Retail Stores

Modell's Sporting Goods has deployed cutting-edge technology in its Times Square flagship to welcome Super Bowl XLVIII fans. The sporting goods retailer has installed a virtual image of CEO Mitchell Modell to personally greet shoppers. The image is provided via Tensator's Virtual Assistant digital signage solution, which creates the illusion of a real person. The virtual Modell provides suggestions on Super Bowl gear, shares information on apparel, footwear, sporting goods and licensed team products, informs shoppers about the store's loyalty program, how to sign up and even gives directions on where to find certain items. 

On Wednesday morning, just hours after he wrapped up the State of the Union speech, President Obama will pay a visit to a Costco in Lanham, Maryland. There, he's likely to reinforce messages about raising the minimum wage and income inequality. It will hardly be the first time this administration has held up the discount behemoth as a model of corporate success. In his speech on the economy back in July, Obama hailed Costco as a company that "pays good wages and offers good benefits," proving "that this isn't just good for their business, it's good for America." 

Revenue growth may have slowed last year at Apple's retail stores, but the division remains one of the world's strongest and a key strategic focus of the tech giant's future. With revenue exceeding $20 billion for the fiscal year ended Sept. 28, Apple's brick-and-mortar unit exceeded the total annual revenue at big-name retailers such as Nordstrom, Gap and AutoNation. The stores are practically hallowed ground for entrepreneurs who supply accoutrements for Apple's "iOSphere." They say the cache and cash flow at Apple's retail outlets combine to make it a unique and unrivaled platform for introducing their products.

The retail landscape of 2014 is more digital than ever before, and integrating store and online operations is a key focus for retailers as e-commerce-capable solutions increasingly supplant traditional point-of-sale and mobile technologies. According to a new study conducted by the NRF, Demandware and the University of Arizona that polled more than 200 U.S. and European retail business technology executives, more than one-third (35.8 percent) said they're considering a single platform to manage interactions and transactions across all channels.

Best Buy's stock has plunged 43 percent since October. It's not exactly the turnaround shareholders hoped for. But StellaService data shows the retailer has made significant improvements in at least one very important business performance metric — speed of delivery. Many industry watchers are asking, "How is Best Buy going to compete with Amazon.com?" Obviously, speed of delivery is an area retailers are battling to best each other. It seems Best Buy has found an advantage. As Amazon continues to build warehouses nationwide with the goal of delivering packages faster, Best Buy has been leveraging infrastructure that's already in place.

Digital coupon use is at an all-time high, with more than 2 million Meijer shoppers now subscribed to the retailer's free mPerks program, and Meijer has made significant investments to make digital savings easier for its customers. The Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer now has free Wi-Fi capability in all its stores, making it easier for customers to access their mPerks accounts and Meijer's mobile app, freeing up their smartphone data plans for other uses. 

Sears is closing its downtown Chicago flagship outlet in April, the latest move by the retailer to cut the number of its stores as it relies more on online retailing. The store has lost "millions of dollars" since opening in 2001, a Sears spokesman said on Tuesday. The closing will leave Sears’ namesake chain without a store in the downtown core of its hometown. Sears is based in Hoffman Estates, Ill. In a blog post on Tuesday, Edward Lampert, Sears’ CEO and top shareholder, said store closings are necessary because shoppers’ habits are changing as they buy more online.

Online retail behemoth Amazon.com has begun invading the physical retail world with standalone, automated "Kindle Kiosks." The company chose a soft launch of these experimental kiosks for its e-reader, tablets and accessories, which began in November. GeekWire writers Todd Bishop and Taylor Soper report running into one in the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, where the kiosk had been installed right before the International Consumer Electronics show. A spokesperson for Amazon told GeekWire that the kiosks will be available in malls, airports and at various events to give consumers an additional way to purchase Kindle e-readers and tablets.

"We were surprised by the market decline," said Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, during a teleconference with analysts. "Everybody expected it to increase by 2 percent or 3 percent, but it declined by 2 percent." The electronics retailer also blamed aggressive sales from competitors, "supply constraints for key products" and fewer customers during the key week leading up to Christmas. Joly identified those key products as tablets and iPhones. Disappointing cell phone sales contributed to the 0.8 percent decline in same-store sales during the 2013 holiday season.

In yet another sign of its deep slump, J.C. Penney said on Wednesday that it would close 33 stores across the country and shed about 2,000 jobs. The company said in a statement that the closings and resulting job cuts would save about $65 million a year. One of the oldest retailers in the nation, J.C. Penney has undergone considerable management and investment turmoil in the last few years. It fired one chief executive, Ron Johnson, and then brought back his predecessor, Myron E. Ullman III.