“Lowe’s Goes for the Pros (Home Depot Easiest to Compete With?)” by Ely Portillo at Charlotte Observer.  “Mike Horn, Lowe’s vice president of pro services, said that while Home Depot is Lowe’s chief rival, it’s also the easiest to keep tabs on and compete with. The real challenge for Lowe’s, Horn said, is to compete with lumberyards, specialty stores selling only plumbing or electrical equipment and mom-and-pop retailers who can devote more attention to each customer than a big-box store, even if they don’t always have the lowest price.”  Read more

 

“Avoiding Target stores? You’re not the only one” by Krystina Gustafson at CNBC.  “The largest shift away from the discount retailer was seen among its core demographics—those between the ages of 32 and 49 as well as lower-income shoppers, whose penetration fell by 30 percent.”  Read more

 

“Dick’s Sporting Goods Trying to Save School Sports” by Bob Cook at Forbes.  “When I asked Ryan Eckel, the vice president of brand marketing for Dick’s, what motivated this program, he made a comparison that I hadn’t heard before…“Hopefully, the fate of sports isn’t the the same as the fate of the arts in school,” Eckel said. “We don’t know it’s going down until it’s gone.”  Read more

 

“Women Dominate Social Media Stats” at Beverly Speaks.  “Women are leaning into social media in ways that trump men. Anyone interested in marketing should be paying attention.  There is only ONE social media channel that has more men than women participating. You guessed it… LinkedIn”  See the Infographics

 

“Safeway’s new owner not afraid to make changes” by Heather Somerville at San Jose Mercury News.  “Kroger, Walmart, WinCo, they’re really looking forward to this, and they plan to pick up some market share,” said David Livingston, supermarket industry analyst and market researcher…”Cerberus has a track record of buying to operate rather than buying to flip,” Reynolds said. “But they are financial people. They don’t come from a grocery operating background.”  Read more

 

“Google X:  Secret Lab Compared to ‘Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory’ “ by Brandon Bailey at San Jose Mercury News.  “While the X division is housed in two nondescript office buildings near Google’s main campus, it’s been compared to “Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory” by the man who runs it on a daily basis. Eric “Astro” Teller, an entrepreneur and scientist who reports to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, once described his staff as “Peter Pans with Ph.D.s.”  Read more

 

“Amazon Should Buy RadioShack” by Daniel Kline at Motley Fool.  “It would be difficult (but not impossible) for Amazon to build a network of well-located small-footprint retail stores like the one RadioShack already has…Under Amazon, every inch of floor space in the former RadioShack would be optimized and the product line would not have to be limited to electronics.”  Read more

 

“Nielsen:  Store Brands are 18% of Sales;  25%+ Share in One-Third of Categories” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Nielsen said retailers need to make sure they are focused on those shoppers new to private label products. But more importantly, they have to keep their existing private label fans happy.  “Top-spend store brand buying households represent about one-fifth of annual buyers and account for 43% of store brands sales. Losing one of the top spenders will be more detrimental to your business than winning a new store brands buyer,” Hale said in the report.”  Read more

 

“Retailers turn to mobile apps to drive up sales” by James Barragan at LA Times via Seattle Times.  “Despite the most lucrative mobile shopping holiday on record in 2013, consumers left nearly $16 billion on the table in the form of lost mobile sales during that period, according to Jumio, a mobile payments and ID verification company.  Poor mobile-payment experiences drove almost half of consumers considering purchases to abandon them. They don’t like having to squint as they browse on their portable screens when they aren’t able to hit the tiny “click” button on their screen.”  Read more

 

“22 LinkedIn Secrets LinkedIn Won’t Tell You” by William Arruda at Forbes.  “Be frugal. If you want to reach out to someone and you can’t reach them any other way, sign up for Premium by the month. Then, do all the outreach you need to do to connect with those super-exclusive contacts. Mission accomplished? Cancel your Premium subscription.”  Read more

 

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