Staples

Staples has announced a partnership with 3D Systems to provide 3-D printing services at two of its retail locations. Customers can bring their 3-D print-ready files to have them printed at Staples’ stores on 5th Avenue in Manhattan and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. "We believe that literally millions of small businesses and customers could benefit from the technology," said Damien Leigh, senior vice president of business services for Staples. "We wanted to educate businesses so they can get involved with 3-D printing at a fraction of the cost because right now they don't understand it."

With retailers from Wal-Mart to Staples talking about building smaller stores, you'd think that's the direction the industry is heading. This is until you see what Restoration Hardware is doing. Restoration Hardware shares on Friday surged up to 14 percent in its biggest daily percentage gain since June after the retailer of luxury home furnishings erased fears that it would follow other retailers and report disappointing results after a shorter holiday selling season and wintry weather that led to store closings. Instead, it reported a fourth-quarter profit in line with its prior forecast.

eBay Now is a same-day delivery service, but not for items offered on eBay.com by its millions of sellers — at least not yet. Instead, the eBay Now service is exclusively for local brick-and-mortar retailers in certain cities: San Francisco and the Peninsula, San Jose, parts of New York City, Chicago, and Dallas. While Best Buy, AutoZone and Toys"R"Us were among the first retailers to participate in eBay Now, the list of retailers now participating include the following featured stores: Home Depot; Office Depot; Walgreens; GNC; Radio Shack; Macys; Microsoft; Guitar Center; Bloomingdale's; and Urban Outfitters.

Despite our nation's climb out of the deepest of its economic troubles, many Americans are still struggling to meet their monthly obligations. If you've created a personal budget, are paying down your debts and keeping your bills in check, but still having difficulties, you may want to think about generating additional income in your spare time. One of the most intriguing ways to do this is with an internet reselling business. If you work hard and approach it intelligently, online reselling can evolve into a solid and consistent stream of income. Here's how to get started:

These are rough times for America's brick-and-mortar retailers. Last week, it was Radio Shack announcing plans to close 20 percent of its stores and Staples shuttering 12 percent in North America. Last week, it was Best Buy, announcing plans to cut 2,000 managers. Before that, Blockbuster going out of business, or J.C. Penney reporting another round of bad, bad news. Battered by the economy and the growth of e-commerce, the signs of decline of the American retailer have been many and hard to miss. 

Staples on Thursday joined its smaller rival, newly combined Office Depot Inc. and OfficeMax, in reporting disappointing sales and bottom-line earnings, adding to worries about the the future of the office supplies industry. Despite hope that the company may be able to pick up some market share from the merger disruption of its rivals, Staples’ results showed that the headwinds thrown the industry are simply too big to offset any edge it may have over its direct rival. 

Staples will close 225 stores in North America by the middle of next year as the office supply retailer tries to trim costs in the face of weaker sales. The store closings will come to about 12 percent of its stores in North America. The closings build upon the 40 stores it closed in the region in 2013. Staples said it's aiming to save $500 million annually through the closings and other cost-cutting measures. The announcement comes two days after electronics retailer RadioShack announced plans to close up to 1,100 stores, or about 20 percent of its locations.

Staples is testing a SMS program to see how customers respond when they receive offers on their phones as part of a broader strategy to cater to mobile shoppers both in-store and online. The text messaging test is being promoted via signage in all stores and is the office supplies retailer's first attempt at leveraging SMS to activate shoppers. During the test, Staples will be focused on how to deliver content that's relevant to consumers on an ongoing basis. "We're in the early stages," said Faisal Masud, executive vice president of global e-commerce at Staples. 

The first computer I ever bought was a Tandy TRS-80 I got at RadioShack in the mid-1980s. There was no floppy drive, no operating system, no internet connection and no hard drive. I used a tape recorder to save data, but I still felt pretty cutting edge, even if it was largely an expensive paperweight, since I had no programming skills and used it like a big calculator. While those were also the halcyon days of RadioShack, the electronics retailer would like 2014 to be the start of a new golden age.

This past January, as I've done for the past five years or so, I trekked into New York City's Jacob Javits Convention Center for the National Retail Federation's (NRF) Big Show. I was met, as I was in past years as well, by retailers from around the world. I spent time at this year's conference attending presentations and press conferences; meeting and interviewing retail industry execs in the press room; and walking the vast exhibit hall floors trying to find the "next big things" in retail technology. Here are a few of my takeaways