Palo Alto

Bloomingdale's gave the media a sneak preview on Oct. 7 of its new, three-level, 125,000-square-foot store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif., a mall smack dab in the birthplace of high tech. When the curtain was pulled back, it revealed something akin to the land of Oz, at least compared to the store that preceded it. The glitzy new store contains a wide array of tech innovations to make shopping easier, and will be a petri dish of sorts to test the new gadgetry to see what early adopters like best.

Global retail giant Walmart demonstrated more of their commitment to the electronic commerce side of selling goods with another acquisition. The company picked up a Palo Alto-based predictive...

Google is finally opening up its Google Shopping Express service to the public today, with the same day delivery service being made available as a test to select users in San Francisco and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose. Participating retailers include, as we've previously reported: Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle, Toys"R"Us/Babies"R"Us, Office Depot, San Francisco's Blue Bottle Coffee, Raley's Nob Hill Foods, and Palo Alto Toy & Sport.

Apple is building a new store in the heart of Silicon Valley with an extremely high-bandwidth connection to one of the internet's major hubs. With the 16,600-square-foot, two-story store, Apple will be trying out a "new prototype" of its retail environment, according to documents filed with the architectural review board in Palo Alto, Calif., where the store is located. Along with the familiar all-glass storefront and the prominent use of stone, the new store will include interior trees and a skylight. 

As it watched its biggest competitor file for bankruptcy and cease operating, Barnes & Noble knew that a change to its business model was necessary for its survival. Specifically, that change meant shifting its focus to becoming a digital book seller. In his keynote address at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago yesterday, William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble, detailed how the bookstore chain has used the web to redefine and grow its business.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Old Navy has become the latest retailer to partner with Shopkick, a shopping mobile app that rewards shoppers for walking into stores. Customers who have the shopkick app on their smartphones will be able to receive walk-in rewards at any of Old Navy's nearly 1,000 U.S. locations, Shopkick reported. To celebrate, Old Navy will offer $10 off of a $40 purchase plus 150 Shopkick reward points for the partnership's first weekend (Nov. 10 to 13), available exclusively through the Shopkick app: shopkick.com/oldnavy, according to a company press release. The Shopkick app works by detecting a