Discount Store

The nation’s top two extreme-value discounters aren’t feeling the retail malaise that affected department stores and many specialty retailers in the first quarter.  

Supermarkets and fast-casual restaurant brands took the top positions in an annual ranking of customer experience.   Publix, Chick-fil-A, and H-E-B earned top three positions in Temkin Group’s 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, a cross-industry benchmark of customer experience.     Publix had a score of 84%, closely followed by Chick-fil-A and H-E-B, which both scored 83% in the seventh annual rating.  

Chain Store Age’s annual search for 10 retail real estate stars under the age of 40 years resulted in this: Ten youthful, creative, hard-charging industry executives.

Some are retailers, others are brokers or from shopping center companies. Three are women. One is under the age of 30. There’s a single Canadian in the bunch. Two work for CBRE. Each has studied the business, sought out mentors, and researched and taken on the issues of the day.

Grocery giant Supervalu Inc. is one step closer to separating its troubled Save-A-Lot banner.
 
Supevalu, which initially announced it was exploring spinning off Save-A-Lot into a standalone, publicly traded company in July 2015, has completed the amendment of an existing $1.5 billion senior secured term loan agreement. This amendment permits the company and its subsidiaries to undertake certain transactions deemed necessary to enable a spinoff of Save-A-Lot.

Going-out-of-business sales will start before Memorial Day at Sports Authority’s remaining 450 stores nationwide.

The moves comes after the retailer, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, was unable to find a buyer.

When it comes to supply chain leadership and best practices, a fast food chain beat out the world’s leading e-commerce and discount retailers.

According to the new Gartner Inc. Supply Chain Top 25 ranking, McDonald’s led all retail chains with the number two ranking. Consumer products giant Unilever ranked first among all companies.

While other retailers make news by posting grim first quarter results and closing stores., the nation’s leading off-price retailer is making headlines by doing just the opposite. Amid strong first quarter results that included a 7% rise in same-store sales, TJX Cos. said it plans to open about 150 more stores during the rest of this year, on top of the 47 stores it opened in its first quarter.

Target Corp.’s ongoing recovery stalled a bit in the first quarter as the chain joined the list of retailers posting disappointing Q1 sales amid cool, unspring like weather and sluggish retail spending. But it was not all gloom and doom for the discounter, whose online sales continued their upward course and whose profit topped estimates.