Direct To Consumer (DTC)

New York -- Blue Apron. Dollar Shave Club. Real Real. Honest Company. All start-ups, all relative newcomers to the retail scene,  and all generating big buzz and sale increases — enough to place them among the top 20 fastest-growing e-retailers in a recent survey. What’s more, they are all pure players (at least for now).

Here’s a brief snapshot of these four up and comers:
 

Hangzhou, China – Nobody can accuse Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. of sitting back and resting on its past success.

The global e-commerce giant is constantly making investments and launching new businesses, and in the past 24 hours has made two new business moves of significant interest to its online retailing competitors.

San Diego – Contrary to popular wisdom that women desire a highly interactive shopping experience while men just want to be left alone, the two genders may actually have some similar retail preferences.

According to Interactions Marketing’s latest Retail Perceptions report, “Does Gender Influence Shopping Behavior?” men and women’s shopping behaviors have many similarities.

New York -- Fresh off the opening of its store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Apple is opening another location in New York City.

The tech giant will open a store on July 11, in the Queens Center mall, in the borough of Queens, giving it a total of eight locations in the city.  

The Queens store will reflect the diversity of the surrounding community. It will feature some 130 associates fluent in 24 languages apart from English.
 

Houston -- Charming Charlie has appointed Melissa Boughton as senior VP of real estate & construction, where she is spearheading the retailer’s real estate, store planning, construction, facilities and lease administration functions.

Los Angeles -- American Apparel on Monday announced it would close some stores as part of a $30 million cost-cutting initiative in its strategic turnaround plan. (American Apparel CEO Paula Schneider discussed the plan with CSA in a recent interview.) The embattled company also made two other revealing disclosures.

Seattle – July is often a slow-paced month for consumers, but Amazon.com is seeking to change that. In an effort to promote its Amazon Prime paid loyalty program, the retailer is encouraging customers to celebrate “Prime Day,” a one-day global shopping event on July 15 that is says will have more deals than Black Friday.

West Chester, Pa. – QVC has appointed Sanjay Singh as senior VP to lead its newly formed business planning & analysis (BP&A) group. Singh will be responsible for developing financial insights and driving integrated global business and financial planning across markets and functions.