aggregatedcontent

Aurora's Group IT Director John Bovill was recently named as one of retail's top 70 movers and shakers by Retail Insider, and the group also received Retail Week's IT team of the year award in June. Here he discusses the challenges faced by retailers moving into the multichannel space and the impact of mobile and online technology as a supply and demand chain facilitator.

Same-store retail sales for October were up 1.7 percent, a smaller increase compared to the gains in September with 2.8 percent and 2.3 percent in October 2009, according to Kantar Retail's monthly report of 31 U.S. retailers.

A group of North America's leading retail industry members — including stores, manufacturers, and retail and RFID associations — have teamed up to begin writing road maps and guidelines for RFID usage at the item level in the retail sector.

Gap's first promotion in conjunction with the new Facebook Deals feature brought out early crowds clamoring to be among the first 10,000 to check in at one of the chain's stores Friday and win a free pair of jeans. To win the jeans, shoppers had to show store managers that they had checked in on

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is continuing to wind down as the year comes to an end but is nonetheless expected to be up 9 percent in November over the same month last year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Chocri is part of a fast-growing, web-based retail movement called “mass customization.” Consumers can now design their own foods, dress shirts, greeting cards and floral bouquets for relatively affordable prices — courtesy of a flock of eager entrepreneurs in New York City, a center of the trend.

_

Bailey, Banks & Biddle, which traces its roots back to 1832 in Philadelphia, is being revived. Five stores have already opened in Austin, Houston and Plano, Texas as well as St. Louis and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

The annual battle for the minds and wallets of toy-buying parents has gotten off to a particularly fierce start, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. slashing prices in an effort to keep Target Corp. from being the low-cost leader this holiday shopping season.