Store Systems

Grand Rapids, Mich. — Meijer has opened a 190,000-sq.-ft. supercenter at the Gateway Marketplace shopping center located in the Michigan State Fairgrounds.

The new supercenter includes a grocery and full-service pharmacy with a drive-through.

San Francisco -- PB Teen, a division of Williams-Sonoma, on July 27 will open its first store in Orange County, Calif., at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

The store will be anchored around a complimentary PBteen Design Lab, where teens and their parents can engage with the brand and its products by digitally creating a personalized room on a computer monitor. Using drag and drop technology, teens can experiment with different room configurations and color combinations and quickly see their designs come to life on a television screen overhead. 

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. on Thursday announced it will open four new markets in 2014:  Acworth, Ga., Augusta, Ga.; Missoula, Mont.; and Barrie, Ontario (Canada).  The outdoor goods retailer also reported that its second-quarter net income surged 31% on a 10.5% rise in same-store sales. 

Warren, Mich. -- Art Van Furniture plans to convert 31 Mattress World locations in Michigan and Indianapolis to its signature Art Van PureSleep brand, which is known its diagnostic system that determines the exact mattress and pillow best suited for each individual's comfort. 

The conversion, which will begin August 1st, will be completed by the end of 2013, and will result in a total of 76 Art Van PureSleep stores.

Chicago — Argo Tea has opened a greenhouse-inspired café in Chicago’s newly restored Connors Park. Argo and the city worked together on the park restoration, which includes chamomile and hibiscus tea bushes and native drought-tolerant plant varieties.

Argo Tea opened its first café in Chicago in 2003 and now operates 27. Plans call for 15 new locations over the next 12 months.

The top U.S. retailers’ web sites are barely keeping up with customers, according to a report by Radware, a provider of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual and cloud data centers. Now in its fifth edition, the “State of the Union: Ecommerce Page Speed & Web Performance, Summer 2013” study reveals that websites for the top 500 U.S. retailers continue to slow down, a 13.7% drop since spring 2012.

Toano, Va. – Lumber Liquidators reported impressive gains in net income and sales during the second quarter of fiscal 2013. Net income rose almost 68% to $20.4 million from $12.2 million in the second quarter of the previous year, while net sales grew 22% to $257.1 million from $210.3 million.

Same-store sales increased 14.9%, driven by a 9.1% increase in the number of customers invoiced and a 5.4% increase in the average sale.  

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Kmart is offering members of its Shop Your Way loyalty program the option to reserve items online, pay at their local Kmart store using their cash, check, debit, loyalty points, credit or gift card, and pick up the item onsite if available. Called Pay in Store, the program launches nationally this month and allows online shoppers to select the Pay in Store option and reserve an item for 48 hours.