Retail

For a variety of retailers – from supermarkets, to restaurants, to department and convenience stores – the holiday shopping season represents the peak time of year for staffing up on temporary workers to help meet all of the increase in consumer demand.

Gap Inc. is reportedly steering its store networking strategy away from hardware such as switches and routers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gap network architect Snehal Patel told attendees at a recent New York University networking conference that the retailer is transitioning its store network traffic to software-defined routers from Vipeta Inc. The new routers allow Gap to route traffic over the public Internet, maintaining security with encrypted connections.

For a variety of retailers – from supermarkets, to restaurants, to department and convenience stores – the holiday shopping season represents the peak time of year for staffing up on temporary workers to help meet all of the increase in consumer demand. However, the need to staff up may be even greater this year as some companies have already been operating with limited capacity given the nation-wide labor shortage.

Amazon.com just picked up an improved rival in the burgeoning home shopping button market, which it provided mainstream attention with the launch of its Dash remote ordering device earlier this year.

San Jose-based technology vendor Hiku just launched version 2 of its eponymous shopping button tool. Ironically, Hiku actually released version 1 of the button shortly before Amazon launched its Dash button, but was overshadowed.

Another larger-than-life retail showcase is coming to the Big Apple.

Victoria’s Secret plans to open a 64,000-sq.-ft. store on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street. The space was formerly occupied by Forever 21, which moved out after just seven months of operation.

“It’s a very big deal from a brand standpoint,” Stuart Burgdoefer, CFO, L Brands, parent of Victoria’s Secret, said at the company’s annual investor conference.

Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th will open a store at Newcity, the newly opened mixed-use development located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.

The 40,000-sq.-ft. store, which will be the seventh Off 5th location in Chicago, is scheduled to open in May 2016. The off-price retailer recently announced another spring 2016 store opening in Chicago, on State Street at the corner of State and Madison.

Delivery.com is focused on providing on-demand delivery from small, local retailers, but that doesn’t stop the company from thinking big.

Delivery.com is unveiling a new iOS app with an optimized user experience within each of Delivery.com's core categories of food, alcohol, groceries and laundry. Enhancements in the new app include visual design, customized recommendations for users, and a complementary app for Apple Watch.

October was a good month for Costco, which reported growth in same-store and total sales.

The club retailer posted a 4% increase in U.S. same-store sales for October, excluding gasoline price deflation and currency fluctuation. sThe comp increase was 5% for the whole company.

For the month, the company saw $8.78 billion in net sales and $19.53 billion over the four weeks. Though Costco’s U.S. sales saw a slight increase, its Canadian stores saw an 8% decrease in same-store sales for the month and a 9% decline over four weeks.