Vancouver

Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.

You hear it over and over again — test, test, test — but how many of you are actually following that advice? Testing is a critical component to website optimization, and two companies that have taken heed of this fact are casual footwear retailer Crocs and women's fashion apparel brand Aritzia. In a session yesterday at the Demandware XChange conference in Las Vegas, Scott Keller, senior web developer at Aritzia, and Haley Nemann, senior manager of global e-commerce user experience at Crocs, discussed how their brands are using A/B testing to increase sales, decrease costs and increase customer engagement.

As one retailer closes the book on its Canadian operations, another is writing its first chapter there. Japanese-owned specialty store Uniqlo said Monday that it will open two flagship locations in Toronto in fall 2016, its first stores in Canada. It then plans to expand its presence with a shop in Vancouver. "Entering the Canadian market is a milestone for the company and a significant step in our growth strategy," said Larry Meyer, CEO of Uniqlo USA and Canada.

Sewing machines hum inside a spacious clothing boutique where the wife and son of lululemon athletica's founder hope to capture the retail magic that turned the yogawear maker into a stock market darling. Meet Kit and Ace, the brainchild of billionaire Chip Wilson's wife, former lululemon lead designer Shannon Wilson, who started the new streetwear venture with his son J.J. Backed entirely by Wilson family money, Kit and Ace has started with one store in the heart of Vancouver's artsy Gastown neighborhood.

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