Consumer Electronics

Macon, Ga. -- Westwood Financial Corp., one of the nation’s largest owner-operators of shopping centers, has purchased Wesleyan Station, an 86,631-sq-.ft, retail center in Macon, Ga., for $8.9 million from a private seller.

First quarter sales at Amazon.com surged 34% to $13.2 billion during the first quarter ended March 31, but profits declined 35% to $130 million due to rising expenses related to growth initiatives.

Fredericksburg, Va. -- Youngstown, Ohio-based Cafaro Co. announced that Parmida Home will open a new store at The Village at Towne Centre, near Fredericksburg, Va.

The 6,900-sq.-ft. store is slated to open in early November across from Sephora.

The Village at Towne Centre is the outdoor shopping district of Spotsylvania Towne Centre, a 1.7 million-sq.-ft. complex offering more than 120 department stores, specialty shops, restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues.
 

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart is giving fans of Marvel's "The Avengers" exclusive access to the Super Hero Augmented Reality (AR) game featuring their favorite Avengers, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow. This new "Super Hero AR" app is available now for download at the iTunes App Store and Android Market.

Sunrise, Fla. -- Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group announced that Sawgrass Mills, the largest outlet, value retail and entertainment destination in the United States with more than 350 stores, will soon break ground on its newest phase of development to increase the footprint of The Colonnade Outlets at Sawgrass Mills. 

This milestone also represents the soon-to-be-completed 140,000-sq.-ft. retail expansion of the south side of the property.

First quarter sales at the leading online retailer surged 34% to $13.2 billion during the first quarter ended March 31, as the company continues to enjoy a huge competitive advantage by allowing customers to avoid paying sales tax.

Despite surging sales, net income at the company declined 35% to $130 million or 28 cents a share, compared with $201 million or 44 cents a share the prior years. Operating income also declined considerably, dropping to $192 million in the first quarter compared with $322 million in first quarter 2011.

Fresh off the resignation of CEO Brian Dunn and the revelation that the company lost a not-so- insignificant sum of $1.7 billion last quarter, Best Buy’s recent announcement to close 50 stores by the end of 2012 probably didn’t come as a surprise to anyone in our industry. What may have been surprising to some — myself included — is their plan to roll out 100 Best Buy Mobile stores.

With 24 million unique visitors during March, Target.com was ranked 47th on the comScore Media Metrix listing of the top 50 U.S. Web properties for March. That’s an improvement from March 2011 when Target didn’t crack the top 50. The only other conventional retailer in the top 50 was 25th ranked Walmart.com with 39 million unique visitors. It was ranked 33rd last year with 31.7 million unique visitors in March.