Consumer Affairs & Relations

Issaquah, Wash. -- Robert Craves, 72, a founding officer of Costco, died last week shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, The Seattle Times reported.

 

CurrentC, the mobile payment service under development from a retailer consortium known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, has been getting a lot of attention in the past week. First MCX members CVS and Rite Aid disabled their NFC payment systems to block the rival ApplePay mobile payment service, and then hackers stole the emails of CurrentC users. And despite all this publicity, CurrentC is still in pilot mode.  

Minneapolis -- Best Buy has joined the ranks of retailers that have moved up the time their stores will open on Thanksgiving Day. The consumer electronics giant said Tuesday that some 1,000 of its stores will open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, which is one hour earlier than last year. The stores will close at 1 a.m. Friday before reopening at 8 a.m. on November 28 (Black Friday) and close at 10 p.m. that day.  

Former Costco executive Robert Craves died last week shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, The Seattle Times reported. He was 72.

New York -- The outlook for the U.S. retail industry in 2015 is stable, according to a new report by Moody’s Investor Service, which forecasts that retail sales will grow 3- to 4% in 2014,  and 4- to 5% in 2015.     The report, Moody’s U.S. Retail Industry Outlook, also finds that traditional brick-and-mortar retailers will be formidable competitors to pure-play online merchants.    

London, U.K. -- Analytics will be applied in front-end as well as back-end applications in retail. According to a new study from Frost & Sullivan, the aim of every retailer is to integrate data from multiple channels to provide an omnichannel experience for the customer.  

Phoenix, Ariz. -- Net income at Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. soared 79% to $26.1 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 from $14.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier. A reduction in pretax losses helped boost net income growth.  

Dollar General will honor veterans and their families with a special 11% discount on all qualifying purchases, in-store and online, on Tuesday, November 11, 2014.

Milwaukee –- Roundy’s Inc. swung to a net loss of $249.9 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 from net income of $3.2 million the same quarter a year earlier. A variety of impairment charges, including charges related to closing a distribution center, taxes and disposal of obsolete assets, drove Roundy’s into the red, along with higher operating and administrative expenses.  

By Jason Ausburn and Karl Fruecht   You’ve acquired a new storefront. While doing your final walk-through, you notice an unlocked door that opens to a side alley. You can’t use the alley for storage. It doesn’t give your customers an additional entrance. It’s just an additional access point.   How are you going to secure it?