Convenience Stores

Seattle – Amazon is priming the appetites of customers in Seattle with a new feature of its Prime Now one-hour delivery service.

Members of the Amazon Prime paid loyalty program in Seattle can order delivery from participating local restaurants using the Prime Now mobile app.

Prime members can view participating restaurants, browse menus, place orders and track the status of their delivery in real time. Once an order is placed, Amazon delivery drivers pick up and deliver the food within an hour or less.

Robbinsdale, Minn. -- Hy-Vee announced Thursday that it will open retail clinics in two new Twin Cities-area stores opening in September.

For the clinics in the New Hope and Oakdale stores, Hy-Vee has teamed with North Memorial Health Care, whose physician assistants and nurses will staff the North Memorial Express Clinics.

Louisville, Ky. -- Papa John’s International announced the promotions of Robert Thompson to senior VP of marketing and Edmond Heelan to senior VP of North American operations and global operations support and training.

North Plainfield, N.J. -- Levin Management announced it has been named the exclusive leasing agent for two New Jersey properties: Whiting Town Center in Whiting Township and Fords Shopping Center in Woodbridge Township.

Whiting Town Center is a 118,000 sq. ft. grocery-anchored property with a mix of retail, restaurant and service tenants. Earlier this year Levin was retained by new ownership to continue its role as managing agent for Whiting Town Center.  

Woonsocket, R.I. – When consumers have less access to cigarettes, they smoke fewer of them.

This is the basic conclusion of a new report from CVS Health showing that overall cigarette sales fell in 13 states where CVS has more than a 15% market share.

Fueled in part by increased pharmacy sales, Fred’s reported Thursday that its August sales hit $165.6 million this year, up 12% over August 2014.

Austin, Texas – A new study has identified the most popular retail POS system.

According to research by Software Advice, Lightspeed takes the top spot.

Software Advice assigned Lightspeed a combined score of 4.9 on a five-point scale for its user adoption level, search traffic and social media presence. Following Lightspeed were Microsoft Dynamics (4.7), Vend (4.4), Revel (4.4), Shopkeep (3.8), AP (3.5), NCR (3.2), Bindo (3) and CashierLive (3).

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly wants to become a place where consumers can go and everybody knows your name.

According to USA Today, Target plans to serve liquor in a store slated to open in Chicago in October 2015.

While a number of Target stores sell packaged alcohol products, this marks the first time Target would also serve liquor for customers to consume inside the store. Target has applied for permits to both sell alcohol for take-home purchase and for in-store consumption for the Chicago store.

Newcastle, Wash. -- Retail Properties of America announced that it has closed on the off-market acquisition of Coal Creek Marketplace, a 56,000 sq. ft. grocery-anchored center located in Newcastle, Washington for approximately $17.6 million. The center is currently 95% occupied and anchored by Quality Food Centers, a subsidiary of Kroger.

As Target moves to reimagine the shopping experience for customers who visit its stores, the retailer has applied for two liquor licenses for a future store in Chicago.

USA Today reports that the company has applied for packaged goods and consumption on premises licenses.

The retailer may be trying to follow the lead of Kroger, Duane Reade and other retailers looking to expand their alcoholic offerings, which could pose operational challenges at these stores.