Retail

When it comes to success in retail, the old mantra of “location, location, location” has been largely replaced by “customer, customer, customer.” That was one of the themes of the SPECS workshop session, “It’s All in the Demographics.”

“Yes, it’s about demographics, but it’s more than demographics. It’s about the lifestyle embedded in the demographics,” explained Bill Stinneford, executive VP retail, Buxton, Fort Worth, Texas, which provides customer analytics for site selection, marketing and e-commerce.

Landlords and tenants have a new way to connect

Networking isn’t new, but in this day and age of emails and texts, the idea of face-to-face business-building has taken on new importance.

New York -- Seattle Mayor Ed Murray on Thursday unveiled a plan to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15. Although Murray said the hike has broad support across local government, business and labor communities, the City Council still has to vote on the proposal.
 
Under Murray’s plan, businesses with fewer than 500 employees would have seven years to comply and larger businesses would have three years. Further increases would be tied to inflation.
   

New York -- Andrea Weiss, a 30-year retail veteran, and Bill Mirabito, a digital innovator, have teamed up to form The O Alliance, a consulting firm designed to help retailers better target today’s, multichannel digitally-savvy shoppers.
 

Smart retailers can succeed in a tight real estate market with limited capital

Even as the economy continues on a path of slow improvement, brick-and-mortar retailers still find themselves in a real estate market with few vacancies and even fewer new malls under construction. In addition, corporate management remains reluctant to expend any more capital than it feels is absolutely necessary to meet immediate needs.

Atlanta – Havertys reported declining year-over-year net income and sales during the first quarter of fiscal 2014, which the retailer attributed to a 0.9% drop in same-store sales and out-of-period gross profit adjustment in the first quarter of fiscal 2013. The company still plans to open three new stores in its largest markets.

Net income dropped 26% to $6.13 million, from $8.26 million. Net sales declined 2% to $181.7 million, from $186.1 million.

Lakeland, Fla. -- Publix reported that its profit rose 4.8% to $493.7 million in its first quarter.  

Sales increased 4.1% to $7.8 billion, with a 4% increase in same-store sales.  

Publix estimated that its sales were negatively impacted by 1.3% due to the later Easter this year.  

Effective May 1, Publix’s stock price increased from $30.15 per share to $32.50 per share. Publix stock is not publicly traded and is available only to current Publix employees and members of its board of directors.

Walgreens provided an up-close look at its new location in Evanston, Ill. — distinguished as the nation’s first net zero energy store — during a super-session at this year’s SPECS conference. Initial engineering estimates — which can vary due to the weather, store operations, systems performance and other factors — indicate that the store will use 200,000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity while generating 220,000 kilowatt hours per year.