Best Buy Q3 Comp Sales +0.5% “Online comparable sales increased 18% as our new mobile site and overall enhanced dotcom capabilities continued to drive higher conversion rates and increased traffic.” Read the release

 

Best Buy Shares Sink as Revenue Drops 2.3% by Ritika Shah at CNBC. Read more

 

Despite new staff, Bean Boots are backlogged again by Taryn Luna at Boston Globe. “Imagine 50,000 people, waiting. Not for a driver’s license renewal. Not for a reservation at a restaurant. Not for a doctor’s appointment. They’re waiting for a pair of L.L. Bean’s signature boots.” Read more

 

Google Express delivery service expands throughout Southern California by Tracey Lien at LA Times. Read more

 

Could Kroger exec help CVG land new airline? by Jason Williams at Cincinnati Enquirer. “Kroger executive vice president Mike Schlotman is expected to take over as chairman of the Kenton County Airport Board in January, The Enquirer has learned.” Read more

 

By next month, Ontario residents will be able to pick up a six-pack at Walmart via Financial Post. “The Liberal government announced 13 grocery stores and chains that were chosen to sell beer in the first round of grocery beer sales that will ultimately be expanded to up to 450 outlets.” Read more

 

PwC: 47% Attrition Rate in Brand Leadership Since 1999 “The number jumps even higher to 72 percent when the leader brand set is expanded to include product brands.” Read the release

 

This Coupon App’s Ambitious Holiday Campaign Uses Everything From Snapchat to Celebs by Lauren Johnson at Ad Week. “We’re trying to build awareness—not just as a coupon destination, but as an end-to-end customer shopping journey,” said Marissa Tarleton, CMO of RetailMeNot. Read more

 

**A message from Orchard Road Canning – Decorative Series lids bring innovation to the home canning category. Orchard Road’s Decorative Series delivers three distinct designs: Wild Daisy, Fruit and Gingham. See the designs here. Contact info@shiftmarketinggroup.net for program information.

 

Canadian Tire Corporation’s Eugene Roman Named Canada’s CIO of the Year via Yahoo Finance. Read the release

 

Two Dallas ugly Christmas sweater stores have a knit to pick with each other by Maria Halkias at The Dallas Morning News. “Everyone knows I’m the original store,” said Jeremy Turner, who owns the Ugly Christmas Sweater Shop. Read more

 

Kantar: Americans prefer to forgo the flu shot now and self-medicate later Read the release

 

How P&G Is Tying Snapchat Ads to In-Store Sales by Tim Peterson at Ad Age. “The reality there is it’s not as user-friendly in the sense it doesn’t have a dashboard you can log into with the ease of Google Analytics to understand the 15 metrics you want to understand,” said Eric Rose, a brand manager at Procter & Gamble.” Read more

 

Nordstrom’s New Board Member “Nordstrom announced the appointment of Gordon Smith, CEO of Consumer and Community Banking at JPMorgan Chase to the company’s Board of Directors.” Read the release

 

Temkin: H-E-B, Publix and Trader Joe’s Have Most Loyal Customers Read the release

 

Canadian miner Lucara finds 1,111-carat diamond — believed to be second-largest ever by Peter Coven at Financial Post. “The diamond measures 65 millimetres by 56 millimetres by 40 millimetres. It is so big that Vancouver-based Lucara could not do a proper analysis, because the stone won’t fit in its scanning machine.” See the pic / Read more

 

Tipsheet Extra Stories

New System Puts Video Ads on Store Cooler Doors

Sherwin-Williams Names Alabaster 2016 Color Of The Year

CVS Health Introduces New Digital Pharmacy Tools

Martha Stewart ditches eBay for Amazon

Wal-Mart execs provide update on the retailer’s 10-year sustainability milestones

Read Tipsheet Extra Stories

 

Target Q3 Earnings Call Highlights

Brian Cornell, Chairman & CEO

Third quarter comparable sales were up 1.9%, also near the high-end of our guidance, and driven primarily by growth in traffic.

In apparel, third quarter comp sales grew just under 3% compared with nearly 5% in the second quarter.

Electronics category – double-digit decline in the third quarter comp sales.

One standout in electronics was wearable devices…where we saw nearly 100% growth in comparable sales.

Toy category – matched its second quarter growth with another 12% comp sales increase this quarter.

