerings once again. This time, three upscale retail stores - Misura, Carina, and Borgata Collection - have new lighting, fixtures, and color design to be more inviting to patrons. A fourth store - Antica Murrina, which sells Italian glass jewelry - opened April 12 in the Shoppes at the Water Club, Borgata's second hotel.

NEW YORK - Ross Stores and other retailers surged Thursday after turning in better sales, and major stock market indexes rose for a fourth straight day. Discount chain Ross jumped 6 percent, the best gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The company said stronger sales in March would likely push profits above its previous estimate this quarter. The stock jumped $3.56, to $63.80. A surprising drop in claims for unemployment benefits last week encouraged investors. Analysts said it could mean a March slowdown in hiring may have been temporary.

NEW YORK - So much for new spring shorts and T-shirts. As cold weather lingered across most of the country, Americans shopped modestly in March. U.S. retailers reported that a key revenue figure rose slightly during the month, as shoppers held back on spending because of the cold weather across the nation, particularly the Midwest and East Coast, and continued fears about the economy. Consumer spending accounts for more than 70 percent of economic activity. According to a preliminary tally of 15 retailers by the International Council of Shopping Centers, revenue in stores open at least a year rose 1.6 percent, or 2.5 percent excluding drugstores.

'When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled," goes the African proverb. The same can be said for the epic battle between banks and retailers over interchange fees - what retailers pay to accept credit and debit cards for payment. This battle has resulted in harm to consumers, community banks, and mom-and-pop retailers as Congress injected itself into the fight. Fortunately, this battle is finally drawing to a close. Last year the payments and retail industries resolved their differences through the court system, negotiating a $7.25 billion settlement to their dispute.

After years of working at a bank, Nancy Dillett of Meadowbrook, Montgomery County, lost her job in the late 1990s when her company was taken over by a rival. She spent the next decade raising her two children as a stay-at-home mom, then rejoined the workforce 18 months ago - as a retail clerk in a State Store. On Wednesday, Dillett, 55, who works at the liquor store in Jenkintown, told a panel of Democratic legislators that the state House's recent passage of a bill to phase out the State Stores left her fearful of finding herself without work once more.

When 63-year-old psychologist Fred Chase moved into the LumberYard condominiums in Collingswood with his wife, Rachel, two years ago, they called themselves "the early explorers. " The ambitious plan for spacious condos and shops along the PATCO high-speed line was only half-built at the time, its fate in limbo. "We had the halls to ourselves," said Chase, who was downsizing from a rambling three-story Victorian in Haddonfield after their two grown children had left. "It was a little strange.

Retailers, who closed the books on their fiscal years in January, are just beginning to release their financial results for 2012. Struggling J.C. Penney Co. Inc. saw its shares plunge 17 percent one day after announcing a net loss of $985 million, or $4.49 per share, and a 25 percent decline in sales for 2012. Urban Outfitters Inc., the Philadelphia-based chain that has been a favorite on Wall Street, won't release complete financial results until March 11. But last month it reported a 17 percent increase in fourth-quarter sales and a 13 percent increase in full-year sales.