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Sales & Marketing

  • Spotlight on The Tile Shop

    With home remodeling and housing starts on the rise, The Tile Shop is in a sweet spot. The specialty retailer of manufactured and nature stone tiles reported an 8.8% increase in net sales and a 4.9% increase in same-store sales for its first quarter. With 130 stores in 31 states, The Tile Shop displays its tiles in a showroomlike environment that includes full-room tiled displays and a design studio where customers can utilize 3-D renderings to visualize their design ideas.

  • TreeHouse Branches Out

    Home improvement start-up is dedicated to healthy, sustainable homes

    A start-up home improvement retailer with a green conscience has expanded out of its Austin, Texas, home with a first-of-its-kind store that’s generating lots of buzz.

    TreeHouse has opened the nation’s first home improvement “energy positive” (meaning it will generate more energy than it uses) store, at The Hill, a shopping center in Dallas. It’s the start-up retailer’s second location — but not for long. An additional store, planned for the Plano, Texas, area, is due to open this fall.

  • Coffee giant posts mixed earnings, plans to shutter tea division

    Brands just can’t escape a challenging retail environment — a main reason Starbucks is pulling the plug on its Teavana operation.   Just hours after the coffee giant announced it would buy out the remaining 50% share of its East China business from its joint venture partners for about $1.3 billion — its biggest acquisition, ever — Starbucks is cutting loose its Teavana division.  

  • Swire’s U.S. Statement

    As striking as is the interior of Swire’s Brickell City Centre, where every turn of every corner is a possible photo for Architectural Digest, it’s the parking garage that impressed me most.

  • Online giant steps up private-label fashion game

    Amazon unveiled another private-label collection.   The online giant quietly introduced its new private label shoe and handbag line on Tuesday. The collection, which is called The Fix, comprises trendy designs, including satin slides, colorful sneakers and mules, studded flats, and floral-embellished boots, among other looks, according to Footwear News.  

  • Four Steps to Prep for ‘Mobile 2.0’

    Just when the industry is getting its arms around mobility, an evolution is underway. It’s being referred to as Mobile 2.0, and it’s all about moving away from static — even batched — information, and about retailers getting more interactive with mobile users. With shoppers wanting to be able to quickly browse merchandise availability, check their loyalty status and redeem rewards on their smartphones, mobile apps need to be as interactive as possible.

  • Build-A-Bear Workshop narrows its loss in Q2, plans new stores

    While Build-A-Bear Workshop continues to navigate amid declining store traffic, the company continues to open new stores.   Build-A-Bear plans to reopen a location in the Southern California market at the end of September. The company recently closed a store operating in the Downtown Disney District in Anaheim, California.  

  • Lidl Makes Its Move on America

    Churchill and the RAF weren’t available to head off this German invasion. The proliferation of German discount grocers Aldi and Lidl in the U.K. over the past decade carved out a new battlefield for Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons, and they are still mired in the mud. Second-quarter results released by market researcher Kantar showed the Germans growing 19% over last year, while the British Big Four edged up less than 2%.

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