News

Boston beckons
Marcus & Millichap’s Q2 Boston market report signals urgency to retailers like the famed lamps Paul Revere placed in the tower of the Old North Church. To wit:
Amazon blends online and offline
Eleven brick-and-mortar stores — and counting. That’s where Amazon Books stands after the opening of its new outpost in New York.

Located on 34th Street across from the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan, the 5,200-sq.-ft. store is part bookstore, part high-tech electronics shop, with a cafe for shoppers to linger in.

Publix signs on as anchor at new Alabama center

Thanks to Wernher von Braun, who developed the Saturn V rocket in the Alabama town, Huntsville is known as the Rocket City. Now the appellation is being applied to its population.
Toy retailer prepares for newest business channel — an online marketplace

Toys “R” Us is adding a new customer touch-point that it will use to get merchandise into shoppers hands faster.
Study: Store managers’ roles evolve in the unified commerce era

To effectively service shoppers at store-level, managers need to evolve beyond their sales roles and become “problem solvers.” This means store managers must learn to master the combination of order fulfillment, inventory visibility and staffing to keep up with customer demands, according to the “Voice of Store Manager Survey,” a study from JDA Software Group. The second annual study is based on responses from 252 US-based retail store managers compiled in August.
Canadian athletic wear retailer to make U.S. store debut

RYU Apparel is coming to the Big Apple. RYU (Respect Your Universe) announced plans to open a store in in the hip Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The 2,800-sq.-ft. store, the brand's first in the U.S., will open in the first quarter of 2018.
A Gap brand reaches for the cloud

A specialty retailer is streamlining its merchandising operations. Gap's Intermix division has become the company's first brand to transition to the cloud. The upscale specialty retailer is leveraging Oracle’s cloud-based platform to drive efficiencies across merchandising and inventory management. The platform supports end-to-end operational efficiencies and empowers the business teams among specialty apparel company Intermix.
Toys ‘R’ Us testing AR to make stores digital playgrounds

Toys "R" Us is doubling down on its new brand positioning, “Today We Play.” The retailer announced it has begun testing an augmented reality app, called Play Chaser, in 23 stores nationwide, with a chainwide roll-out planned for Oct. 21. Developed in partnership with PlayFusion, the free app allows users to activate different AR mini games and play experiences on their smart device while in Toys "R" Us stores.
Sephora gets personal

Global beauty giant Sephora continues to disrupt the beauty category, rolling out new technologies — online as well as in store — and new formats. Its latest retail concept is positioned in the category’s fast-growing sweet spot: personalized customer services.
Not Fake News

Fake news. Or, at the very least, over-exaggerated news. That’s what I call the reports about the death of retail. Retail sales are up $121.5 billion (through the first seven months of the year) and the holiday forecasts look promising, with Deloitte predicting a healthy 4 to 4.5% increase over last season.