Mass Merchant

March was a solid month for U.S. job makers, with retailers leading the way.

The retail industry — excluding autos, gasoline and food services — added a solid 40,000 jobs in March, the National Retail Federation reported on Friday. The job market overall saw growth of 215,000 jobs in the month of March.

Retail has added an average of 52,000 jobs per month over the last three months.

Walmart and its financial services partners have added a loyalty component to credit, debit and prepaid card offerings that provide an extra incentive to make online purchase.

Walmart is launching a new tool to give shoppers more reasons to use their Walmart credit and prepaid cards. 

The retailer is rolling out a new, simplified rewards program to bring more value to the everyday purchases customers make using the Walmart family of credit and prepaid cards. Walmart's new 3-2-1 Save cash back program will provide all qualifying cardholders in the U.S. and Puerto Rico with the opportunity to earn rewards for purchases they make, including:

Philadelphia -- PREIT announced it has completed the sale of four additional non-core malls. This is a milestone achievement for the company that signifies the near-completion of non-core mall disposition effort with one remaining mall being marketed for sale.

Mall disposition transactions include:
• Lycoming Mall in Pennsdale, Pennsylvania, anchored by J.C. Penney, Sears, Bon-Ton and Macy's sold for $26.35 million.

To sophisticated landlords and property managers, co-tenancy provisions contained in commercial leases are routine and (relatively) unexciting. Unfortunately — and perhaps as a result — such clauses are often overlooked. But a co-tenancy default can have a significant impact on a landlord’s bottom line, so landlords and their agents who manage their properties should understand how these provisions operate and the remedies to which a tenant is entitled in the event of a default.

The Kroger Co. is reportedly planning to expand its ClickList click-and-collect service to the Lone Star State in summer 2016. According to the Cincinnati Business Journal, Kroger will offer ClickList, which lets customers order groceries in advance and pick up them up at a predetermined time at a local store, at select stores in the Houston and Dallas markets. Those markets contain a total of 214 stores, including some in Louisiana, but the retailer intends to offer ClickList at about 20 stores in each metro area.

“Now Trending” is an exclusive online series to chainstoreage.com, featuring trending topics that impact the retail real estate landscape.

For retail analysts and consumers alike, what’s going on in the apparel sector is fascinating and, in fact, confounding. While the root causes may not seem exactly crystal clear, the implications will be clear and unambiguous.

If the major suppliers of soft goods such as clothing and accessories to retail stores are a bellwether of the economy, then the coming months are looking to provide a jolt as 75% of these suppliers expect retail sales to significantly outpace the gross domestic product for the spring and summer shopping season.

That’s one of the major findings of a new survey conducted by Capital Business Credit.