eCommerce

By Ken Nisch

The evolution of shopping based on the consumer mindset that is reflective of the past and targeted for the future can be described as a “Digital Ecosystem.” Much like the proverbial iceberg, this ecosystem has most of the system existing before the consumer “waterline.” Above this waterline exist the elements for which we are most accepting; such as mobile and tablet interface, kiosks across applications ranging from the ATM, to the calling of an Uber cab street side.

Seattle - Amazon.com Inc. has expanded Prime Now service to Atlanta. The expedited delivery service, offered exclusively as a benefit to Prime members, provides one-hour delivery on tens of thousands of items through a mobile app.

The largest retailer of party supplies in the United States, Party City, has filed paperwork for an initial public offering of its shares.

The company, which sells party supplies, decorations and costumes, said it expects the offering of 21.9 million shares to be priced at between $15 and $17 per share.

Party City Holdco Inc. is expected to be valued at nearly $2 billion in its initial public offering, the first by a U.S. retailer this year.

Atlas Technology Group, one of the fastest growing retail technology solution providers in the consumer goods industry, has named a new president.

Pat Lockridge, who has been SVP of sales at Atlas since 2013, has been promoted to president. Nicholas Dozier will remain CEO of ATLAS Technology Group, which is based in Bentonville, Ark.

Omnichannel solutions provider RichRelevance has hired a former WalmartLabs executive to serve as its chief product officer.

Mahesh Tyagarajan will be responsible for product strategy and management, engineering and cloud operation and infrastructure. The company also named microstrategy and business objects veteran John Dickson as vice president of client services, where he will drive the expansion of RichRelevance’s position as the dominant provider of large-scale omnichannel personalization deployments around the world.

Century 21, the coveted off-price store beloved by fashionistas in the Northeast, has announced that it will be heading south for its next location.

Century 21 will be opening an approximately 85,000-square-foot store – the first anywhere in the nation outside of the Northeast – at Sawgrass Mills in South Florida in the fall of 2016.

New York -- A former executive of Dell Inc. has been tapped as the new CEO of RadioShack. Standard General, the hedge fund that bought 1,743 of the chain’s stores in bankruptcy court proceedings, has appointed Ron Garriques as the new head of RadioShack.

Garriques headed Dell's consumer and communications divisions and previously worked at Motorola Inc. He replaces Joseph Magnacco, who resigned Wednesday after two years as CEO.

Boulder, Colo. -- Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy will open its 30th store, in Los Altos, California, on May 2.
 
Part of the company’s aggressive strategy to expand throughout the Western region, the new store is its third location to open in 2015 and follows three store openings in 2014. Pharmaca has plans to open an additional location in Colorado mid- to late 2015.
 

Chattanooga, Tenn. -- CBL & Associates Properties and Horizon Group Properties have begun construction on the second phase of The Outlet Shoppes of the Bluegrass, near Louisville, Kentucky.

The 53,400-sq.-ft. expansion is scheduled to open this November and will bring eight more retailers to the center including H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, The Limited Outlet, and Johnny Rockets. The outlet shopping center, located off Interstate 64 between Louisville and Lexington, opened July 31, 2014.

New York -- Smartphones are now responsible for more than one-third of online transactions globally, and the growth of larger screen sizes and better mobile sites is only going to accelerate this trend, according to a new study by Criteo. By the end of 2015, the mobile share of e-commerce transactions will reach 33% in the U.S., and 40% globally.