Mass Merchant

The Jet Anywhere rewards program is preparing for its final descent.   As of May 1, Jet.com is pulling the plug on a program that rewards consumers for shopping on its retail portal. As shoppers enter the Jet Anywhere e-commerce portal, they can click through and shop at more than 600 retail partners, including Foot Locker, Land’s End, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdales, among others.   

Two regional grocers beat all the competition in and out of their category in a survey of customer experiences across 20 different industries.   

Amazon is getting is shutting down one of its units after it failed to turn a profit.   The company pulling the plug on Quidsi, parent company of diapers.com, soap.com and several other shopping sites, which it purchased in 2010. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.   

Excess inventory and markdowns took their toll on H&M’s first fiscal quarter.   For the period spanning December 1, 2016 - February 28, 2017, H&M’s first-quarter pretax profit fell 3.6% to 3.21 billion kronor ($362 million), compared with an average estimate of 3.03 billion kronor. H&M blamed the decline on lower than expected sales growth, as well as higher mark-downs.  

Trusted national news sources such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times continue to augur the fall the mall, but many American towns won’t give them up without a fight.   One such is Racine, Wisconsin, whose City Plan Commission advanced a scheme to revitalize the failing Regency Mall by forming a tax increment district (TID) around the 134-acre site that includes out-lots housing Target, Home Depot, Toys R Us, and the High Ridge Center.  

In light of Target shares dropping 15% after their latest earnings announcement, Target CEO Brian Cornell said executives would be detailing moves for greater pricing aggressiveness and increased merchandise differentiation, both tactics that Target has been known for historically. Cornell’s pricing reference led to speculation about a price war with Walmart, which many experts surmise Target simply can’t win. Speculation aside, is a price war poised to erupt between these two mega-retailers?    

Gordmans is being rescued from liquidation — at least, part of it.    Stage Stores won a bid to acquire about half of Gordmans’ stores. The Omaha, Nebraska-based department store chain filed for Chapter 11 on March 13.    The retailer’s bid edged out Jeff Gordman, the former CEO of Gordmans, who also made a play to revive the bankrupt 106-store department store chain.   

The party is over for shoppers that enjoyed tax-free online shopping — on Amazon, anyway.   Starting on April 1, Amazon will collect sales tax from all states that have a tax levy. Only the five states that do not have a state sales tax — Alaska, Delaware, Oregon, Montana and New Hampshire — will remain exempt.