Consumer Electronics

GRAPEVINE, Texas — GameStop announced that it is now offering customers the ability to purchase digital PC games at their local store and access the titles immediately at launch. This service is available exclusively at GameStop and customers can use any form of accepted payment to make their purchase. "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" is the first of what will soon be many titles to support this new purchase method, the company reported.

Amazon.com generates about three times the number of unique visitors each month that Walmart.com does, according to online measurement firm comScore, and all that traffic is allowing Amazon.com to generate record sales.

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Grocery retailer Meijer announced it will open a 14th Chicago-area store, this one under its Meijer Marketplace banner designed to bring a smaller-size localized concept to the Melrose Park neighborhood.

Meijer Marketplace spans 96,000 sq. ft. – about half the size of the grocer’s supercenters – and features a tailored offering as well as a variety of general merchandise items.

Seattle -- Amazon reported Tuesday that sales for the quarter ended June 30 soared 51% to $9.9 billion.

Profits dipped 8% to $191 million from $207 million on surging operating costs, but still beat Wall Street expectations.

In the July 14 edition of SiteTalk, we asked you what you thought of
Best Buy's announcement that it would shore up its store size by
subleasing space to other retailers.  This is what one reader had to
say.

"Best Buy, in my opinion, is making the same smart move many other
retailers have made. They are trying to get it "right"!"

-- Patty Ernst
CASCO Architectural Engineering
St. Louis
 

San Mateo, Calif. -- Hillsdale Shopping Center, located in San Mateo, Calif., is currently undergoing an extensive 80,000-sq.-ft. renovation to an area previously occupied by Mervyn’s.

The transformation will feature San Mateo County’s first Cheesecake Factory, a two-story Forever 21, and H&M as anchors of the center’s south end.

SEATTLE - The nation’s leading online retailer late Tuesday reported a 51% increase in sales and better-than-expected profits as liquidation of former rival Borders began.

If it wasn’t already apparent, the juxtaposition of these events in the same week is a harsh reminder that pure-play online retailers have the ability to render conventional brick-and-mortar chains, or large segments of their business, obsolete despite efforts by the latter to pursue multichannel strategies that leverage physical infrastructures.

Newark, Calif. -- NewPark Mall, in Newark, Calif., has opened an in-house cultural arts center, the NewPark Mall Cultural Corner.

The just-opened cultural center, located on the lower level near Sears, provides exhibit space for the work of local artisans, including painters, sculptors, photographers and digital artists.

NewPark Mall is anchored by Macy's, Sears, J.C. Penney, Target and Burlington Coat Factory. It is owned and managed by General Growth Properties, Chicago.