‘The Nation’ Reduces Print Frequency In Favor Of Bigger Issues (mediapost.com)

Gap Inc. today announced the opening of its new Gap flagship store on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai, its biggest flagship to date in the Greater China region. Featuring Gap’s full apparel collections and latest store design elements, the new flagship store underscores the importance of the China market for the company and its commitment to better serving Chinese customers. Additionally, the company will move its China retail headquarters team into the office space being created above the store in 2018. Located at No. 863 West Nanjing Road in Shanghai’s busiest commercial district, the 1908 square-meter and two-story flagship store is Gap’s largest in Greater China. The store showcases Gap’s contemporary store concept developed jointly by the company’s local and global store design teams and takes design inspiration both from the brand’s early heritage as well as new modern elements. Click Read More below for more of the story.

SECOND QUARTER 2020 SUMMARY: • Second quarter net loss of $255 million, which included after-tax COVID-19 related charges of $14 million primarily related to corporate asset impairments, decreased from net earnings of $141 million during the same period in fiscal 2019. • In Full-Price, net sales decreased 58 percent. Excluding the Anniversary Sale event shift impact, Full-Price sales decreased in the mid-forties percent range. Off-Price net sales decreased 43 percent compared with the same period in fiscal 2019. Top performing merchandise categories included home, kidswear, accessories, beauty and active in both Full-Price and Off-Price. • Total company digital sales decreased 5 percent. Excluding the Anniversary Sale event shift impact, digital sales increased approximately 20 percent in the second quarter and in the mid-teens range on a year-to-date basis. The Company’s e-commerce business continued to experience significant growth in new Nordstrom customers of more than 50 percent. • Gross profit, as a percentage of net sales, was 21 percent, decreasing from 35 percent for the same period in fiscal 2019 due to planned markdowns and deleverage from lower sales volume and reflected sequential improvement in merchandise margin trends.

A new scientific report is in, affirming what most teachers can probably already tell you: Print is vital for effective education. “The argument that reading on paper results in deeper comprehension and retention, concentration, vocabulary building and memory has been given immense weight by a groundbreaking new study,” notes this article from Two Sides NA. “The research examined the results of 54 studies with a total of over 170,000 participants from 19 countries,” the article continues, “and found overwhelming evidence that comprehension of text is much stronger when reading from paper as opposed to a screen, particularly when the reader is under time pressure.” We’ve shared previous research on this topic — studies have shown that reading on paper is better for comprehension and overall learning — but there was a new twist to this study, named E-READ. The four-year study aimed to discover if students learning from digital devices progressed as rapidly as those learning by reading on paper. The results are clear. “Students learning from digital devices only progressed one third as much as they would have done had they been reading on paper,” the article notes.