eCommerce

Chain Store Age tech editor Deena M. Amato-McCoy spoke with Mike Lowey, director of retail for Brother Mobile Solutions, and learned how an increasingly evolving omnichannel retailing model, especially digital channels, is impacting replenishment operations and what retailers need to do to adapt.

Warehousing operations are growing more complex by the day. What trends are impacting how merchandise moves through the warehouse and up to store-level?

Sears Holdings Corp. is seeking to stop its bleeding and raise more cash by closing another 104 stores and selling its iconic Craftsman tools brand.   The struggling retailer said it has reached an agreement to sell Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker for a net present value of about $900 million, including future royalty payments. Sears, which will continue to sell Craftsman products, had put the brand, along with its Kenmore and DieHard brands, up for sale several months ago.   

We sat down with chief executives and senior managers from 20 retail real estate companies at the ICSC New York National Deal Making show in December, and each and every one had something to say about e-commerce competition. Something, but not the same thing. They fell into two groups.

There were those who said that online retail’s magnitude was greatly overblown. They held that the media over-covered online sellers and placed them on a lofty perch not backed by the facts. They had a point.

CBL announced that it has a replacement anchor lined up for the Macy’s store closing at its Layton Hills Mall in Utah, one of 63 Macy’s locations slated to be shuttered this spring. One other Utah Macy’s is scheduled to close at Cottonwood Mall in Salt Lake City.   

Amazon’s new service is helping Prime members to get dinner on the table faster.   By integrating Alexa into Amazon Restaurants, the retail giant now enables Prime members to voice-order their next meal through their Alexa-enabled devices, including the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot. Customers can place orders from any restaurant available on the service in more than 20 cities by saying, “Alexa, order from Amazon Restaurants.” Any meal they’ve ordered before will delivered to their door for free in an hour or less.

Holiday online sales surpassed predictions, generating $1 billion daily for the majority of a two-month period.  

The past year brought with it a changing of the guard, as many companies named new leaders to steer their ships in a transformed marketplace. Here are six newly arrived — or soon to arrive — CEOs to keep an eye on in 2017:

Jeff Gennette, Macy’s: A 33-year company veteran who came up through the ranks, Gennette takes the reins from longtime CEO Terry Lundgren in the first quarter of this year.

BCBG Max Azria Group leveraged analytics when it realized its static “one-size-fits-all” e-commerce site didn’t optimize the overall shopping experience, or allow it to engage with specific omnichannel shoppers.

With a goal of personalizing the digital experience, and integrating its omnichannel journey as a whole, the women’s fashion brand added an analytics tool from Qubit. By embedding the platform’s JavaScript tags within its web pages, the technology transparently records all customer online interactions, pulling information into the cloud for reporting.