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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Online Shopping in Real Slow Time
Shoppers are taking an average of 34 hours and 19 minutes from the time they first visit an e-commerce site to when they finally make a purchase, according to an…
A Tale of One Grocery Co. and Two Cities
Kroger is opening a Ralphs in downtown Los Angeles. It will be the first new grocery store opening up in that part of the city in 57 years. Kroger is…
CPGmatters: Heinz Hypes Segmentation to Boost CM Process
H.J. Heinz is enhancing its category management process by incorporating shopper segmentation analytics. The focus remains on the category, but the goal is creating more value for the brand and…
Wal-Mart Apparel Exec Quits
The Wal-Mart executive who led the discounter’s disappointing foray last year into skinny jeans and satin bed sheets is resigning this week. Claire Watts, executive vice president of apparel merchandising,…
What Follows the SoCal Labor Deal?
With the strike/lockout of 2003/04 still fresh in their memories, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in southern California seemed ready to vote in favor of…
New Product Challenges
An expanding number of new items coupled with a higher than ever failure rate has buyers and sellers looking for ways to hedge their bets on new launches. Working together,…
National Retailers Go Local
Catering to local tastes can bring with it a big payoff for national retailers. That’s the finding of a study by Bain & Co., which found that retailers can double…
The Value Behind Lowest Price Guarantees
According to a survey sponsored by Pricerunners.com, 89 percent of respondents have heard of lowest price guarantees and 65 percent have made a purchase from a particular store or website…
DIY Becoming Shopper Mantra in Stores
Put more kiosks and self-checkouts in stores and consumers are bound to use them. That’s the logical conclusion drawn from a report by IHL Consulting Group, which projects consumers in…
Nike Sidelines Michael Vick Shoe
Where Michael Vick goes, bad news seems to follow and the latest in a series of troubling events in the Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s life may cost him the last major…
Braintrust Query: How Do You Merchandise a 250 Square Foot Store?
Procter & Gamble Co. is undertaking a major effort to reach roughly one billion additional consumers– most of them very poor women living in developing countries. The primary retail outlets…
Consumers Get Lucky, Grocery Banner Returns
The name Lucky means something to consumers in northern California and now Save Mart is bringing the grocery store banner back at 72 locations throughout the San Francisco Bay area…
HSN Tries to Buck Low Ratings
HSN (Home Shopping Network) is celebrating its 30th year as the originator of the television shopping concept, but seems stuck in a mid-life crisis. Fifteen months after its parent, IAC/InterActive…
Companies Agree to Restrict Ads Targeting Kids
Eleven companies that are responsible for roughly two-thirds of all advertising directed at kids have announced plans to limit the number and types of advertising each runs on programming catering…
What a Croc – Shoe Sales Keep Climbing
They’re ugly, right? Won’t even some people who wear Crocs admit to it? Why, then, do so many people continue to spend hard-earned money to wear these neon colored clog-like…
Safeway Looks to Help Shoppers Eat Right
Safeway’s new store brand Eating Right label is designed to make it easier for consumers to make healthier eating choices with packaging that uses color-coded dots to alert them to…
Supply Chain Digest: Fingerprint Identification Moves Mainstream
Long a staple of futuristic movies, Biometric identification of consumers has gone from Hollywood to mainstream in just a couple of years, as theme parks and grocery store payment systems…
Unclear Waters
Nutritionists have been telling us for a long time that water is good for us. Now drink manufacturers are trying to make it “better” by adding vitamins, flavors and other…
Online Drives Offline
Consumers who research products like televisions and digital cameras online spend an average of 10 percent more in-store than their non-web searching counterparts, according to research from Yahoo! and ChannelForce…
Dallas Discounter Accepts Pesos
Talk about embracing the Hispanic customer! Dallas-based chain Value Giant announced last Thursday that their stores will begin accepting Mexican pesos as payment. Should American retailers and restaurants ‘explore accepting’…
Retailers Have Faith, Seek Sales
Many Christian book and product retailers got into the business because they saw it as an extension of their faith and ministry. Now, however, these same individuals are finding that…
