Retail

After more than 100 years of calling Framingham home, Avery Dennison Retail Branding and Information Solutions has moved its headquarters next door to Westborough, the company announced.

Still waiting for the final sales tallies, retailers on Tuesday reported a robust tax-free holiday weekend. Unlike previous years, this year's tax-free holiday shopping spree began before last weekend with many retailers offering pre-weekend sales throughout the month. “There were so many promotions where you got the reductions, but you technically paid the sales tax,” said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

Retailers saw a slight 0.2-percent increase in sales last month, in line with analysts' expectations, but year over year, sales jumped 5.4 percent, indicating growing strength in consumer spending.

Calling it “too late” for a legislative solution, proponents of expanding the state's 5-cent bottle deposit law to more types of beverage containers said they are taking their decade-long fight to the people, filing a ballot petition with the attorney general Wednesday afternoon.

The 6.25-percent sales tax will be temporarily suspended the weekend of Aug. 10 and 11, under a bill that sailed through the Legislature Wednesday and is expected to get the governor's signature, making it law.

As more communities decide to ban consumer products like plastic bags, Styrofoam, plastic water bottles or certain sized sodas, retailers want the Legislature to step in to stop a practice they say is a burden to businesses.

Though the Mall at Whitney Field has struggled in recent years, losing key anchor tenants and falling into foreclosure in 2010, Vintage Real Estate Chairman Fred Sands doesn't view his company's recent purchase of the Leominster mall as a risky venture.

Four new tenants will open this fall after signing leases with the Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough, according to Ken Brown, area mall manager for the owner Simon Property Group.

Marlborough's Solomon Pond Mall is one of 13 Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG) malls in New England that will soon offer a way for customers to charge their electronics on site.

Looking to merge its brick-and-mortar presence with its title as second-largest Internet retailer, Framingham-based office products company Staples has launched its first two “omnichannel stores.”