Archive for category: Eye-on-Retail

“Costco January same-store sales beat Street, up 4% vs. 3.3% estimate” at Reuters.  “January net sales grew 6 percent to $7.99 billion.  Excluding the negative impact of foreign exchange and falling gasoline prices, same-store sales rose 6 percent.”  Read more

“Costco’s Net Sales Up $48 Billion in January” (Company Release). “Costco Wholesale Corporation today reported net sales of $7.99 billion for the month of January, the four weeks ended February 2, 2014, an increase of six percent from $7.51 billion during the similar four-week period last year.”  Read the release

“HVAC Firm at Center of Target Data Breach Also Counts Costco and Walmart as Customers” by Jason Mick at Daily Tech.  “They reportedly struck via first compromising servers at an air conditioning business in Sharpsburg, Penn, whom Target used as a contractor. The firm — Fazio Mechanical Service — has a flashy portfolio of high-profile clients which includes not only Target and all of the aforementioned retailers/grocers, but a number of other large firms that Mr. Krebs and other early reports have not mentioned.”  Read more / See the client list

“Walmart Opens New @WalmartLabs Office in Sunnyvale, CA” by Heather Somerville at San Jose Mercury News.  “Walmart has had a presence in Sunnyvale for more than a year, but Wednesday marked the official opening of the new office. About 500 people work there, and Walmart said it plans to double that, and is hiring engineers, computer scientists and e-commerce professionals. Walmart also has technology development hubs in Bangalore, San Diego and Portland, Ore.”  Read more

“Secret Service Investigates Security Breach at Home Depot; Three Internal Employees Blamed” at WTEV-47 New.  “According to the criminal complaint, Home Depot Corporate Security alerted the U.S. Secret Service to the crime after discovering that Claudette Grimes sent an email from her Home Depot account containing an attachment which contained more than 300 Home Depot employees’ identifying information, including Social Security numbers and birthdates.” Read more

“Walmart looks to urban cores in Canada for growth” by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post via Montreal Gazette.  “Target’s arrival “has made us a better Walmart,” Broader said. “This is an incredibly competitive market with world-class retailers. In order to compete, you have got to understand this consumer and understand the diverse and well-run competitors that already exist here.”  Read more

“Ray Nagin Experiences Memory Loss Related to Home Depot Shakedown” by Juliet Linderman at NOLA.  “When Evans asked Nagin if he’d ever “pitched” Home Depot for a contract — “Ask, propose, solicit,” Evans said — Nagin said, “Not that I recall.” Likewise, Nagin did “not recall” contacting Home Depot executives and helping scuttle the community benefits agreement. Read more

” ‘Walmart’s Worst Nightmare’ Is Expanding Massively” by Brad Tuttle at Time.  “How is WinCo able to grow so swiftly, to the point that it’s being viewed as a worthy competitor to Walmart and Costco? It just so happens that the company’s model shares some similarities with both of these retail giants.”  Read more

“WinCo Foods the newest combatant in Dallas-area grocery battle” by Maria Halkias at  Dallas News.  “WinCo Foods is opening stores Thursday in McKinney and Fort Worth that are about twice the size of a traditional supermarket. It will open three more in March — in Duncanville, Lewisville and North Richland Hills — and doesn’t plan to stop there…”  Read more

“Analyst:  Sam’s Club and its Competitive Advantages vs. Costco” by Trefis at Forbes.  “Costco operates 439 stores in 40 states of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, with high concentration around California. The retailer earns about 24% of its domestic revenues from the region. On the other hand, Sam’s club is evenly spread across the U.S. with 620 stores in 47 states and Puerto Rico. Additionally, Sam’s Club is the only warehouse club that offers Apple products, which gives it a slight edge over Costco.” Read more

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“Wal-Mart to invest $500 million in Canada, create 7,500 jobs” at Reuters.  “Wal-Mart said on Tuesday it planned to complete 35 supercentre projects in Canada by January 31, 2015, adding one million square feet of retail space.  Wal-Mart’s store count in Canada will rise to 395 by the end of January 2015, including 282 supercentres and 113 discount stores, the retailer said.”  Read more

