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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Shoppers Spend Less Time and More Money at Malls
Consumers are making fewer trips to go shopping at the mall, but when they go, says a new report from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), they are spending…
Conscious Capitalism
Patricia Aburdene, the author Megatrends 2010, wants everyone in business to know that Gordon Gekko had it wrong. Greed is not good. In fact, if anything can kill capitalism, rampant…
The Digital Music Revolution
Thank you, Steve Jobs. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the digital music market has tripled in the past year and now represents six percent of…
AutoNation CEO Says Time is Right to Pump Up Gas Tax
The high price of gasoline has already begun a shift of sales away from big SUVs to more fuel-efficient vehicles. This trend began even before Katrina hit as the American…
Sears CEO Demands Loyalty
A recent incident where an employee got on board a company plane with a competitor’s shopping bag got Sears’ new chief executive Aylwin Lewis so upset he sent out a…
Schnucks and Dierbergs Battle for St. Louis Home
Craig Schnuck summed up the current situation his company finds itself in. “We’re under attack virtually by everyone in the retail business who is trying to sell food in their…
Consumers Put Money Into Gas Tanks, Not Dollar Stores
Dollar stores are not bringing in the dollars the way they had been. The high price of fuel and stepped up competition from other channels has put the brakes on…
Employee Loyalty Research
According to research by author and entrepreneur Dianne Durkin, spending the time and resources to cultivate employee loyalty can mean a big difference to the long-term health and profitability of…
Time to Tax Online Sales
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, 18 states have joined together in an effort to remove the basis for the 1992 Supreme Court decision to not require…
You’ve Got Chili Cheese Mail
Have you been chili-cheesified today? If you haven’t (and no one here is saying you should) then perhaps you should follow the email message that came our way recently. Chili-Cheesification,…
Self-Checkout Becomes the Rule at Tesco Store
With 60 percent of the checkouts being self-checkouts, Tesco has made those lanes manned by employees the exception to the company’s self-serve rule in one of its Metro stores in…
Drugstore.com’s Plan
Drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore knows exactly what the company needs to do to become profitable. It has been successful in attracting new shoppers to the site. Now, it needs to…
The Nordstrom Formula: Service x 3
The secret to Nordstrom’s success is service, service, service. The retailer, more than any of its current rivals many would argue, has turned the art of customer care into a…
How to Talk and Sell to Men
News flash (please hold your groans): Men are different than women. Communicating with men has become more of a focus for consumer marketers and retailers, and the result, some say,…
Retailers Forced to Pay Benefits by New Law
Suffolk County on New York’s Long Island has passed a bill that intends to make large employers that sell groceries, primarily non-union businesses, pay a greater share of their employees…
Consumer Confidence Reeling; Retailers Feeling Concern
Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity so, when Americans say they are less confident about where the economy is headed and how that might affect their personal…
Private Label: The Global View
A new report released by ACNielsen, The Power of Private Label 2005, shows store brands are capturing a greater share of sales worldwide. Between 2003 and 2005, private label brands…
Whole Foods Sans the Food
Whole Foods’ new lifestyle concept store will have lots of natural and organic products. None of them, however, will be food. The natural foods store chain announced it is opening…
NACS, NACDS, NCPA, NCGA File Suit Against Credit Card Companies
NACS, NACDS, NCPA and NCGA have filed a class-action, antitrust lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, Citibank, Bank One, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan, Chase, Fleet Bank, Capital One…
Wal-Mart Purchase of Hilfiger Discounted
The rumor that Wal-Mart had approached one of the banks representing Tommy Hilfiger Corp. to possibly acquire the apparel manufacturer was shot down by many analysts almost as quickly as…
Dominick’s and UFCW Play Let’s Make a Deal
Employees at Dominick’s Finer Foods have been working under contract extensions since 2003. That may finally come to an end as Locals 1546 and 881 of the United Food and…
