RECENT discussions
Discussions
Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Dr Pepper Welcomed to the Jungle
The subhead in an article on AdAge.com asks whether Dr Pepper’s promise to provide every American with a free Dr Pepper upon the release of Guns N’ Roses’ new album,…
Circuit City Promises Same Prices Offline and Online
Circuit City has become the first national retailer to guarantee the same prices in its stores as on its website. The “One Price Promise” policy is designed to complement its…
‘Returnships’ Bring Workers Back into Corporate World
Brenda Barnes, chief executive officer of Sara Lee Corp., has created a program designed to enable parents who have left the workforce to return and restart their climb up the…
Gap Tops $1 Billion in Online Sales
Gap Inc. has had it issues in recent years with its various divisions but one area that has performed remarkably well, even in the recent economic upheaval, has been the…
Authenticity Verified in Regional Foods
People who take pride in what they do have different ways of showing it. One route taken by some European food producers is to demand that authenticity be verified through…
BrainTrust Query: Holiday retail sales…a ticking time bomb?
The most optimistic forecasts for this year’s holiday retail sales don’t adequately factor in the impact of recent credit card practices. The impact of these practices threatens to turn the…
Toy Story 2008
It’s not even Halloween yet but numerous retailers, including Walmart, KB Toys, Target and Meijer, have made it clear that price is more important than ever for this Christmas selling…
Study: Income Disparity Widens in U.S.
The gap between the haves and have-nots in the U.S. widened between 2000 and 2005, according to a study conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)…
CSD: Prototypes With Plasticity
The successful development of a convenience store prototype is a bit like an exercise in finding one’s soul. Half the soul-searching is done through scrupulous examination of all the internal…
H-E-B, Food Lion Helping Consumers Keep to Budgets
H-E-B and Food Lion are looking to help themselves by providing consumers with ideas on how to make their food budget dollars go farther. The two chains recently began offering…
P&G Tests Online Sales to Consumers
Procter & Gamble is working with a third-party operated website, theEssentials.com, to sell its brands directly to consumers, thereby bypassing traditional retail outlets. Do you see CPG brands looking to…
U.K. Supermarkets Asked to Expedite Payments to Small Suppliers
The current economic situation is hammering home an important message– neither retailers nor suppliers can survive without credit. But when the retailers are big and the suppliers are small, even…
‘Experimental’ Media Ad Spending Slows
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that one of the first budget areas to be cut back due to the financial crisis is “experimental” advertising, such as web video,…
PLBuyer: Choose Your Categories Wisely
A new report from The Hartman Group Inc., “The Many Faces of Organic 2008,” says signs point to “rumblings of slowdowns in certain categories within the organic market and a…
BrainTrust Query: What’s the best approach to return policies in a dicey economy?
Retail refund policies have been an ongoing concern for retailers. The explosion of fraudulent refunds has driven retailers toward policies and guidelines designed to protect themselves. How do you see…
NRF Wants Congress to Pass New Stimulus Pact
The National Retail Federation (NRF) has called on Congress to hold a lame duck session following the November elections so that it can draft and pass a new economic stimulus…
Walmart Canada Closes Unionized Auto Garage
Walmart is so convinced it cannot compete in the market with a unionized workforce, the company announced it will close a Tire and Lube Express in Quebec rather than operate…
RSR Research: Is 50 Years the Expected Useful Life for Any Retailer?
At the SAP Retail Forum in Las Vegas last week, author Michael Treacy stated what he saw as the ultimate paradox in retailing: everything done in early years of a…
Gas Prices Tanking
The high cost of fuel has been directly blamed for much of the nation’s economic woes over the past year or so. But, the recent economic turmoil has brought with…
Kroger Confident of Strategy
Kroger management is feeling pretty good about the chain’s performance. Yesterday, the company announced that same-store sales were up five percent for the first eight weeks of this quarter and…
A Trader Joe’s Grows in Brooklyn
On the morning of Sept. 26, about 200 Brooklynites stood in the rain to be the first ones to enter the latest Trader’s Joe opening in Cobble Hill, its first…
