Store Systems

Toronto - Staples Canada is expanding its Bullfrog Power partnership to support renewable energy in four additional stores. Through the partnership, Bullfrog Power injects clean, renewable electricity onto the grid to match the amount of energy the Staples facilities use.

New York -- Braintree, PayPal’s payments processor subsidiary, will let its merchants start accepting Bitcoin over the coming months. The news was announced on Monday at a technology conference in San Francisco.

The move would allow websites and apps that run payments through Braintree to accept bitcoin as a payment method. But there was no news of how many, if any, of Braintree’s customers, which include Uber, will decide to accept the virtual currency.

Oak Brook, Ill. - Dollar Tree has signed a 12,767-sq.-ft. lease at Pelham Manor Shopping Plaza in Pelham, New York, bringing the center to 100% leased for the first time since it opened in 2008. The 228,000-sq.-ft. center caters to the surrounding neighborhoods of Pelham Manor, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and the north Bronx.

Acquired in 2013, the center features national retailers such as BJ's Wholesale Club, PetSmart, Michaels and more. Dollar Tree will be located next to Five Guys Burgers and Fries and is expected to open in early November.

Lakeland, Fla. -- Publix on Monday was honored with three awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership, including its Store Certification Excellence 2013-2014, and two Store Re-Certification Excellence Awards 2009-2014.

Publix earned the Store Certification Excellence award for achieving 26 GreenChill store certifications in the past year. Two Publix stores have achieved GreenChill Certification for five consecutive years and are being honored with the Store Re-Certification Excellence award.

By Andrea Morgan-Vandome, Oracle Retail

Target is expanding its TargetExpress format outside the Minneapolis area for the first time. The retailer plans to open two new stores in San Francisco’s financial district and Berkeley, California, in March 2015.

Several Home Depot customers have filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, alleging that Home Depot failed to meet its legal obligation to protect their credit card and personal information and failed to timely warn them that such information had been stolen or that the security and privacy of such information had been compromised.

Franklin, Tenn. - Worldwide POS hardware shipments showed a sharp increase in the first half of 2014. According to IHL Group's POS Vendor Data Service, which tracks POS shipments by vendors and retail segments worldwide, in the first six months of the year, Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) and North America showed by far the greatest growth in POS shipments.