“Let the Grilling Begin:  Target CFO to Appear Before Senate Judiciary Committee Today (and House on Wednesday)” by Jennifer Bjorhus & Jim Spencer at Star-Tribune.  “CFO John Mulligan will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with federal officials charged with protecting consumer information. Mulligan returns to the witness stand Wednesday before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Lawmakers are expected to grill Mulligan on the details of how hackers gained access to the payments data or personal information of up to 110 million Target customers late last year.”  Read more

“This Corporate Wal-Mart Office In Brazil Is Totally Gorgeous” by Paige Cooperstein at Business Insider.  “The São Paulo, Brazil, headquarters of Walmart.com — full of beach chairs, game rooms and a rooftop golf course — recently won ArchDaily’s Building of The Year award for best interior architecture.”  See the 21 Pics

“Lowe’s still looking for Canadian acquisitions: president Sylvain Prud’homme” by Hollie Shaw at National Post. “We are a big company, not a small company trying to compete with a larger company because we are sister banners with a large company in the U.S. That doesn’t give us critical mass in Canada, and that’s what we need to get at — scale is the biggest thing we have to crack…We have been around for a while, the customer likes what we are offering, and that is our focus right now. At the same time, we need more stores.”  Read more

“Brand Keys Loyalty Index Highlights:  Target Will Repair Loyalty in 9 Months; Home Depot #1 in Home Improvement” by Sarah Mahoney at Marketing Daily.  “Target was already vulnerable, “since backing away from its cheap chic marketing focus, and shifting to the ‘We’ve got everything and it’s always on sale’ approach. That just sets it up against the juggernaut of Walmart. Then when you feel one is less careful with your credit card, why not switch? When consumers have relatively comparable options, they have more room for second thoughts.”  Read more  See the Full Brand Keys Index

“Kroger reveals its hacker strategy: Be more secure than “the guy next door” “ by Dan Monk at WCPO Cincinnati. “Your goal in that world is just to become more difficult than the guy next door to you to breach,” said Kroger Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman. “You will never hear us say we’ve got defenses that can’t be breached because that just becomes a challenge for the bad guy. Our goal is to make it more difficult to breach us than anybody else.” Read more

“A greener Wal-Mart is a slow work in progress” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Another area where EDF believes Wal-Mart can move the needle is working with suppliers to reduce nitrogen based fertilizers, which is responsible for nearly half of Wal-Mart’s carbon footprint in its supply chain.

  Ware said the EDF has spent several years working with farmers to optimize fertilizer use on farms. Wal-Mart recently announced commitments from 15 suppliers to encourage better fertilizer use in their supply chain. These changes will touch more than 30% of the food and sales in the North America.”  Read more

“Buying Valentine’s Candy at Walgreen’s: Women buy Early, Men on the Way Home on Feb. 14th” by Claire Suddath at Businessweek.  “The big chocolate hearts, no. Those don’t sell until right before the holiday,” says Paul Minger, Walgreen category manager for confections. In fact, 70 percent of chocolate hearts sold at Walgreen are purchased within the last 48 hours leading up to Valentine’s Day. But Walgreen isn’t focused on chocolate hearts in January. It’s focused on everything else.” Read more

“Items They Only Sell at a Chinese Walmart (Frogs, Anti-Bacterial Underwear for Men, More Frogs, etc.)” at Ned Hardy  See the 14 Pics

“Accenture Retail Report:  21% plan to increase in-store purchases vs. 9% last year.”  “Asked to name what retailers need to improve the most in the overall shopping experience, 40 percent of respondents ranked improving the in-store shopping experience first, compared to just 16 percent who said the same of online shopping…“The survey results indicate that retailers have an opportunity to increase in-store sales but only if they make the experience worthwhile for consumers,” said Chris Donnelly, global managing director of Accenture’s Retail practice.”  Read the release

