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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Kohl’s Opens 46 Stores in One Day
Kohl’s Corp. opened 46 stores in one day last week as part of an aggressive effort to grab market share from competitors just as a likely brutal holiday season gets…
R&FF Retailer: Appies & Snacks Taking a Bigger Bite
Appetizers/snacks, benefiting from increased at-home eating and entertaining and more items suited for on-the-go snacking, is one frozen food category that is outperforming the department as a whole by a…
Retailing Politics
While much of the country is captivated by the presidential election, you’d never know from the floors of American’s retailers. Not that there’s a lack of merchandise out there. But…
Pink Power Across Retail
With the arrival of Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October, consumers already can find everything from jewelry to sporting goods to kitchen appliances in shades of pink. Are retailers and…
Wegmans Testing Self-Checkouts
Anyone who has ever shopped at a Wegmans knows the chain is serious about moving customers quickly through its checkouts. What you haven’t seen at Wegmans are self-checkouts; but that…
SCDigest: Home Depot Makes Progress on Ambitious Supply Chain Transformation
In the first quarter of 2007, Home Depot announced ambitious plans to transform many elements of its supply chain. A key element was a transition from a logistics model that…
Christmas Prospects Called Spooky, Halloween’s Cheery
As an AdAge.com article points out, this year is bringing something of a reversal for the Halloween and Christmas selling seasons as the former has retailers feeling holiday cheer while…
Yum Brands to List Calorie Info on Menus
Yum Brands, the parent company of A&W All-American Food, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, will begin posting calorie information from its menu selections in restaurants nationwide…
Lifestyle Centers May Be Losing Their Luster
According to a few reports, lifestyle centers, which have dominated retail development in recent years, appear to be losing some steam. One of the articles noted that developers were putting…
Sears Wants to Be Clear About Appliances
Steve Light, appliance general merchandise manager for Sears Holdings, recently told Reuters, “We’ve got great things to tell and we just haven’t been saying them in a way that has…
Walmart Says ‘No’ to Uzbek Cotton Over Child Labor
Walmart is the latest retailer to announce it will not buy cotton sourced from Uzbekistan over that country’s lack of action in ending forced child labor. Uzbekistan, according to Reuters,…
Loyalty Programs Suffer from One-Size-Fits-All Approach
According to two professors, many customer loyalty programs aren’t boosting marketing share as intended because most retailers adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. Do you agree that many customer loyalty programs are…
Supermarkets Get the Best of Promotional Offers
The UK’s Daily Telegraph has reported that, following analysis of more than 15,000 supermarket promotions across 30 different categories over the past five years, researchers Billetts concluded that almost 90…
Gap Buys into Women’s Fitness Apparel
Gap, Inc. last week agreed to acquire Athleta, Inc., the women’s sports and active apparel catalog company, for about $150 million in cash. The acquisition will help Gap break into…
A Bad Day for Retail Company Stocks
Last week the Retailer Industry Leaders Association (RILA) called on Congress to come up with a financial rescue bill for the nation’s banking system. Yesterday, the House rejected pleas from…
Retailers Launch Careers
Target ranked 14th out of 119 companies on BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Launch a Career survey. This was the first time Target participated in this survey, which recognized the company…
CSD: Sticky Choices
Having a tough time deciding which gums and mints to carry? You’re not alone. The amazing number and diversity of new entries in this important category have most convenience store…
Paul Newman, Food Entrepreneur
Paul Newman, co-creator of Newman’s Own, passed away last week. Created on a lark in 1982, the actor decided to sell a salad dressing he had created and bottled for…
The Small Store Guide to Holiday Survival
Tough times mean that consumers will be more likely than ever to turn away from small independents and head to big box chain stores in search of savings this upcoming…
Is Walmart Planning to Sell Groceries Online?
Walmart has not launched an online grocery service but a beta test listing of thousands of products as part of the company’s “search in store” function raises the question of…
CPGmatters: Pepsi and Coke Urge CPGs To Consider DSD to Drive Growth
PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company are urging other suppliers of consumer packaged goods to consider direct-store delivery of their products to drive and sustain growth by effectively delivering what shoppers…
