Archive for month: April, 2014

“Walmart moves further into Target territory – 1.5 Miles from Site of First Target” by Tom Webb at Pioneer Press via San Jose Mercury News.  “Walmart is in the midst of an aggressive expansion into the Twin Cities metro, a market still dominated by Minneapolis-based Target and supermarket leader Cub Foods. The fact that both Target and Cub’s parent Supervalu have headquarters here is widely seen as one reason Walmart shied away from this area for so long.”  Read more

“Home Depot Chairman Blake’s total comp steady at $11M” at Atlanta Business Chronicle.  “Blake got about $11 million last year, including a $1.06 million salary (basically flat), about $4.9 million in stock awards (up 6 percent), about $2.4 million in option awards (down 9.5 percent) and $2.6 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation (up 4.7 percent).”  Read more

“Walmart’s Asda to create ‘up to 12,000 jobs’ over five years” at BBC.  “The announcement came after Wal-Mart chief executive Doug McMillon met Prime Minister David Cameron in an Asda at Clapham Junction in London on Monday.”  Read more

“Claim:  Target Funneling Customer Traffic to Center Checkout Lanes to Increase Sales” by Brian Sozzi at Belus. “At assorted times of the day, from Monday to Sunday, the center three checkout stations were crowded, outright holiday season-like lines. It seemed odd at off-peak periods to have long lines, and even larger lines in peak periods, for instance on Sunday afternoon. After a while of thinking on this and observing/taking notes, Target may have implemented a plan to no longer operate its outer checkout lanes.”  Read more

“Walmart to Open 40 to 50 More Wholesale Stores in India Over the Next Four Years” by Laurie Burkitt at WSJ.  “Mr. Price said the retailer’s India-based cash-and-carry wholesale business will also roll out online sales this summer. He said the model will start small, with only one wholesale store posting its products for sale online. Mr. Price added that the store’s staff will deliver the goods to the mom-and-pop stores that order them as much as 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) away, he said.”  Read more

“Dollar General’s CEO Is Selling. Should You?” at The Motley Fool.  “Dollar General has enjoyed 24 consecutive years of successful same-store sales growth. This is a record Dollar General is proud of, and a reversal could spell trouble for the stock price. Same-store sales were up 3.3% for 2013 but only 1.6% for the fourth quarter.”  Read more

“Wal-Mart Swears Its New Pregnancy Policy Has Nothing to Do With Outside Pressure” by Susan Berfield at Businessweek.  “Of all the issues that Wal-Mart faces—protests over wages, factory conditions in Bangladesh, weak sales—this one is relatively easy to address.”  Read more

“Kohl’s Revamped Marketing Goes for the Heartstrings” by Natalie Zmuda at Ad Age.  “In the absence of a chief marketing officer — a role Kohl’s has had previously — Ms. Gass is leading the charge. She’s overhauling the retailer’s marketing, showing a preference for emotional, heartwarming messages over promotional plays.”  See the ads / Read more

“Neiman Marcus data breach tied to Russian group (Target’s hackers were ‘less sophisticated’)” at Dallas News.  “Investigators initially suspected that the Russian syndicate was responsible for the recent series of security breaches at Target Corp. and other retailers. But the trails diverged during the investigations.  Serious incursions at Target and Irving-based Michaels Stores are thought to have been perpetrated by two less-experienced and less-sophisticated hacking groups, or a mix of veterans and newcomers, according to people with knowledge of the cases.”  Read more

“Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and family donate $20M to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center” by Taylor Soper at Geek Wire.  “This marks the second time the Bezos family has donated money to the Fred Hutchinson Center after it gave $10 million in 2009 to support similar immunotherapy research.”  Read more

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“Sam’s Club CEO Appears on CBS This Morning, Talks business’ focus on “digital transformation,” & micro business growth” by Amanda Cochran.  “Though Sam’s Club members still like to shop and enjoy “the thrill of the hunt,” Rosalind Brewer said there’s still growth to be had online.  “Currently, you can buy online and pick up in-club and have your delivery ready for you when you’re there. We think that there is more work to be done in that space.” See the video / Read more

“Sam’s Club CEO on why some small businesses owners love staying small” at CBS This Morning.  See the video

” ‘Photoshopped’ Target Model Appears on Ellen” by Natalie Matthews at Elle.  “Ellen hosted the model in the ads, Tanya Marie Keller, first priming the audience before Keller came out that she wanted to talk about the “so many things wrong” with the Photoshopping job. But then Keller appeared wearing giant prosthetic arms and proceeded to pretend they were real the whole time.” See the video / Read more

“Wal-Mart Execs ‘Maniacal’ about Driving Same-Store Sales” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Wal-Mart’s recent communication clearly signals a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to growing their topline and comp sales. You can hear it in their voices. They’re back on offense and ready to take it to the competition,” said Jason Long, CEO of Shift Marketing Group.”  Read more

March Same-Store Sales:

“Walmart Mexico Same-Store Sales Down 3%” Read more

“Walgreen’s Same-Store Sales +3.5%; Front-End -3.4%”  Read the release

“Rite-Aid Same-Store Sales +.7%; Front-End -5%”  Read the release

“Furious father confronts Justin Bieber in Walmart” by Will Payne at Daily Mail.  “Local man Mike Malcho, who claims to have known Justin all his life, says he saw Bieber and his ’30 goons’, ‘walking through the store like they owned the place with no regards (sic) to employees or others’…The father-of-three was so incensed by 20-year-old Bieber’s behaviour he confronted him and his entourage and told them exactly what he thought of them.”  Read more / See the pics

