Sam's Club

WASHINGTON — The NRF Foundation and American Express announced the winners of their fifth annual Aspire2Retail Intercollegiate Challenge. Each student will receive an educational scholarship worth $2,500.

The contest is designed to increase understanding of diverse career paths in retail by engaging university students in a competitive, collaborative roleplay that involves implementing a multi-tiered business strategy.

CINCINNATI — Bounty touted the absorbency and strength of each small sheet of Select-A-Size paper towels at the 2013 Rose Bowl Game’s VIP Tailgate.

Former Sam’s Club SVP and GMM Huey Long and former Target EVP of stores Troy Risch have joined forces to right the ship at RadioShack.

Denton, Texas -- RED Development announced it will bring Dillard’s department store to Rayzor Ranch Town Center, the new, open-air retail and entertainment destination now under development in Denton, Texas.  

Dillard’s, being planned as a 126,000-sq.-ft. store, is the first anchor department store named for the new project since RED became an owner and assumed the management of the property in 2010.  

A 2.7% third quarter same store sales increase at Sam’s Club was below expectations for a 3% to 5% increase. President and CEO Rosalind Brewer explained what went wrong yesterday morning during a pre-recorded message.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported Thursday net income of $3.64 billion for the quarter ended Oct. 31, up from $3.34 billion in the year-ago period.

Sales rose 3.4% to $113.20 billion, as U.S. sales beat internal expectations but overall missed Wall Street’s expected $114.96 in revenue.

Wal-Mart U.S. saw same-store sales rise 1.5%, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of same-store sales growth after nine straight quarterly declines. At Sam’s Club, same-store sales rose 2.7%, excluding fuel.

Sam’s Club’s decision to open at 7 a.m. on Black Friday is a definite "swim upstream" move on the part of the warehouse club operator given retail industry trends and Walmart’s decision to offer its Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving.

NCR Corporation got a big order from Walmart this week that will allow the retailer to expand its self-checkout capability and potentially attract shoppers turned off by Walmart’s long checkout lines.

NCR said it would be installing 10,000 of its SelfServ Checkout lanes in more than 1,200 Walmart stores. That works out to about eight self checkouts per store, although the companies didn’t provide details concerning Walmart’s installed base of self-checkouts.