Retail Stores

Discount grocer Aldi has opened its first-ever New York City-area store in the borough of Queens. The store, which is located in Rego Park, marks the first of three grocery stores the company plans to open in New York, including new locations in the Bronx and Bay Shore, Long Island.

Kmart will debut LYS — Love Your Style, Love Your Size — this month, a new and exclusive plus-size apparel line. The collection features trend-forward separates designed to flatter plus-size women of all shapes and sizes. 

Brown Shoe Company said it's acquired privately held athletic shoe maker American Sporting Goods Corp. for $145 million. The acquisition broadens the reach of Brown Shoe, which makes Dr. Scholl's, LifeStride, Franco Sarto and other brands and operates Naturalizer and Famous Footwear stores.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co.'s fiscal fourth-quarter net income nearly doubled on strong sales overseas and better U.S. results. The retailer reported net income of $92.6 million, up from $47.5 million a year ago. Revenue for the period ended Jan. 29 rose 23 percent to $1.15 billion, from $936 million.

So-called "augmented reality" is the overlaying of digital information onto the real world, and everyone from game designers to retailers to health care companies to estate agents are gearing up to use it. While the potential for such technology to change the world is vast, the biggest challenge for its backers will be to convert this virtual revolution into rock-solid profits. Fortunately, there are countless ways this can be achieved, but not all are immediately obvious.

Customer satisfaction in the retail and e-commerce industries is getting worse. There's no single reason for this, but it's likely that the recent economic downturn is one of the biggest factors.

Retailers’ sales rose 0.3 percent last month as consumers spent more on gasoline, autos and online goods, the Commerce Department reported. It was the smallest increase since last July, however.

To help meet customers' desire for immediacy during the shopping experience, Nordstrom President Blake Nordstrom announced that the retailer will deploy mobile devices for its store employees by this fall.

A new report by retail consulting and research firm Customer Growth Partners shows that department stores gained market share last year for the first time in nearly three decades. According to CGP's study, department stores' share of the U.S. retail market rose for the first time since the 1980s, fueled both by innovation and superior mall anchor execution combined with top-line weakness at the granddaddy of off-mall big-boxes, Walmart's U.S. division, which is now suffering through almost two years of lagging sales.

Clothing retailer Selfridges is displaying the Urban Mobility fashion collection as QR coded artwork. The installation is a unique blend of retail fashion, art and technology and probably demonstrates why Selfridges was voted "Best Department Store in the World" by the International Association of Department Stores.