Retail Stores

Why would Amazon give up its precious tax advantage? This week, as part of an excellent investigative series on the firm, the Financial Times' Barney Jopson reports that Amazon's tax capitulation is part of a major shift in the company's operations.

Apple's Cupertino headquarters may be just a few miles away from San Francisco, but the city won't be spending any more cash on the retailer's products. According to TheWall Street Journal, city agencies in San Francisco will no longer be able to purchase Apple products after the company asked the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) — the group that sets environmental standards for electronics — to remove all 39 of its products from the agency's green registry.

Customers love in-store pickup, and there are lots of benefits to the retailers who deploy it, but there are still many who are afraid of it for fear of complicating in-store processes.

Discount retailer Target is partnering with upscale department store chain Neiman Marcus to offer a limited-edition holiday collection, including apparel, gifts and other items. The retailers said Tuesday that they've assembled 24 leading designers to create the product collection, which is slated to become available Dec. 1 at all 1,763 Target stores and 42 Neiman Marcus stores, as well as on the Target.com and NeimanMarcus.com websites.

Signature, a mobile app company that bills itself as the "ultimate personal shopping assistant," is looking to re-engineer the way consumers shop in stores — namely, the stores of upscale clothing retailers. The San Francisco-based startup has partnered with Neiman Marcus to develop a custom iPhone app to better facilitate communications between stores and consumers.

Apple has more retail stores in Pennsylvania than in all of China — where it earns a fifth of its revenue — and a slow pace of expansion may cost the firm more than just sales.

Blame it on poor performance data or short attention spans, but the daily deal space has lost the attention of many in the media and research community. Forrester, for one, recently projected minimal success for such sites. A new study funded by Rice University, however, portrays a strong sector with no signs slowing down.

With everyone from brands to magazines tripping over themselves to ramp up e-commerce these day, it seems counterintuitive that online-only retailers are tapping back into the perks of shopping in the physical world. But they are.

Retailers reported largely disappointing sales in June, as consumers pulled back on spending amid concerns about jobs and the economy. Thomson Reuters was expecting its same-store sales index to inch up 0.5 percent in June, far weaker than a year-ago when the index rose 6.7 percent in June. June tends to be a weaker month on the retail calendar with fewer reasons to drive shoppers to the store.

Best Buy Co. appears to be taking a bite out of the Apple Store concept as it begins to implement its turnaround strategy.