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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
CPG Marketers Need to Pay More Attention to Men
An opinion piece on AdAge.com by Abigail Posner, senior VP-strategy director at Publicis, maintains that consumer packaged goods companies are missing an opportunity by not directing more messages to men…
Brick & Mortars Lagging in Search Engine Optimization
New research finds e-tailers like Amazon are the champs at search engine optimization. Overall, the study found online retailers received about three times the listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN…
Citigroup Predicts Grocery Price War
It may not all be about price and savings these days but, for most grocery consumers, a good part of it certainly is. And retailers have been going all out…
Hard Times May Soften Opposition to Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is hoping that current economic conditions will make it easier for the chain to gain entry into Chicago. The chain, which operates one store in the city at the…
Publix Just Says ‘No’ to Layoffs
Maybe it’s because it is an employee-owned company but when it comes to discussing layoffs, Publix would just as soon lay off the topic altogether. The grocery chain has never…
OfficeMax Tests Mini Marts
OfficeMax has launched a new smaller concept ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. Ink Paper Scissors by OfficeMax is aimed to provide convenient access for small businesses and home…
Retailers Seeking Salvation
Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of Marks & Spencer and a member of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Business Council of corporate leaders, has suggested that retailers be given “the…
Macy’s Centralizes Buying Offices
Last week, Macy’s revealed plans to consolidate its four divisions into a single organization for the first time in its 150-year history. The plan also involves expanding its My Macy’s…
RSR Research: DemandTec Acquires Connect3 – Pricing Moves Closer to Execution
DemandTec has announced the acquisition of Connect3, a firm specializing in marketing and promotion management. What “connections” across the retail enterprise need to be made to fully maximize promotion…
Comfort Food Coming Back
Due to a combination of rising food prices and recessionary belt-tightening, comfort foods appear to be making a comeback as consumers take a back-to-basics approach to food choices. How do…
Bummer, Kellogg Drops Phelps
The current president of the United States has admitted to smoking marijuana during his youth. His predecessor quite likely did also…. So, what are consumers likely to think about buying…
NGA: Turning Up Sales During a Downturn
At this week’s National Grocers Association (NGA) convention in Las Vegas, RetailWire.com moderated a discussion on the “Top 21 things grocery retailers can do to entice shoppers in an economic…
Empathetic CEO Leads McD’s to New Heights
While there are a lot of reasons one could point to as “the reason” behind McDonald’s success in recent years, a piece on Forbes.com posits that the real credit goes…
Grocers Use Cards to Get Recall Word Out
Retailers, including Costco, Kroger and Sam’s Club, have been using membership and loyalty card information as a means to help alert customers to product recalls related to the recent salmonella…
CPGmatters: Kimberly-Clark Leverages POS Data to Help Food Lion Reduce Out of Stocks
When Food Lion started sharing POS data under its Vendor Pulse initiative in December 2006, Kimberly-Clark jumped on the opportunity. However, the initial enthusiasm quickly turned into a major headache…
Woolworths UK to be Reborn Online
After years of famously selling very little to a very small population, Woolworths in the UK closed the doors of its British bricks and mortar outlets just after Christmas. Mere…
Apple Goes Soft in Fourth Quarter
Apple Stores open at least a year saw customer traffic fall off 1.8 percent in the December quarter and sales drop 17.4 percent, according to Charlie Wolf, a hardware analyst…
Nielsen: Supercenters Outperforming Competing Channels
Big boxes rule. For all the talk about the shift to smaller box stores, consumers are spending their hard earned money in supercenters more than any other format, according to…
Online Grocers Tout Time and Money Savings
Today, online grocery services can claim to deliver some additional savings to consumers. According to a piece on the website of The Boston Globe, the amount of money consumers save…
Consumers Won’t Live Without…
There are some things that consumers just won’t do without. On that list, according to a new survey conducted by BIGresearch for STORES magazine, are the internet, cell phone service,…
Mapping Employee Collaboration
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, a mapping technique, called social-network analysis, is increasingly being used by corporations to understand how their workers communicate with each other…
