Retail

New York -- Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M will open its largest location to date, a 63,000-sq.-ft. flagship in New York City’s bustling Herald Square. Scheduled to open in fall 2014, the four-level store will be located in Herald Center, a JEMB Realty property. The landlord’s broker is CBRE.
 

New York -- iPic-Gold Class Entertainment has announced that it will develop a mixed-use entertainment, office and retail project in Delray Beach, Fla.

Expected to open in 2015, the project includes a 529-seat eight-screen theater. iPic said the project would create more than 400 jobs and attract more than 400,000 visitors annually to downtown Delray Beach. The company currently operates nine theaters with 67 screens in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Skava, a leading provider of mobile, tablet and in-store technologies for U.S. online retailers, have appointed Vivek Agrawal, a 17-year veteran of commerce and omnichannel solutions to leading brands, as the company’s global VP of operations.

Purchase, N.Y. — National Realty & Development Corp. www.nrdc.com has announced that Old Navy and GNC will open stores at Orange Plaza, an 815,000-sq.-ft. power center in Middletown, N.Y. Old Navy has taken 13,500 sq. ft. GNC will occupy 1,500 sq. ft.

Wal-Mart Supercenter, The Home Depot, Kohl’s Department Store, Burlington Coat Factory, Marshalls, Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples anchor the center, which draws from a 12-mile radius with a population of 157,000.
 

Walgreens has entered into a partnership with Orlando Health, a comprehensive nonprofit healthcare organization based in Orlando, Fla., to provide coordinated and expanded healthcare services to its customers. 

Naperville, Ill. -- OfficeMax Inc. announced the opening of its first Chicago-area Business Solutions Center format, with a 3,900-sq.-ft. location in the Streeterville neighborhood.

NEW YORK — Tiffany & Co. saw sales growth and an improved operating margin for the second quarter ended July 31, fueled largely by its performance in China. 

The company’s total sales in the Americas region were lackluster, increasing 2% to $444 million in the second quarter. Comparable-store sales remained flat for the quarter.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

It's no secret that the volume of returned items goes up dramatically during the holidays, and providing a streamlined returns mechanism that effectively guards against fraud is a big and often overlooked part of the in-store holiday experience. Here are two solutions that take a slightly different approach to helping retailers deliver a returns process that rewards good customers, while detecting those with less savory motives.