Supply Chain & Merchandising

San Francisco - Instacart  is expanding a program that lets some contract workers become part-time employees. The online grocery delivery service is now offering its contractor in-store shoppers in Houston and Austin, Texas, the option of applying for new employee roles with expanded responsibilities.

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Oracle is focusing squarely on retail agility with the latest additions to its comprehensive set of retail cloud solutions. The new Oracle Retail Science Cloud Services and Oracle Retail Insights Cloud Services offer cloud-based access to Big Data analysis and expertise, scaled for retailers of all sizes.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. is not wasting any time in moving on now that its long-anticipated split with PayPal Inc. is official. According to MarketWatch, eBay has acquired online consignment apparel retailer Twice, and will not maintain the Twice brand.

Northeast grocery chain A&P may not have been able to make a go of it, but other retailers are already looking to capitalize on the failed supermarket's real estate holdings. 

Hangzhou, China - Alibaba Group is providing the Chinese arm of a major global CPG company direct access to the Chinese consumer market. Alibaba and Unilever China are launching a comprehensive strategic partnership focused on areas including rural China penetration, cross-border e-commerce, Big Data-driven advertising, and supply chain optimization.

This agreement builds on a partnership that started five years ago with a single Tmall store. Through this strategic partnership, Alibaba Group and Unilever China will work together to:

Irving, Texas - Tango, a provider of store lifecycle management solutions and services, has received an investment of $30 million from Frontier Capital, a growth equity firm. The investment in the company’s software-as-a-service, consulting and managed services businesses will support Tango’s growth and demand for their store lifecycle management solution in the North American retail market.

Now that the dust is clearing from the Amazon Prime Day sales “holiday,” we can take a look back at this unique retail event, which livened up the typical lull of mid-summer. Let’s review three initial lessons the retail industry can learn from what some observers called the “summer Black Friday.”

Every Day can be a Holiday

Lakeville, Minn. - Mid-America Real Estate Corp.’s investment sales team recently brokered the sale of Heritage Commons in Lakeville, Minnesota (part of the Minneapolis metropolitan statistical area) to Austin, Texas-based Epic Real Estate Partners. Epic purchased the 138,690-sq.-ft. grocery-anchored neighborhood center.

Heritage Commons is anchored by Cub Foods and is complemented by national and local tenants including Subway, Papa Murphy’s, Great Clips and American Dental.