With the new school year just around the corner, parents are searching for the best deals on school supplies. According to a survey released on Tuesday by consulting group Deloitte, nine out of 10 people are planning to spend just as much or more than they did the previous year.

The survey was conducted between July 5 and July 12 and polled 1,134 parents with children that are attending grades K-12. This survey follows the results from a poll by The National Retail Federation that indicated the average parent will spend up to 14 percent more on school supplies this year.

This survey also reported that polled parents who plan to spend less than $100 has dropped by half to only 9 percent this year. Conversely, consumers who are expecting to spend more than $500 have risen by 27 percent.

“What really stood out to me is I think I had an expectation that consumers would be a little more glum than they turned out to be,” Alison Paul, vice chairwoman at Deloitte and the retail and distribution sector leader, told NBC News.

As retailers prepare for this increase in sales, they might benefit by the retail merchandising applications offered by Retail Pro.

On Tuesday, CNBC was given a tour of the new JC Penney store design. The retail giant has been in the news lately after announcing it would no longer be offering coupons to its customers. JC Penney is now offering a complete overhaul of its pricing to give customers the lowest prices daily.

Although JC Penney saw a small bump in the market since the announcement of its new store design, the retailer’s stock price has gone down by up to 50 percent since February. But the stock price isn’t what concerns CEO Ron Johnson. “We’re just trying to retrain our customers and do a lot of good work,” he told the news network.

Johnson began his retail career at Target and helped to launch Apple’s retail stores.  JC Penney is rebranding with a new spokesperson, a new logo and new pricing to keep its items priced up to 40 percent lower.

“We want customers to shop on their terms, not ours,” Johnson told Forbes. “By setting our store monthly and maintaining our best prices for an entire month, we feel confident that customers will love shopping when it is convenient for them, rather than when it is expedient for us

As JC Penney continues to revamp its image, the retailer could improve customer service relations with the POS software solutions offered by Retail Pro.

News for the U.K. retail sector continues to look bleak. A new report indicates companies' retail point-of-sale systems are seeing reducing use, as shop numbers fall.

The British Retail Consortium-Bond Pearce Retail Employment Monitor, which began in 2008, reported the first fall in the number of shops since October 2008. According to the report, the number of retail outlets fell by 0.5 percent year-over-year.

Additionally, the drop in the number of high street shops coinciding with the shrinking of the U.K. economy by 0.7 percent, a figure that belies its magnitudes and extends the country's douple-dip recession.

Even the nation's landmark celebrations, such as the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, have provided limited help. "Big events like the Jubilee celebrations provided a limited boost to employment levels but underlying weakness in the economy and consumer confidence continue to hit sales and job numbers in non-food retailing," said BRC director general Stephen Robertson.

Still, British retailers are hopeful that the Olympics will boost shops as well as leisure and hospitality sectors.

 
Next to Christmas, back to school sales are the largest for retail giants like Wal-Mart, Target and Staples. In order to fight online sales, retailers are giving customers pricing unlike anything they have seen before. According to the National Retail Foundation, parents are looking to spend more than ever on back-to-school supplies for their children.

"If there's money out there to be had, they feel like they need to get it now in case months from now people aren't feeling so fabulous," Wendy Liebmann, CEO of consulting group WSL Strategic Retail, told USA Today.

Some retailers are even cashing in on back-to-school sales through special promotions. Wal-Mart has launched a deal that is aimed toward students and teachers alike, allowing certain products such as paperclips, erasers and pencils to sell for as little as 88 cents.

Staples has offered a special promotion where students can exchange their old binders for a $2 discount for new units. Other stores are cashing in on web sales. Target extended its Black Friday pricing to apparel and electronics for its online customers.

 
With online sales soaring, lawmakers are calling for a revival of Internet sales tax. Since the 1992 Supreme Court ruling that merchants without a physical storefront in a state are not responsible for collecting sales tax, online retailers have not had to collect it. Although it is not clear whether a new bill calling for sales tax will make it to the floor before the end of the year, According to NBC News a House Judiciary Committee would like a change.

Online sales accrue an estimated $20 billion a year, a figure that many believe could help with the rising deficits of many states. One of the most amazing aspects about the proposed sales tax is the fact that it has so much support from both parties.

Bill Haslam, the governor of Tennessee, told NBC News that he believes the bill would only be “collecting taxes already owed.” The National Retail Federation is supporting the bill in an effort to combat “showrooming.” Showrooming is where a customer will go to a physical store to look at a product and then go home to purchase it online in order to avoid tax.

As more about this bill comes to light, ecommerce stores and physical retailers could see an upsurge of purchases. In an effort to deliver the best in customer service, the POS software solutions offered by Retail Pro could help benefit this increase in sales.

As the United States economic slowdown continues, retailers are seeing a boom in emerging markets overseas. Luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and L’Oreal are seeing a large demand from China.

The second-quarter revenue of L’Oreal climbed by about 12 percent this year, leaving the Paris-based company with 5.57 billion euro in revenue, Bloomberg reports. Other luxury brands such as Gucci and Givenchy and Fendi are also seeing profits skyrocket in the Asian markets.

“In a world where companies are struggling with diving European demand and media are awash with bad news, luxury-goods companies like LVMH and PPR seem to be coming from another planet,” Luca Solca, global head of the European equities department at CA Cheureux, told Bloomberg.

Bain & Co, a global management consulting firm, estimates that the luxury market in Asia-Pacific could expand by as much as 16 percent this year, the news source reports. These estimates exclude China, which is forecast to expand by as much as 22 percent. 

