Best of Awards

The Harris Poll has released its 29th annual study of America’s top brands, and Kohl’s is one of the retail brands on top.   Kohl’s earned the top position in the department store category of the poll, in which more than 100,000 U.S. consumers assessed more than 4,000 brands across more than 450 categories.    Other retailers named as Brands of the Year included:     Luxury department store: Nordstrom  Off-price: TJ Maxx 

Supermarkets and fast-casual restaurant brands took the top positions in an annual ranking of customer experience.   Publix, Chick-fil-A, and H-E-B earned top three positions in Temkin Group’s 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, a cross-industry benchmark of customer experience.     Publix had a score of 84%, closely followed by Chick-fil-A and H-E-B, which both scored 83% in the seventh annual rating.  

For the 19th consecutive year, Publix has been honored as one of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.” The magazine sent a journalist to work at a Publix grocery store for several days, and he discovered what makes Publix so successful.

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Twenty-nine new products were recognized as “Product of the Year,” at a gala event in New York recently, but earning that distinction comes at a hefty price and leveraging it as part of a marketing effort costs even more.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. - Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores Inc. is getting a little love from its hometown. For the third consecutive year, Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores has been recognized as one of “Chicago's Best and Brightest Companies to Work For” by the National Association for Business Resources.

Just months after being named the nation's best department store by USA Today, Stein Mart is reporting a big jump in same store sales for June.

The Florida-based retailer reported total sales for the five-week period ended July 4 of $121.7 million, a 7.5% increase over total sales of $113.2 million for the five-week period ended July 5, 2014. Same store sales for the five-week period ended July 4 increased 5.8% from June 2014.

Waban, Mass. - PetSmart and Amazon.com deliver the best customer experience in the retail industry. According to the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers, PetSmart and Amazon.com tied for the top spot, each scoring 82%, which put them both in fourth place overall out of 293 companies across 20 industries.

Walgreens came in a close third with a rating of 81% and a ranking of eighth, while Bed Bath & Beyond, Lowe's, and Costco all earned 79% and tied for 19th place overall.

ABF Freight has done something no other company in the trucking industry has done before.

The Fort Smith, Ark.-based national carrier was awarded the American Trucking Association’s President’s Trophy for the seventh time during the group’s annual safety and human resources conference in Orlando. ABF Freight also received the trucking industry’s most prestigious award in 1984, 1989, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2010. No other national carrier has earned the award more than five times.