Retail roundup: Piperlime store, Martha Stewart, Labor Day

-- Online retailer Piperlime is opening its first bricks-and-mortar shop in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan next week.

Piperlime, owned by San Francisco apparel giant Gap Inc., is set to launch the 4,000-square-foot shop Thursday.

The store will transform online pages and features such as top picks from celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe into sections of the store. Jennifer Gosselin, the brand’s general manager, told Bloomberg News that the store will carry clothes, shoes and jewelry priced from $49 to $600.

“In terms of experiencing the brand, it’s the difference between having a relationship over e-mail versus one in person,” Gosselin said.

-- A New York judge rejected a bid by Macy’s Inc. to block J.C. Penney Co. from selling a variety of Martha Stewart Living products.

Department store chain Macy’s sued J.C. Penney in January, claiming it had an exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart items in specific categories. A month earlier, J.C. Penney had announced a deal with the company founded by lifestyle maven Stewart.

In July, Judge Jeffrey Oing granted a preliminary injunction sought by Macy’s to stop Penney’s Martha Stewart deal from moving forward. But in a hearing this week, the judge decided against the injunction after all.

-- Labor Day weekend may actually be the best weekend for finding bargains, according to online shopping site Shop It to Me.

During last year’s Labor Day shopping period -- which stretched from the week before to the week after the official holiday weekend -- shoppers found discounts of 48.4% on average, according to data aggregated by the site.

Those deals trumped ones found during the New Year’s (44.2%) and Presidents Day (46.7%) periods and even Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which many consider prime time for bargain hunters and yet offered discounts averaging only 41% to 42%, the site said.

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