“Ex-hacker details scheme to steal credit cards from Lowe’s” by Ross Jones at WXYZ-ABC7.  “Their scheme was to implant special software inside Lowe’s own servers so that every card used would be intercepted—in real time—and copied, before being passed on to the credit card company. In the hacker world, it’s called a “man in the middle” attack…Lowe’s detected that the trio had been inside their servers and called the FBI. On a day while Derrick was being driven to the airport, he saw some flashing lights in the rear view mirror. They were for him.”  Read more / See the video

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“Costco’s Annual Meeting Highlights; 112 Million Hotdogs & 69 Million Rotisserie Chickens” by Angel Gonzalez at Seattle Times.  “Last year Costco sold 112 million hot dog and soda combos; 69 million rotisserie chickens and 114,000 carats of diamonds, including a $68,000 rock, Jelinek said…Jelinek said that in the three days before Thanksgiving, the company sold 17.4 million dinner rolls and 1.6 million pumpkin pies. “For some of you that may not be exciting, but that’s really exciting for me,” he said.  Not all businesses did well: Photo prints amounted to $800 million, a 10 percent drop. “Most people don’t get prints made anymore,” Jelinek said. “We’ll be making decisions in the future where we’ll really go with this business.”  Read more

“The Economist’s Take on New Walmart CEO:  “The question is whether he loves it enough to force it to change” “  at The Economist.  “Mr McMillon will have to push harder. If supercentres are not to become obsolete, they must become “destination stores” where people go to eat and play as well as shop…Whether Mr McMillon is the right man to do all this is not clear. He knows Walmart well and has the confidence of the Walton family, which holds a majority of the shares. He is a consummate company man. The question is whether he loves it enough to force it to change.”  Read more

“Obama says Walmart, others to help jobless” by Sherisse Pham at CNN.  “The White House has secured commitments from some of the nation’s largest companies for a plan to boost hiring of the long-term unemployed.  “What we have done is to gather together 300 companies, just to start with, including, some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like Walmart, and Apple, Ford and others, to say let’s establish best practices,” President Barack Obama told CNN Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview.”  Read more

“Good PR:  Home Depot Regional VP Discusses Response to Atlanta Ice Store on Bloomberg; Sleeping in Aisles, Sitting on Homer Buckets” at Bloomberg.  See the video & in-store pics

“Interview with Kroger CFO, Mike Schlotman” by Dan Monk at WCPO Cincinnati.  “Between the time this deal was announced and completed, Harris Teeter grew by 15 stores. Will that continue?  A: It won’t surprise me if they open 10 to 15 stores a year. We’re very excited about the markets they’re in. Charlotte, the D.C. area, Baltimore area, fast-growing markets, a lot of customers, the kind of customers that are in Harris Teeter’s sweet spot.”  Read the full interview

“Amazon misses earnings, Prime price hike coming?” by JP Mangalindan at Fortune.  “Prime’s pros did little to soften the news disclosed during Thursday’s earnings call that Amazon was mulling over increasing the price of Prime in the U.S. by $20 to $40 — a bump that could affect millions of existing Prime members. The culprit? Increasing fuel and shipping costs.  As CFO Tom Szkutak pointed out, this is the first time in Prime’s nine years that Amazon has considered increasing prices.”  Read more

“Soon to be a Favorite for Store Walks…Target to Open First Store in Maui in 2015” at MarketWatch. “Target is pleased to announce plans to open a new store in the city of Kahului on the island of Maui in Hawaii, in March 2015. The store will be located on Hookele Street as part of the Pu‘unÄ“nÄ“ Shopping Center. This will be the first Target store in Maui.”  Read the release

