Consumer Electronics

Macy’s ranked as the department store of the year in the Harris Poll’s 28th annual EquiTrend Stud, which recognizes the strongest brands based on consumer response.

In coming out on top, Macy's unseated Kohl's, which has held the honor since 2012. Macy's also showed one of the largest brand equity increases (+7%) over a three-year period.

Angeles-based Sport Chalet has initiated going out of business sales at its 47 stores and closed down its online operation.

On Monday, Vestis Retail Group LLC, which operates Sport Chalet along with Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob’s Stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The filing was not unexpected and follows in the wake of Sports Authority’s Chapter 11 filing in March.

GameStop CEO Paul Raines expects physical sales to remain key to the company’s revenue as customers continue to visit stores for such hardware as new consoles and virtual reality devices, and also to buy, sell and trade games and hardware, the Dallas Business Journal reported. “Our core physical games are generating cash flow that we can deploy into other retail concepts to generate growth,” Raines said at the chain’s 2016 Investors Day.

Amazon comes out on top — way on top — as the top shopping web site for teens.

That’s according to Piper Jaffray Companies’ 31st semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” research survey, which highlights spending trends and brand preferences amongst 6,500 U.S. teens across 46 U.S. states.

Simon Property Group is adding an unconventional experiential component to its Opry Mills mall in Nashville that should add even more traffic to the already popular shopping and entertainment destination.

Mid-America Real Estate Corp.’s investment sales team recently brokered the sale of Oak Brook Court. Tampa, Florida-based Third Lake Capital acquired the 103,836-sq.-ft. property for $19.95 million. Oak

Brook Court is located at the northeast corner of Kingery Highway (Illinois Route 83) and 16th Street in Oak Brook Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolitan statistical area. The center is anchored by Binny’s Beverage Depot, Office Max and The Great Escape.

Most U.S. consumers now carry a smart credit card, but they haven’t had all that much opportunity to stop swiping and start dipping their cards into upgraded terminals.

That’s according to a survey of 932 U.S. credit card-holders by CreditCards.com, which found that 70% of respondents carry at least one chip-based card. This is up from only 14% in a survey conducted by the same company in September 2015, before the October 1 deadline that shifted liability for some fraud shifted from card issuers to merchants that can't accept the new cards.

Best Buy is ditching the signature Volkswagen Beetle it has used to transport its tech support arm, the Geek Squad, over the past 14 years in favor of Toyota’s Prius c hybrid cars.

In addition to saving money on gasoline, switching to the hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle will produce about half the emissions of the previous Geekmobile over the life of the vehicle, in line with Best Buy’s commitment to reduce its own carbon emissions by 45% by 2020.