Retail

Babies"R"Us has entered into a strategic partnership with TheBump.com, a leading pregnancy and parenting website that offers advice, ideas, resources and support to first-time parents.

Tucson, Ariz. — Big-box retail space in Tucson, Ariz., has been leasing up, with the highest demand focused in core regional mall hubs. Big-box spaces in peripheral areas of the city remain vacant.

In the Park Place Mall area, for instance, big box properties are nearly fully leased, with some saying the area is ripe for redevelopment to accommodate future demand.

New York -- Consumers engage with retailers on Facebook more than they do on the retailers’ own websites. Nine-in-10 consumers say how much they spend is impacted by their social media engagement with a brand. These are some of the findings of a study by Infosys, a leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing.

New York -- Despite severe winter weather travails during the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation said Tuesday that December retail sales didn’t take the hit that many feared.

In fact, taking advantage of heavy promotions and last-minute deals, shoppers were able to move the December retail sales needle up 0.4% month-to-month, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, and up 4.6% year-over-year.



New York -- Checkpoint Systems announced that Kohl’s Department Stores has deployed Checkpoint’s RFID solutions across select departments in its stores.

“RFID will further enhance our customers’ shopping experience by providing improved operational visibility, enabling us to more efficiently identify items which need to be replenished on the sales floor,” said Ken Bonning, senior executive VP, Kohl’s Department Stores.

Atlanta -- Christine Day, the outgoing CEO of Lululemon, has been appointed CEO at Luvo, a start-up frozen-food company that focuses on healthy, low calorie, low sodium meals. Day’s appointment is effective April 1.

New York -- SAP AG  announced the launch of SAP Shopper Experience a personalized and engaging retail mobile app that transforms the entire consumer shopping experience with social media sharing, loyalty programs and a self-payment system for shoppers.

SAP also released the latest version of the SAP Retail Store Ops Associate mobile app, which allows store associates to execute core merchandising, inventory and customer service functions directly from the shop floor without leaving a consumer’s side.

Despite severe winter weather travails during the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation reported that December retail sales didn’t take the hit that many feared.

In fact, taking advantage of heavy promotions and last-minute deals, shoppers were able to move the December retail sales needle up 0.4% month-to-month, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, and up 4.6% year-over-year.