Supply Chain & Merchandising

A seamless customer experience begins with a complete, real-time view of enterprise product assortment. However, RFID technology is taking this concept of “inventory awareness” to previously unimagined levels.

A new retailer aims to blend physical retailing with e-commerce — and to do it with Latin flair. The concept, Star World, is the brainchild of veteran retailer Jerry Azarkman, formerly with (and co-founder of) Curacao, a Los Angeles-based department store targeting Hispanics.

Star World made its debut in October, opening a two-level 30,000-sq.-ft. store in Huntington Park, California.

Specialty storage retailer The Container Store not only helps customers organize their lives on the front end, but is also getting more organized on the back end.

The Container Store, headquartered in Coppell, Texas with 79 stores, has completed the implementation of PlumSlice's Select application to streamline its product selection and procurement process.

Customers responded favorably to holiday promotions at Pier 1 during the fourth quarter and the retailer is poised for an even better spring now that it plans a return to TV advertising.

Fred’s Super Dollar continues to see sales increases as 2016 continues. The company reported Thursday that for the four weeks ending Feb. 27, it saw net sales of $171.1 million, a 12% increase over the same period last year. The announcement follows January’s sales, which also increased 12% over the same four weeks in 2015. Comparable store sales rose 0.8% for the month, compared to flat comps in February 2015.

Sam Dushey took the reins of his family-owned business, discount department-store chain Shoppers World, when he was just 27. The company was founded by his grandfather, an immigrant from Syria, in the 1930s, and then expanded upon by Dushey’s father, uncle and cousin.

The number of U.S. businesses with solar energy installations grew to a new high in 2015. Enterprises ranging from family-run companies to some of the country’s biggest corporations are producing their own energy, cutting operating expenses and achieving environmental sustainability.

A recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) provides data and insights into the diverse mix of corporate offices, office buildings, retail, manufacturing, data centers, distribution and logistics centers, and convention centers that have gone solar.

Another set of weak quarterly results from Staples and another round of store closures could give the Federal Trade Commission more evidence to support Staples long-running effort to acquire Office Depot.