Supermarket/Grocery

Black Friday may have lost some of its allure in recent years, but it still comes out on top in a ranking of the busiest shopping days.    Black Friday, which falls on November 25 this year, took the No. 1 spot in a ranking of the anticipated 10 busiest shopping days of 2016 by ShopperTrak, a Tyco Retail Solutions business unit. The second and third busiest shopping days are expected to be Monday, Dec. 26 and Friday, Dec. 23. (See end of article for the complete list.  

The past decade has witnessed a monumental shift in regulatory oversight of retailers’ environmental compliance programs. As a result, retailers have faced a crash course in the myriad hazardous waste control laws, once widely believed to not be relevant in the retail context.   Historically, most enforcement has been at the state and local level. But in just the past month, we’ve seen a flurry of retail-related activity from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including the following:  

Harris Teeter is no stranger to home delivery, but now more North Carolina-based shoppers can get their orders within an hour.   The grocer, a subsidiary of Kroger Co., is expanding its partnership with app-based grocery delivery service Shipt to get groceries into the hands of shoppers throughout the Charlotte metro area. The program, which was launched last year, was initially limited to the state’s Research Triangle region. This expansion extends the service to more than 50 Harris Teeter stores in the Charlotte area. 

Supervalu Inc. posted disappointing sales results for its second quarter as the company continues to shift its business toward wholesale distribution.       The company released its second quarter results just days after it entered into an agreement to sell its Save-A-Lot discount grocery chain to Canadian private equity firm Onex for $1.37 billion in cash.   

In line with driving the company’s digital services, Wakefern is turning its attention to mobile payments.   Specifically, it will enable customers to use Chase Pay when paying for groceries at its ShopRite and The Fresh Grocer stores. The mobile wallet allows customers to input Chase Visa consumer credit and debit cards into the app, then use the solution to digitally make purchases, and earn rewards. Token technology keeps payments more secures.  

Organized retail crime does not discriminate.      In a unanimous finding, a full 100% of retailers reported that their companies had experienced ORC in the past year, up from 97% in 2015, according to the 12th annual ORC study released by the National Retail Federation. It is the first time in the survey’s history that all responding companies reported being a victim.     

The new retail is here and a sector that is definitely feeling the wave of this reality is the grocery industry. With the strong penetration of Aldi, Amazon’s move into online grocery, Wal-Mart’s purchase of Jet.com and the dreaded arrival in the U.S. of the highly competitive German grocery store Lidl, it’s no wonder grocers are fighting for survival in this ever-changing, highly saturated environment.   

Lidl, the German no-frills grocery chain, is shaping up as a potential retail powerhouse even before it opens its first U.S. store.   The company will generate $8.8 billion in sales by 2023, larger than Wegman’s 2016 value of $8.1 billion, according to a just-released forecast by Kantar Retail.