Mass Merchant

NEW YORK — As part of its American Icons campaign, Macy’s will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the drive-in theater by providing customers with a free showing of “The Smurfs” in pop-up drive-ins at select Macy’s stores and existing drive-in theaters nationwide.

Houston -- United Commercial Realty Houston has announced three new leases for Houston-area centers:

• Goody Goody Liquor will open a third Houston-area location at Copperfield Village Shopping Center this fall.

• Pink’s Pizza has signed a deal for its fifth area location at the Cougar Den Plaza adjacent to the University of Houston’s central campus.

• Affinity Veterinary will open a clinic at a center located at 19450 Katy Freeway in Houston.

Cincinnati -- Retail loyalty programs have seen some impressive growth since 2011, according to results of the latest Colloquy Loyalty Census. In 2013, department stores achieved 70% growth in loyalty program memberships since the 2011 Colloquy Census, far surpassing the 26.7% rate of growth in loyalty programs across all sectors tabulated in the 2013 census. The number of department store loyalty memberships is 193.9 million.

New York -- Sixty-percent of retailers have energy management systems within their site portfolios, but only 46% have a formal energy management strategy in place.
 
Those are among the findings of a survey conducted by Ecova, a total energy and sustainability management company. In other survey findings, 44% of the respondents said they currently benchmark their portfolio or sites, and 21% have applied for the Energy Star label for their portfolio.

Woodbury, N.Y. -- SoulCycle has taken 3,000 sq. ft. of new space at the expanding Woodbury Common Shopping Center in Woodbury on Long Island, said Charter Realty & Development Corp., who represented SoulCycle.

Owned and managed by Kabro Associates, the 85,000-sq.-ft. Woodbury Common is undergoing a 30,000-sq.-ft. expansion that will add parking, amenities and new facades.

Fresh Market will take 20,000 sq. ft. of the new space.

Overall economic growth in Europe is slower than in the U.S., but the opposite is true when it comes to e-commerce sales, according to figures published by Internet Retailer.
 
U.S. e-commerce sales grew 15.9% to $225.54 billion in 2012 from $194.61 billion the prior year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce while the Centre for Retail Research in the U.K. said European e-commerce sales increased 16.6% to $302.2 billion from 260.4 billion.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in May 2012 vs. May 2013 and noticed some common overall trends across top retail chains. While looking at the data in May 2012 compared to May 2013, we see interesting changes that came from Toys "R" Us. Their circular suggests a switch in advertising strategy. Their ad blocks per page decreased 10% while ad blocks per circular increased 79.1%. Also, the total number of circular pages increased by 44.4%.

Calabasas, Calif. -- Broader regional economic growth and improved consumer and retailer finances bode well for retail real estate investments in well-located properties, according to “The Retail Outlook” from Marcus & Millichap Research Services’ second quarter 2013 mid-year outlook for the national retail market and U.S. economy.