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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Shoppers Determine Grocers’ Charitable Giving
Consumers who shop at Waitrose grocery stores in the U.K. and at Whole Foods in the U.S. have a direct hand in deciding where the chains spend their charitable dollars…
Can Longs Make a Better Deal?
A number of large investors with shares in Longs Drug Stores think the chain’s management made a bad deal to merge with CVS Caremark. Do you think that Longs has…
The Tailgating Opportunity
The football season has kicked off on the gridiron, as well as at retail and the biggest emerging trend appears to be around selling food and supplies for tailgating at…
New Jersey Proposes Carding Shoppers Buying OTC Cold Meds
A sharp increase in overdoses tied to dextromethorphan (DXM), an active ingredient found in more than 100 over-the-counter cold medicines, has led two New Jersey lawmakers to propose a bill…
New Supervalu Line Looks to Keep Consumers Eating at Home
The high price of gas and fewer dollars in their pockets has consumers eating at home more often while eating out at restaurants less frequently. Now, Supervalu is looking to…
Walmart Introduces Smart Network
In a live simulcast between New York City and Bentonville, Walmart executives on Wednesday unveiled Walmart Smart Network, described as the first “shopper-intelligent network at retail.” Launched in front of…
Cub Foods Celebrates 40 Years in Business
When Cub Foods opened its first store 40 years ago, it was short on frills and big on savings for consumers in Fridley, Minn. The original store was successful and…
FDA: Offspring of Cloned Cattle May Be in Food Supply
The U.S. Agriculture Department has asked that clones continue to be held out of the market until January. It did not make the same request of the offspring of clones…
Retail TouchPoints: Infosys Bows ShoppingTrip360 To Trace In-Store Behavior Patterns
It might be the long sought solution for click tracking in stores. Or it might be another customer tracking technology that takes a long time for retailers to understand and…
Sears’ Struggles Continue
Another poor quarter has once again proved to many market observers that Sears Holdings has no idea what it’s doing. Some analysts predicted the imminent extinction of Kmart. In a…
New Store Considered for Senior Shoppers
Following an experiment by German supermarket, Kaiser, that seems to be far more successful than anticipated, British chain, Tesco, is considering a store designed specifically to meet the needs of…
R&FF Retailer: Why Publix Is So Darn Good
Is there anything that Publix doesn’t do extraordinarily well? Shoppers and vendors love it, it wins lots of awards and makes lots of money. What are some obvious and less…
Starbucks and McD’s Should Cut the Coveting Out
Okay, there are no neighbors’ spouses involved here but Starbucks and McDonald’s are committing a business sin of the highest degree by coveting something that each has little to no…
99 Cents Only Faces Name Crisis
What’s in a name? Quite a bit it seems when the name of retail chain actually describes its business practices. Of course, what happens when the business changes and the…
RSR Research: What Does Twitter Mean for Retail? I Have No Idea
BrainTrust Panelist Nikki Baird tried to be a premiere social networker, but barely managed a few blog postings and signed up for Facebook and MySpace at others’ insistence. So it…
Latino Markets Becoming Acculturated
Hispanic immigrants like shopping in stores that offer familiar products and surroundings similar to what they knew at home. But their children are also looking to fully participate in the…
Microsoft’s Answer to Apple: Jerry Seinfeld
Microsoft has hired comedian Jerry Seinfeld to star alongside Microsoft chairman Bill Gates as part of a planned $300 million fall advertising campaign. The overall objective is designed to erase…
Consumers Looking for a Seamless Shopping Experience
Whether a customer is unhappy with their experience on a retailer’s website, or has a bad experience ordering from a catalog or in a company’s store, she’s unhappy with the…
Canadians in No Mood to Wait Around
According to a new online poll of adults conducted by Maritz Research Canada, 86 percent of those responding reported on one or more occasions leaving a store, restaurant or other…
The Bankrupt Company’s Guide to Chapter 11
There have been a spate of retailers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy of late and, as an About.com article points out, most will not be any more successful following their…
BrainTrust Query: Why aren’t retailers playing a bigger part in establishing industry standards?
BrainTrust panelist Bill Bittner attended a recent work session of the Association of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS). The disconcerting thing, however, was the lack of retailer participation. What are the…
