Retail Stores

The store known as 11 Furniture copies Ikea's blue and yellow color scheme, mock-up rooms, miniature pencils, signage and even its rocking chair designs. Its cafeteria-style restaurant, complete with minimalist wooden tables, has a familiar look, although the menu features Chinese-style braised minced pork and eggs instead of Ikea's Swedish meatballs and salmon.

Kohl's is helping customers take a stand against breast cancer with Fila Sport's athletic merchandise designed exclusively for the Kohl's Cares cause merchandise program. One hundred percent of the net profit donated to support the fight against breast cancer.

Retailers with unique business models — and those with both the means and the fortitude to expand while others contracted or stood pat — are the stars of the 2011 edition of the STORES Hot 100 Retailers. The top of the list illustrates this abundantly with the likes of Amazon, Apple and Netflix, each with a distinctive enough approach to retail to preclude having a major rival operating in the same space.

Vitamin Shoppe reported that net income in the second quarter increased 64 percent to $11.95 million, compared with $7.3 million in the year-ago period. The retailer cited strong sales both in-store and online for its improved performance.

Westfield Group, a shopping center operator, agreed to invest $612.5 million to develop the retail part of New York’s World Trade Center. Westfield invested in the retail concourse at the original trade center six weeks before it was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and sold its stake back to the Port Authority in December 2003.

Whole Foods' workers past and present — newly liberated by one Canadian employee's explosive kiss-off memo gone viral — reveal to Gawker what truly goes on behind the doors of the world's most "humanity-friendly" supermarket chain.

Williams-Sonoma is planning a U.K. launch in 2012, according to a report by The Independent newspaper. The report said the company has appointed a U.K. retail property agent and plans to open its first store in the first half of next year.

Build-A-Bear Workshop reported that it narrowed its loss in the quarter ended July 2 to $6.7 million, compared with a loss of $8.5 million in the year-ago period. The retailer increased total revenue 10 percent to $81.8 million, and consolidated same-store sales 7.1 percent.

David Beckham has teamed up with fashion retailer H&M on a new bodywear range. The soccer star has been working on his line for the last year and has secured an exclusive deal with the Swedish retailer. Beckham’s new underwear range will be stocked in over 1,800 H&M stores across 40 countries around the world.  

GameStop is making it easier for PC gamers to get their hands on hot new releases. Exclusively at GameStop, customers can now use any accepted form of payment, including trade credit and GameStop gift cards, to purchase digital PC games at their local store and access the titles immediately at launch.