Bloomingdale's

Macy’s is making another move to drive its digital growth.

Westfield COO Bill Hecht looks at the billion-dollar re-do of the company’s Century City Mall in Los Angeles and sees the dawning of a new era in retail.

A home furnishings brand is in rapid expansion mode — something that wasn’t possible five years ago.

Best Buy and Macy’s are stepping up their same-day delivery efforts as they continue to bolster their defenses to compete with Amazon and other rivals.    Best Buy announced on Thursday it is expanding its same-day delivery of online orders from 13 metro areas to 27, with more to come. The retailer expects that customers in nearly 40 cities will be able to take advantage of service for the holiday selling season.  

Boll & Branch, until now an online-only seller of towels and linens, has opened its first brick-and-mortar location at the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey.   Claiming to sell the “World’s Most Comfortable Sheets,” Boll & Branch also offers towels and will inhabit a 2,137-sq.-ft. shop at the high-end, suburban mall known as one of the few to house Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s under one roof.  

Actress and fashion entrepreneur Sarah Jessica Parker is betting on Las Vegas.   Parker, who gained global fame as the star of "Sex and the City," has opened her fledgling retail brand's second freestanding location, at Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. The store, SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker, offers the label's full collection of shoes, handbags and accessories in a stylish, upscale environment. It is located in Bellagio's Promenade retail corridor.   

Multi-brand and vertically integrated beauty stores are shaking up the beauty industry — and growing at a rapid rate.    With hundreds of new doors opening in various formats, cosmetics specialty and vertically integrated stores, such as Ulta, Sephora, Bluemercury, NYX, Kiko Milano, and e.l.f., have grown at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 19% over the past five years, according to a report by research and consulting firm Kline. Such stores now account for an estimated 20% of total beauty market sales. 

Macy’s reported disappointing earnings for its first quarter, as its sale continued to slide.    Macy's posted a first quarter profit of $71 million, or 23 cents a share, down from $116 million, or 37 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding some costs, Macy's adjusted per-share profit fell to 24 cents from 40 cents, below analysts' expectations for 35 cents.   

As digital commerce forces brick-and-mortar stores to innovate, industry experts share their views on the future of physical retail.

From department stores to discounters to home improvement chains, nearly all retailers are engaged in the same game: trying to imagine what stores of the future will look like in an increasingly digitized world.

The nation’s largest department store has increased its deployment of renewable energy.    Macy's Inc. said it installed 21 solar energy systems during the past year at Macy's and Bloomingdale's locations in seven states, totaling 15 meg-awatts. The deployments were done in partnership with SunPower. Elec-tricity generated by the new solar power systems will ultimately be sold to others.