eCommerce

Pittsburgh — GNC Holdings has announced that it is expanding its retail presence in China with the opening of its first stand-alone store in Shanghai. GNC plans to open an additional 25 locations in China over the next 12 months.

The company currently operates more than 60 store-within-a-store locations in eight grocery, convenience and health and wellness chains in China.

New York -- Walmart’s Silccon Valley hub, called @WalmartLabs, announced on Wednesday it has acquired Torbit, a cloud-based website acceleration company.

Walmart described Torbit as a “front-end optimization innovator that has been focused on making the web a faster and better place.” Torbit is known for developing measurement, analytics and performance improvement tools to help companies identify and enhance their overall site performance.

IRVING, Texas — Holiday shifts adversely affected quarter-to-date performance at Michaels Stores, which reported net sales of $631 million for the nine-week period ending July 6, a decrease of 0.1% from $631.8 million for the comparable period last fiscal year. 

Same-store sales for the same fiscal period declined 2.7%. The company's quarter-to-date performance was also adversely affected by the timing of media activity due to the impact of the 53rd week in fiscal 2012. However, as a result of the shifts, the company has seen improvement in July sales performance.

Houston – The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc. has reached an agreement to repurchase $100 million worth of common stock from JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA under an accelerated share repurchase program. The retailer will buy the shares as part of an ongoing $200 million share repurchase program announced in March of this year. Men’s Wearhouse expects to close the transaction by the end of fourth quarter 2013.

Dallas — Cypress Equities has acquired the Glendale Marketplace in Glendale, Calif. The 154,420-sq.-ft. open-air retail and entertainment center is adjacent to the Americana at Brand.

National retail brands represented in the center include HomeGoods, Old Navy, Starbucks, GNC and Outback Steakhouse.

SRS Real Estate Partners will represent Cypress in lease negotiations.

INDIANAPOLIS — Office supplies and clothing retailers are not the only ones vying for foot traffic during back-to-school season. Students need laptops and other consumer electronics, too, and specialty retailer HH Gregg is jumping into the fray with its list of sales and specials targeted at the tech-savvy crowd.

The Indianapolis-based retailer is marketing lightweight laptops, fully equipped with high-powered processors and storage, and Samsung tablets to schools with computer- and audiovisual-equipped classrooms as well as college-bound students. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has some pretty vivid memories of back- to-school shopping: getting dragged out alongside my mother to buy new outfits and a few No. 2 pencils. Now, it seems like everyone in the retail world is finding a way to join the party.

British fashion retailer Oasis lets the permanent architecture do the talking at its store in Leeds, U.K. Designed as a model for international expansion, the 2, 238-sq.-ft. space was developed for ease of installation, flexibility and efficient detailing. The walls and ceiling were constructed away from the structural shell giving a fun stage-set feel while allowing elements to become standardized with less site-specific variables. The interior has the aesthetic of a Georgian house executed in a contemporary manner. (Oasis was designed by Dalziel+Pow, London.)