Declining foot traffic and slumping profit margins are forcing several brick-and-mortar retailers to shift into survival mode. Consumers are doing more of their shopping online, lured by the convenience and great deals offered by Amazon and other competitors. As a result, the stores are tweaking their strategies, hoping to rake in big sales in the process. For one, Wal-Mart has been forking over cash to increase sales online, buying discounter Jet.com and building out its distribution system. It's also invested in remodeling hundreds of stores, reducing inventories, and pushing down prices. Target will forego $1 billion in profits by lowering prices and pushing digital sales with lower margins. It will also spend billions to renovate roughly 600 stores and open 100 smaller ones over the next few years. As part of its ongoing effort to get smaller to combat losses, Sears will be closing another 100 Sears and Kmart stores in 2017. Having already sold off its Craftsman tools b...

On Thursday, Los Angeles prosecutors sued four national retailers for deceiving shoppers into believing they got bigger discounts than they actually did. The separate lawsuits alleging deceptive advertising were filed against Sears, Macy's, Kohl's, and J.C. Penney. The retailers falsely advertised higher regular prices for merchandise so customers, leading customers to think they were getting bigger bargains. California law bars retailers from promoting a higher original price unless the product was sold at that very price within three months of the ad. The lawsuits seek civil penalties up to $2,500 for each violation and injunctions to cease false reference pricing to bolster sales. As it turns out, thousands of "sale" items were advertised at false reference prices. One of the lawsuits asserted that J.C. Penney was selling a maternity bathing suit top online for $31.99 earlier in the year, down from the original price of $46. The top was later marked dow...

Can you take a wild guess as to why men might eat more in front of women? I'll give you a minute to think about it. OK, what did you come up with? Because the men are nervous? Guess again. Because being on a date makes them hungrier? Nope. Because they really don't like the women and are trying to turn them off? Not even close. According to a new study from Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab published in the medical journal Evolutionary Psychological Science , they are actually trying to impress women -- not turn them off. While women tend to eat less in the presence of men, the study found that men who ate with at least one woman consumed 92 percent more pizza and 86 percent more salad. The results support the notion that people have an evolved tendency to show off in front of others, whether it's to attract the opposite sex or assert dominance. I suppose most men aren't too worried about being called a "pig," "fat ass," or an...