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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Sam’s Club Turns 25
Described as “strictly an experiment” by Sam Walton when it first opened in 1983, Sam’s Club has grown to 715 locations, including 122 in foreign territories. A host of owners…
New Line of ‘Super-Premium’ Chocolates Due From Nestlé
At a time when the high-end chocolate sector is the fastest-growing segment of the global confectionery market, with annual growth of 8 percent, a new player has decided to get…
Keyes Looks to Unlock Blockbuster’s Potential
Jim Keyes, chief executive officer at Blockbuster, is one of those “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” guys. While many were left scratching their heads over…
Warehouse Clubs Ration Rice
There apparently isn’t any shortage of rice in the U.S. but concern over how quickly current world supplies are being drawn down has given commodity speculators all the ammunition they…
Rumor Mill Redux: Dell to Buy RadioShack
An unusually high number of options traded on RadioShack stock over the past couple of days have led some to speculate (hallucinate?) that Dell might be interested in purchasing the…
Critics: Xanadu Stinking Up Jersey Swamp
It’s impossible to imagine that Kubla Khan’s vision of Xanadu bore any resemblance to the monumental (some would say monstrous) mall project of the same name that is growing on…
CPGmatters: What If You Could Search Consumers’ Shopping Baskets?
Catalina Marketing has spent two years examining 250 million shopping baskets weekly from 130 million separate shopper identifications. The goal is to probe the gap between what shoppers say they…
FMI Releases Technology Benchmarking Report
Where would food retailers be without technology? Based on the Food Marketing Institute’s (FMI) Food Retailing Technology Benchmarks 2008 report, they’d probably be in another line of work. Which technology…
Greening Loyalty Programs
The number of brands tying their customer loyalty programs to the environment is surging. These include green-focused firms such as Seventh Generation, which sells chlorine-free diapers and recycled trash bags,…
CSD: Empowering Customers
Will self-service checkout prove a viable solution for convenience stores? It just may, for some. At least a couple of the larger operators are already testing it, and smaller operators…
Pharmacies Under Attack
A rash of armed robberies has led some pharmacies in Florida to post signs that they do not carry drugs such as OyxContin on the premises and caused a local…
Kids Without Cash
In the past it has seemed as though teens had an inexhaustible supply of cash. Whether it was from part-time jobs, money from the Bank of Mom and Dad, birthday,…
Grocers Working at Being Food Safe
Nearly 40 retailers, representing approximately 6,000 supermarkets, have volunteered to implement “Be Food Safe” through their in-store and external customer communications programs. Originally launched by the USDA and the U.S…
Inflation Rears Its Ugly Head
Another retro trend from the seventies is working its way back to retail. Unfortunately, it’s inflation. Retail prices are expected to rise in many categories that have largely enjoyed a…
BrainTrust Query: Is the paper coupon really the problem?
“There is nothing less efficient than doing that which is completely unnecessary as efficiently as possible.” This, one of BrainTrust Panelist Bill Bittner’s favorite quotes, came to mind as he…
Retailer Bankruptcies Making Headlines
Today’s retailing reality is that business is not good for many and for others it’s even worse. As a number of recent articles have pointed out, large numbers of retailers…
Food Colorings to Be Removed
Britain’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), citing “an accumulating body of evidence,” has led them to recommend a voluntary elimination of six artificial colorings from all food by the end…
CSD: What’s In a Name?
A partner at Pennsylvania-based LMA Architects, Jim Dodrill had been approached by Consumers Petroleum to help create a corporate brand for the company’s dozen or more convenience stores in Connecticut…
BrainTrust Query: Why are European retailers closer than U.S. retailers to achieving the optimal demand-driven supply chain?
Due to limited and costly space, many European retailers have focused on demand-driven, computer generated ordering processes that they see as bringing them closer to achieving an optimal supply chain…
Is Now a Good Time for Retailers to Build?
The economy is slumping and retailers, at least some, are still opening new store locations. Does that make sense and what will the push to open new units mean for…
Retailers Willing to Deal for Stimulus Checks
Sears and Kmart want your stimulus checks and the chains are willing to sweeten the pot to get them. The retailers announced that consumers who bring their government stimulus checks…
