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Home Improvement

  • Spotlight on The Tile Shop

    With home remodeling and housing starts on the rise, The Tile Shop is in a sweet spot. The specialty retailer of manufactured and nature stone tiles reported an 8.8% increase in net sales and a 4.9% increase in same-store sales for its first quarter. With 130 stores in 31 states, The Tile Shop displays its tiles in a showroomlike environment that includes full-room tiled displays and a design studio where customers can utilize 3-D renderings to visualize their design ideas.

  • TreeHouse Branches Out

    Home improvement start-up is dedicated to healthy, sustainable homes

    A start-up home improvement retailer with a green conscience has expanded out of its Austin, Texas, home with a first-of-its-kind store that’s generating lots of buzz.

    TreeHouse has opened the nation’s first home improvement “energy positive” (meaning it will generate more energy than it uses) store, at The Hill, a shopping center in Dallas. It’s the start-up retailer’s second location — but not for long. An additional store, planned for the Plano, Texas, area, is due to open this fall.

  • Online giant in deal with unlikely retail partner

    Amazon is staking a claim in the appliance market in a big way in a partnership with Sears Holdings.   The embattled retailer announced it will sell its prized Kenmore-branded appliances on Amazon. The deal opens the way for the broadest distribution to date of Kenmore products outside of Sears stores and its websites. Distribution will be nationwide, and Sears Home Services and Innovel Solutions units will provide delivery, installation, and other services.  

  • Analysis: Amazon-Sears deal ‘smart move’

    Greg Portell, lead partner in the retail practice of global strategy and management consulting firm A.T. Kearney:   

  • PREIT’s version of ‘That’s Entertainment’

    Dining and entertainment square footage continues to replace that of department stores in PREIT’s mall portfolio.   Last week the Philadelphia-based developer announced that it had signed leases to fill vacated Sears space at two of its properties. Five Below and an unnamed off-price furniture retailer will join Burlington in the former Sears at the Magnolia Mall in Florence, South Carolina.   

  • Off-price giant details new store concept

    The TJX Companies will debut a new, off-price home store concept in August.    HomeSense will open its initial U.S. location on  August 17, in Framingham, Mass.  Three additional stores are planned by the end of 2017, with locations in East Hanover, N.J., Ocean Township, N.J., and Westwood, Mass.  

  • Grocer is first in North American to deploy this technology

    When it comes to energy-efficient refrigeration systems, Sprouts Farmers Market is on the leading edge of technology.    Hillphoenix said it has installed the first CO2 Booster System with ejector technology in North America at Sprouts' store in Woodstock, Georgia. The supplier is the first manufacturer in North America to introduce the technology as developed by Danfoss in the marketplace.  

  • Sales fizzle in June

    The beginning of summer didn't give a boost to consumer spending as retail sales fell for the second straight month.   Retail sales unexpectedly slipped 0.1% in June after being unchanged in May. Sales were up 3.2% unadjusted from June 2016, according to the National Retail Federation, and 3.9% on a three-month moving average year-over-year. (The numbers exclude automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants.)   
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