Research Topic

Connecting Northwest Arkansas earlier this month published the results of a survey of Walmart suppliers that revealed some interesting insights and this week spawned a few inaccurate headlines from various news organizations. The most notable was a headline on a Bloomberg story, which said Walmart suppliers lacked confidence in company CEO Mike Duke and that senior managers were explaining the company’s strategy. That’s a powerful statement and would be quite an indictment of the company’s chief executive and senior leadership team, if it were true.

The age old question of what to get the person who has everything has finally been answered, and a Walmart gift card appears to be the ultimate solution for the perplexed gift-giver. That’s according to the gift card exchange website www.giftcardrescue.com and survey involving 6,000 people who created gift card wish lists on its site since the beginning of the year.

Walmart, Target and Best Buy attracted record levels of customers to their websites during November, according to data released this week by the online measurement firm comScore. Retailers have come to expect a surge in traffic to their sites as the holiday approach and during November that proved to be the case and then some.

New York City -- The Finish Line said Tuesday that its fiscal third-quarter net income fell 37% as a one-time leg up from a tax windfall last year was not repeated.

Net income in the three months to Nov. 27 hit $4.1 million, from $6.6 million a year ago. Last year's tax benefit amounted to $6.4 million. Revenue rose 9% to $260.9 million, from $240.1 million. Same-store sales were up 4.5% from Nov. 28 through Dec. 19, compared with the same period a year ago.

The results were better than analysts’ estimates.

New York - Fifteen percent or 23.1 million consumers (16 years of age or older) plan to shop on Christmas Eve (December 24), according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs (ICSC-GS) holiday consumer tracking survey.

QUINCY, Mass. - Stop & Shop Supermarket announced that it set a new record in 2010 with its annual Food for Friends campaign. More than $2 million -- a 40% increase from 2009 -- will be donated to more than 300 local food pantries and regional food banks throughout Stop & Shop's operating areas this year, the company reported.

American consumers had more than holiday shopping on their mind during the third quarter as evidenced by record sales results from CarMax. The nation’s largest seller of used cars with 103 superstores nationwide said its same-store sales increased 16% during then third quarter ended November 30. Total sales increased by 23% to slightly more than $2.1 billion and earnings per share of 36 cents were two cents better than analysts forecast.

Chicago - Boosted by a very weak comparison period, ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) reported that total GAFO retail sales for the last Saturday before Christmas (12/18), or Super Saturday, increased a sharp 15.1% compared with last year, while the company’s retail traffic index (SRTI) reported a similar 10.1% total U.S. foot traffic uptick for the same period.