Convenience Stores

Popular Northeast grocer Stew Leonard's is planning to open a 70,000-sq.-ft. store in Long Island this year.

Construction on the new store will start this summer with an anticipated opening date of mid-2017, the company said. Earlier this month, Stew Leonard’s opened its first Long Island store in Farmingdale’s Airport Plaza on Route 110.

The family-owned and operated grocery chain was founded as a dairy store in 1969 in Norwalk, Conn.

Kroger is changing the way it organizes beer, wine and liquor on its store shelves by asking a private distributor to charge alcohol companies for placement, according to a report from Time magazine. (Time)

Shake Shack and Uber have digitally collaborated on customer experience with a little help from Visa Inc.

In December 2015, New York-based, 66-unit Shake Shack and Uber utilized the new Visa Commerce Network to offer a cross-promotion. Built on the VisaNet electronic payment network and accessible through application programming interfaces (APIs), Visa Commerce Network works by connecting transactions between two merchants.

Despite plummeting fuel prices, the ranks of convenience stores swelled to a record level last year.

The U.S. convenience store count increased to 154,195 stores as of Dec. 31, a 0.9% increase (1,401 stores) from the year prior, according to the 2016 NACS/Nielsen Convenience Industry Store Count.

When one looks at the hot topics in retail today, no shortage of economists, journalists, industry thought-leaders and technology pundits are talking about the future of payments. One topic that many aren’t really discussing is managing large volumes of cash receivables.

San Antonio, Texas -- X Team International, an international alliance of retail real estate advisors with expertise in more than 45 major markets throughout the U.S. and Canada, announced that it has welcomed San Antonio-based REATA Real Estate as its newest partner.

The intense focus directed on EMV compliance in fall 2015 has faded, but it is still a critical issue for the retail industry.

Away from the spotlight, progress in EMV compliance since the Oct. 1, 2015 mandate passed has moved more slowly than many in the industry may realize. According to a survey of 200 retail professionals conducted during the January 2016 NRF Convention by ACI Worldwide, the majority of respondents are not compliant.