Supermarket/Grocery

Amazon’s Prime Day may have boosted the company’s second quarter sales, but the event wasn’t enough to keep its earnings on track.   The online giant’s net income for the second quarter, ended June 30, was $197 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, compared with net income of $857 million, or $1.78 per diluted share, in second quarter 2016. Earnings also drastically missed analyst expectations of $1.42 per share, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.  

A German discount grocer is buying up land in the Grand Canyon State — but not to open stores.    Aldi is planning to open a regional fulfillment center in Goodyear, Arizona. The facility will house an office and distribution center, and will create 132 jobs, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.  

Walmart has found a way to make the digital shopping experience even faster.   The discounter launched a new service on Tuesday that streamlines how shoppers reorder merchandise via their desktop or Walmart app. Called Easy Reorder, the service integrates shoppers’ purchase histories —a list that is comprised of merchandise purchased both in-store and online. The service curates the customer’s most purchased items — including brands and sizes.   

Dunhill Partners has acquired The Center at Pearland Parkway in Houston, which houses T.J. Maxx and Ross Dress for Less and is shadow-anchored by an HEB grocery store. Seller Stream Realty Partners did not disclose the sale price.   "Due to the ideal spacing between the two closest major retail nodes, the Center at Pearland Parkway offers tenants the ability to capture this under-served community with limited competition," said Stream managing director Mark Sondock.  

The recipe for success in food retail is changing at breakneck speed. Economic drivers, such as commodity deflation, make revenue growth difficult. At the same time, demographic trends – including the rise of both millennials and centennials – undermine tried-and-tested business models. And now they are faced with the game changing move by Amazon with its planned acquisition of Whole Foods.  

Families are keeping back-to-school shopping — and spending — simple.   Nearly two-thirds of families budgeted $250 or less for all their back-to-school needs, with only a quarter indicating they will spend between $251 and $500. With tight budgets, families are focusing on price and selection when it comes to buying goods for their youngsters.  

A new Marshalls location will co-anchor the Shoppes at Apple Greene in Dunkirk, Maryland, along with Harris Teeter, according to center owners Echo Realty and Marrick Partners.   The 21,000-sq.-ft. location will be Marshalls’ first in Calvert County, due south of Baltimore, where Marshalls operates two stores.   The 48,000-sq.-ft. Harris Teeter store is under construction at Apple Greene, a new 100,000-sq.-ft. center with an additional 30,000 sq. ft. available for lease.   

Amazon is working with government officials to head off a lengthy deal investigation.   Amazon will re-file documents this week seeking government approval of its planned purchase of Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. The move will restart the process, giving U.S. antitrust enforcers more time to complete an early review of the retailers’ planned tie-up, according to the Wall Street Journal.  

Customers that shop at both Amazon and Whole Foods Market are the most upbeat about the online giant’s purchase of the natural foods grocer.   This was according to a new GfK report that was conducted among 1,000 US adults (ages 18 and above) using KnowledgePanel, the company’s probability-based online panel that represents the adult U.S. population. Responses were collected from June 23-26.  

Prime Day 2017 was Amazon’s biggest event yet. But the shopping marathon took a significant toll on brick-and-mortar traffic.