Convenience Stores

Macy’s ranked as the department store of the year in the Harris Poll’s 28th annual EquiTrend Stud, which recognizes the strongest brands based on consumer response.

In coming out on top, Macy's unseated Kohl's, which has held the honor since 2012. Macy's also showed one of the largest brand equity increases (+7%) over a three-year period.

Emerging food service concept Maple Street Biscuit Company is the latest addition to one of Gainesville, Fla.’s fastest growing retail destinations.

Target Corp. weighed in on the national debate about which bathrooms transgender people can use, staking a position that is sure to elicit as much praise as it does criticism.

In a blog post on its company website Tuesday, the discounter said transgender employees and customers can use the restroom or fitting room facility that "corresponds with their gender identity."

BOISE, Idaho — Albertsons plans to provide free hearing tests to customers in 24 stores using a unique testing kiosk developed by Hearing Wellness Network.

The diagnostic test expands Albertsons Companies' health-and-wellness services to customers by offering a quick-and-easy method to diagnose possible problems and promote hearing awareness. Kiosks are now available as part of a pilot program at participating Albertsons, ACME, Jewel-Osco, Safeway, Shaw's, Star Market and Tom Thumb stores.

A leading payment card issuer and the world’s largest discount retailer are both launching efforts to reduce how long customers have to wait to check out with EMV-compliant payment cards.

Visa Inc. is rolling out a technology enhancement designed to optimize EMV chip card processing and speed up checkout times. The new solution, called Quick Chip for EMV, streamlines the processing of chip card transactions to enable customers to dip and remove their EMV chip card from the terminal, typically in two seconds or less, without waiting for the transaction to be finalized.

Supervalu is adding a veteran wholesale executive to a new C-level position and also enacting several other changes to its senior leadership team.

James Weidenheimer, 57, has been named to the newly-created position of executive VP, corporate development and chief innovation officer, reporting to Supervalu president and CEO Mark Gross. Weidenheimer joins the company after having spent the last 16 years in senior leadership positions with C&S Wholesale Grocers. He is expected to start in his new role by April 25, 2016.

Consumers are using their mobile devices to shop in ways that have an impact both in-store and online.

Analysis of daily surveys of recent online buyers by Hayley Silver, VP of Bizrate Insights, a division of Connexity, shows that online purchases on a mobile device as a percent of online orders have been growing and maintaining market share since late 2014. However, nearly 12% of all online shoppers still don’t use their mobile device to shop at all.

A controversial labor practice employed by some retailers is coming under increased scrutiny by U.S.regulators.  

Both the volume of and monetary losses caused by fraudulent transactions have sharply increased in the past year.   According to the “2016 True Cost of Fraud Report” from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the monthly average of fraudulent transactions has increased 32% to 206 from 156 in 2015. In addition, the monthly average of prevented fraudulent transactions has risen 33% to 236 from 177.