Supply Chain & Merchandising

Online spending, and the amount of purchases made after the standard shipping deadline, were on the rise this holiday season.  

Dollar Tree has appointed Duncan Mac Naughton as president and COO of its Family Dollar subsidiary.   Mac Naughton, 54, most recently served as CEO of Mills Fleet Farm. He has held numerous leadership roles at Wal-Mart Stores, including chief merchandising and marketing officer of Wal-Mart U.S. from 2011 to 2014, executive VP of consumables health and wellness and Walmart.com from 2010 to 2011, and chief merchandising officer of Wal-Mart Canada from 2009 to 2010.  

Poor holiday sales results from Macy’s, Sears, and Kohl’s do not bode well for the already embattled department store sector. And now J.C. Penney has reported its own disappointing results.   

Going undercover isn’t easy. But it can definitely be worth the effort. Just ask Sharon Price John, president and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop.   

Apparel retailer The Limited is out of the brick-and-mortar retail business.   The ailing chain, which has quietly been closing stores around the country for the past couple of weeks, announced the news with a short statement on its website on Friday, Jan. 6. The move was not unexpected. Limited has struggled amid increased competition from fast-fashion upstarts, both offline and online.   

A six-month battle between Walmart Canada and Visa has come to an end.   The retailer, which threatened to ban the card processor from all of its stores nationwide due to “unacceptably high” credit-card transaction fees, has ended its feud, and will resume accepting Visa cards at its more than 400 stores starting Friday, Jan. 6.  

Sprouts Family Market is expanding its footprint.     The Phoenix-based grocer plans to open 35 stores in 2017, with 11 of the locations opening in the second quarter of the year.     The 11 stores opening in the second quarter include three in California, two in Georgia, two in Florida locations, two in Texas locations and two in Colorado, the Phoenix Business Journal reported.  

Albertsons is helping expand online grocery purchases to low-income individuals nationwide.   The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has selected Albertsons Companies to participate in the online purchasing pilot for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — a service targeting low-income households.