“Can interim Chairwoman Roxanne Austin help turn the tide at Target?” by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune.  “Target Corp. has been mired in quite a storm since last year, so it’s perhaps fitting that one of the people leading the company through it was once nicknamed “Hurricane Roxanne.”  Roxanne Austin, who was tapped earlier this month to serve as the retailer’s interim board chairwoman, was bestowed with the moniker more than a decade ago by employees at DirecTV during her two-year reign as president.”  Read more

“Texas to Get First Walmart Express by Christmas” by Mike Sackett at Daily Light.  “The plans presented to the council showed plans for a 12,000 square foot building with a fuel island. The construction will be masonry block and will be painted in earth tone colors…“We hope to start turning dirt in a couple of weeks. The construction should take about six months. We hope to be open for Christmas,” Caballero said.”  Read more

“14 Headshaking Photos that Show Target Canada is still a Major Problem” by Brian Sozzi at Belus.  “Ever since I began to chronicle the Canadian store operations for our coverage on Target, the situation has seemed to worsen. That is quite the opposite of what I was being pitched by Target on the phone…” See the Pics / Read more

“New Channel?…Facebook Yard Sales Grow in Popularity” by Hanah Cho at Dallas Star.  “Many of them appeal to women and moms.  While Facebook does not track the number of such groups, a spokeswoman said the social network is aware that they are becoming a popular vehicle for commerce.  Allen resident Casey Beruete created one of the largest online yard sale groups in the region. McKinney, Allen, Frisco, Plano Treasure Exchange has more than 14,000 members.”  Read more

“Deloitte study:  71 percent of shoppers expect free online shipping” at SF Gate via Chicago Tribune.  “The easier a transaction, the less cognitive effort has to be invested in making the purchase, the greater the likelihood of a sale,” Lewis said.”  Read more

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“Charlotte grocery wars: How do prices compare?” by Ely Portillo & Kathleen Purvis at Charlotte Observer.  “…the Observer comparison-shopped at four of the region’s most prominent grocers – Walmart, Harris Teeter, Food Lion and new entrant Publix – and compared a basket of 15 staple food items, such as milk and eggs. Walmart was the cheapest, followed by Food Lion, Publix and Harris Teeter, in order of ascending price.”  Read more

“Target names exec to lead acquisition integrations” by John Vomhof Jr. at Minn./St. Paul’s Bus. Journal.  “Target Corp. said Friday it has hired Peter Glusker as senior vice president of new business integration and operations effective May 19.”  Read more

“Kroger Rolls Out Carts for Special-Needs Children in Ohio” by Brian Wiechert at 19 Action News.  “Kroger Co. says nine stores in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky now have what’s called “Caroline’s Cart,” designed for those who are too big to fit comfortably into traditional carts…cart spares caregivers from trying to maneuver shopping cars and wheelchairs at the same time while allowing the children to participate in shopping.” Read more

“Home Depot Earnings Call Preview” at Market Watch.  “Opinion: The retailer can’t be expected to channel the entire U.S. economy…”  Read more

Big week for earnings reports:

May 20:  Home Depot & Dick’s

May 21:  Target & Lowe’s

May 22:  Sears & Dollar Tree

Stay tuned for our “Heard on the Call” earnings call highlights…

***

Eye-on-Retail is a daily tipsheet that is must-read material for thousands of Retail Merchants/Executives every weekday morning. Eye-on-Retail is unique because it’s timely, smart and fun. It’s created bright and early every morning and delivered around 7 am CST. We love data, earnings reports, executive presentations and stories off the beat and path that get at what’s really happening in the world of retail. Enjoy!

