Store Systems

Build-A-Bear Workshop is embarking on an effort to make its iconic in-store experience more fun than ever for kids of all ages with the opening of a new format at America's largest shopping mall.

Part of a company-wide brand refresh, the reformatted store, located on the first level in the north wing, officially re-opened its doors this morning after a multi-month renovation. The ribbon-cutting ceremony featured special guests from Parents in Community Action, Inc., a private, nonprofit that operates Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Hennepin County, Minn.

Burbank, Calif. -- Ikea on Wednesday broke ground on a new store that is located less than one mile away from the company’s first-ever store in California and oldest location in the Western United States.

Ikea is building a new, larger store in Burbank, California. Until it opens on the new site in spring 2017, customers can continue to shop at the existing 242,000-sq.-ft. Ikea in Burbank, which was its sixth overall U.S. store and opened in November 1990.

Austin, Texas – A new study has identified the most popular retail POS system.

According to research by Software Advice, Lightspeed takes the top spot.

Software Advice assigned Lightspeed a combined score of 4.9 on a five-point scale for its user adoption level, search traffic and social media presence. Following Lightspeed were Microsoft Dynamics (4.7), Vend (4.4), Revel (4.4), Shopkeep (3.8), AP (3.5), NCR (3.2), Bindo (3) and CashierLive (3).

New market entries, a newly developed small format and ambitious omnichannel efforts have family footwear retailer Shoe Carnival on a trajectory to surpass $1 billion in annual sales.

San Salvador, El Salvador – Global furniture retailer Unicomer Group is getting more streamlined and efficient in its operations, using mobile solutions from Starmount.

Fairfax, Va. -- One of the Web’s leading “geek-gear” and collectibles retailer is going offline.

Online retailer ThinkGeek is partnering with its new owner, GameStop, to open a new store format focused entirely on collectibles. The first ThinkGeek store will open in the Florida Mall in Orlando, on Sept. 25, and additional stores are planned.

Franklin, Tenn. – Unlike the softgoods retail POS market where there are two leading vendors, one vendor clearly dominates the POS market for hardgoods retailers.

According to the new “POS Software of Hardgoods” study from IHL Group, Oracle is the clear market leader in the hardgoods market, with 39 of the top 200 accounts.  

In the latest example of clicks to bricks, online upscale discounter Gilt.com has launched a new service at its New York office that sounds a lot like what retailers call a “store.”