Friday’s Eye-on-Retail Tipsheet: Target Ticket Trouble? | H.Depot ends Med Coverage | Rite-Aid Profit Up
“Why Target’s New Digital Video Service Could Face Complications” by Todd Spangler at Variety. “But on the eve of Target’s big digital video launch, the company faces a potential wrinkle: The core system it is using just changed ownership. On Sept. 1, entertainment technology firm Rovi completed the sale of its money-losing Rovi Entertainment Store, a one-stop shop for video e-commerce that powers Target Ticket, to an entity called Reliance Majestic Holdings — a Beverly Hills startup that is staying silent as to its plans.” Read more
“Rite-Aid Swings to Unexpected Quarterly Profit” at WSJ. “For the period ended Aug. 31, Rite Aid reported a profit of $32.8 million, or three cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $38.8 million, or five cents a share.” Read more
“The End of The Beginning Of Ecommerce” by Doug Stephens at Retail Prophet. “So, I think it’s fair to say that anyone anticipating an imminent plateau in ecommerce growth is likely to be disappointed… for a long time. Not only is the volume and velocity of digital commerce likely to continue at its present clip but the net profitability of resulting sales is likely to improve as well – representing a renewed, double-threat to any less-than remarkable brick and mortar experience in the market.” Read more
“Rare bottle of scotch selling for $17,000 at Costco” at Fox News. “While $17,000 might sound like a lot, the price at this Costco is apparently a steal. Bottles typically sell for about $20,000. That breaks down to about $1000 a shot, if you’re counting.” Read more
“Home Depot Sending 20,000 Part-Timers to Health Exchanges” by Chris Burritt at Bloomberg. “Home Depot Inc. plans to end medical coverage for about 20,000 part-time employees and direct them to government-sponsored exchanges scheduled to open next month as companies revamp benefits to fit the U.S. Affordable Care Act. Employees with fewer than 30 hours a week will no longer be offered limited liability medical coverage.” Read more
“Traditional grocers poised to join e-commerce boom” by Bob Sullivan at CNBC. “Rather than wait for a delivery van, online shoppers select items on a store’s website and then set up a time to rendezvous with their purchases at a designated pickup center. In the past 12 months, the Stop & Shop and Grand Union grocery chains have set up 70 such locations in the Northeast with delivery partner Peapod. Specialty food stores such as Harris Teeter are also experimenting with click and collect.” Read more
“Target matching Walmart’s $79 iPhone 5c deal, preorders start today” at 9 to 5 Mac. “While the iPhone 5c will begin selling in stores tomorrow starting at $99 on contract through most retailers, we’ve just learned that Target will be matching the $79 offer that Walmart recently announced for preorders of the iPhone 5c. It will also throw in an extra 5% off for those with a Target REDcard.” Read more
“Coke cancels Canadian campaign after bottle caps appear with offensive phrases” at The Vancouver Sun. “Coca-Cola has cancelled a Canadian promotion that paired randomly generated English and French words inside bottle caps after an Edmonton woman got one that said “You Retard.” Blake Loates says she and her husband were eating at a restaurant in Edmonton earlier this week when her husband read the cap of his bottle of Vitaminwater. Loates says they thought at first it was a prank by a rogue employee at the bottling plant.” Read more
“Pinterest Promises Users It Won’t Mess Up the Site With Ads (Oh, and It’s Going to Do Ads)” by Liz Gannes at All Things D. “They’ll be called “promoted pins” (a la Twitter’s “promoted tweets”) and they’ll be ways for brands to pay to make their pins appear near the top of search results and category feeds. Silbermann told users that if they see such ads, it’s because Pinterest is going to start testing them for free, because it wants user feedback.” Read more
“DIPP tells Walmart to invest in India before 2014 elections” by Rituparna Bhuyan at Money Control. “Asia CEO Scot Price today met senior officials of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to seek clarity on the FDI policy on multi brand retail. In his second visit in less than a month to Udyog Bhawan, the message that he got from the DIPP was — submit your proposal to FIPB as soon as possible, preferably before the general elections are announced… because once approved, Walmart’s investments will be secure.” Read more
“Valpak Integrates Coupons into Google Wallet” “The Valpak.com “Save to Google” feature will be available for desktop and mobile web users later this week, providing the ability for almost anyone with a smart phone to access the capability and convenience of the Google Wallet. Valpak is one of the first local coupon companies to be incorporated into the Google Wallet.” Read more
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Have a great weekend!