Consumer Electronics

Amazon is “piloting” holiday pop-up stores this holiday season, with two confirmed locations in San Francisco and Sacramento, along with what may or may not be a permanent space in Manhattan. While theoretically Amazon is going to let the pilots run their course, analyze the results, and then possibly move forward with a rollout of more permanent brick-and-mortar stores, most observers expect the pilot is the first step in an already determined strategy to build a physical presence.  

Louisville, Ky. -- GBT Realty Corp., a national real estate development company based in Brentwood, Tenn., is expanding tenant lineups at two Louisville-based regional shopping centers totaling nearly 500,000-sq.-ft. to over 90% leased. Only a combined 23,500-sq.-ft. of retail space remains at Jefferson Commons and at Middletown Commons with the first tenants scheduled to be open in November. Construction is currently underway.  

Beachwood, Ohio --DDR Corp. and an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII announced that a joint venture formed by the pair has closed on the acquisition of 71 shopping centers previously owned by American Realty Capital Properties for $1.93 billion.

New York -- Incidents of smartphone “showrooming”—seeing a product in a store, then buying it online from another retailer using a smartphone—dropped from 37% in the United States last year to 28% in 2014. But “webrooming,” in which consumers buy in a store after researching a purchase online using a smartphone, was reported by an even higher proportion of respondents, 41%.  Those are among the findings of GfK’s 2014 FutureBuy global study of shopping habits and preferences.  

Fort Worth, Texas -- RadioShack's Fix It Here same-day mobile repair service is now available in 26 stores in the Chicago area. Services include repairs for cracked screens, broken buttons and damaged charging ports.  

RadioShack’s same-day mobile repair service, branded as Fix it Here!, has been extended to more locations in the Chicago market.

The service is billed as a first-of-its-kind from a national retailer and offers owners of broken mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones the ability to have them repaired the same day, typically in less than two hours, for prices starting at $39.99.

Dublin, Calif. -- Epicor Software Corp., a provider of business software solutions for retail, manufacturing and distribution, has been named the number one vendor of POS software among the 200 leading specialty soft goods retailers and hard goods retailers for the fourth consecutive year in studies published by global research and advisory firm IHL Group. Epicor also was named a leader in the fast growing North American mobile POS software market, according to another new research report from IHL Group.