Home Depot Aiming to Put Apple Pay in Its 2,000 Stores by Matt Townsend at Bloomberg. “(Home Depot) could accept mobile payments at those locations because its checkout terminals have near-field communication readers…Those devices have now been turned off for the past few weeks during an upgrade of its point-of-sale system, Holmes said. That led to some inaccurate reports that Home Depot had dropped Apple Pay.” Read more

 

Can Nordstrom win where Target lost? Seattle retailer to open as many as 20 Rack stores in Canada by Rachel Lerman at Puget Sound Business Journal. “Nordstrom will open between 15 and 20 Rack stores in Canada beginning in fall of 2017, company Co-President Blake Nordstrom announced at the Seattle retailer’s shareholders’ meeting Tuesday.” Read more

 

Macy’s to Open First 4 off-Price Stores in NYC Area by Anne D’Innocenzio at AP via ABC. “Macy’s Inc. has named its new discount stores Macy’s Backstage, and says the first four test stores will open this fall in New York City and the surrounding area.” Read more

 

Here’s how technology is changing your Kroger experience by Steve Watkins at Cincinnati Business Courier. “…Imagine a colored light popping up on the product you’re trying to find…“The example I use is with customers who are gluten-free. If you’re looking at nutrition bars, we could highlight on the shelf, in your color of choice, the products that are gluten-free. Say you had a particular bottle of wine on your list that you wanted to get. Finding it in the wine department isn’t always easy, but wouldn’t it be nice if it would just highlight for you the bottle of wine that you needed to grab.” Read more

 

…Kroger CIO Chris Hjelm Q&A by Peter High at Forbes.  Read the Q&A

 

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Pete, Erik, Blake Nordstrom now co-presidents of retail empire by Angel Gonzalez at Seattle Times. “So now one of the country’s largest luxury retailers is officially ruled by a triumvirate. It’s an arrangement that worked out poorly in ancient Rome for Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, and that appears unique in corporate America: Whole Foods and a few companies have two CEOs, but no equally prominent, publicly traded U.S. company has three.” Read more

 

Best Buy Canada invites other retailers to its online marketplace by Marina Strauss at Globe & Mail. “The market is underserved in Canada,” Thierry Hay-Sabourin, vice-president of e-commerce at Best Buy Canada, said in an interview. “There is massive opportunity for Canadian retailers to leap frog the development effort of total-retail by partnering with us. We’re willing to extend this opportunity even to our competitors.” Read more

 

Two Retail Veterans Take Aim at Amazon’s E-Commerce Reign by Farhad Manjoo at NY Times. “Enjoy is starting small. The company, which has raised around $30 million from investors, is starting out in just the San Francisco Bay Area this week and in New York City next Wednesday. Enjoy does not compete with Amazon on selection; it offers only about a dozen or so high-margin tech products for sale” Read more

 

…Former JCPenney CEO is back with a new company, Enjoy by Courtney Reagan & Sabrina Korber at CNBC. “(Ron) Johnson is expected to discuss the venture’s launch in an interview with CNBC that airs at 11:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. He also is scheduled to take the stage at the Collision Conference in Las Vegas just after 1 p.m. ET.” Read more

 

Sears and the Kardashians have broken up by Phil Wahba at Fortune. “The struggling retailer stopped offering items in the Kardashian Kollection in its stores earlier this year in what was a mutual decision, a spokesman told Fortune, confirming an earlier report by celebrity news site TMZ.” Read more

 

You Can Now Stream Amazon Prime for Free on JetBlue at Yahoo Travel. Read more

 

UK: Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose are only food retailers growing sales by Graham Ruddick at The Telegraph. “The “Big Four” are all suffering falling sales, with Tesco down 1pc, Asda down 2.2pc, Sainsbury’s down 0.2pc and Morrisons losing 1.1pc.” Read more

 

Australia: Costco welcomes a supermarket price war by Eli Greenblat at The Australian. “It’s great for the consumer and I think anything that drives more competition is good for the industry, good for suppliers and good for retailers,” Mr (Patrick) Noone told The Australian.” Read more

 

The sad, tarnished afterlife of RadioShack’s name at The Dallas Morning News. “Perkins, the restructuring expert, doesn’t think the outlook is good for big returns on the RadioShack brand name. “Particularly in this case because it’s been talked about so much, it’s almost like they’re being punished for the notoriety of RadioShack, and the long fall it had,” he says, then offers up one gloomy comparison: “Imagine selling the name Enron.” Read more

 

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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. Contact us at info@shiftmarketinggroup.net.