"Amazon Launches 'Pantry' to Take on Costco/Sam's/BJ's" by Alistair Barr at USA Today. "Amazon has the clubs in their cross hairs," said Keith Anderson, who leads RetailNet Group's Digital Advisory practice."This will be a potential issue for Costco." Warehouse club members tend to be higher income households with kids — the type of shoppers that have huge lifetime value to retailers.  The demographics of an Amazon shopper are similar to the club store shopper and Amazon wants to appeal to that audience, one of the people familiar with the effort explained."  Read more   "Meet Boxed - The New [...]

  Costco's Q1 Earnings Call:  Quick Summary:  Plan 30 New Stores in '14; Ramping up Int'l; Online not a Major Focus. Heard on the Call: Richard Galanti - CFO * We opened 13 locations during the first quarter of fiscal 2014.  Since the end of the Q1, we have opened in Q2 two new locations, one in Illinois and one in Canada, in Ontario. That gives us 15 new openings thus far in fiscal 2014. * We have a current plan of 30 new locations in '14, 16 - U.S., 4 - Australia, including the two we recently opened, 3-Canada, 2 [...]

  "Costco's Same-Store Sales +3% in Q1 2014"  "Comparable sales for the twelve-week period, excluding negative impacts from gasoline price deflation and foreign exchange, were 5%"  Read the Company Release   "Costco's Q1 Earnings Call @ 8am PT this Morning"  Listen to the Webcast   "Costco Earnings Per Share of $.96 Misses Street Estimate by $.06" at Market Watch.  Read more   "Home Depot on Track to hit 2015 Goals...One Year Ahead of Schedule!"  "In June of 2012, the Company announced a long term operating margin target of 12 percent and a 24 percent return on invested capital target by [...]

  Costco Releases Q1 '14 Earnings Tomorrow.  Preview: "Rise In Membership Will Lead To Growth; Online Business Most Viable Growth Engine" at Seeking Alpha. "Costco’s online sales account for only 2% of its overall revenues, suggesting that there is a huge room for improvement...About 80%-90% of its products offered online do not overlap with the stores' inventory, which enables the retailer to prevent cannibalization of its store sales to some extent."  Read more   "Costco:  Do Not Buy This Stock" at Seeking Alpha.  "Costco presently trades at the largest P/E ratio of the discount stores which include large-cap retailers like [...]

  "Walmart #1 Beneficiary of 'Webrooming' " by Michelle Groenke at UPI.  "Webrooming" -- researching a product online before going to the store to make the actual purchase -- appears to be the shopping trend to watch this season...The survey found 26 percent of webrooming shoppers head to Walmart to make their purchase, followed by Best Buy (11 percent) and Target (11 percent).  "...two-thirds (67 percent) of those webroomers who typically do their investigating at Walmart online say they usually go on to make their in-store purchases at a Walmart brick and mortar store," Harris Interactive said." Read more   [...]

  "Walmart Ads for NBC’s “Sound of Music” Sounded Just Like the Show" by Brian Steinberg at Variety.  "The ads will use oft-sung tunes such as “My Favorite Things,” “So Long, Farewell,” and “Do-Re-Mi” – all featuring the Brooks clan using products from Walmart. In one ad, the family will be shown cooking in the kitchen while a bag full of groceries purchased at Walmart is on display. The last spot of the evening will feature the parents trying to get the kids to sleep as they all use electronic devices available for purchase at Walmart. “So Long, Farewell,” will [...]

  "Costco Miss:  November Same-Store Sales Up 2% vs. expected 3.3%" at Reuters.  "Excluding the negative impact of foreign exchange and falling gasoline prices, same-store sales rose 4 percent.  For the twelve-week first quarter ended Nov. 24, the company reported net sales of $24.47 billion, an increase of five percent."  Read more   "Costco's Earnings Release"  Read here   "Dollar General Q3:  Same-Store Sales Up 4.4%"  "Net sales increased 10.5 percent to $4.38 billion in the 2013 third quarter compared to $3.96 billion in the 2012 third quarter. Same-store sales increased 4.4 percent, with increases in both customer traffic and [...]

  "Happening Today:  Walmart Opens Two New Supercenters in DC (Finally!)" See the in-store video via WUSA 9 News See the in-store pics via WTOP   "Walmart Spends $57 Million on TV in November (Double Target's Spend)" at Placed via Seeking Alpha.  "Walmart invested more than twice as much in TV advertising as any of its rivals - but earned an enormous share of retail visitor traffic in return.  Target had the second best ratio of the retailers analyzed at $2.4 million per share point.  Sears spent $13.7 million per visitor share point, more than 8X the rate that Walmart [...]