Eye-on-Retail Tipsheet 4/18/13: Orch. Supply loses fight vs. H. Depot; IRI’s top CPG brands
“Orchard Supply Loses Fight Against Home Depot” at Courthouse News Service. “A California hardware chain cannot pursue claims that Home Depot’s exclusive supplier deals with power-tool manufacturers illegally restrained trade, a federal judge ruled…Orchard sought to hold Home Depot, Milwaukee Electric Tool and Makita liable for tortious interference as well as violations of the Sherman Act; its California counterpart, the Cartwright Act; and unfair competition law. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco dismissed the case Friday for failure to state a claim.” Read more: https://www.courthousenews.com/2013/04/17/56792.htm
“Target’s ‘Show Don’t Sell’ Content Strategy” by Giselle Abramovich at Digiday. “Eighteen months ago, Target quietly began “A Bullseye View” as its “online magazine.” The site is meant to tell the stories behind Target’s products, events, partnerships and other happenings at the company. One thing it doesn’t do: pitch products. Instead, the site adopts the old journalism mantra, now co-opted by public relations: show, don’t tell. “We’ll never write about a specific product, but we will do a post on tips around decorating a home with our newest collection, for example,” said Eric Hausman, senior group manager of PR and social media at Target.” Read more: https://www.digiday.com/brands/targets-show-dont-ell-content-strategy/
“Walmart Going “Hot & Trendy,” Seeking US Suppliers” by Adeel Qayum at News for Shoppers. “Walmart is seeking out suppliers to ramp the offerings of products and services that are made in United States. The retailer is looking for furniture manufacturers, game manufacturers and fashion designers…Among other possibilities, Walmart is considering pet supplies, outdoor categories, textiles, furniture and high end appliances.” Read more: https://www.newsforshoppers.com/walmart-going-hot-trendy-seeking-us-suppliers/36713176/
“Is ‘Showrooming’ the Future of Retailing?” by Matthew Bishop at The Economist. “Warby Parker, a super-fashionable online eye glasses retailer, has done an amazing job of selling people a product no one thought was suited to e-commerce. So why has it just opened a fancy bricks-and-mortar flagship store in Mahattan’s SoHo shopping district? Maybe it is because “showrooming” is the future of retailing.” Read more: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130416154002-211889-is-showrooming-the-future-of-retailing?goback=%2Egde_60855_member_232971817
“Google Fiber Goes Next to Provo, Utah” by Arik Hesseldahl at All Things D. “Google announced the move in a corporate blog post…As part of the deal, Google will buy out a city-owned fiber optic network called iProvo. Described as “troubled” in the press release put out by the Provo municipal government, the network had been on the block for about 18 months. Provo apparently issued about $39 million in bond debt to pay for it, but has never been able to run iProvo in a financially sustainable way.” Read more: https://allthingsd.com/20130417/google-fiber-goes-next-to-provo-utah/?mod=atdtweet
“Stipple Looks to Give Facebook-Commerce Another Chance” by Cotton Delo at Ad Age. “A service that lets brands and publishers tag images with digital touch points that show product details, price, related video, and other information if someone clicks on them, Stipple announced at the Ad Age Digital Conference that it will start enabling direct purchases from an image. In other words, someone can buy the Jimmy Choo shoes they see a celebrity wearing in a photo on an entertainment website — or on Facebook and Twitter — without ever leaving the site they’re on.” Read more: https://adage.com/article/special-report-digital-conference/stipple-enable-stream-payments-facebook-twitter/240938/
“Whole Foods Sending Shoppers to Banana Fields” at Supermarket News. “To celebrate Earth Month, Whole Foods Market here is giving away two trips for two to the Earth University, a nonprofit institution in Costa Rica that also grows bananas for Whole Foods Market. Through April 30, shoppers can visit wholefoodsmarket.com/triptoEarth to enter for a chance to win the eight-day trip to Costa Rica. Read more: https://supermarketnews.com/marketing/whole-foods-sending-shoppers-banana-fields#ixzz2QmL2keQo
“IRI and Costco Wholesale Announce Significant Enhancements to Costco CRX Platform and Launch of Costco CRX Mexico” “IRI and Costco Wholesale have expanded the program with the launch of Costco CRX Mexico. More than 750 global vendors have participated in the Costco CRX service since it launched in the United States in 2004 and in Canada in 2009. “The Costco CRX platform has been a tremendous success in the United States and Canada, so we’re thrilled to be able to offer our manufacturers in Mexico the same quality solution and enable a more global view of Costco’s sales,” said Mark Feldman, director of sales, Costco Mexico.” Read more: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130416006227/en/IRI-Costco-Wholesale-Announce-Significant-Enhancements-Costco
“‘Fulfilled By Sears’ Advances Ecommerce Capabilities, Efficiencies for Growing Merchant Businesses” “Sears Marketplace is a community for third-party merchants of any size to sell their products and reach millions of relevant customers on Sears.com. Sellers work with Sears to provide SHOP YOUR WAY REWARDS Members and customers with endless aisles of popular products like electronics, lawn and garden equipment, home goods, toys and games, outdoor living items, fitness equipment, jewelry and tools. Sears Marketplace and Sears.com now offer more than 60 million products online.” Read more: https://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/latest.jsp?resourceid=6674656&access=EH
“IRI Announces Most Successful Consumer Packaged Goods Brands of 2012” “In 2011-2012, nearly 1,900 new CPG brands hit retail shelves across the U.S. multi-outlet geography, which includes traditional grocery, drug and mass market retailers, as well as sales from dollar and club channels, Walmart and military commissaries. Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) announced today that only 11 percent of those launches met the stringent, industry-recognized benchmarks of exceptional first-year sales success required to achieve 2012 New Product Pacesetter status.” See the rankings: https://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&newsId=20130417006209&div=-1245645151
“By 2016, Producing in China Will Be as Costly as U.S.” by Philip LaBeau at CNBC. “”The Chinese manufacturing cost advantage has eroded dramatically in the last few years,” said Steve Maurer, AlixPartners Managing Director. “If you go back to 2005, it was pretty common for landed cost from China to be 25-30% less than the cost of manufacturing in the United States. Based on our analysis, two-thirds of that gap has closed.” Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/id/100651692
“Trulia Survey: 75 Percent of Americans Say It’s Better to Buy a Home Now than Next Year, While Only 32 Percent Agree Now Is a Better Time to Sell” “This year’s housing season will likely cause aggressive buyers to scramble in order to try to win tough bidding wars and overcome stiff competition–putting them at risk of making real estate mistakes they will regret.” Read more: https://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&newsId=20130417005436&div=-1245645151
“Canadian Tire and Associate Dealers Approve New Contract Through to 2024” at WSJ. “”Canadian Tire’s Dealers are community leaders and the strongest group of entrepreneurs that I have ever worked with,” said Stephen Wetmore, President and CEO of Canadian Tire Corporation. “I will put our franchise model up against the best retailers in the world every day of the week” Read more: https://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130417-913063.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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