“California Legalized Selling Food Made At Home And Created Over A Thousand Local Businesses” by Nick Sibilla at Forbes.  “In Los Angeles County, there are almost 270 cottage food businesses. Statewide, over 1,200 homemade food businesses have been approved.  Under the California Homemade Food Act, local governments cannot ban cottage food businesses based in private homes. Instead, home-based entrepreneurs can sell their goods after passing a “food processor course” (which can be done online), properly labeling their goods and practicing common-sense sanitation when cooking and baking.”  Read more

“TN Senate approves wine in groceries; House has next step” by Chas Sisk at The Tennessean.  “The Tennessee Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would let grocery stores, big-box retailers and convenience stores sell wine, largely following a plan put forward by the state House of Representatives earlier this week.  After seven years of debate, the vote suggested a law letting grocers sell wine may be rolling toward passage.”  Read more

“Rite Aid Same-Store Sales Up 1.8% in January”  “January front-end same store sales decreased 1.3 percent, of which 1.4 percent was attributable to a decrease in sales of flu-related over-the-counter products. Pharmacy same store sales, which included an approximate 124 basis points negative impact from new generic introductions, increased 3.2 percent.”  Read the release

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“Walmart Begins Testing Online Grocery Shopping in Denver” by Sarah Perez at TechCrunch.  “Walmart To Go, the retailer’s on-demand shopping service offering home delivery of general merchandise, including in some cases, groceries, is expanding its test in the Denver market today to also include a local pick-up option. Denver area customers will now be able to order their groceries online, then pick up at a nearby store – without having to set foot inside the store.”  Read more

“Obama Visits Costco Store Today” by David Jackston at USA Today.  “On Wednesday, Obama will speak at a Costco store in Lanham, Md., near Washington, D.C., and at a steel plant in West Mifflin, Pa., near Pittsburgh. He then returns to the White House.”  Read more

“Sources: HQ job cuts ongoing at Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club” by Kim Souza at City Wire.  “Retail insiders and consultants to Wal-Mart Stores have told The City Wire the annual job elimination drill at corporate headquarters has been ongoing for the past two months with several hundred jobs between Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club home office operations being shaved from the payrolls as fiscal 2014 winds to a close.”  Read more

“Banks have replaced 15.3 million cards since Target breach” by Jennifer Bjorhus at Star-Tribune.  “U.S. banks have spent more than $153 million so far replacing 15.3 million debit and credit cards after the huge data heist from Target Corp., and the numbers are only growing.  The Consumer Bankers Association announced the numbers Tuesday, saying that as more retailers announce breaches, the price tag for banks could grow to “hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly billions.”  Read more

“Wal-Mart to close chain’s only Más Club” by David Kaplan at Chron.  “Wal-Mart Stores is closing its one Más Club membership warehouse store, which is located in Houston…Más Club opened as a test format in 2009, she said, and the parent company came to realize that it made more sense to incorporate its best working elements, including some of the merchandise, into traditional Sam’s Clubs in Houston and throughout the U.S.”  Read more

“Struggling J.C. Penney amends poison pill provisions” by Maria Halkias at Dallas News.  “The company also lowered its poison pill threshold to 4.9 percent from 10 percent…Under the amendments, anyone who acquires at least 4.9 percent of the stock without board approval would trigger an event that dilutes that person or group’s ownership.”  Read more

“Amazon Raises Commissions for Low-Priced Goods in Some Categories” by Ina Steiner at Ecommerce Bytes.  “Amazon is raising minimum commission fees in some categories in what appears to be an attempt to combat under-pricing on its marketplace. Sellers who list in the Beauty and Health and Personal Care categories received an email notification that explained, “We are writing to notify you that Beauty and Health & Personal Care products will have a new minimum referral fee of $1.00 per item.”  Read more

“Tractor Supply Q4 Earnings Call Today at 5pm EST”.  Listen to Webcast

“Home Depot Cat Wins Battle To Keep Her Home” at Inquisitr.  “The little black cat became the store’s little pet and lived literally in the store. Well, Home Depot management told the store that the little cat had to go. This news didn’t seem to faze some customers, but to others, it was quite the big deal.”  Read more

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