Retail

Boston – Eight-in-10 (77%) consumers would be willing to share their smartphone location data as long as they received enough value in return. A new study from in-store mobile marketing platform provider Swirl also revealed that consumers are much more likely to entrust their location information to their favorite retailers (65%) than to shopping/deals apps, Google or Facebook.

J.C. Penny will eliminate the jcp menswear brand and reduce the assortments in its Joe Fresh, Michael Graves and Martha Stewart lines, Reuters reported.

All four brands were introduced by former CEO Ron Johnson. Penney plans to use the resulting space to emphasize its exclusive private-label brands.

Starting in January, Penney will shrink its Joe Fresh in-store shops and reduce the assortment, the report said, moving the shops away from the front entry to give a more prominent spot to the chain’s own a.n.a and jcp women's wear collections.

Boston — Boylston Properties and The Wilder Companies have completed phase one of the redevelopment of the Arsenal Mall in Watertown, Mass.The companies marked the occasion by announcing a new name for the mall: The Arsenal Project.

Completed enhancements to The Arsenal Project include a reconfigured interior layout with new seating, upgrades to the building’s exterior and landscaping. Oversized metal tree-planters now line Arsenal Street, the center’s entrance and other areas throughout the development.

Shopko plans to open two new Shopko Hometown stores. The stores, which will average 36,000 sq. ft., are located in Mayville, Wis., and Valentine, Neb.

The Shopko Hometown retail format, developed to augment Shopko’s larger store model and focused on serving the needs of smaller rural communities, combines retail health services with a broad offering of national brands and high-value private label brands of apparel, home furnishings, toys, consumer electronics, seasonal items, every day consumable items and lawn and garden products.

Lakeland, Fla. -- Publix Super Markets said Miami Division VP, Bill Fauerbach, would retire at the end of March.

“Bill helped grow our culture and build a solid foundation on which the Miami Division will continue to grow. We thank him for his many contributions, and he will be missed by us all,” stated Ed Crenshaw, Publix’ CEO.

Fauerbach will be succeeded by Kevin Murphy effective April 1. Murphy has been a regional director in the Atlanta Division since January 2009.

Washington, D.C. -- The average holiday shopper had completed half (49.9%) of their shopping, slightly less than the 56.5% they’d completed by this time last year, boding well for retailers who are preparing for a very big holiday shopping weekend, according to the National Retail Federation’s latest holiday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Specifically, 32 million or 14% say they have not even started, while another 20 million, or 8.9%  say they are already finished.

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group has announced a plan to spin off all of its strip center business along with its smaller enclosed malls into an independent publicly traded REIT called SpinCo.

Montreal, Quebec -- Multidev Technologies, developers of the ChainDrive multichannel retail platform, have developed a brand new POS software by completely redesigning its interface and adding dynamic omni-channel features. The ChainDrive POS software offers a unified system that provides a single transparent version of transactions, CRM, fulfillment, inventory and all back end operations.

ChainDrive POS has a touch-screen interface, is flexible and has customer service enhancing capabilities, such as its ability to be used on a mobile device.