Convenience Stores

Seattle – Starbucks reportedly plans to soon include an automatic tipping feature on its Square mobile payment app.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, which currently only uses the payment features of the Square app, will deploy a feature that both automatically prompts a customer to leave a tip in appropriate situations and computes tip amounts for them.

Tampa, Fla. — BurgerMonger has taken a 2,700-sq.-ft. lease at Northwood Commons shopping center in Clearwater, Fla. This will be the restaurants fifth location, according to Florida Retail Partners www.floridaretailpartners, an X Team partner and co-broker representing BurgerMonger on the transaction. National Real Estate Ventures was the other co-broker.

When the new BurgerMonger opens in April, the fast casual restaurant will have four locations in the Tampa Bay metropolitan area and one in Willow Grove, Pa.

New York – Consumers are increasingly performing omni-channel shopping, and prefer personalized offers across the different channels they shop. According to a new survey of more than 1,000 online consumers from retail personalization technology vendor Synqera, U.S. consumers still prefer promotional content and coupons from traditional print media (magazine, newsletter/flyer, newspaper) (75%), found online (72%), or received after a purchase (62%) for future shopping.

By Richard P. Fennelly

It’s a well-known industry fact that refrigeration and freezer appliances, which are no longer exclusive to supermarkets, are major electricity “hogs” in retail stores.  

Revionics, a leading provider of end-to-end merchandise optimization solutions, has named the company’s president and CEO Marc Hafner as chairman of the board.

Hafner has served as president and CEO since 2010 and with this newly added role he will lead the company’s strategic planning and accelerate its global growth.

Pittsburgh — GNC Holdings Inc. reported positive financial performance during the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013. For the quarter, net income slightly rose to $47.7 million from $47.4 million in the same period the prior year.

In addition, the chain reported consolidated revenue of $613.7 million for the quarter, an increase of 8.6% from $565 million from the year-ago period. Same-store sales increased 5% in domestic corporate stores and 3.3% in domestic franchise stores.

Seattle — Starbucks Coffee Company is opening its first store in Brunei, the company’s 64th global market, and its 100th store in Singapore, which will give people with autism the opportunity for employment and skills.

Stellarton, Canada — Sobey’s Inc. has entered binding purchase and sale agreements with Overwaitea Food Group and Federated Co-operatives Limited that will see Sobeys sell 22 of the 23 stores it is required to divest as part of its consent agreement with the Competition Bureau related to its purchase of Canada Safeway.

 In addition, Sobeys has signed a binding letter of intent with Federated for the sale of its Price Chopper location in Winnipeg, which the company is also required to divest as part of its October consent agreement.

Los Angeles, Calif. — Westwood Financial Corp., a national owner-operator of shopping centers, has completed remodeling work at North Park Plaza shopping center in Phoenix, Ariz. Safeway anchors the center. Regional and national tenants include Frazee Paint, Peter Piper Pizza, Subway and Great Clips.

Improvements to the 101,361-sq.-ft. center include a new façade, covering columns with stone, refreshed landscaping and a two-tone paint color scheme.

North Canton, Ohio — Construction of a new Panera Bread will get underway this spring in the Hoover District of North Canton, Ohio. The first retail establishment in the Hoover District, the restaurant plans to open this fall.

Being developed by Industrial Realty Group, the Hoover District is a mixed-use redevelopment envisioned as a live-work-play environment.