Retail

By Gian Genovesi, Briteskies

When it comes to interactive marketing, too many retailers myopically focus on site visits, hits, or traffic. SEO and SEM are the most popular areas of focus, and I equate this to sports teams’ exclusive focus on scoring as many points as possible. Increasing the points your team scores, similarly to the traffic your site obtains, is a factor of success, but in no way the end-all-be-all in e-commerce success. After all, of the top 10 scoring offenses in NFL history, only one has won the Super Bowl.

Nashville, Tenn. — Pottery Barn has leased 12,684 sq. ft. in Hill Center Green Hills, a 220,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use open-air lifestyle center in Nashville, Tenn. The lease is with Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn’s parent company.

Owner and developer H.G. Hill Realty Co. www.hghill.com, plans to begin redeveloping Hill Center Green Hills early in 2015. Pottery Bar expects to begin its build-out in the fall of 2015.

According to reports, eBay is urging shareholders to reject a slate of board members nominated by activist investor Carl Icahn and instead support nominees picked by the company.

Reuters has reported that eBay is asking shareholders to re-elect existing directors CEO John Donahoe, company co-founder and managing director Fred Anderson, Intuit co-founder Scott Cook and former Agilent Technologies CEO Edward Barnholt.

Issaquah, Wash. – Costco Wholesale Corp. is reportedly attempting to draw in younger customers. According to The Seattle Times, after recently missing quarterly earnings estimates, Costco is taking active steps to attract a younger shopper demographic.

These steps include piloting a same-day delivery service with Google in San Francisco, building up its social and online efforts, and increasing its offerings of organic products such as kale.

Dallas — Crunch Fitness is coming to Texas. Dallas entrepreneur, author and founder of Planet Tan, Tony Hartl plans to roll out eight to 10 Crunch Fitness locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area by 2016.

Chiquita Brands International plans to combine with and Fyffes, an international importer and distributor of tropical produce, in a stock-for-stock transaction that will create a global banana and other fresh produce company with approximately $4.6 billion in annual revenues.

Once the transaction is completed, before the end of 2014, Chiquita shareholders will own approximately 50.7% of ChiquitaFyffes, while Fyffes shareholders will own the remaining 49.3%, on a fully diluted basis.

Seattle – Amazon.com is reportedly planning to pilot the sale of goods created by 3-D printers. According to the Cincinnati Business Journal, Amazon is partnering with Cincinnati area-based startup 3DLT and four other companies to launch a pilot where Amazon would directly sell 3-D printed products through its website.