Consumer Electronics

Indianapolis – H.H. Gregg is opening a new store in Bloomington, Ind. on Aug. 15. The new location at 240 North Gates Street will replace the previous location at 606 West Gourley Pike.

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy initiated a consumer acquisition campaign to start building its subscriber base. Throughout the past four months, Virtual Piggy has added more than 400,000 new accounts most of which are based in the U.S. and some which were recently added in Canada.  

London -- UK PC and video game retailer Game UK will use IBM’s big data analytics and cloud-based software to optimize its online marketing efforts and provide personalized product recommendations based on each customer's shopping interests and online behavior.

Game’s drive to upsell and increase loyalty within its customer base is powered by technology from IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative. This latest purchase of marketing automation software extends Game’s existing Smarter Commerce investments.

Sterne Agee chief economist Lindsey M. Piegza comments on July retail sales gain of 0.2%:

Headline retail sales rose 0.2% in July, slightly less than expected but last month’s sales were revised up two-tenths from 0.4% to 0.6%. This is the fourth consecutive monthly increase in retail sales. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.5%, the strongest monthly gain since February.

RIVER GROVE, Ill. — Follett Corporation has named former Dick’s Sporting Goods executive Don Germano as president and chief operating officer of the Follett Higher Education Group. He replaces Tom Christopher, who announced plans to retire, effective August 30.

Christopher was president and chief operating officer of the Follett Higher Education Group for nearly 12 years.

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. retail sales edged up 0.2% in July from June, according to figures from the Department of Commerce. This followed a 0.6% month-over-month boost in sales in June, driven by strong auto sales. The slower sales uptick reflected a drop in purchases of automobiles, along with furniture and electronics.

WASHINGTON — Retailers had sales gains in many back-to-school categories like clothing and sporting goods but experienced surprising declines in home-based categories, including building materials and furniture stores, according to the National Retail Federation. 

The world’s largest retail trade association found that July retail sales — excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants — increased 0.3% seasonally, adjusted from June and increased 5% unadjusted year-over-year.

Chicago — Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th, Old Navy and Carter’s have inked leases for space at The Mayfair Collection, a 270,000-sq.-ft. shopping center in Wauwatosa, Wis. Nordstrom Rack, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Ulta Beauty have also made lease commitments to the project.

HSA Commercial Real Estate, the developer, broke ground on the project in April. HSA Commercial is adaptively repurposing an obsolete warehouse development into The Mayfair Collection retail shopping center.