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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Kmart.com Ranked Last for Customer Satisfaction
A survey conducted by ForeSee Results, an Internet services provider out of Ann Arbor, Mich., assessing customers’ satisfaction with the prices, merchandise and Web site experience of 40 top-grossing retailers…
Economists Call Current Pot Laws Dopey
The Nobel Prize winning economist and a founding father of Reagonomics doesn’t smoke marijuana so there’s no question as to whether he inhales or not, but he does think it’s…
Wal-Mart Brings Mexican Experience North of the Border
Wal-Mart, as a report by The Wall Street Journal’s Ann Zimmerman points out, has been the largest retailer in Mexico for five years. With more Mexicans moving into the…
Society Continues to Fragment: The Consumer in 2010
According to Retail Forward, society will continue to segment into sharply-defined, well-connected, and highly-motivated consumer niches that will no longer be satisfied with universal access to high quality, undifferentiated products…
Retail Systems Review: A Demand-Driven Future
Bill Franks, CIO at Saks, told one of the workshops at the 2005 Retail Systems show that retailers need to “listen to what customers are telling us and then actually…
Wal-Mart Finds It Easy Being Green
Normally when one thinks of Wal-Mart, the green that comes to mind is the color of money, but with its new experimental environmentally-friendlier store, the world’s largest retailer is seeking…
Concept Targets Gamers with the Munchies
The creator of Pong and founder of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain has another idea for how to entertain and feed consumers at the same time. Nolan Bushnell is…
Text – Without the Book – Loyalty
Starburst is running a “More Juice More Burst” campaign that seeks to engage teens into using their cell phones to text a unique promotional short code found under specially marked…
Power Tools and NASCAR: It’s a Kmart Guy’s Thing
Kmart is looking for more than a few good men for Father’s Day and beyond. The retailer is directly targeting male shoppers with dual Craftsman and NASCAR displays in 300…
Home Depot Addresses Activist Shareholders
Owners of publicly traded company stocks are taking their investment seriously and seeking to influence how business is done through proposals voted on at annual shareholder meetings. A recent example…
Federated and May CEOs Demonstrate Servant-Leadership
Terry Lundgren, the chief executive officer of Federated Department Stores, wants employees of May Department Stores focused on improving business and not wondering whether they’ll be keeping their jobs or…
Spray, Wash & Sell – Speaking the Consumer’s Language
In an age where glitzy product placements, controversial ads and new media get most of the press, Reckitt Benckiser, a good-old traditional packaged goods manufacturer, has taken a decidedly middle…
Lessons From the Real World of RFID
A report on the InformationWeek Web site says that, even though the application of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology has been limited in its use, “companies such as Gillette, Levi Strauss,…
SoCal Supermarket Antitrust Case to Go Forward
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is confident he can prove that Albertsons, Kroger and Safeway violated antitrust laws when the three signed a revenue-sharing agreement in anticipation of a United…
Safeway Takes Heat for Not Acting on Promises
One year after a contentious annual shareholders’ meeting, the AFL-CIO is asking why Safeway has not yet followed through on its pledge to remove members of its board, William Tauscher…
What It Takes to Lead
Servant-leadership was instrumental in the growth of the early Christian movement. Although it became lost to Church hierarchy and base human nature to seek and cling to power, it has…
CVS Moves to Fight Rx Counterfeiting
CVS announced yesterday it was initiating a certification process to prevent the chain from buying prescription medicines sold by wholesalers that purchased the drugs on the secondary drug market. Those…
Retailer Targets Home Furnishings for Growth
Target has mailed and distributed 13 million plus copies of its Home Catalog as the retailer emphasizes its furniture and home furnishing options. The decision to launch the catalog was…
Late Nights and Coffee in McD’s Future
CEO Jim Skinner of McDonald’s told investors the fast food chain is looking to take another shot at getting the company’s McCafés store-within-a-store concept right here in the U.S. The…
Going Beyond Search for Loyalty
Google isn’t content to simply be a great search engine. They entered email with their gmail services. They offer a map service and a ride finder service that shows cab…
Buying In to Biometric Payment Systems
Cub Foods is testing a biometric payment system in four of its stores in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to give consumers the option of storing their financial information and paying…