Send story tips, news releases, comments & questions to: info@shiftmarketinggroup.net

“Walmart Reports Q1 Earnings:  Comp Sales Down 8 Basis Points / Sam’s Down .5%”  “Sam’s Club delivered 10.9 percent membership income growth for the quarter…E-commerce sales globally increased approximately 27 percent for the quarter…Walmart U.S. comp traffic decreased 1.4 percent, while average ticket increased 1.3 percent…April marked the 46th consecutive month of positive comps for Neighborhood Market.”  Read the release

CNBC’s Take:  “Wal-Mart misses, blames it on the tough winter”  “Wal-Mart reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ expectations on Thursday, laying the blame on a tough winter that chilled business activity and cost it about 3 cents per share.”  Read more

“Jeff Jones ‘Truth Hurts’ post hits the mark at Target” by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune.  “…Target employees immediately rallied around the piece.  “So very #proud to see such bold leadership!” tweeted Dustee Jenkins, a Target spokeswoman, soon after the post.  Even Target retweeted the link.  On Tuesday, Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said the company can’t speak for Jones’ decision to write this piece or why he decided to post it the way he did.”  Read more

The Gawker Post that Started it All:  “Target Headquarters ‘In Desperate Need of Help,’ Says Employee” by Hamilton Nolan. “Target purposely staffs assuming that everyone is working at 50% productivity. In essence they have 2 people doing a job that 1 person could do at another company, because the rest of the time you’re in status meetings or volunteer events or FFF events (that’s Fast Fun & Friendly, basically an excuse to not be working).”  Read the full email

It Could Be Worse, You Could be Working at Amazon.. :  “I Do Not Know One Person Who Is Happy at Amazon” by Hamilton Nolan at Gawker.  “Everyone is so tired, all the time. Dark eye circles, muttering under yawns, all. There could never be “lifers” here. Not at this pace anyway. When there are so few long-lasting employees around, it kind of goes unsaid that other smart people like you can find a better situation elsewhere and move on. You cannot help but start looking within a few months. So the proof is in the other people you see in the hallways every day. It is always “Meet Bob, he’s the new Jim” and I had no idea Jim was gone.”  Read the full email

“100 lawyers in a room: Target case draws the suits to St. Paul” by Tom Webb & Nick Woltman at Pioneer Press.  “I’m beginning to learn this data breach business is quite a cottage industry,” Magnuson said…The cases will be grouped into three clusters. The largest group of 111 cases is the consumer lawsuits.  A second group of 29 cases was filed by banks and credit unions, which suffered fraud losses and the costs of reissuing cards.  A third group of four cases is shareholder lawsuits.  Under an initial timetable, trials are scheduled for early in 2016 — unless the cases are settled first.”  Read more

****A message from Juicebar Chargers – Get ready for Hurricane season!  Juicebar’s Hurricane Travel Charger holds enough juice to weather a full week’s worth of hurricanes, blizzards and power outages! With up to 5 full smartphone charges or a full tablet charge and more, Juicebar’s Hurricane is the perfect sidekick when life disconnects you from the grid. Peggable, shipper display or open-stock. See the full lineup: www.juicebarchargers.com. See the video. Email: info@shiftmarketinggroup.net for program details.

“Food Lion unveils new logo, strategy” by Ely Portillo at Charlotte Observer.  “The company plans to extensively remodel its 1,100 stores, as well as train its 63,000 employees in what it calls a new, more customer-centric way of doing business.”  Read more

“Kroger’s top two execs get $5 million raises” by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com.  “Newly-minted CEO Rodney McMullen received $8.8 million last year – up 145.5 percent from the $3.6 million he received in 2012.”  Read more

“Retailers move to ‘multiple touch points’ amid digital age” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Consumers are creators, curators and critics rolled into one. They will recommend only 5 to 9 brands to their friends and family, so making that list is important,” he added.  Shing said the smart phone is the first screen in people’s lives. It’s not their big screen television or tablet. But he said mobile is often the last place brands get creative with their messages, content and advertising.”  Read more

“Goldman Sachs:  Buy Stock in Dick’s Sporting Goods to Profit From Millennials” by Kevin Roose at NY Mag.  “If you want to bet on millennials, go long sports and organic food, and short chocolate and cereal.  That’s according to a new Goldman Sachs research report that lays out a strategy for trading the rise of millennials. Among the report’s recommendations: buy stock in Dick’s Sporting Goods.”  Read more

“Jimmy Kimmel Shops at Costco” by Zachary Pincus-Roth at LA Weekly.  “The Hawthorne Costco, near his beach house, is different from the Burbank Costco, near his Hollywood Hills home. “There are beach things there, like volleyballs and surfboards, that they don’t have at the Costco in Burbank,” he says. He’s been to Costco in Hawaii, in Cabo San Lucas…”People assume that I have someone that goes shopping for me,” he says.”  Read more

