Retail

San Francisco -- Piracy and discoverability are the top issues facing app developers today, with 26% of app developers reporting their apps have been pirated. A survey of more than 250 app developers App Developers Conference (ADC) also shows that a similar 26% found that their apps had been hacked, or obtained without proper payment.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. plans to hire 55,000 seasonal associates for the 2013 holiday season, up from 50,000 last year. In addition, the retailer intends to transition more than 35,000 associates from temporary to part-time and another 35,000 associates from part-time to full-time.

Traditionally, retailers relied on advertising and direct response to succeed. To make more money, retailers simply let more people know about their stores and products.

Jupiter, Fla. — Burger & Beer Joint has announced plans for an expansion of 50 stores through franchised and corporate units over the next few years. The expansion is already well underway.

The company recently opened a third store in South Florida and has signed a 10-store franchise agreement to open stores throughout Florida and Georgia.

Los Angeles -- Sport Chalet has engaged Cappello Capital Corp. as its exclusive financial advisor to assist in exploring a range of options including strategic partners, investors, alliances and joint ventures.

Chico, Calif. – Online home improvement retailer Build.com is using Adobe Marketing Cloud as the cornerstone of its digital marketing strategies, diving deeper into visitor data to better understand what they are looking for, how they navigate online, where they are coming from, and what drives purchase decisions.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Staples Europe has launched a new Staples.es website aimed at helping small businesses locate and purchase products.

The site has a new look and feel and offers many new features to improve the overall shopping experience including personalized shopping with product recommendations based on customer preferences, an updated search engine and filtering tools, streamlined reordering for frequently used products, and quick checkout with a mini-cart that designed to ease inserting coupons, saving addresses and reviewing orders.

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group and Tanger Factory Outlet Centers have announced that construction has begun on Charlotte Premium Outlets. The first phase of the planned 400,000-sq.-ft. center will open in the summer of 2014. The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Simon and Tanger.

Charlotte Premium Outlets will feature Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th and more than 90 other outlet stores.

Tanger is providing site development and construction supervision to the venture. Simon is providing management services and marketing.