Two must-reads for retailers in Advertising Age’s CMO Strategy section this week (August 25): Get in the Game or Lose: Why retailers must track the entire customer sales pipeline Why does a shopper put your store on the short list when considering a purchase? Apparel and footwear shoppers want the latest trends, while consumer technology purchasers seek brand names and home products...
Retail Industry Archive
August 2008
A Portland, Ore., man who says he was hired by Wild Oats Markets to develop a turnaround strategy has sued the company and its acquirer, Whole Foods Market, alleging that Wild Oats execs schemed to sell the company cheap to fatten their own wallets, and fired him before he could blow the whistle to the board. Multnomah County Circuit Court will decide whether Gary De Bay’s claims have...
Answer: All of the above. Data security was a hot topic at the National Retail Federation’s recent NRFtech leadership gathering. With TJX disclosing, the morning the conference convened, that it has incurred more than $200 million in costs related to credit card theft, retail CIOs have every right to be nervous about transaction and customer data. So it made sense that near field...
Earlier today I came upon a story that New York Times reporter John Schwartz (then at the Washington Post) wrote back in 1993 about that strange new place, cyberspace. As many as 15 million people gathered on Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe and GEnie to, as Schwartz wrote, “get news and information, to trade stocks and even shop.” Golly, shopping online. Imagine that. Fifteen years later,...
In yet another sign that Mark Wattles is exercising increasing control of Circuit City, the electronics retailer on Tuesday named James Marcum vice chairman. Marcum, one of three directors named to the Circuit City board at the behest of dissident shareholder Wattles, is also on its executive committee. The goal, the company said in a statement, is to “accelerate its turnaround,”...
“Limited to Justice” sounds like a TV cop show, but it describes a big play in the competitive tween apparel market — clothes for elementary and middle-school girls sizes 7-14. Tween Brands said last week it will convert all of its 560 Limited Too mall stores into Justice stores. Justice — which focuses more on “value-oriented” basics priced about 25 percent...
This is a guest post submitted by BNET member Jason Breslow. To submit your own post, go to submit.bnet.com. Retail sales may be down out on the streets, but in airport terminals times couldn’t be be more promising, says a new report from the British firm Verdict Research. According to the study, global airport retail sales are set to rise 11 percent in 2008 to $30 billion, making the airport...
When Frito-Lay wants to see the impact of a packaging change or end-cap display, the Dallas salty snack purveyor no longer has to wait for sales reports. Frito-Lay built a 15,000-square-foot “simulated supermarket” and enlists real people to shop it — and the lab is available for noncompetitive CPG companies to use. The prey stalked by Frito-Lay and its parent company,...
Channel integration — and some eye-catching partnerships — have helped JCPenney bounce back into retail relevance, CEO Mike Ullman told the National Retail Federation’s NRFtech IT Leadership Summit in Colorado Monday. With its legacy of catalog sales, Penney’s did multichannel retailing long before anybody used that term. In the four years since Ullman took over as CEO,...
Upgrades to J. Crew’s online store have gone seriously phlooey — bad enough that customers have gotten e-mails from CEO Mickey Drexler apologizing for poor implementation and promising to make the website and call center better soon. Problems include prices that change between the display page and the shopping cart, UPS tracking numbers that don’t work, and paid orders shipped...
- TJX Proves It's the Right Retailer for the Times
- Pizza and Cupcakes Keep 'em Coming to 7-Eleven as Cigarette Business Slides
- Nordstrom, Saks Sales Turnaround Spells Hope for Department Stores
- Dollar Stores Holding New Shoppers Even as Recovery Buoys Rivals
- Faced with Walmart and History, Retailers Can't Avoid Deep Holiday Discounts
- Big 5 Sporting Goods Outperforms Peers With Big Discounts
- Kohl's Greens Up Its Image, and the Timing Couldn't Be Better
- Family Dollar Trying to Capture Higher-Income Customer
- Walmart Explores Routes to Conquering Amazon
- Kmart Rejuvenates Jaclyn Smith So Shoppers Forget Martha Stewart
- Sears Launches Its Own Black Friday, Targeting Apparel for Deep Discounts
- Consumers Plan More Online Spending But Wait While Watching Deals
- Walmart Prepares Facebook Push in Drive for Marketing Efficiency
- Vitamin Shoppe's IPO Highlights a Retail Sector With Spunk
- Macy's Believes It Can Boost Holidays with Santa and Queen Latifah
- TheFind.com Give Bargain Hunters More Options Online
- Target Challenged on Consumer Perception
- Booksellers Take On Walmart, Target, Amazon Over Discounts -- But It's Just Business as Usual
- Kohl's Staying Afloat on Consumers Trading Down
- Gap Stands Behind Flailing Banana Republic
- Wegmans Takes a Bite Out of Back to School
- Target Talks Cheap but Can't Resist Chic
- Wal-Mart, Target and Costco Shine as Private Labels Challenge National Brands
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- Whole Foods Twitters on the Cheap
- P&G Retail Push Makes Sense, Risks Aside
- Walmart Readies Smaller Stores for Smarter Growth
- Tiffany, Williams-Sonoma Rewarded for Poor Sales
- Conserving Cash is Blockbuster's "Winning" Initiative
- Target Talks Cheap but Can't Resist Chic
- Target Challenged on Consumer Perception
- Hhgregg's Uncommon Expansion Not Without Risks
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