News

Seattle – Stockbrokers in need of a quick caffeine fix between bouts of buying and selling have a new resource. Starbucks Corp. is debuting its new express store format on Wall Street in New York, across from the New York Stock Exchange.

The compact 538-sq.-ft. store space is designed to provide a streamlined customer experience and provide what Starbucks calls an “espresso shot” version of visiting its stores. Starbucks is relying upon store design, customer service and technology to provide the convenience it promises.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears Holding Corp. and Santa Monica, California-based shopping mall operator The Macerich Co. are forming a 50/50 joint venture that will purchase nine Sears stores located in Macerich malls for $150 million. The venture will then lease the stores back to Sears or to other retailers.

Sears has entered two other similar leaseback joint ventures during April 2015, including deals with General Growth Properties and Simon Property Group. According to Macerich, the stores have average in-line sales of $680 per square foot.

San Diego – Consumers are using social media to connect not just with high school classmates and former flames, but with retailers. According to Interactions’ latest Retail Perceptions report, “Social Media: Invest to Impress?”, more than 75% of social media users expect retailers to have a social media presence, and 42% prefer to shop at retailers that connect with them through social media.

Washington, D.C. - As a result of higher same-store sales and a continued optimistic outlook for future business conditions, the National Restaurant Association's Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) remained in positive territory in March. The RPI, a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry, stood at 102.2 in March, down 0.4% from February's level of 102.6.

Chicago – Customers at malls are actively posting via social media, but leaving out information that could help mall-based retailers. According to a new study from location-based social media monitoring firm Geofeedia, 91% of mall-based social posts lack relevant hashtags and/or keywords, and 8% of posts only contain photos or videos.

Our cover story this month is about one of my favorite topics: hot retail concepts. It’s a subject that, to my mind, never goes out of style because it speaks as much to the essence of retail in today’s omnichannel age as it did in the purely physical one.

New concepts remain the lifeblood of retailing, and it’s always exciting to recognize and call attention to them. And I’m happy to report that the industry seems to be particularly rich in new formats these days.

Elmwood Park, N.J. – Traditionally, when something is printed on paper, it is considered more valuable and “real.” But for Adagio Teas, an omnichannel specialty retailer of gourmet tea, digital promotions are the most reliable.

“As an online vendor, we are sensitive to the effectiveness of promotions,” Michael Cramer, founder and CEO of Adagio Teas, said during an exclusive interview with Chain Store Age. Adagio Teas operates three stores in the Chicago area as well as a global e-commerce site.

Major shopping center openings in 2014 beg the question, “Are we back on track?”

Last year may be the first 365-day period since the Great Recession that there is enough new shopping center space to crow about.

Chain Store Age’s annual development survey — spanning 26 years — reported pretty spotty new-build efforts from 2009 to 2013, but in 2014 some significant projects opened.

Apple will open its highly anticipated new campus in April. Dubbed Apple Park, the site is located on a 175-acre site in Cupertino, Calif.

The heart of the campus is a futuristic, ring-shaped, 2.8 million-sq.-ft. headquarters building that’s clad entirely in panels of curved glass. Designed in collaboration with Foster + Partners, Apple Park is powered by 100% renewable energy. With 17 megawatts of rooftop solar, the campus will run one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world.

Front-end omnichannel success relies on back-end fulfillment

The front-end promise of omnichannel retail cannot be delivered without investment in back-end technology and processes that allow fulfillment of orders across multiple channels. Retailers must eliminate internal silos and obtain real-time awareness of their full inventory.

Omnichannel fulfillment is a difficult, but not impossible, task.