“Walgreen’s:  Q2 Front-End Same-Store Sales +2%; Traffic -1.4%”  “Second quarter sales increased 5.1 percent from the prior-year quarter to a record $19.6 billion, while first half sales increased 5.5 percent to $37.9 billion. Front-end comparable store sales  increased 2.0 percent in the second quarter, customer traffic in comparable stores decreased 1.4 percent and basket size increased 3.4 percent, while total sales in comparable stores increased 4.3 percent.  Read the release

 

“NSA Leaker Snowden Slams Amazon” at Seattle Times.   “Snowden said he didn’t mean to “single out” Amazon, but then proceeded to do so.“The world’s library is Amazon.com, but not only do they not support encryption by default, you cannot choose to use encryption when browsing through books,” Snowden said. “… All companies need to move to an encrypted browsing habit by default for all users who haven’t taken any action or picked any special methods on their own.”  Read more

 

“LA Times Calls out Walmart on Food Stamps” by Michael Hitzik.  “Wal-Mart’s annual report puts a different spin on things. Buried within the long list of risk factors disclosed to its shareholders–that is, factors “outside our control” that could materially affect financial performance–are these: “changes in the amount of payments made under the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Plan and other public assistance plans, (and) changes in the eligibility requirements of public assistance plans.”  Wal-Mart followers say this is the first time the company has made a disclosure like that.”  Read more 

 

“Barron’s:  Dollar General CEO sold 323,197 Dollar General shares for $18,718,018”  Read more (subscription required)

 

“Time Magazine: Walmart’s 5-Step Plan to Conquer Absolutely Everything” by Brad Tuttle. “GameStop, 7-Eleven, Dollar General, CVS, Target, Home Depot, and Food Lion are among the many, many retailers that have new reason to worry about competing with Walmart.”  Read more

 

“Look Out, Amazon Fresh: Instacart Announces Grocery Delivery Expansion” by Jacqueline Sahagian at Wall St. Cheat Sheet. “Instacart announced that it’s expanding into more neighborhoods around Philadelphia as well as adding additional store options for customers and same-day delivery. Instacart is now available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C., and is offering grocery delivery within one hour…For bulk stores like Costco and BJ’s, Instacart pays for its own membership fee so that their customers don’t have to, enabling Instacart customers to shop at one of the big bulk stores without having to pay for a yearly membership.”  Read more

 

Tweet:  Beer Display at Walmart Looks Like a Stadium: @msjessicaellis: Lol walmart got a beer at the plate and a runner on first.  See the Pic

 

“RadioShack’s online presence not clicking with customers” by Maria Halkias at Dallas News.  “In a list of “who’s up and who’s down” over the past decade, RadioShack had the third-largest decline in Web sales among retailers, according to Internet Retailer’s recently published Top 500 Guide. RadioShack.com sales were down 21.7 percent, from $65.1 million in 2003 to $51 million in 2012. “That traffic is lost to Best Buy, Amazon and others forever,” said Michael Pachter, managing director at Wedbush Securities.”  Read more

 

“Wal-Mart’s Asda banner to cut 200 corporate jobs” at The City Wire.  “The job cuts are part of a new five-year plan underway to tackle heightened competition from rival discounters and supermarkets. The moves were reportedly part of a package of recommendations put forward by consultancy firm McKinsey, which also included calls for a widening of product ranges, according to the BBC report.”  Read more

 

“Random:  Four Reasons the Government Isn’t Going to Sell Off the Post Office” by Devin Leonard at Bloomberg.  “4. Postal worker unions are dead set against it. Don’t discount the political power of the four postal worker unions. They’re among the largest donors to the Democratic Party, they’ve been able to keep Donahoe from ending Saturday mail delivery, and they’ve done a masterful job of building opposition to his plan of opening post offices inside Staples stores.”  Read more

 

Follow @retaileyeretail