Retail

Indianapolis -- Real estate giant Simon on Thursday announced 'Simon Launch,' a retail startup competition aimed at discovering, investing in, and accelerating the top startups in the retail industry. Simon will co-invest in the competition's winners through its recently formed venture capital arm — Simon Venture Group — in collaboration with Plug and Play,  a global investor and technology accelerator that specializes in growing tech startups. Simon will also become an Anchor Member of Plug and Play's Retail Accelerator program.

Louisville, Colo. -- QuikTrip is North America’s favorite convenience store chain, according to a study by Market Force Information, a leader in customer intelligence solutions. More than 5,000 consumers were polled for the study, designed to uncover which convenience stores consumers prefer and why.
 

Wayne, N.J. -- Toys “R” Us and specialty retailer Claire’s have entered into a global partnership to open nearly 100 Claire’s in-store shops in Toys “R” Us locations across Europe, along with 12 U.S. locations, by year-end. The shops will feature an assortment of jewelry, headbands, hair and fashion accessories, jewelry holders, legwear, seasonal items and more. The rollout follows a successful pilot program in Europe.  

Chicago -- GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance (CDF) announced it has significantly expanded its inventory financing program with MarineMax, and extended its duration through 2017.

The $235 million facility will allow the company to expand its stocking plans from leading manufacturers in the industry.

New York -- Amazon and the U.K.-based mobile payments company, Bango, have teamed up with Germany’s Telefónica Deutschland to deliver carrier billing services on Telefónica’s network in Germany.  The service will allow people who buy paid apps and make in-app purchases through Amazon’s appstore to charge that directly to their phone bills.

The service will be deployed gradually through next year on certain Amazon mobile applications running on Telefónica devices in Germany.

Dublin, Calif. --  dd’s Discounts, a division of Ross Stores, Inc. will open a new store in Dallas on Sept. 27.  The store is located at Skillman Abrams Crossing in North Dallas. 

Including this new location, dd’s DISCOUNTS will operate approximately 150 locations in 13 states. The company is on schedule to complete its expansion plan to open approximately 20 locations in 2014.

Westlake Village, Calif. -- Hhgregg ranks highest among appliance retailer websites, with a score of 865, up by a significant 41 points from 2013, according to the J.D. Power 2014 Appliance Shopper Website Evaluation Study. The improvement is attributed to an increase in the speed of the website, up 63 points to 875, and a redesign of the website review section to include the highest and lowest customer appliance ratings at the top of the site.  Following Hhgregg in the rankings are The Home Depot (842) and Best Buy and Lowe's in a tie (839).

Stratham, N.H. -- Timberland detailed its plan to grow revenues by $1.4 billion during the next five years at an investor meeting at the company’s headquarters in Stratham, New Hampshire. Timberland’s management said it expects total revenues to reach $3.1 billion by the end of 2019, representing growth of 13% per year. (Timberland is a wholly owned subsidiary of VF Corporation.