Bloomingdale's

York, Pa. - The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. board of directors has unanimously elected Steven Silverstein to its board, effective immediately. Silverstein will serve on the Human Resources and Compensation Committee.

New York -- For the second consecutive month, Jcrew.com ranked No. 1 overall in customer service performance in the Stella Monthly Benchmarks, a ranking of the best online customer service performance in the United States. Rounding out the top five, were the e-commerce sites of Ralph Lauren, L.L.Bean, Kate Spade and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Willow Grove, Pa. — Blo/Out Blow Dry Bar has opened its third area location at Willow Grove Park in Willow Grove, Pa., near Philadelphia. The no-appointment 1,300-sq.-ft. salon offers eight styling techniques plus Blo/Out Express, a 20-minute dry styling treatment.

Westfield San Francisco Centre has embraced the National Day Golden Week holiday that runs from Oct. 1- Oct. 7 every year — in China.

During Golden Week, more than 120 million residents of the People’s Republic of China travel to visit family and friends in the People’s Republic and overseas. Large numbers visit San Francisco, home of the largest Chinatown outside of Asia.

SAN FRANCISCO — Mavatar Technologies has appointed Phil Schlein, former president and CEO of Macy's California and partner at U.S. Venture Partners, as chairman of its board of directors. 

Honolulu — With 42 million visitors per year, the two million-sq.-ft. Ala Moana Center in Honolulu boasts sales per square foot of $1,300. At the beginning of the year, owner General Growth Properties began a massive $572 million redevelopment of Ala Moana — the world’s largest open-air shopping mall. The goal is to add 650,000 sq. ft. of new retail space.

Cincinnati -- Macy’s scaled back its earnings guidance for the remainder of the year in the wake of lower-than-expected net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2013. The retailer reported net income of $281 million, up from $279 million in the year ago period, but short of the roughly $304 million analysts had expected.

Disappointing second quarter sales at Macy’s prompted the nation’s leading department store operator to temper its outlook for the remainder of the year, heightening concerns about the health of the consumer just as other major retailers are due to report financial results in the weeks ahead.

Sales declined 0.8% to slightly more than $6 billion and same store sales fell by a similar amount during the second quarter period ended August 3. Profits increased 7.5% to 72 cents from 67 cents, but that figure was six cents less that analysts forecast.

New York -- Nordstrom emerged as the top brand in an inaugural benchmark study ranking the digital performance of the world's top department stores by digital think tank L2. Among the 40 stores included in the study, Nordstrom was No. 1, followed Macy's, Saks, and the U.K.’s Marks & Spencer, all of which earned 'Genius' titles.

Having past the calendar’s mid-point, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the most viewed stories of the year to date on ChainStoreAge.com. (Based on the results,  the ongoing saga of J.C. Penney remains the industry's biggest story.) Here are the Top 10 stories of the first six months: