Supply Chain & Merchandising

CBL & Associates Properties announced that it has closed on the disposition of Waynesville Commons, a 128,000 sq. ft. community center located in Waynesville, North Carolina. The property was purchased for $14.5 million by affiliate of Yale Realty Services Corp.

Dunkin’ Donuts has signed a multi-unit store development agreement with a franchise group led by two former NFL players.

The chain said it has signed an agreement with Berliner III to develop 14 new restaurants in St. Louis and two new locations in Kansas City over the next several years. Berliner III is led by NFL greats and former University of Nebraska football players Kris Brown and Zach Wiegert, who have teamed up with David Scott to develop a third market.

When it comes to return policies, Nordstrom and Forever 21 couldn’t be further apart.

At least that’s according to an annual survey of return policies by GOBankingRates.com. The study rated Nordstrom as offering the best return policies of 2015, with Forever 21 offering the worst.

“Return policies should be a big consideration for holiday shoppers — two-thirds of people return at least one holiday gift,” said Elyssa Kirkham, lead reporter on the GOBankingRates study.

When retailers execute their IT and CRM strategies properly, the holiday shopping season is a joyous time of profits and customer engagement. But why let all the festivities end on Dec. 25?

By properly leveraging solutions and strategies, retailers can extend the season of consumer goodwill (and spending) right into the New Year. As “Cyber Week” fades into memory, let’s focus on the week (or weeks) after the end of the traditional holiday season. Here are three suggestions to keep that holiday spirit alive a little longer this year.

Several retailers, including Neiman Marcus, had site issues this past Black Friday weekend. Here is some advice from the folks at Dynatrace, an application performance management software company, on the top three things retailers can do when things go bad online.

Black Friday may not be what it used to be in the United States, but the tradition has caught on big time across the pond, according to a report by the New York Times.

Even as digital commerce keeps growing, retailers are losing a sizable amount of potential online business.

According to the new Pymnts.com Checkout Conversion Index (CCI), retailers stand to lose as much as 36% of online sales due to frictions that remain from discovery through checkout, and could lose additional sales during payment processing.

For the second time this year, Target’s e-commerce site crashed due to exceptionally high levels of activity related to a major sales promotion.

The Target site went down the morning of Cyber Monday, Nov. 30. According to reports, the crash was actually a controlled restriction of the site by Target in response to extremely heavy volumes of visitors looking for holiday bargains.