Other third quarter standouts within signature included baby and kids’ apparel, women’s ready to wear and wellness items and food.

Food overall – for the first time this year, third quarter comp sales growth outpaced comp sales overall.

In key categories like yogurt where we added premium and better-for-you brands, we saw high single digit comps.

We saw similar comp increases in craft beer and wine.

Following the holiday season, we will begin testing changes to food shopping environment in a set of 25 remodels scheduled for the LA market along with a set of SuperTarget remodels scheduled for next year.

Digital sales increased 20% in the third quarter…well below our expectation of 30%.

We’re approaching $1 billion of annual sales in our home category, making us one of the leading digital retailers in the states.

We also expect drones to be a big hit this season. So, we’re featuring nearly 20 in-store, and about four times as many online.

Guests who spend $75 or more on Friday, November 27th, will receive a voucher for 20% off on future purchases, redeemable from December 4th through the 13th.

We are still very focused on testing localization in Chicago…we are going to take the learning from Chicago and apply it to the 25 stores we’re remodeling in Los Angeles.

 

John Mulligan, COO

In high-volume stores, the team has implemented adjustments to planograms to enhance holding capacity on fast turning SKUs

This increase in safety stock is one of the drivers of the 4% inventory growth we reported at the end of the quarter.

In household, personal, baby, we’ve been able to reduce overall out of stock measures by approximately 50% in about eight weeks.

In centers for grocery, in less than a month, the team was able to reduce out of stock measures by about 25%.

The team has a number of key priorities, including work to optimize case packs, which will better accommodate variability in store sales volume across our network.

Included in these efforts will be a test of RFID technology in a few of our apparel categories to gauge the effectiveness of the technology relative to the cost of implementation.

Stores have already shipped more than 10 million items directly to guests so far this year.

For next year’s LA25 remodels, we will feature all of latest merchandising enhancements. We will test changes to the frontend that will make order pickup even more convenient.

 

Cathy Smith, CFO

Digital contributed about 40 basis points to our third quarter comp.

Third quarter REDcard penetration was 22.3%, up about 130 basis points from a year ago.

We’ve already reissued chip cards to about half of our Target branded debit and credit card holders. And we expect to complete the rollout early next year.

We continue to work closely with the CVS team to obtain regulatory approval for the transaction.

We expect to deliver a fourth quarter comparable sales increase of 1% to 2%.

Read the full transcript via Seeking Alpha

 

Lowe’s Q3 Earnings Call Highlights

Robert Niblock, President & CEO

Comparable sales growth of 4.6%…with a 2.5% increase in comp transactions and a 2% increase in average ticket.

U.S. achieved 5% comps for the quarter, with all 14 regions generating positive comps.

Canada and Mexico delivered high-single digit comps in local currency, our consolidated comp was negatively impacted by foreign currency translation.

We generated positive comps in 12 of 13 product categories, with outdoor power equipment delivering flat comps on top of double-digit comps last year.

We had strength in seasonal living…tools and hardware also performed well… our strong brand and service advantages in appliances continue to drive double-digit comps.

We expanded our project specialist interiors program to an additional 475 stores, and now offer the program in 1,365 stores across the country.

The number of homeowners indicating that their home improvement spending increase has almost doubled since 2012.

 

Rick Damron, COO

We recently completed the reset of our pneumatics destination, featuring the three strongest brands in the category, Hitachi, Bostitch and Paslode.

Our paint performance was in line with the industry with a low-single digit comp.

We also continue to see strength in our portfolio of Pro-focused brands…including Goldblatt masonry tools, GAF Roofing, Owens Corning Insulation and Lenox HVAC.

We are proud to introduce Masonite entry and interior doors.

 

Robert Hull, CFO

The monthly comps were 5.1% in August, 4.8% in September and 3.7% in October.

Tickets above $500, comps at 7.2%

I can say that the categories that you asked about (kitchen, flooring, appliance, millwork) did comp into 3% to 4% range.

 

Michael Jones, Chief Customer Officer

Our paint performance is about in line with the industry. I’d say, we’re not satisfied with that. We want our paint performance to be above the industry…we’ve leaned pretty heavy into some promotions around paint.

Read the full transcript via Seeking Alpha

 

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Contact: Jason Long, jlong@eyeonretail.net