News

Starbucks to use new upscale format to make Italian debut
Starbucks Coffee Company will open for business in Italy for the first time in late 2018. The coffee giant plans to open a 25,500-sq.-ft. Reserve Roastery outpost in late 2018 in Milan, in the historic, turn-of-the-century post office building in the city’s center. The Milan Reserve Roastery will be the first Starbucks Roastery to open in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and the fifth, globally. It is the first of additional Starbucks stores the company plans to open in Italy.
Petco’s expanding retail presence
Petco continues to expand its store portfolio. The retailer, which operates more than 1,500 Petco and Unleashed by Petco locations across the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico, will open 12 new stores during the month of March. It will also relocate one store in Ohio. The new stores include locations in Virginia, Arizona, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, Colorado, Tennessee, and Missouri.

Walmart updates app to speed up in-store pharmacy refills, money transfers

Walmart has updated its mobile app with features that provide for paperless transactions for pharmacy and money services customers. The upgrades will allow people using the chain’s pharmacies and money services to complete paperwork online via their smartphones and skip ahead of other customers when they get to the store by using new designated “express lanes” in those areas.
NRF takes its case against border adjustment tax to the public
Breakout Retailers

CSA’s annual award program honors five growing brands
Innovation in retail means breaking down barriers, navigating a fiercely competitive marketplace and making connections with increasingly demanding customers. In this section, Chain Store Age profiles five retailers that are succeeding in both. They are the winners of CSA’s Breakout Retailers Awards.
Project Profiles

Main Street Promenade

Location: Naperville, Ill.

Size: About 182,000 sq. ft.

Owner: Retail Properties of America Inc.

Key tenants: Anthropologie, J.Crew, Soft Surroundings, Ann Taylor Loft, Sur La Table, White House Black Market, and Hugo’s Frog Bar & Fish House

Status: Open and operating, but includes a vacant parcel that has approval for future development of up to 62,000 sq. ft. of mixed-use space
Five Items a Retailer Should Have in its Lease

Changes in the retail landscape call for changes in lease agreements, as well
With long-time anchors leaving malls, urgent care clinics moving into neighborhood centers, and online sellers applying pressure from all sides, retailers should take a new approach in structuring their lease agreements with property owners, say experts from both sides of the negotiations table.
Open-Air, Three Ways

Three different centers, three different owner/managers, three different recipes for shaping open-air centers to local tastes
Chris Ressa does not put a lot of stock in the word “experiential.” Though it’s become a companion to the word “retail” in the real estate industry, DLC Management Corp.’s senior VP of leasing finds it not up to the task of describing what’s too often missing at shopping venues.
Retail Transformation

Turning historic spaces into contemporary stores
GameStop Updates its Analytics Game

Video game retailer focuses on improving online post-purchase experience
GameStop’s shoppers are becoming increasingly digital — an evolution that is also narrowing the window between when shoppers purchase merchandise and when they expect to receive it.
Eager to stay engaged with shoppers within this shrinking post-purchase gap, GameStop launched a new e-commerce strategy just prior to its holiday rush focused on driving post-purchase revenue and creating more satisfied customers during this critical selling period.
Robots Set to Revolutionize Store Experience

Steve Carlin, VP and general manager of SoftBank Robotics, spoke with Chain Store Age about how robots are helping to reinvent the in-store shopping experience.
What trends are advancing interest in robot technology at the store level?
A few trends have helped set the stage for in-store robotics.
Woodbury’s Anything but Common

In the course of interviewing experts for this month’s open-air report, I heard two admiring references to Woodbury Common. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the Simon Premium Outlet center used as an exemplar of traits modern retail should strive for — things like great customer experience, well-curated stores, and good food. I thought it time that I take a drive up to Orange County, N.Y., and see what all the fuss was about.