“Family Dollar net income plummets 66% in Q4” by Jennifer Thomas at Charlotte Bus. Journal. “From a financial standpoint, fiscal 2014 was one of the most difficult years in our company’s history,” Family Dollar Chairman and CEO Howard Levine said during a conference call on the retailer’s earnings late Thursday afternoon.” Read more

 

“Family Dollar Q4 Comp Sales +.3%” “Total net sales for the fourth quarter ended August 30, 2014, increased 4.5% to $2.61 billion from $2.50 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 ended August 31, 2013.” Read the release

 

“Step inside Tractor Supply Co.’s new Brentwood, TN headquarters (Tractor in the lobby!)” by Nathan Morgan at Nashville Bus. Journal. See the 35 pics

 

“Retailers Seek Port Labor Accord to Avoid Holiday Delays” by Rob Golum at Bloomberg. “The failure to reach an agreement is now having a significant impact on port operations and contributing to port congestion in significant and damaging ways,” the federation said yesterday in a letter. “We are deeply troubled by the fact that no apparent progress has been made in the negotiations since August.” Read more

 

“Forbes Sits Down with Walgreens CTO Abhi Dhar” by Ben Kepes. “Fully 48% of digital visitors claim that their next action after the digital visit is to go into a Walgreen store – when you look at the sort of services that Walgreen digital offers – repeat orders of pharmacy items or printing images from digital photo services for example, this makes sense. To give some idea of scale, that 48% means that 5.3 million store visits each week are actually driven by digital.” Read more

 

“Canadian Tire plans its new digital strategy” by Marina Strauss at Globe & Mail. “I believe we are making strides, but our current online presence is disappointing and not up to our standards yet,” (Michael Medline) said at an investor conference to outline the company’s three-year “on offence” growth plan. “In fact, it reflects poorly on our brands.” Read more

 

…“Unlike some big-box retailers, we did not overgrow our stores” by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post. “Canadian Tire will spend an average of $575-million a year on digital technology and store upgrades from 2015 to 2017. “You have to be good at both, and they augment each other.” Read more

 

“Jeff Bezos Realizes A Dream With Amazon Storefront But The Purpose Remains Unclear” by Ryan Mac at Forbes. “While the Journal’s report suggested that the new store at 7 West 34th Street could deal with same-day delivery, pickups, returns and even serve as a potential showroom for Amazon’s new gadgets, Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru couldn’t see the exact purpose.” Read more

 

….Drone Docking Station? by Dan Primack at Forbes. “I admittedly have no idea if Amazon has roof access as part of this lease, but let’s imagine that it does. And let’s also imagine that all of the regulatory and technological logistics are somehow overcome. If so, Amazon would have a drone hub right across the street from a building that originally was designed to serve as a docking station for dirigibles and related airships. You know, the Empire State Building.” Read more

 

…Glorified ‘Post Office’ ? at Fortune. “Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research, tells the Fortune the space sounds “closer to a post-office” than a retail store and that it remains to be seen what economic boost the location will provide to the company.” Read more

 

“What Retailer Can Open the Earliest on Thanksgiving?” by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com. “Media reports say executives have emailed (Macy’s) employees telling them stores will open on 6 p.m. Macy’s officials declined to comment on their holiday hours on Thursday. WPXI in Pittsburgh obtained a copy of a Macy’s email that claimed it was making the decision due to “competitive pressure” to open early.The purpose of the email was to sound out workers willing to staff stores on the holiday.” Read more

 

“12-Year-Old Girl Writes A Passionate Letter To Dick’s Sporting Goods For Not Including Women In Its Catalog” by William Scott Davis at Business Insider. “Chris Peterson, a reporter for AZCentral Sports and NBC12, tweeted a picture of a letter his daughter wrote to Dick’s Sporting Goods. McKenna was upset that Dick’s didn’t include any pictures of women in its “Basketball 2014 catalog.” Read the letter

 

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