March Sales:

 

“Costco comparable March sales up 5%, beat forecast” at MarketWatch.  “Growth was strongest in the U.S., where comparable sales climbed 6%. International sales rose 4%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected same-store sales growth of 3.5%.”  Read more

 

“Costco Net Sales +8% in March”  Read the release

 

“Family Dollar Comp Sales -3.8% in March; Will Close 370 Stores”  “Lastly, we intend to slow new store growth beginning in fiscal 2015 to improve our return on investment. We are confident that these steps will position Family Dollar to deliver stronger returns for our shareholders,” concluded Levine.” Read the release

 

“Fred’s Comp Sales -1.2% in March”  “Fred’s total sales for the month increased 1% to $191.2 million compared with $190.1 million in March 2013. Comparable store sales for the month decreased 1.2% compared with a decrease of 3.0% in the prior-year period.” Read the release

 

“Bed Bath & Beyond Q4 Comp Sales +1.7%”  “During the fiscal fourth quarter, the Company opened three Bed Bath & Beyond stores, four buybuy Baby stores, one Harmon Face Values store and one Christmas Tree Shops andThat! store, as well as closed four Cost Plus World Market stores.”  Read the release

 

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“Wild Oats brand to relaunch in Walmart stores” by Howard Pankratz at Denver Post.  “This is part of Walmart’s strategy to “remove the premium that is associated with organic products,” spokeswoman Danit Marquardt said…”We are reinvigorating our brand by bringing great-tasting Wild Oats products to more consumers than ever before,” Wild Oats CEO Tom Casey said…(Walmart) did internal research that showed 91 percent of Walmart customers would purchase “affordable organic products in our stores.”  Read more

 

“How Target Secured a Pipeline of New Products From Top Brands” by Natalie Zmuda at Ad Age.  “In early 2012, at the urging of Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method, Target gathered the founders and chief executives from leading natural-product companies together in San Francisco. Two years later, the retailer is unveiling “Made to Matter — Handpicked by Target,” a unique program that is giving 17 brands a platform for launching their products.”  Read more

 

“2013 Harris Poll Canada: Top Brands (Big Box – Canadian Tire, Supermarkets – Metro Food Stores…)” “Mainstays like Tim Horton’s , Canadian Tire, Shoppers Drug Mart, Telus, WestJet and Canada Post continue to be held in high regard and have each earned Brand of the Year honours in their respective categories.”  Read the release

 

“It’s Really Hard to Be a Whole Foods Clone” by Annie Gasparro at WSJ.  “New geographies are more competitive now; the low-hanging fruit has largely been taken,” said Abid Rizvi, head of Americas consumer investment banking at Jefferies Group Inc…Part of the problem for specialists is that their success has attracted competition from industry heavyweights like Kroger and Safeway Inc.” Read more

 

” ‘Showrooming’ Hits Luxury Fashion” at WSJ.  “There was a sense that the luxury sector could not be successful online,” says Daniella Vitale, senior executive vice president at Barneys, a U.S. department store that generates about 15% of its sales from its website. “But that proved to be very wrong. Luxury consumers are the most valuable.”  Read more

 

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