Sales & Marketing

On a recent trip to Seattle, my luggage was lost and I found myself without anything to wear except for the clothes on my back. I urgently needed a suit for a business meeting and decided Nordstrom was the best place to start given I was in the retailer’s hometown.   

Shop!, the global non-profit trade association dedicated to enhancing retail environments and experiences, has announced the winners of its 46th year annual store design competition, and a specialty store took top honors.    

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.  

Cumberland Farms, a convenience store fixture in New England and central Florida for half a century, once fielded more than 1,000 stores. Today it has pared down to 600 stores as it transforms itself from a strip-center and gas station dairy store to a chain of freestanding, modern C-stores providing food service and gasoline, along the lines of Quik Check and Wawa.  

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?    

Having reached a 15-year peak on February, consumer confidence reached a new peak in March, now standing at its highest level in 16 years.   The index's current reading is 125.6, up from 116.1 in February.   “Consumer confidence increased sharply in March to its highest level since December 2000 (Index, 128.6),” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board.   

The pizza chain is getting ready to introduce the newest member of its delivery team.   Through its partnership with Starship Technologies, Domino’s will begin using wheeled robots to deliver pizza in Hamburg, Germany. The first deliveries could begin in the next two months, according to ReCode.   

Later this week, the nomination of Alexander Acosta to be the next Secretary of Labor will likely be voted out of the Senate HELP Committee and head for confirmation on the Senate floor. The administration made headlines just prior to his confirmation hearings outlining cuts to the Department of Labor budget in the neighborhood of $2.5 Billion or roughly 20%.