Apparel

Retail consultants McMillan Doolittle offered the following commentary regarding Sears’ plans to upgrade its apparel offerings with in-store shops dedicated to global brands new to the U.S. market.   

Nordstrom is extending its hip in-store boutique, Space, to more locations.   The department store retailer is expanding the concept to four additional stores (including sites in Los Angeles, Nashville, and Toronto), which will double the number of locations since it was launched one year ago.  

Beauty giant Sephora scores the highest when it comes to online gifting.    That’s according to RSR Research’s sixth annual digital gifting benchmarking report.  Sephora came out on top, scoring 55 points out of a possible 66 points, followed by Starbucks (50.5) and The Home Depot (46.5). Rounding out the top five: Dunkin’ Donuts (44.5) and Amazon (43). (The top 25 retailers in the study are listed at the end of article.)    

Bonobos has decided to move from a consumer file sync and share solution to enterprise-wide content management in the cloud.   The menswear retailer is deploying Box’s content management platform enterprise-wide for managing and collaborating on content in the cloud.  

Sears is piloting a concept that could breathe new life into its apparel offerings.    

Hillwood and The Howard Hughes Corporation have unveiled plans for a 130-acre, mixed-use development at Circle T Ranch, a master-planned community north of Dallas-Fort Worth. Circle T resides within AllianceTexas, an 18,000-acre tract that has brought 425 companies, 45,000 jobs, and the world’s first industrial airport to the town of Westlake.   

Back to school sales appear to be rebounding this year after experiencing sluggish growth over the past three years (2013-2015).   That’s according to First Data’s Back-to-school SpendTrend report, which is based on aggregate same store sales activity in the First Data point-of-sale network.   Some of the most significant findings include: