Retail Stores

More than 85 percent of retailers surveyed at the annual Shop.org Retail Summit in Boston by CashStar were concerned about the lack of personalization of gift cards. Additionally, the survey found that almost half of all retailers surveyed planned to offer e-gifting this holiday season and 44 percent were looking at location-based deals as a key element of their mobile marketing strategy.

Kohl's is celebrating the grand opening of 30 new stores, bringing approximately 4,000 new jobs across 20 states. “We are pleased to be in a position to create thousands of jobs, as Kohl’s continues to focus on growing market share in a challenging economy,” said Kevin Mansell, Kohl's chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Ghouls and goblins galore, Halloween celebrations will be BOOming this year as more people than ever are expected to partake in traditional festivities. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2011 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey conducted by BIGresearch, seven in 10 Americans (68.6 percent) plan to celebrate Halloween.

Toys"R"Us unveiled a brand redesign for Imaginarium that will be translated throughout all its offerings, marking continued investment in the company's portfolio of exclusive brands. The new logo gives a fresh look to the specialty learning brand and encourages consumers to "Just Imagine," while the introduction of 50 new products promote childhood development by stimulating visual, auditory and manual senses.

Fashionistas who are following the latest runway collections being shown this month have the opportunity, beginning this season, to buy some of those looks, from designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs and Derek Lam, right from magazine websites. 

At shopping malls and big-box stores, it seems Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year. Retailers claim they're simply responding to consumer demand. "Forty percent of our consumers that we surveyed have told us that they're shopping for the Christmas holidays already," said Mike Gatti of the National Retail Federation. But retailers have other motivations, too. Concerns are growing that the global economy could be headed into another recession, and retailers did not exactly have a scintillating holiday season last year.

Routines are easy to fall into. Whether it’s getting ready for work and out the door each morning or tackling customer acquisition and conversion strategies, you’ll never discover a better way to approach these tasks if you stay inside your comfort zone. Similarly, it’s easy to recycle tried-and-true approaches to your retail strategies, especially for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Bed Bath & Beyond's aggressive promotional strategy appears to be paying off as the company reported another quarter of strong sales. The company reported that net sales for the fiscal second quarter of 2011 were approximately $2.314 billion, an increase of approximately 8.3 percent from net sales of approximately $2.137 billion reported in the fiscal second quarter of 2010. Comparable store sales in the fiscal second quarter of 2011 increased by approximately 5.6 percent, compared with an increase of approximately 7.4 percent in last year's fiscal second quarter.

Casual Male Retail Group has opened its eighth Destination XL (DXL) location to date, in Westport, Conn. DXL is Casual Male’s new superstore format, housing Casual Male’s four existing apparel businesses: Casual Male XL, Rochester Big & Tall, Shoes XL and B&T Direct. The company plans to open up to 12 DXL stores during the balance of 2011, another 20 stores to 30 stores during 2012 and approximately 100 stores over a four-year to five-year period.

People are changing their shopping behavior and will spend less overall this holiday season, according to a new survey from SteelHouse. More than four out of five (82 percent) survey respondents said their shopping behavior will change this holiday season.