Store Systems

Indianapolis -- Lids Sports Group announced Wednesday that its retail division will purchase 12 stores from Fanatics Inc., comprised of nine FansEdge locations in the Greater Chicago area as well as one in Oklahoma and two Football Fanatics in Jacksonville, Fla.



The locations will be rebranded under the Locker Room by LIDS retail banner, to include region-specific storefronts such as Chicago Locker Room and Oklahoma Locker Room.  

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Sears Holdings announced that both Sears and Kmart stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day. The company said its made the decision based in part on feedback from members of its Shop Your Way loyalty program, who sought more flexible Black Friday in-store shopping times and eagerness to shop doorbuster deals.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Tyco Retail Solutions, a provider of retail performance and security solutions sold direct and through authorized business partners worldwide, has expanded its portfolio of Sensormatic acousto-magnetic Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) hard tags and alarming wraps. The newly available tags address many high theft, high velocity categories and give retailers a broad, comprehensive solution to protect their entire store, the company said.

The New Sensormatic Tag Portfolio includes:

Los Angeles -- Survey results released Thursday by PriceGrabber revealed that 16% of consumers will shop using a mobile device during the holiday season, compared with 13% last year. Nearly all respondents indicated that they will do some online shopping from a computer.

The number of consumers who plan to visit brick-and-mortar stores dropped by two percentage points to 46% compared with last year.

Chicago -- ShopperTrak has acquired ReTel Technologies Inc. (ReTel), a Silicon Valley-based provider of hybrid video-auditing solutions and advanced shopper analysis.

ShopperTrak will integrate ReTel’s technology with its managed service to deliver an unprecedented level of shopper insights to retailers. Once available with ShopperTrak’s core offerings, the new capabilities will provide retailers with rapid access to customer demographics, queue analysis, speed-of-service and sales process effectiveness.

Leading payment processor Vantiv said it signed an agreement to acquire Litle & Co., a leading mobile payment processor in a deal valued at $361 million.

According to Vantiv president and CEO, Charles Drucker, the deal makes sense because e-commerce is one of the fastest growing segments of payments.

By Peter Burgoyne, [email protected]

The opening of the first CityTarget in Chicago was a big deal this summer, but next fall an even bigger development is coming to an area just a few miles further north.