eCommerce

The grand lady of Los Angeles retailing is getting a major facelift.

Taubman Centers is embarking on a $500 million remodel of Beverly Center this month that promises to transform every aspect of the iconic — and monolithic — eight-story center, which opened in 1982.

The CEOs of Staples and Office Depot penned a letter to customers which reveals the extent of their deteriorated relations with the Federal Trade Commission ahead of a hearing that begins March 21 that will determine whether the retailers are allowed to merge.

In the letter, Staples chairman and CEO Ron Sargent and Office Depot chairman and CEO Roland Smith stop short of actually calling the FTC stupid, but that is the inference from more diplomatically worded prose.

Destination XL Group is seeing strong same store sales growth from its stores branded as DXL as it continues to shift away from the smaller footprint Casual Male concept.

Destination XL Group, which bills itself as the largest omnichannel specialty retailer of big and tall men's apparel, said its total same store sales increased 3.1%, but its 137 DXL stores open for more than 13 months grew comps 8.9%.

Photo: Amazon Dash

This week I’d like to discuss the re-emergence of skyline signs, but first allow me to offer a quick thank you to the entire Chain Store Age and SPECS Show teams for executing a trade show I won’t soon forget.

Of course, I’m talking about last week’s show at the beautiful Hilton Anatole in Dallas, #SPECS2016.

Google is reportedly looking to beef up its professional apps offering by purchasing a well-known provider of hosted online retail services. According to Re/Code, Google is considering purchasing Shopify. The Canadian provider of cloud-based e-commerce tools is a public company valued at $2.25 billion. [Re/Code]

The pace of expansion slowed at Shoe Carnival in 2015 but the company produced respectable growth against a challenging prior year comparison that has it poised to achieve a major milestone in 2016.

Harry & David is using social media to bring consumers back to the fun of a childhood Easter egg hunt.

The specialty gourmet gift retailer is hosting a social media giveaway called the “Eggciting Hunt Sweepstakes” through April 15 with hundreds of dollars of gift cards as prizes. Participants register online and then are sent on a hunt for clues to find virtual eggs on Harry & David’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.