Today’s Tipsheet: WMT talk: McKenna @ Fortune panel, Osborne @ health summit | Target & ‘Jane the Virgin’ | D.Tree Rebrands
Target Could be in the Market for Your Second-Hand Clothes by Ellen Galles at KSTP 5 ABC. “You send your items in a “clean-out bag” with free shipping, or you can drop them off at a participating Target location. They are looking for high-end brands like J.Crew and Calvin Klein. The program only accepts women’s and children’s clothing at this time.” See the video / Read more
Analysts assess Wal-Mart supplier contract changes by Kim Souza at The City Wire. “Budd Bugatch, a retail analyst for Raymond James & Associates, researched Wal-Mart’s history of inventory and payables. His work finds Wal-Mart’s payables percentage to inventory grew steadily during the first 10 years of this century, peaking at 93% in fiscal 2010. That ratio has since retreated to a mid-80% level, he said. “Net owned inventory now is nearly $7 billion, which is the amount of capital that would be unlocked if payables were equal to inventory,” Bugatch said.” Read more
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos plummets down corporate leader rankings by Andrew Hill at Financial Times “Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, has slipped from first to 87th in a ranking of the world’s best chief executives, after the technology company’s performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors was taken into account.” Read more
Dollar Tree Announces Plans to Re-Brand Deals Stores in 2016 “Of its 222 store locations, 217 Deals stores will be converted to Dollar Tree and the remaining five will be converted to Family Dollar.” Read the release
Yesterday: Walmart’s Judith McKenna on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Panel by Beth Kowitt at Fortune “McKenna noted that the hardest group to reach is members of middle management and that she’s been trying to find a better way to communicate with them. She has recently met with 700 store managers over the course of four days in 10 cities. “If we can start to move store managers in terms of how they believe and what they feel, that is the fastest way to get to all of the associates,” McKenna said.” Read more
Who to watch at Fortune’s exclusive 2015 Most Powerful Women Summit by Patricia Sellers at Fortune. See the scheduled speakers for today and tomorrow
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Kohl’s adding more test markets for same-day delivery Read the release
Facebook adds ‘shop’ tab to push e-commerce by Anthony Ha & Josh Constine at TechCrunch. “The Shopping feed is a single place to browse the different products being showcased across the social network…A survey from the company showed 50% of users come to Facebook looking for products.” Read more
Tomorrow: Walmart VP Marcus Osborne to Speak at Health Innovation Summit in Chicago See the summit agenda
‘Jane the Virgin’ and Target’s Televised Push for Millennial Latinas by Claire Carusillo at Racked. “Speaking to how the store became embedded in Jane’s character, Jessica Carlson, a Target spokesperson said, “The writing comes first. And then products/integration ideas are woven into the content/scene. This is definitely an editorial process to ensure the integration is as organic as possible.” Read more
First snow showers of the season could hit this weekend by Alex Sosnowski at AccuWeather. Read more
Costco opens first Washington location since 2008 by Jeanine Stewart at Puget Sound Business Journal. “With Washington it’s hard because it’s a saturated market and there’s a lot of cannibalization…” (Kayleen) Burnett explained.” Read more
Re-Tooled: How Timberland got back on its feet by Phil Wahba at Fortune. Read more
Burberry hires a CIO away from Wal-Mart Asia by Mark Brohan at Internet Retailer. “(Fumbi) Chima comes to Burberry with an extensive background in e-commerce. Prior to joining Burberry, Chima served as corporate vice president and CIO for Wal-Mart Asia. She joined Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 2010 and worked initially as the retailer’s corporate vice president of application development…” Read more
Alibaba Group Launches 2015 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Read the release
Tipsheet Extra
Experts Say Corporations Like Target Are Doing Wearable Challenges All Wrong
LEGO goes after new $4B market
Amazon’s bookstore revealed? Blueprints provide new clues about mysterious Seattle site
Ancestry.com in talks with FDA to offer genetic testing
China’s second largest ecommerce company just arrived in Silicon Valley
Whole Foods Fires Security Firm That Banned Elderly Woman for Mistakenly Stealing Cheese
Eye-on-Retail Tipsheet is created early every weekday morning and read by retail merchants and executives worldwide. We love data, earnings reports, executive presentations and stories off the beaten path that get at what’s really happening in the world of retail. See our website at www.eyeonretail.net