Monday Tipsheet: Top 500 Brands | Top 10 Innovative Retailers | Top 23 New Products
“Brandirectory: The World’s 500 Most Valuable Brands (Walmart #9, Home Depot #25, Target #56…)” See the Top 500 list
“Walmart and The Container Store Have Something Surprising In Common (But Walmart doesn’t Get the Love)” by Laura Heller at Forbes. “No one seemed to question The Container Store’s motives or accuse stores of not paying enough to keep employees from need. The opposite was true of that one program at the single Walmart store. Same sentiment, different reaction.” Read more
“Target to take aim at slumping Canadian sales” by Marina Strauss at Globe & Mail. “Perry Caicco, retail analyst at CIBC World Markets, predicts Target Canada will focus even more on its food business in its efforts to be seen as an everyday-shopping destination. He estimates that Target generated up to $130-million in grocery sales here in 2013, but needs to raise that to the $700-million to $800-million range in 2014 for its business model to work.” Read more
“Neiman Marcus Hackers Set Off 60,000 Alerts While Bagging Credit Card Data” at Businessweek. “The 157-page analysis, which is dated Feb. 14, also shows that the Neiman Marcus breach is almost certainly not the work of the same hackers who stole 40 million credit card numbers from Target , said Aviv Raff, an Internet-security expert.” Read more
“Attention Shoppers: Meet the Winners of the 2014 Product of the Year Awards” by Kate Rockwood at Parade. “A panel of 40,000 American shoppers, reflecting the diversity of our national population, choose the products they like best, from all aisles of the supermarket and beyond. Perhaps what’s most interesting is what the winners say about us. Read on to learn the shopping trends that the 23 items represent…” See the top 23 products
“How It’s Made: Sam’s Choice Aluminum Cans” at Discovery/Science Channel. See the video
“The New Yorker’s Snarky Take on Cabela’s” by Amy Merrick. “To accommodate their bulk and the crowds that they attract, Cabela’s stores are often built next to interstates and surrounded by giant parking lots. Generally, the only wildlife in sight are the crows picking over the litter. Some of the newest branches are on the edges of cities—Denver, Austin—that epitomize sprawl.” Read more
“The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Retail (Amazon #2, Walmart #5…)” at Fast Company. See the Top 10 list
“Costco Teams with Hertz in UK: Rent a Van to Haul your Treasure Hunt Home” “Costco members will have the ease of renting a Long Wheel Base Ford Transit Van from any of the 25 Costco warehouses in the U.K., to drive the goods purchased to their homes without any delay. This self-drive service will be available to Costco customers at a cost-effective price, with hourly rentals starting as low as £13 or US$22 per hour.” Read more
“Salon’s Hit on Amazon: “Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers” by Simon Head. “Amazon’s system of employee monitoring is the most oppressive I have ever come across and combines state-of-the-art surveillance technology with the system of “functional foreman,” introduced by Taylor in the workshops of the Pennsylvania machine-tool industry in the 1890s.” Read more
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