RECENT discussions
Discussions
Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Amazon Opens Black Friday Deals Store
While brick and mortar retailers are trying to figure out if they should open at the strike of midnight on Black Friday, e-tailers are unconcerned. But Amazon.com has launched its…
Macy’s Investing $400 Million to Remodel NYC Flagship
Macy’s Herald Square is about to get bigger and shinier with a four-year remodeling project that Macy’s expects will cost $400 million. What do you think of the investment Macy’s…
RSR Research: The New Disciplines of Market Leaders
In the early 2000s, the book “The Discipline of Market Leaders” by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema was often quoted, with its model showing three potential areas of market leadership…
Retailers Plan to Limit Holiday Discounts
Giving things away makes it pretty difficult to turn a profit, so retailers are planning on playing it a bit closer to the vest this holiday season when it comes…
GameStop to Debut Tablet Device
Back in April, when RetailWire ran a story/discussion on plans by GameStop to explore the development of its own tablet device, reaction was generally positive. Now comes word that GameStop…
Social Media Doesn’t Stink (But Your Marketing Might)
Hardly a day goes by that there isn’t at least one article that debates the inherent value of social media. One recent article actually suggested we go to the extent…
Lowe’s Launches Home-Management Tool
Recently, Lowe’s officially launched MyLowe’s, an online tool to help customers manage their homes. The service assists consumers with project management, enabling them to create room-by-room profiles of their homes…
Target Sets Midnight Opening for Black Friday
Among the first retailers to show its holiday-promotion cards, Target Corp. said Friday that its stores will for the first time open at midnight on Thanksgiving Day. What effect will…
BrainTrust Query: Extra Tagging – Smart Marketing or Not?
Deal-mania is everywhere, from the freakish examples of Extreme Couponers on TV to the daily deals and, the old standard, the Sunday paper inserts. But the extent of “panic couponing”…
Is Trader Joe’s Suffering From an Identity Crisis?
Trader Joe’s is opening bigger stores to accommodate the many fans that flock to its locations wherever they open. While the size change is not dramatic, a concern is whether…
Amazon CEO Doing It His Way, Not Wall Street’s
There must be something in the water in Washington state that produces contrarian CEOs. Jim Sinegal, former CEO of Costco, was famous for rebuffing calls by analysts and investors. Also…
CPGmatters: Has In-Store Implementation Reached Its Moment of Truth?
With a mandate of finding ways to run stores more efficiently, the In-Store Implementation (ISI) Network hosted “Sense & Perform,” a pre-conference workshop at the LEAD Marketing Conference. How may…
Rite Aid Exec Talks About the Weather
On Tuesday at the annual Category Management Conference in Atlanta, Rob George, director of market research for Rite Aid, talked about how better use of business weather intelligence is helping…
Target Preps for Big Holiday Selling Consumer Electronics
Target, according to a Reuters report, is looking for a big Christmas selling video games and gadgets, such as tablet devices, to boost its consumer electronics business. What do you…
StorefrontBacktalk: Mobile Tracking At The Mall – The CRM Potential Is Stunning
When a major Australian shopping mall next month starts tracking consumers by their mobile phones, they will stress that neither customer names nor phone numbers will be given to retailers…
Price Chopper Suing ShopRite Over Keywords
Golub Corp., owner of the Price Chopper supermarket chain, is suing Wakefern for copyright infringement for paying Google, Bing and Yahoo! for keywords that put ShopRite on the top of…
Barnes & Noble Expands Online Marketplace
If you can’t beat the competition with what you’re doing, try seeing if you can beat them doing what they’re doing. That appears to be the mindset, at least on…
Rethinking Retail Scale
Not that long ago, retailers ran their online and offline operations in silos, competing against themselves in different channels. These days, retailers see all channels as synergistic and along the…
Walmart Guarantees Lowest Prices for Christmas
Walmart has lost some of its cred when it comes to low prices. The chain is looking to change that and its new “Christmas Price Guarantee” is a step in…
Amazon Subsidiary Gets Into Grocery Business
Is there any category that Quidsi can’t get into? First, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon started with Diapers.com and then later expanded into Soap.com, BeautyBar.com, Wag.com and YoYo.com. Now it…
PL Buyer: Family Dollar Goes Gourmet
By using warm, vibrant colors on its private label packaging and investing in an extensive marketing campaign, Family Dollar has managed to post big private label sales gains and provide…
