Mass Merchant

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The competition for retailers selling online just got a lot more intense with a new price-match policy from Target just ahead of the prime holiday shopping season.

Beginning Oct. 1, Target will price-match the websites of 29 major retailers in stores and for purchases from their website.

The mandate for retailers to accept chip-enabled, EMV-compliant payment cards starts Oct. 1. But how ready an individual retailer is may depend on what type of retailer they are.

At least that’s according to a new study from The Strawhecker Group (TSG), which shows that a leading 69% of shoe stores and 59% of department stores have EMV-ready POS terminals .

On the lower end of the spectrum, 24% of bookstores and 23% of stationery stores have EMV-ready terminals. Previous TSG research shows that 27% of all retailers will be EMV-ready by Oct. 1.

October will be over in a flash, and with it, all eyes will be on the holiday season, which is measured from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31.

The 2015 retail calendar has several distinctions, as we saw Memorial Day fall on the earliest possible date and Labor Day on the latest possible date. This holiday season, there are 28 days between Thanksgiving (not counting the actual day) and Christmas, which is an average amount for the period separating the two holidays.

Englewood Construction has started working on three new ground-up retail projects.

The national general contractor is building a Hobby Lobby in Beavercreek, Ohio; a PetSmart in Taylor, Michigan; and a Goodwill in Monroe, Connecticut.

Englewood recently broke ground on a 55,000-sq.-ft. ground-up Hobby Lobby store in Beavercreek, Ohio. Slated for completion by the end of January 2016, the project will use tilt-up construction of masonry embossed panels. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Robert Michael Hughes is the project architect.

Jill Stanton was named interim president of Old Navy after the top executive at Gap Inc.’s fastest growing division left the company to become CEO of Ralph Lauren.

Walmart has extended its grocery pick up service to eight additional markets and is alluding to the possibility of a more significant roll out in the months ahead.

Nordstrom plans to relocate its Nordstrom Rack store from 280 Metro Center to the redeveloped Serramonte Center in Daly City, California.

The approximately 40,000-sq.ft. store is scheduled to open in fall 2017. The redeveloped property is owned by Equity One.

Nordstrom will join fellow anchors Target, JC Penney, Macy's and Dick's Sporting Goods. The new location is just across Highway 280 from the current Nordstrom Rack.