eCommerce

Modell’s Sporting Goods continues to grow its brick-and-mortar footprint. The New York-based company has added two more stores to its portfolio, one in Boston and the other in Philadelphia. Both stores are in prime locations formerly occupied by City Sports. (City Sports filed for bankruptcy in October 2016, and subsequently announced it would close all locations.)

In Boston, Modell’s opened an 11,000-sq.-ft. store on Boylston Street, in the city’s Back Bay area. It’s the retailer’s first outpost in downtown Boston.

Specialty candy supplier Jelly Belly Candy Company is modernizing its direct-to-consumer website with help from cloud-based e-commerce technology provider Mozu.

Jelly Belly has replaced its homegrown e-commerce system with Mozu’s SaaS-based cloud commerce platform. With the Mozu platform: Jelly Belly has launched 40 new global sites, expanded organic site traffic by 21%, doubled the efficiency of website speeds, established a single platform for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and worldwide commerce, and increased mobile sales by 300%.

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.

Design and architecture giant CallisonRTKL named a global leadership team in retail design that includes the appointment of retail veteran Ignaz Gorischek as VP. He is with the firm’s retail practice group, in the Dallas office.

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.