eCommerce

A board sports apparel retailer is taking steps to blend its physical and digital retail channels.   Billabong is leveraging the Aptos Singular Commerce platform to support omnichannel retailing across its global enterprise. The cloud-based solution will merge the retailers’ physical and digital retail channels, and create a single view of customers, inventory and orders, among other operations.   

Pottery Barn is bringing its new store concept to the city where it all began.    The retailer, a division of Williams-Sonoma, will unveil a 17,000-sq.-ft. flagship on September 8, 2017, in Manhattan's Flatiron District. (The first Pottery Barn store opened in 1949 in the West Chelsea section of lower Manhattan.)   

Online luxury retailer Gilt.com is kicking off its 10th anniversary with the launch of a new website.   The company, a pioneer in online flash sales, unveiled a complete site redesign on Tuesday. Dubbed “The New Gilt,” the site continues to feature daily new arrivals and the flash sales that it's known for, but it will also feature easier site navigation, more exclusive offerings, and edited and dynamic editorial content — all of which will contribute to a more tailored customer experience, Gilt said. 

At Home Group is on a roll — and then some.    The fast-growing, value home decor retailer on Tuesday reported its 14th consecutive quarter of same-store sales increases and 13th consecutive quarter of over 20% net sales growth.   In the second quarter ended July 29, At Home's net sales increased 23.2% to $232.1 million, from $188.4 million in the year-ago period.   Analysts had expected sales of $227.1 million. Same-store sales rose 7.8%.  

An e-commerce giant is making a big push into the brick-and-mortar world.    Alibaba, China’s largest online sales platform, is building its own shopping mall, with a goal of enriching the real-world shopping experience with technology and convenience, reported MarketWatch.  

Online mattress start-up Casper is getting more upfront with shoppers.   The fast-growing company plans to open some 15 pop-up shops in cities across North America, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The pop-ups are scheduled to launch in October 2017, and will remain open through spring of 2018.  

Genesco Inc. announced that Mario Gallione has been named president of the company's Journeys retail division. He most recently served as chief merchandising officer of The Journeys Group.   Gallione will report to James C. Estepa, who will continue to serve as CEO of The Journeys Group. Estepa also remains a senior VP of Genesco. Gallione's appointment is intended as the first step in a succession plan to prepare for Estepa's eventual retirement.  

Walmart is making a bold move as it continues to seek out ways to distance itself from Amazon.   The discount giant is investing in Nvidia chips. These high-level graphical processing units (GPUs) will be the foundation of a robust cloud network where Walmart data scientists can build out AI systems, reported Geek Wire.