Supply Chain & Merchandising

Seattle – Amazon.com has reportedly obtained a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” or a logistics technique using customer behavior and history to prepare items for shipping before they are actually ordered. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon received the patent in December 2013.

Altoona, Pa. — Sheetz Convenience Restaurants has opened two new locations in North Carolina. One is a 6,400-sq.-ft. store in Goldsboro, featuring a drive-through window, inside seating and a large shopping area. It will be the 59th Sheetz in the state.

The second store will open in Elkin, bringing the total number of North Carolina stores to 60.

As always, the NRF Conference & Exposition went by in a blur, but looking back on three jam-packed days of industry insight and networking, a few trends kept coming up again and again. Seamless retail, full mobilization of customers and employees, and item-level RFID tagging stood out as topics of interest among exhibitors and attendees. Following are a few thoughts about each of these trends that will help shape the direction of retail in the year ahead.

Seamless Retailing – Moving Beyond Omni-channel

In its PizzaRev case study series, CSA Online offers an insider’s look at the conception, initial rollout and growth of the southern Calif.-based fast-casual concept PizzaRev. Likened to “the Chipotle of pizza,” this innovative chain lets customers choose from an artisanal array of toppings to craft their own pizzas very quickly in a high-end stone hearth oven.

The Federal Trade Commission has granted Kroger and Harris Teeter Supermarkets early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 with respect to the pending merger transaction between the two companies.
 
The early termination of the HSR waiting period satisfies one of the conditions to the closing of the pending merger, which remains subject to other customary closing conditions. Both companies expect the transaction to be completed before the end of January.

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores has reportedly registered a new company called “Wal-Mart India Private Ltd.” in India, setting the stage for entering the Indian grocery market with a new local partner. According to the Free Press Journal, an Indian publication, Wal-Mart registered the company on Jan. 15, 2014 with the Indian Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

ShopKeep POS has launched a handheld point of sale device that will use Griffin Olli hardware with the ShopKeep POS app. Called ShopKeep Mobile, it is designed for the iPod touch and features an encrypted credit card swiper and high-speed laser barcode scanner to ring up sales right from the showroom floor.

ShopKeep Mobile also comes with all the functionality of the ShopKeep POS app, including: a full suite of reports, inventory management, employee timekeeping, customer database, email receipts, and support for ticket and receipt printers.

New York -- Mexico's Grupo Gigante expects to raise up to 4.954 billion pesos ($374.14 million) in its initial public offering of Office Depot de Mexico shares, Reuters reported.

The company plans to sell up to 291 million shares, local filings revealed.

The listing is provisionally set to price on Feb. 5, the report said.

In June, Grupo Gigante, acquired the 50% stake in the office supplies chain that it did not already own.