Transform SR Brands LLC

Toronto -- Sears Canada said Tuesday it has debuted a permanent shoppable iPad application for its Wish Book catalog after a temporary launch for the 2011 holiday shopping season.

The app will contain various content throughout any given year, the first of which appears Tuesday in the form of the 60th anniversary Wish Book.

New York -- As Hurricane Sandy bears down on the northeastern U.S., retailers are doing more than stocking up on emergency supplies for their customers – they are making preparations to protect themselves.

According to a Friday report by MarketWatch, Sears Holdings Corp., for example, has a 45-person crisis command team in place to stay in close communication with its personnel housed at Sears and Kmart stores in the at-risk areas.

Santa Monica, Calif. -- The Macerich Co. announced on Monday plans to acquire Kings Plaza, located in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Green Acres Mall, located in Valley Stream, N.Y., on the border of New York City and Nassau County. 

Kings Plaza is being acquired from a subsidiary of Alexander's for $751 million, with a closing date set for late 2012. Green Acres is being acquired from a subsidiary of Vornado Realty Trust for $500 million, with a first quarter 2013 closing date.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Teradata, the analytic data solutions company, announced that Sears Holdings has upgrades its existing Teradata analytic environment with the Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse Platform 6690, which leverages both SSD and HDD storage.

Sears has also added the new Teradata ADW Private Cloud with Elastic Performance on Demand for on-demand business analytics.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings has added the Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse Platform 6690 to its existing Teradata analytic environment.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — GE's Brillion-enabled products have made their retail debut at Sears.

Starting Thursday, more than 100 Sears stores in the Northeast will offer the GE Get Connected Starter Kit, plus the GE programmable thermostat and GE’s award-winning GeoSpring Hybrid Water Heater, all with Brillion technology, in one location.

Wayne, N.J. -- Toys “R” Us announced that it is extending its free layaway program through Dec. 16, due to significant positive response by consumers. The free offer was originally slated to end on Oct. 31. The chain was the first retailer to offer free layaway, starting in September. Since then, other companies have also stepped up with enhanced layaway programs, including Walmart and Kmart.

No wonder Walmart comps are increasing. Check out the latest monthly report from the ad tracking provider Market Track.

The month saw drop in the number of circulars released to the market by the majority of retailers. However, interestingly we saw flyers increasing pages compared with last year for most of the retailers in the year over year comparison.

Walmart had a significant increase in both the number of circulars as well as number of pages when compared with same time last year.