As these companies begin to prepare for growth in the Asian markets, they could benefit from the retail solutions provided by Retail Pro. Retail Pro’s retail management software and store merchandising applications are designed to help retailers track sales and inventory.

It’s no secret that Facebook is the source of millions of connections, but the social media platform is starting to become a relevant source for small business retail sales. According to The New York Times, small business Facebook pages are starting to replace the old means of marketing.

This form of marketing is easy and free, making it an excellent source for drumming up new business. However, small businesses will need to stay ahead of the curve to keep their storefront pages fresh.

“Because Facebook storefronts can look generic, small businesses have to find ways to differentiate themselves,” said Jay Bean, OrangeSoda’s chief executive of online marketing, in an interview with the newspaper.

The new Facebook storefronts pages allow users to upload pictures of their store, staff and products in an effort to show potential customers how their business is different from the competition.

“Unlike larger businesses, small businesses can build on their personal relationships to end users,” Wendy Tan-White, the chief executive of Moonfruit, a company that helps businesses create e-commerce websites and online stores, told the Times.

When customers tag their own photos of products, they have the ability to link to the small business from which they purchased the product. This can help businesses grow through viral marketing.

As store operations begin to grow with Facebook, retailers could be looking into expanding retail management systems. Retail Pro’s POS software applications could help stores deliver excellent customer service through their diverse line of ecommerce software.

 
U.S. retailers are beginning to look at Canada as a viable location for expansion. However, space might be an issue. Canadian news sources are reporting that Bloomingdale's could possibly be in negotiations with Hudson’s Bay Co., a Toronto-based firm that currently owns Lord & Taylor, as well as the popular Canadian department store Zellers.

According to the Globe and Mail, if Bloomingdale's does expand into Canada, it will not be a stand-alone store. Instead, the major U.S. retailer will be located within select Bay locations.

"The Bay now has to protect itself because they've got a strong competitor on the lower end with Target, so they might as well get in on the upper edge with Bloomingdale's," said Don Gregor, Aurora Realty Consultant’s national vice president, in an interview with Globe And Mail.
This could be a winning move for Bloomingdale's. Rental space for a stand-alone store ranged from $30 to $120 per square foot in 2010 and has seen a 6 percent increase over the last two years, according to Cushman & Wakefield research.

“Even though there is a lot of retail development under way, in most Canadian markets there is very low vacancy and there has been an increase in lease rates,” said James Smerdon, director of retail and consulting with Colliers, a Vancouver-based firm, told Global Edmonton.

In the event that U.S. retailers do expand their operations to Canada, they might benefit from retail solutions, such as the POS software offered by Retail Pro.
 

British retailers are hoping the impending 2012 London Olympics, which begin this Friday, will put to use their POS software and boost an ailing sector.

In the first half of this year alone, the U.K. has seen high street retailers such as Game Group, Clinton Cards, Aquascutum and Peacocks go under, and signs for the second half of the year don't look promising either. The question then on retailers' minds is whether the Olympics can bear fruit in the form of revenue.

A recent article in Retail Week has a hopeful tone, as the source reports that estimates suggest that the Olympics will represent a cash injection into London of more than $400 million. While much of this cash will be spent on hotels, food and transportation, retailers are still likely to benefit.

However, the source still has a few words of warning. "For London-based retailers, the Olympics may even prove disruptive to the throngs that normally crowd along Oxford Street," Retail Week explains. "Retailers are much more likely to see durable benefits if the current good weather is sustained and consumers are treated to a real Indian summer."

A growing number of retailers in the U.S. are standing out from the competition by carrying unique merchandise from developing nations. Recent legal changes and fair-trade developments have made it easier for artisanal cooperatives in countries like Morocco, Afghanistan, and Rwanda to produce and distribute high-quality goods to prominent retailers in U.S. markets, providing an opportunity for both groups to mutually benefit.    

While fair-trade groups have been helping disadvantaged producers for over a half century, the economic trend in recent decades has undeniably been globalization. Inexpensive manufactured imports have frequently made local and traditional production prohibitively expensive, even in industrialized western nations. But consumer demand is now shifting toward unique crafts as mass-produced, name-brand goods become increasingly ubiquitous in retail stores.

Ironically, the same trends of globalization that once threatened traditional goods have now made them luxury items. With the recent relaxation of U.S. import duties and innovative fair-trade distribution models, traditional handicraft can now reach new markets to satisfy demand for unique products. As a result, artisans in developing nations are experiencing a sort of cultural and economic renaissance. The newfound profitability of hand-made wares has sparked renewed interest in traditional production methods and local cultural identities. Centuries-old techniques for making classical Moroccan rugs and woven east-African baskets now effectively add authenticity – and value.

Today, shoppers at Macy’s can purchase a ‘Peace Basket’, a traditional hand-woven basket produced by Rwandan women who survived the country’s genocide in 1992. The group behind these baskets – Gahaya Links – has grown from 27 women in 2004 to over 4,500 artisans in more than 40 cooperatives across Rwanda.

In recent years, profits from traditional goods sold at U.S. retailers have improved the livelihoods of people across the world. Sales have funded plumbing for villages in Tibet, construction of new public facilities in Ecuador, and have mended societal bonds in Rwanda. “Through this kind of association where we meet every day, spending all day together, it makes you understand one another and forgive one another,” said Janet Nkubana, co-founder of Gahaya Links.

For retailers in the U.S., traditional goods represent an opportunity to diversity offerings by providing one-of-a-kind merchandise with significant cultural back-stories. In addition to Macy’s collection of goods from Gahaya Links, other retailers like Anthropologie, Same Sky, and Kate Spade have started selling a wide range of similar artisanal goods. For retailers and producers alike, this new trend is providing wealth and competitive advantage.