aggregatedcontent

Online diamond retailer Blue Nile named retail industry veteran Harvey Kanter as its chief executive, effective March 30. Kanter replaces Vijay Talwar, who took the role on an interim basis after former CEO Diane Irvine resigned last November as the company struggled to pass rising diamond costs to consumers.

Today Amazon is offering $10 gift cards to its site for $5 through its daily-deal website AmazonLocal in a bid to draw consumers to the nine-month-old subsidiary. 

Daily-deals darling Fab.com announced that it's sold 1 million items and already hit 3 million users in the last nine months. The company does fall into the tired category of daily deals, but it's quickly finding a place in the hearts of online shoppers. Fab's deal curators find truly interesting items that make you think, "Oh, so that's what my life could look like if I was really cool." Chief Executive Jason Goldberg expects the company to continue growing rapidly.

For the first time ever, Sears has launched an online points redemption system for its 5 million-plus card members, becoming one of the first major retailers to have a loyalty program in Canada.

Gap has opened its first store in South Africa. The expansion in the region comes as the company is closing stores in North America and opening outlets in other emerging markets. 

An Office of Fair Trading investigation has found Groupon guilty of "widespread" breaches of consumer protection laws, relating to issues including the pricing, advertising and unfair terms attached to its daily deals.

As of March 10, an estimated 254 applicants had registered their intent to apply for generic top-level domains (gTLDs) or so-called dot-brands, each one having up to 50 new gTLDs, although "the actual number of new gTLDs for which application will be made is still unknown," according to an official advisory.

Less than a month after Sears Holdings signed a deal to sell 11 of its anchor pads to General Growth Properties , the company has brought in a new president of real estate development . David Lukes spent the past two years as president of Mall Properties Inc., but before that he was also a COO at Kimco Realty Corp. and director of development at Myers Development Company, according to his LinkedIn profile . According to comments made by Sears CEO Lou D’Ambrosio : Historically, Sears has selectively realized value

Amazon.com is making its biggest acquisition since the 2009 purchase of Zappos.com, agreeing to pay $775 million for Kiva Systems Inc., a maker of robots that move items around warehouses.