Retail Stores

In addition to the general devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy, including at least 46 deaths in the U.S. and millions without power, the "superstorm" has forced Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Lowe's, Best Buy, Macy's and Apple to close hundreds of their stores.

As e-commerce grows in popularity, brick-and-mortar retailers are finding themselves losing more and more sales to online outlets like Amazon.com. But how are some of the most successful brick-and-mortar retailers holding their own against online retail?

Hurricane Sandy is threatening to reduce sales of clothing and holiday gifts during one of the most important shopping months of the year, while benefiting supermarkets and home-improvement stores such as Home Depot Inc.

GameStop announced Friday it has unveiled a new store concept called GameStop Kids and will open 80 holiday stores in U.S. malls. GameStop Kids stores will feature an assortment of the most popular video games and accessories, toy brands and collectibles, showcased in temporary mall spaces. The first GameStop Kids location opened Friday at the Grapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine, Texas, with all other locations opening in the coming days and weeks, according to the company.

Williams-Sonoma announced that its West Elm division will launch a neighborhood market format, called West Elm Market, on Oct. 25, in Brooklyn N.Y. The Brooklyn store will be followed by the opening of eight Market in-store shops in West...

Tadashi Yanai, CEO of Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing, is incorporating technology not just into the promotions of his company’s products, but also into the products themselves. Uniqlo partners with high-tech suppliers to develop clothes made from fabrics like HeatTech, which “creates heat to warm you up and keep you warm.” Uniqlo’s technical approach to fashion has made it one of the most successful retailers in the world. Will Uniqlo’s success have an affect on the future of retail?

As online shopping becomes increasingly mainstream, many consumers are using traditional stores as a "showroom" for later online purchases. A survey from CouponCabin.com reveals that more than four in 10 (43 percent) smartphone or tablet owners have "showroomed" — i.e., used their mobile device to research and examine merchandise in a brick and mortar store without purchasing it there, then gone online to search for the same product at a lower price. This online survey was conducted nationwide by Harris Interactive on behalf of CouponCabin.com from Sept. 18 to Sept. 20, with 2,361 U.S. adults aged 18 and older responding.

This week's top article of the week (as determined by readers’ clickthroughs) is an article/video hybrid that details J.C. Penney's new store-within-a-store layout. Retail Online Integration's Online Content Editor Caitlin Sullivan attended the grand opening of Penney's newest store at the Willow Grove Park mall in surburban Philadelphia to capture what this new retail strategy is all about. Check out her report. This leads me to a more broad discussion regarding the future of brick-and-mortar retail stores.

Breast cancer activists have accused Etsy of using breast cancer as a marketing tool without doing enough to help the cause. It's an alleged example of "pinkwashing," the corporate practice of selling pink products that don't actually fulfill their claims about donating toward breast cancer prevention. This week, a newsletter titled Tickled Pink, encouraged subscribers to buy bright pink handmade merchandise in order to "show your love to the women in your life." However, one blogger discovered that out of 24 products featured, only eight actually claim to support breast cancer causes, and some tenuously at that.

The team at eTail Boston 2012 set up a survey of more than 100 top retailers to find out what they planned to spend their marketing dollars on in the next three months, six months and 12 months. This graphic sums up their responses, and you can see an even more in-depth version of the data by downloading the full benchmarking report.