Retail

CHESTER, Pa. -- Fare & Square, the nation's first nonprofit grocery store of its kind, opened in Chester, Pa. It is the first full service grocery store to open in Chester, a “food desert” area, since 2001.

Fare & Square will sell a full array of food with a focus on fresh products in a 16,000 sq. ft. store with six departments including produce, deli, fresh meat, seafood, dairy, frozen and dry goods featuring brand name and private labels.   

Macy’s has announced plans to hire 83,000 seasonal employees at its Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores, call centers, distribution centers and online fulfillment centers nationwide for the 2013 holiday season, representing a 3.8% increase from last year’s 80,000 seasonal hires. 

Oklahoma City - Homeland Stores, a 78-store regional supermarket chain headquartered in Oklahoma City, has successfully completed of a mobile payments pilot program with mobile payments technology provider DoubleBeam. Launched in June of this year, Homeland's SwiftScan mobile application allows customers to pay for purchases with a smartphone.

SwiftScan is currently accepted for payment at 20 Homeland locations, with plans to add 26 more locations by the end of October.

Following the lead of specialty retailers such as Lululemon and Athletica, Target has unveiled an exclusive collection of fashion-forward lifestyle apparel for men, women and children — C9 by Champion — just in time for the fall and holiday season.

San Jose, Calif. – Chuck E. Cheese’s has signed a long-term lease renewal and expansion of roughly 2,126 sq. ft. for a total of about 16,158 sq. ft. at Kendall Village Center in Kendall, Fla. To accommodate this expansion, Berkowitz Realty Group had to relocate accessory retailer Claire’s within the center.

San Diego  — Representing a real estate investment trust, The Mansour Group has sold a portfolio of five Applebee’s for $13.3 million.

To complete the transaction, The Mansour Group sourced a private high net worth California investor, who sold an apartment complex and acquired the portfolio through a 1031 exchange. The restaurants are located in North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota and Kentucky:

Grapevine, Texas – GameStop plans to hire approximately 17,000 employees nationwide as the company prepares for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One console launches, as well as the holiday shopping season.

By Chase Cornett, [email protected]

The holiday shopping season is just around the corner and soon consumers will be bombarded with buying guides, floods of emails, deep discounts and, of course, that Black Friday competitive spirit. With all the chaos brought on by the holidays, retailers are finding it harder and harder to stand out. The result — strategies that focus on discounts, deliver low profit margins and drive transactions instead of engaged brand experiences.