Home Depot’s Frank Blake Accepts Gold Medal award from NRF by Sarah Rand at NRF. “Frank Blake…gave a humble acceptance speech, saying he didn’t belong on a list with retail legends like Costco founder Jim Sinegal and Macy’s Chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren…Blake recalled his advice to The Home Depot board of directors when they asked him to serve as CEO: to think again about their decision and find a more seasoned retailer.” Read more

 

Dunnhumby searches for buyer by Erin Caproni at Cincinnati Business Courier. “Beleagured parent company Tesco announced last week that it had appointed advisers to look for strategic options for the data analytics firm…And potential buyers are already lining up to purchase Dunnhumby for about $3 billion. Interested parties reportedly include global ad giant WPP.” Read more

 

Target’s Mobile Site Shows The Value Of An SEO Spring Clean by Chris Liversidge at Search Engine Land. “So, how much value is Target throwing away? Well, let’s check. Run a search chaining negative “inurl” operators to see how many indexed URLs are left in Google’s index…Yep, just 330,000 results — which is more like the number that should be there. So, we have 3.9 million duplicate URLs, just on their mobile platform. That’s an 85% duplication ration for the site. Ouch!” Read more

 

Supervalu testing culture-specific Save-a-Lot stores by Mark Reilly at Minn./St. Paul Business Journal. “Supervalu hasn’t disclosed how many stores have been included in the program or what changes are involved, though the effort does seem to be deeper than just offering more Mexican food and calling the store “Hispanic.” Read more

 

Game Stop Holiday Comp -3.1% “Total global sales for the holiday period were $2.94 billion, a 6.7% decline compared to the 2013 holiday sales period.” Read the release

 

Companies Tiptoe Back Toward ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ by James R. Hagerty & Mark Magnier at WSJ. “Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School, is less optimistic. “China has really captured the whole electronic supply chain,” he said, and that is unlikely to return to the U.S.” Read more (Subscription)

 

How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “Amazon may not actually be the lowest-priced seller of a particular product in any given season,” the report reads, “but its consistently low prices on the highest-viewed and best-selling items drive a perception among consumers that Amazon has the best prices overall — even better than Walmart.” Read more

 

Amazon.com’s prices beat Walmart.com on popular items by Don Davis at Internet Retailer. “Amazon’s prices were 4% lower on average on the most popular products, and it was particularly aggressive in certain categories, including home audio, video games, phones and electronics…For 63% of the products studied, the two retail sites had exactly the same price in the Boomerang study of 39,122 identical products.” Read more

 

This will be a big trend in e-commerce: Macy’s CEO by Tom DiChristopher at CNBC. “Macy’s CEO and Chairman Terry Lundgren predicted on Tuesday that any major company that only sells online today will have bricks-and-mortar stores in five years.” Read more / See the video

 

San Antonio: H-E-B’s Nogalitos store to open Friday after undergoing major makeover by Stephanie Guzman at San Antonio Business Journal. “After tearing down its oldest operating store and building a new store in its place, H-E-B’s Nogalitos location will re-open Friday, Jan. 16 as the company’s first two-story grocery store in Texas.” Read more

 

Company bursting at seams due to product inspired by ‘cream can suppers’ by Cole Epley at The World-Herald. “McGinn said he got the idea to move the method off the ranch and onto the patio when he realized he was spending hours behind a grill during summer cookouts. “I thought to myself, ‘This is dumb. I’m having a party and doing all the work while everyone has a good time and I only get to see these people two or three times a year,’ ” he said.” Read more

 

Bauer opening North American stores with indoor rinks to target hockey lovers by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post. “If too few kids are lacing up to get onto the ice these days, Bauer Hockey hopes bringing the ice rink to the kids will do the job. Opening eight to 10 North American retail stores offering a venue for customers to test the merchandise live on an indoor hockey rink.” Read more

 

Ohio State win means $1.5 million in free furniture by Shauna Steigerwald at Cincinnati.com. “As part of the company’s “Big Game Promotion,” many customers who bought at least $1,999 worth of furniture in a single day between Dec. 17 and 7 p.m. Jan. 1 qualified for a full rebate because the Buckeyes won by at least seven points.” Read more

 

Deloitte: 80% say they are more likely to buy from consumer products companies that they believe protect their personal information, yet only 37%  believe that these companies are adequately doing so  Read the release