Retail

The New Year is here, and it’s time to make annual resolutions. When it comes to their IT activities, retailers should resolve to make improvements in the following three areas.

Innovation
The days of IT being responsible for “keeping the lights on” are long over. Enterprise systems are still required to perform basic but crucial tasks such as finance and HR, but any retailer looking to compete in 2016 needs to look far past the boundaries of simple task automation.

Shoppers at select Nordstrom locations can design their own shoes at the retailer’s in-store Shoes of Prey design studio.

The shops, which are located within Nordstrom’s shoe department, include a wall display that showcases the different styles available for customizing. Using mounted touch-screen tablets with 3D software, shoppers design their own shoes, selecting the style, color, material, heel height and embellishments.

Houston -- PM Realty Group announced earlier this month that Roka Akor Steak, Seafood & Sushi signed a lease for 6,591 sq. ft. of ground floor space at 2929 Weslayan, the 40-story luxury residential building at the northeast corner of Weslayan and West Alabama in Houston. This will be Roka Akor's first location in Texas, joining its four locations in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago and Skokie, Illinois.

The Ferris Wheel in the Toys “R” Us’ Times Square flagship has had its last go round.

The 110,000-sq.-ft., four- level megastore shut its doors forever at 6 p.m., Wednesday, December 30, 2015.

Toys “R” Us Times Square opened in fall 2001, complete with a 60-ft.-tall Ferris wheel, a life-sized Barbie dream house, a giant animatronic T-Rex and other attention-getting attractions.

The retailer, which opted not to renew its pricey Times Square lease, is looking for another location in Manhattan.

A new start-up, Optoro, is offering retailers alternative ways to sell their returned goods via a software platform that tracks returns, assesses, which channel is the most effective for each returned item, and routes products to those channels. While most retailers typically recover only about 20% to 40% of the retail cost of returned goods, Optoro helps companies recoup 50% to 70% of the cost, according to a report by the New York Times.

Retail business industry veteran Lawrence Jackson has been named to the board of directors of cloud-based enterprise retail technology provider Aptos Inc. (formerly Epicor Retail Solutions).

A planned expansion of Samsung Pay is the latest in a seemingly endless series of maneuvers made by mobile payment providers throughout 2015.

In an interview with Reuters, Thomas Ko, global co-manager of Samsung Pay, said U.S. consumers will be able to use the mobile wallet solution for online payments in 2016. In addition, Samsung will roll out Samsung Pay to a broader range of lower-priced phones in the U.S. in the coming year. Currently, it is only available as a built-in feature on the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices.

Whole Foods Market has settled a dispute with the city of New York.

The grocer has agreed to pay $500,000 and to conduct regular in-store audits in a resolution of allegations that its stores in New York City were overcharging customers for prepackaged foods. The settlement was announced by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).