Events

Now that the dust is clearing from the Amazon Prime Day sales “holiday,” we can take a look back at this unique retail event, which livened up the typical lull of mid-summer. Let’s review three initial lessons the retail industry can learn from what some observers called the “summer Black Friday.”

Every Day can be a Holiday

Sunnyvale, Calif. – Yahoo Inc. has initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to spin off its remaining holdings in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. into a new public company called Aabaco Holdings Inc. Yahoo initially announced its plans to spin off its Alibaba stake in January 2015.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. is presenting itself as “Tahget” to Boston-area shoppers. The Boston Globe reports that Target is offering an assortment of “Local Pride” T-shirts with stereotypically Boston phrases and slang, such as “Wicked Smaht,” in its store located in Somerville, Massachusetts, a small city bordering Boston.

The localized assortment will also be featured in Target’s new CityTarget location scheduled to open in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston on Wednesday, July 22.

New York — Coming soon to a mall near you…robots?

Mike Kercheval, president and CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers, is making the case for the use of robots in shopping malls. In an op-ed commentary on CNBC.com,  Kercheval says the robot's potential on the front lines of retail is limitless—and soon, he adds, “it will be difficult to imagine a visit to the local mall without them.”

Here are three reasons Kercheval says we need robots in malls:

Kohl’s is looking to make a difference in the lives of many of its customers with a vast volunteer effort involving all its stores, thousands of its employees and 160 hospitals.

Bloomington, Minn. -- Mall of America is adding a big experiential retail destination.

Crayola plans to open an interactive attraction that combines retail and entertainment in the nation’s largest shopping mall. The 60,000-sq.-ft. Crayola Experience is slated to open at the Bloomington, Minnesota, mega-mall in the summer of 2016. It will be the third location for the format, which recently opened in the Florida Mall, in Orlando, Florida. (The original Crayola Experience is in the company’s home town of Easton, Pennsylvania.)

New York – Dan Berthiaume, senior editor of Chain Store Age, recently participated in a one-hour panel discussion, “Today’s Retail CMO – A New Outlook,” sponsored by SAP as part of its “Coffee Break with Game-Changers” Internet radio series. The discussion, broadcast live on the VoiceAmerica Internet media service, focused on how advances in cloud and digital technology are transforming the role of the chief marketing officer in retail.

San Jose, Calif. – While the social buzz regarding Amazon Prime Day on Wednesday, July 15, has been not so prime, early reports indicate the event was a success sales-wise. And industry experts said the event was important in other ways too.

San Jose, Calif. – While Amazon.com may be happy about its exact sales performance during its July 15 Amazon Prime Day sales event, social media response probably did not meet Amazon’s expectations.