Retail Rebuild: A New App Offers Real-Time Marketing Analysis and Advice A new retailer gets a makeover while helping develop a web app for small-business owners.

Ted Williams' store on The Rock was in a hard place. After a grand Grand Opening for the 2008 holiday season, House to Home, his home décor shop in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, faltered quickly. Williams, formerly an executive with Piper's SuperStore, a Canadian mass-merchandise department store, was heartened by the customer response during the first few months.

"Then I started messing up," he says.

His brain and business ways were stuck in big-box land. Within seven months, Williams had sunk $40,000 into advertising. "I applied what I had learned in terms of marketing from my previous stint," he says.