eCommerce

New York -- Another online retailer has made the leap to the physical space.  Beauty subscription company Birchbox has opened its first brick-and-mortar store, in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. The two-level store brings the company’s digital experience to life, with a big emphasis on new products, customer reviews and expert advice. It also offers hair, nails and make-up services and group classes on various topics. The first class, taking place the week of July 21, will focus on make-up contouring tricks.
  

Randolph, N.J. -- Retailers are behind Amazon in analytics maturity, according to a new research report from EKN Research. Eighty percent of retailers say they are behind Amazon in analytics maturity, and 71% of retailers perform either basic analytics reporting or none at all – revealing retailers’ inability to take advantage of the data that is available to them.
 

Los Angeles -- Kennedy Wilson has closed four retail and entertainment lease transactions in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Westchester. The collection of new leases carries an aggregate value of more than $3 million.

Gap and Banana Republic may have had soft sales in June, but performance at the company’s Old Navy brand saved the day.

The company reported an increase of 1% in June sales compared with last year. Net sales for the five-week period ended July 5 were $1.54 billion compared with net sales of $1.53 billion for the five-week period ended July 6 last year.
 

Atlanta -- Simon Property Group and Columbus Realty have teamed to inject a high-residential component to Simon’s fashionable Phipps Plaza shopping destination in the tony Buckhead area of Atlanta.

The residential project, to be named Domain at Phipps Plaza, will be developed with Columbus Realty Partners.

Dublin, Calif. -- Ross Dress for Less will open two new stores in the Southeast on July 19th.  The store openings are in The Village on Pooler Parkway in Pooler, Georgia, and Dixie Valley Shopping Center in Southwest Louisville, Kentucky.  These new openings are part of the retailer’s 2014 expansion program, totaling approximately 75 new locations during the year.

Together, Ross Dress for Less and dd’s Discounts currently operate over 1,300 off-price apparel and home fashion stores in 33 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.

Mississauga, Canada - Comark Inc., parent company to three Canadian specialty apparel retailers, recently launched new e-commerce sites – Ricki's, Bootlegger and Cleo – on the Demandware Commerce platform. The retailer moved from a hosted e-commerce solution to Demandware’s cloud-based platform for a flexible and scalable digital backbone to support its growing, multi-brand, omnichannel retail operations.

Toronto -- Town Shoes Limited announced the opening of its first two DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse locations in Canada. DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse will open at Heartland Centre in Mississauga and Woodland Hills in Newmarket, Ontario, on Aug. 7.

The two new Canadian retail locations, each approximately 20,000 sq. ft. will make them the largest shoe stores in the country.