Retail

New York -- Fast-fashion giant H&M on Thursday celebrated the opening of its flagship on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. At 57,000 sq. ft., it is the retailer’s largest store in the world and 13th location in Manhattan. It also is the first H&M in the United States to offer a full concierge service, and to carry the full H&M Home collection.

Mountain View, Calif. – Customer experience testing provider UserTesting is launching its free service Peek out of beta. Peek allows anyone to receive free five-minute videos of real people using their website, mobile site, or mobile app.

In roughly four months in beta, Peek achieved 40,000-plus user tests delivered, almost two years’ worth of videos watched, 202,000-plus video views, and more than 8,000 social postings and shares. Retailers including Staples and Wal-Mart have used Peek.

Salt Lake City -- PizzaRev franchisee group Away We Dough, Inc. is opening Utah’s first PizzaRev – a build-your-own artisanal pizza concept with roots in Southern California.

The new West Valley restaurant is the first of five franchise locations planned to open in Utah in the next six months.

Away We Dough is part of William Tell, Inc. based in Salt Lake City, which owns and operates 18 Applebee’s and eight Famous Dave’s in Utah and Washington.

Brampton, Ontario -- Loblaw Cos. on Thursday announced a series of management changes, including the appointment of Galen Weston, executive chairman, as president, effective immediately. He succeeds Vicente Trius, president since August 2011, who is leaving the company, effective immediately,  for family reasons to return to Brazil.

Montreal - In-store mobile device integration and e-commerce solutions, as well as inventory management and predictive analytics software, are the biggest technology priorities for independent brick-and-mortar retailers. According to the first annual Retail Tech Forecast of 640 independent retailers from commerce platform provider LightSpeed, the percentage of retailers deploying tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices for checking out shoppers (currently 17%) is expected to increase a whopping 170% in the coming years.  

Dublin, Calif. -- Ross Dress for Less will open two new stores in the Kansas City area on July 19. The stores include The Shoppes at Liberty Triangle in Liberty, Missouri, and Quivira 95 Shopping Center in Overland Park, Kansas.  

These new openings are part of the retailer’s 2014 expansion program, totaling approximately 75 new locations during the year.

Los Angeles – New York-based investment firm Standard General, which owns a roughly 44% stake in troubled apparel retailer American Apparel Inc, is reportedly preparing recovery plans that both include and do not include controversial former CEO and founder Dov Charney. According to Reuters, Standard General is leaving the decision of whether to allow Charney to return to the company up to the American Apparel board, following a third-party investigation by FTI Consulting.