Apparel

New lease on life for Las Olas Boulevard
It was an urban retail real estate broker’s dream: five blocks of Main Street storefront — almost 250,000 sq. ft. of it — sandwiched between beachfront and commercial business district. That’s what the owners of most of five contiguous blocks on Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Boulevard plopped on the plate of Michael Comras.
Building a Multi-Sensory Retail Experience
It takes a lot of work for retail brands to deliver a remarkable experience. However, it can be done by making sure the environment provides a sensory experience. A sensory experience affects a human’s sense of sound, sight, touch, smell and taste. Retailers often naturally focus on sight, primarily caring about how the space looks. But what they don’t realize is that the look and feel of the environment encompasses a lot more than simply how it appears.

Maternity clothing retailer goes mobile

Destination Maternity is making it easier for its customers to connect with the brand. The maternity clothing retailer transitioned from a custom e-commerce platform to Salesforce Commerce Cloud, with the help of global commerce provider Lyonscg. The transition enabled the chain to launch customized mobile sites for its Motherhood, Motherhood Canada, A Pea in the Pod and Destination Maternity brands. All sites feature more intuitive navigation, improved site merchandising and on-site search, and easier check out.
A Gap brand reaches for the cloud

A specialty retailer is streamlining its merchandising operations. Gap's Intermix division has become the company's first brand to transition to the cloud. The upscale specialty retailer is leveraging Oracle’s cloud-based platform to drive efficiencies across merchandising and inventory management. The platform supports end-to-end operational efficiencies and empowers the business teams among specialty apparel company Intermix.
Department store retailer's attempt to go private stalls

Nordstrom may not be going private anytime soon. Attempts by the Nordstrom family to take Nordstrom private have stalled over financing difficulties, reported CNBC. According to the report, banks have become cautious amid today's unstable retail climate. The Nordstrom family group owns 31.2% of Nordstrom. In June, the family said it was exploring a possible buy-out.
Nordstrom unveiling new 'inclusive' shopping experience

Nordstrom is looking to appeal to a broader audience. The retailer on Monday called on top brands to expand their size ranges by adding more items in sizes 14, 16 and 18, along with smaller sizes zero and 2. Nordstrom also said that it is launching an "extended sizing" initiative, beginning with its new store at Westfield Century City, Los Angeles.
Project Profiles: Mixed-use retail

Streets of St. Charles (bottom right)
Boston beckons

Marcus & Millichap’s Q2 Boston market report signals urgency to retailers like the famed lamps Paul Revere placed in the tower of the Old North Church. To wit:
Physical, digital … it’s all retail to me

As department stores continue to falter and Amazon continues to grow and the “Malls are Dead” headlines continue to proliferate in the general press, one glaring fact rears its head: We built way, way, way too many malls to begin with. Average retail square footage per person in America, by several accounts, is four times that of other industrialized nations like the United Kingdom and Japan.
Shop Talk

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Omnichannel personalization

With more customer-specific information filtering into retail enterprises, brands are primed to deliver more personalized, seamless experiences. Such efforts not only drive repeat visits and purchases, but also “help retailers to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and get closer to the customer,” said Tom Moore, industry lead of retail and hospitality at Zebra Technologies.
Canadian athletic wear retailer to make U.S. store debut

RYU Apparel is coming to the Big Apple. RYU (Respect Your Universe) announced plans to open a store in in the hip Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The 2,800-sq.-ft. store, the brand's first in the U.S., will open in the first quarter of 2018.