New Approach: J.Crew is now offering products from its Madewell brand in select stores, in an effort to bolster sales and drive traffic to its locations. Retail Dive reports that there will be six Madewell shop-in-shops within J.Crew stores, including locations in New York City and Florida. According to eMarketer's Retail Database, J.Crew's comparable sales decreased 9.0% in Q3 2017. 

Impulse Shoppers: Research from Slickdeals, a consumer-driven deal-sharing platform, reveals the average American makes 156 impulse purchases every year. And more than half of those purchases are for themselves. Meanwhile, roughly two-thirds of respondents said they've shopped impulsively when there was a deal. 

New Stake: Tencent and JD.com have bought minority stakes in China-based retail group Better Life. According to TechCrunch, Tencent and ecommerce giant Alibaba are both "busy building their brick-and-mortar retail investments to increase the number of stores that use their competing mobile payment services and ecommerce platforms."