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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Is Amazon Prime Overvalued?
Analysts in recent years have strongly supported Amazon.com, as its questionable strategy in the early years has paid off. Now comes word that Amazon’s Prime subscription plan may not be…
Survey Says Retailer Prepared Foods as Good as Restaurants
New research from Technomic shows that a growing percentage of consumers believe that prepared foods in retail stores are not only cheaper than similar items in restaurants, but the quality…
Quidsi Keeps the New Websites Coming
Quidsi is following a familiar path as it continues to roll out sites in new categories similar to what it was doing before being acquired by Amazon.com in 2010. What…
Girl Scouts Are Prepared to Grab Market Share
The Girl Scouts are taking their “Be prepared” motto to heart with some recent steps, like pop-up stores and accepting credit cards, designed to help the group drive incremental sales…
CPGmatters: CPG Marketers Ready to Roll with Holograms
The jig is up for counterfeiters of free and high-value coupons. Most consumer packaged goods marketers will issue coupons bearing a special standardized hologram sometime during the first half of…
Flash Sale Sites Lead to Full-Price Purchases
While a larger number of consumers have been drawn to luxury fashion courtesy of flash sale sites, new research from American Express Business Insights shows that consumers are spending more…
Survey Says: Social Media Efforts More Talk Than Walk
New research shows that while an overwhelming percentage of marketing executives use social media and believe in its power to help their businesses, most dedicate little in the way of…
Loblaw CEO Gets Dramatic, Questions Safety of Farmers’ Markets
Galen Weston, executive chairman of the Canadian supermarket giant Loblaws, created an uproar last week after he made an off-the-cuff remark questioning the safety of food from farmers’ markets. Are…
Smaller Boxes Work for Whole Foods
Whole Foods Markets’ push to target smaller markets with smaller stores is performing well above expectations. The success is encouraging Whole Foods to more aggressively pursue smaller market openings. What…
McCormick’s Flagship Spices Up Retail
McCormick & Co., the spice and flavoring company, plans to open its first store, McCormick World of Flavors, this summer at the popular Harborplace tourist attraction in Baltimore. Do you…
Buyers Can Choose More Pink for Their Little Girls
Legos were initially created to be gender neutral, but the company a few years ago made a research based decision to focus on kits for boys. Perhaps not surprisingly, some…
And Google Plans to Open a Store, Too (Maybe)
On the heels of the rumors that Amazon is planning to open its first store comes speculation that Google is looking to open its first standalone location in Dublin, Ireland…
Peapod Makes Mass Transit Connection with Commuters
Peapod has indeed set up a virtual store system on transit station ad boards owned by Titan in Philadelphia. Titan is the largest transit advertising company operating in North America…
FD Buyer: ‘We Only Know Today’
Joe Kent took a leave of absence from his job in January 2010 to travel through Central and South America with his wife and daughters. The trip was a life-changer…
BrainTrust Query: Facebook IPO Puts Relationships at the Center of Business
With its user base reportedly reaching 845 million users globally, Facebook measurements are largely all bigger than life. Amidst the eye-popping numbers included in Faceook’s S1 filing, founder Mark Zuckerberg’s…
Rumor Mill: The Amazon Store is Coming
A report last weekend by Good EReader said that Amazon, similar to its Quidsi division, was tinkering with the idea of opening a small store in Seattle to show off…
The Future of Home Shopping: An App
Many a year has passed since shopping channels launched, but the ability to make purchases directly through our television sets has been long in coming. Now Marks & Spencer has…
Walmart: New Nutrition Labeling Program is ‘Great For You’
Walmart has now officially launched its “Great For You” labeling program, entering the space of providing nutrition information to shoppers with the hope it will lead them to healthier eating…
Looking Smart: New Gen Digital Signage Raises Performance Bar
Digital signage for retail, at least partially written off with the advent of smartphones and tablet computers, may be back in vogue with a few high tech twists. Do you…
PL Buyer: The Next Step for PL Packaging
A few private label experts were asked by Private Label Buyer in a recent roundtable what were the major packaging trends to watch for in 2012. The answers included: sustainability,…
Tesco Teams Up With ‘Facebook for Groceries’
Tesco recently signed up with a new social network website that describes itself as “the world’s first personalized social shopping platform for groceries.” How appealing would Foodie.fm’s promised social networking…