“Ace Hardware sets a revenue and profit record” by Lewis Lazare at Chicago Business Journal.  “Total revenues were $1.1 billion for the first quarter of 2014, an increase of $155.5 million or 16.8 percent year over year…Some 3,100 Ace outlets who submit daily sales data also saw same store sales increase 5.2 percent as customer counts grew in the quarter.”  Read more

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Eye-on-Retail is a daily tipsheet that is must-read material for thousands of Retail Merchants/Executives every weekday morning.  Eye-on-Retail is unique because it’s timely, smart and fun.  It’s created bright and early every morning and delivered  around 7 am CST.  We love data, earnings reports, executive presentations and stories off the beat and path that get at what’s really happening in the world of retail.  Enjoy!

Send story tips, news releases, comments & questions to: info@shiftmarketinggroup.net

“Target’s Chairman Takes Hands-On Role (Moving from CA to MN)” at Bloomberg.  “Facing a leadership void after abruptly replacing its chief executive officer this week, Target has turned to seasoned director Roxanne Austin to play an unusually active role as interim chairman.”  See the video

“Sozzi:  Walmart Store Closings Expected This Year” at The Street.  “No updates have been provided on the status of these laggard stores. I continue to expect Walmart to announce a store closure plan this year related to its large pool of underperforming locations. Note that Target will have closed seven stores by August of this year.”  Read more

“Why it’s far too soon to say Target Canada will shut down” by Hollie Shaw at National Post.  “One of the key factor’s behind Walmart’s success over the last 40 years has been just that it has always had the ability to build about a year’s worth of stores without having to add any distribution capability,” he said. “That is Target’s U.S. model, and the company deviated from that model to get into Canada.”  Read more

“Forrester Study: E-commerce sales to reach $414B by 2018, but brick-and-mortar still alive” by Taylor Soper at Geek Wire. “Forrester predicts that 54 percent of all e-commerce transactions will happen on a mobile device by 2018, although e-commerce will still only account for 11 percent of total retail transactions by then — good news for physical stores.”  Read more

“Why Banks at Wal-Mart Are Among America’s Top Fee Collectors” by Mark Maremont & Tom McGinty at WSJ.  “A Wall Street Journal analysis of federal filings found that the five banks with the most Wal-Mart branches, including Woodforest, ranked among the top 10 U.S. banks in fee income as a percentage of deposits in 2013. Other banks among the top 10 serve the U.S. military.”  Read more

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“Home Depot Canada uses iPad Minis to help customers & boost sales” by Carol Pinchefsky at Tab Times.  “…as Beggs detailed in a presentation at the recent Tablet Strategy conference, he sleeps more soundly now thanks to a deployment of iPad Minis. Specifically, he developed a program that gives select sales associates access to SMaRT (Social Mobile and Real Time) mobile performance support, via the iPad Mini.”  Read more

“Publix completes rollout of online deli ordering system” by Margaret Cashill at Tampa Bay Bus. Journal.  “Publix expects to offer it for all of its 1,077 stores by July.  The system allows users to place deli orders 15 to 20 minutes ahead of pick-up using a computer, smartphone or tablet.”  Read more

“Wal-Mart’s March into Financial Services Unsettling to Some” by Mark Friedman at Arkansas Business.  “Wal-Mart maintains it has no plan to revive its dream of operating a bank, said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services for Wal-Mart U.S.  “We have found a model that has proven both successful for our customers as well as for our partners,” Eckert told Arkansas Business last week. “We do best when we are a retailer. … We’re about partnering with financial institutions that have a shared alignment to serve the customer and to partner with Wal-Mart to do that.”  Read more

“Former Sears exec calls for retailer to liquidate” by Krystina Gustafsson at CNBC.  “His points were:…CEO Eddie Lampert “doesn’t know what he is doing,” and is investing in the wrong areas, such as the Shop Your Way loyalty program.  Its valuable assets, including proprietary brands Kenmore and Craftsman and its real estate portfolio, are becoming “less valuable every day…”  Read more / See the video

