eCommerce

By Dan Goldman, Kurt Salmon

Just like bell-bottoms and leg warmers, mom-and-pop retailers are back. Not long ago, it seemed like they would be permanently relegated to some dusty attic space, a relic fighting for relevancy.

Big-box stores put them there. Between 1992 and 2014, the share of U.S. retail stores owned by companies with fewer than 500 employees fell 13%.i That’s because big boxes promised lower prices and a wider assortment, points brought home by large mass market advertising campaigns.

Ascena Retail Group has named Brian Lynch, a 35-year fashion and retail industry veteran, as president and CEO of its Justice stores<span style="color: rgb(54, 54, 54); font-family: open_sansregular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; fo

By Anne Marie Stephen

Brands, retailers and technologists convened at Retail Loco at South by Southwest Interactive, Sunday, March 15, 2015 hosted by Location Based Marketing Association. The event focused on how companies are leveraging location solutions and data for better business. The LBMA is a global not-for-profit association with over 1,000 member companies including media, retail, brands, agencies and technology companies.

Burnaby, Canada -- Canada’s Future Shop will soon be a thing of the past. Best Buy announced it is consolidating its Future Shop division, and the chain’s namesake stores and Future Shop stores will all operate under the Best Buy nameplate. As part of the consolidation, 66 Future Shop stores will be closed, effective March 30. Also, 65 Future Shop locations will be shuttered for one week to transition to Best Buy.

Seattle – Amazon.com is launching Amazon Home Services, a new marketplace for on-demand professional services that puts it in competition with online service platforms such as Craigslist. In less than 60 seconds, customers can browse, purchase and schedule hundreds of professional services directly on Amazon.com.

New York -- The death of the mall has been highly exaggerated, according to data released Monday by the International Council of Shopping Centers and the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. Among the highlights: Shopping center occupancy rates were 92.7% at the end of 2014, the highest level since second quarter 2008, according to data released Monday. Occupancy was even higher for the mall segment (combined super-regional and regional malls), at 94.2% at the end of 2014, the highest since the end of 1987.   

Now that Amazon.com sells virtually any physical good one can think of, the retailer wants to be there when a customer needs to install or repair it.

Last week, Oracle hosted its second annual Oracle Industry Connect conference in Washington, D.C. This seat of world power was an appropriate setting for a two-day summit explaining how retailers can use technology to obtain better control of every aspect of their enterprises.

Here are three key lessons attendees gleaned from Oracle Industry Connect:

Customers are the Best Salespeople