“Sam’s Club/Gallup Microbusiness Tracker:  69% say owning their business is the ideal job”  “In collaboration with Gallup, Sam’s Club unveiled a new quarterly tracking poll today focused on America’s smallest businesses – microbusinesses — with five or fewer workers.”  Read the release

“Florida St. Unhappy with Walmart for Leaking New Logo” by Zac Ellis at Sports Illustrated.  “TomahawkNation.com’s Bud Elliott reported that the school’s revamped logo, which was teased in a video last month, leaked at a Walmart. According to Elliott, Florida State officials had planned to reveal the updated logo on Friday, April 11.”  Read more / See the tweets & pics

“Lowe’s Statement on $18.1 Mil Fine” at Charlotte Observer.  “Karen Cobb, a spokeswoman for Lowe’s, issued this statement on Wednesday: “Over the last 12 years, the California district attorneys have investigated a number of retailers for allegedly disposing of hazardous materials improperly by placing them in dumpsters. As part of our commitment to complying with local, state and federal regulations concerning disposal of hazardous waste, Lowe’s agreed to the settlement.”  Read more

“Walmart heiress rumored to be mystery buyer of $70M Penthouse in NYC” by Emily Smith at NY Post.  “Walmart heiress Alice Walton is rumored to be the mystery buyer of the $70 million “Jewel of Fifth Avenue,” the most expensive co-op in NYC history.  Walton, worth $34.9 billion, is whispered to have purchased the penthouse at 960 Fifth Ave. that belonged to the late Seagram honcho Edgar Bronfman Sr.”  Read more

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“Walmart’s New Cost-Cutting Target: The Ad World” by Jack Neff at Ad Age.  “Having driven cost out of distributing goods for decades, Walmart has a newer vision: Driving waste out of advertising and media. And not just for itself. As Brian Monahan, VP-marketing of Walmart.com said in a talk at the Ad Age Digital Conference on Tuesday, the retailer hopes to do the same for its suppliers, too…”  Read more

“Home Depot’s Director of Trend & Design Featured in Atlanta Magazine” by Mary Logan Bikoff.  “As the director of trend and design for the Home Depot, Sarah Fishburne travels the world for inspiration…she works on everything from plants to paint colors, both designing proprietary brands and selecting from national labels.”  Read more / See the pics

“Amazon Will Now Allow Returns Using Lockers” by Greg Bensinger at WSJ.  “Amazon appears to be charging the same rate for returns through lockers as for drop-offs at UPS sites. Consumers have one business day to drop off their packages, which must be no larger than one cubic foot to fit in a locker, according to Amazon’s website.”  Read more

“Sifting Through Walmart’s Big Tech Bets” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “I don’t know how many different ways Wal-Mart can say it, invest in our platform and we will invest in you,” Spieckerman said of Wal-Mart’s request. “One hand washes the other. They want to see suppliers hand over the content they have created. Wal-Mart has already made the investments and suppliers can benefit if they turn over some of their assets in the form of user (and) shopper content.”  Read more

“Supermarket chain Aldi buys Moreno Valley (SoCal) site for a headquarters” by Roger Vincent at LA Times.  “Supermarket chain Aldi, which plans to open 650 new stores in the U.S. in the next five years, has acquired a 55-acre site in Moreno Valley where it will build its Southern California regional headquarters.”  Read more

“How Ace Hardware painted itself a record year” (I-view with Chairman of Ace) by Kate MacArthur at Chicago Tribune.  “Q. You credit your paint strategy for record sales in 2013. What was behind that?…Our goal is to take our market share of paint from under 4 percent to 10 percent within 10 years….We’re into our second year and last year, we were at 6.4% share.”  Read the full interview

“Family Dollar Adds 400 New Food Items in Each of Its 8,000+  Stores “  “As part of the new food rollout, television personality, best-selling author and chef, Pat Neely, will participate in several special events to spread the word about the great values customers can find in-store.”  Read the release

“Appeals court allows former Wal-Mart employee’s gender bias lawsuit to proceed” by Maria Halkias at Dallas News.  “Stephanie Odle is still fighting her former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., just as she vowed to do 15 years ago.  The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing Odle, one of the original members of the class of women who sued Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club in 2001, to proceed with her own case against the retailer.”  Read more

“Gander Mountain Opens First Missouri Store” by Lisa Brown at St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  “Gander Mountain will open 23 new stores this year, up from a dozen last year, Mike Owens, the chain’s president and chief operating officer, told the Post-Dispatch during a tour of the new store Monday. More stores may be on the way locally, he said.”  Read more

“Huffington Post Hit on Walmart:  The Truth Behind Walmart’s Green Claims” by Stacy Mitchell.  “So, how has Walmart so far escaped accountability for its environmental claims? Skillful public relations, mixed with just enough real action, is part of the answer. The other is that the environmental community initially gave Walmart room to make good on is promises. That’s starting to change, however…”  Read more

“Random:  How a secret iOS feature could change the Internet” by Ryan Bradley at Fortune.  “FireChat is sneakily subversive and quite possibly the most important thing to happen to the Internet since international network hubs began to form in 1995…Think of a daisy chain, or an old-timey firefighter bucket brigade. One device connecting to another, maybe 20 feet away, and that one connects to another, maybe 10 feet away, and so on and so forth, the distances pile up, but the network remains, and each link is a link that strengthens the chain.”  Read more

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