Retail news tips?   Contact info@shiftmarketinggroup.net

Happening Today:  “Obama to promote energy efficiency at Wal-Mart appearance (labor not happy…calls Obama ‘numbskull’ !)” by Jim Kuhnhenn at AP via Star-Tribune.  “Obama on Friday was to announce commitments from more than 300 companies and local and state governments to use solar energy technology…”What numbskull in the White House arranged this?” former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served in the Bill Clinton administration, said in a posting on Facebook on Thursday.”  Read more

Walmart/Obama Release:  “Obama and Walmart Team-Up on Solar Energy”  “At an event with President Barack Obama, Walmart today announced that it will double the number of on-site solar energy projects at its U.S. stores, Sam’s Clubs and distribution centers by 2020. The commitment is part of Walmart’s global initiative to drive the production or procurement of 7 billion kWh of renewable energy by the end of 2020.”  Read the release

“Roundy’s CEO Writes Off Meijer Expansion Plans in Milwaukee” by Stacy Vogel Davis at Milwaukee Bus. Journal. “When I see the first Meijer store has already been pushed back from ’14 to ’15, (that’s) pretty typical of what happens with them when they come into a marketplace,” he said, according to a transcript from the website Seeking Alpha. “They keep pushing it back. I don’t see them as particularly differentiated nor a major effect on the marketplace.”  Read more

“Target replacing employee PDAs with iPod touch this summer” by Jordan Kahn at 9 to 5 Mac.  “In the memo sent out to staff, Target explains that its old PDAs and LPDAs that employees are currently using have “reached the end of their lifespans— and they’re running a crazy quilt of dozens of applications that have been patched together over the years.” The company notes that its Store Operations team ran tests to find the best solution and ultimately settled on the iPod touch.”  Read more

Happening Tomorrow:  Home Depot’s EVP Marvin Ellison to Speak at University of Memphis Commencement See the program overview

“Publix quietly working on smaller prototype store?” by Anjali Fluker at Charlotte Bus. Journal.  “Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix is said to be working on a new 20,000-square-foot prototype store that it could put into seaside communities and college towns.”  Read more

“How I Shop at Costco without Paying for a Membership” by Jeffrey Strain at Saving Advice.  “Costco has a gift card which they call the Costco Cash Card. If you are in possession of one of these gift cards, you can shop at any Costco warehouse store…Since I don’t have a membership, I can’t purchase them on my own. I either have to purchase them from somebody who I know who has a membership, or purchase them on a secondary market like eBay or Craigslist. Secondary market Costco gift cards actually cost more than their face value.”  Read more

“Walmart Ranked #1 on Value With Women Who Have Children Under the Age of 18”  “YouGov recently conducted a study among 6,000 women with children under the age of 18, asking for their perception of more than 20 popular retail chains. It asked the parents whether they think each retailer offers a good value for what they pay…Among more than 20 brands, Wal-Mart ranked first in purchase consideration, with 65 percent of parents saying they would consider the brand the next time they are shopping for footwear or apparel. The big-box discounter was followed by Target.”  Read more

…Mom’s Rank Amazon.com #5  on ‘Best Perceived Brand’ Ranking (only retailer that made the cut) at You Gov.  “Likely propelled by its highly-viral “Real Beauty” campaign, Dove debuted in the number one spot for this year’s 10 best perceived brand by mothers.”  See the Top 10 List

“Canadian Tire ups digital ante, offers 90 per cent of products online” by Marina Strauss at Globe & Mail.  “Known for years as a stodgy retailer with little digital savvy, Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. is rapidly coming of age…“One important lesson is that when you have the talent in-house, you can do it more quickly and more cheaply,” Mr. Fulton said in an interview. “And if digital is going to be a huge strategic advantage for us, you never outsource a strategic differentiator.”  Read more

“Sam’s CEO Rosalind Brewer Named to Working Mother’s Most Powerful Mom’s List” by Lauren R.D. Fox at Madame Noire.  “With Mother’s Day on the horizon, Working Mother unveiled its Most Powerful Moms list. Only naming 50 members, the list included Beyonce, Tina Fey, Sheryl Sandberg and Shakira.”  Read more

“Fred’s Cuts Outlook, Same-Store Sales Off Unexpected 2.3% in April”  “The company’s revamped departments, “notably Hometown Auto & Hardware — continued to perform well,” Mr. Efird said. “However, these improvements were not sufficient to offset the sales shortfall in the other general merchandise departments.”  Read more

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