Data & Analytics

Apparel chains focused on tweens and teens are increasingly at risk of filing for bankruptcy protection.

At least that’s the view of Michael McGrail, COO of Tiger Capital Group and a veteran retail liquidation and asset appraisal executive.

The growth of digital shopping tools continues to benefit physical stores with new seasonal research from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) showing how much.

Apparel chains focused on tweens and teens are increasingly at risk of filing for bankruptcy protection.

At least that’s the view of Michael McGrail, COO of Tiger Capital Group and a veteran retail liquidation and asset appraisal executive.

Specialty candy supplier Jelly Belly Candy Company is modernizing its direct-to-consumer website with help from cloud-based e-commerce technology provider Mozu.

Jelly Belly has replaced its homegrown e-commerce system with Mozu’s SaaS-based cloud commerce platform. With the Mozu platform: Jelly Belly has launched 40 new global sites, expanded organic site traffic by 21%, doubled the efficiency of website speeds, established a single platform for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and worldwide commerce, and increased mobile sales by 300%.

The pace of expansion slowed at Shoe Carnival in 2015 but the company produced respectable growth against a challenging prior year comparison that has it poised to achieve a major milestone in 2016.

Destination XL Group is seeing strong same store sales growth from its stores branded as DXL as it continues to shift away from the smaller footprint Casual Male concept.

Destination XL Group, which bills itself as the largest omnichannel specialty retailer of big and tall men's apparel, said its total same store sales increased 3.1%, but its 137 DXL stores open for more than 13 months grew comps 8.9%.

Google is reportedly looking to beef up its professional apps offering by purchasing a well-known provider of hosted online retail services. According to Re/Code, Google is considering purchasing Shopify. The Canadian provider of cloud-based e-commerce tools is a public company valued at $2.25 billion. [Re/Code]

Gordmans Stores plans to open a new store next month in its hometown of Omaha in April, the first of five new units the apparel and home décor retailer has planned for the year.