Club & Warehouse

Pam Kohn and Cameron Geiger are the headliners at this year’s annual luncheon for the Northwest Arkansas chapter of the Retail Link Users Group also known as the nwaRLUG.

Organizers of the event expect upward of 800 people will attend the 13th annual affair, which couldn’t take place at a more opportune time considering the heightened emphasis Walmart has placed on store level execution and on-shelf availability as the only metric that matters when it comes to assessing in-stock.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. — The nation’s leading warehouse club operator maintained its momentum in November by posting a 6% increase in same-store sales at U.S. clubs excluding the beneficial effect of higher year-over-year gas prices.

A funny thing happened on the way to Costco reporting a 6% increase in November same-store sales.

The warehouse club operator noted that sales in the electronics area increased in the high single digits and, in a reversal of prior year trends, attributed the gain to higher average selling prices as opposed to strong unit volume. In fact, unit volumes of televisions declined, but the drop was offset by strong sales of pricey big screen LED models as opposed to the prior year when sales were still dominated by LCD and plasma models that were experiencing deflationary pricing.

New York City -- The discount and wholesale club sector was hit and miss in November, as Costco shone with a 9% rise in same-store sales for the month, but Target missed Wall Street expectations with a weak gain.

The new year will see a changing of the guard in the chief executive’s office of several big retailers. Here are four to watch:

Costco
The torch has been passed at Costco Wholesale Corp., with president and COO Craig Jelinek stepping into the very big shoes of the company’s longtime chief executive and co-founder Jim Sinegal (effective January 1, 2012).

New York City -- Nielsen’s annual Black Friday Shopping Survey, released Tuesday, found that 80% of consumers don’t plan to shop on Black Friday. Of those that do, 71% will head to department stores, 52% to electronics stores, 51% to mass merchandisers and discounters, 40% will shop online, 27% will visit toy stores and 23% will shop warehouse clubs.

Consistent with promotional strategies from previous years, Target is offering some insane prices on popular electronics items. Unfortunately, if holiday shoppers follow the advice of Consumer Reports this year they won’t be coming to Target.

Sam’s Club president and CEO Brian Cornell may have been the last of Walmart’s three divisional presidents to speak on the company’s conference call, but he had the best news to share.

Sam’s produced a 5.7% third-quarter same-store sales increase that was unaided by fuel prices, and Cornell indicated the string of seven consecutive quarters of sequentially increasing comps could be extended in the fourth quarter, with guidance that set 6% as the upper end of the forecast range.