Supply Chain & Merchandising

Walmart talks a lot about the opportunities it provides to employees and every so often examples pop up that puts things in perspective.

Grand Rapids, Mich. - Meijer will open a supercenter in Danville, Ill., on Nov. 7, marking its final of six new stores the retailer has opened this year in the Midwest. The 190,000-sq.-ft. store has created 300 new jobs and provides local residents a 24-hour shopping option.

Kmart is planning to roll out lease-to-own financing at stores nationwide ahead of the holiday season. The retailer began testing the program in mid-October and plans to make it available in all stores by Nov. 22.

Customers will be able to take home items priced at $150 and more for no credit, including appliances, mattresses, furniture, lawn and garden equipment, consumer electronics, service plans and others. To qualify, customers must be at least 18 years old, earn at least $1,000 per month and supply a social security or tax identification number when applying.

Greenwood Village, Colo. — Red Robin Gourmet Burgers has announced that it will open two new restaurants, one in Secaucus, N.J., and another in the Cincinnati metro area. To help celebrate the grand opening of the new restaurants, the company will donate the proceeds of all sales of its signature Freckled Lemonade during the two restaurants’ first week of operation to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding cures for kids with cancer.

Burlington, Mass. – Demandware has released the Demandware Large Enterprise solution, which combines services, technology and benefits optimized to meet the needs of large-scale, omni-channel retailers. The solution is powered by Demandware Commerce, a cloud platform that provides brand control, business agility and operational flexibility.

San Jose, Calif. — Togo’s Eateries has announced signed development agreements with new and existing franchisees to open nine new restaurants in markets across California. The company will open two restaurants in downtown Los Angeles, two in midtown and downtown Sacramento, and single units in San Jose, Santa Cruz, Riverbank, El Centro and Petaluma.

New York -- Office Depot and OfficeMax announced the completion of their merger late Tuesday and from the looks of third quarter results released the same day the deal should prove beneficial to both companies.

Office Depot said its third quarter same store sales declined 2%, while OfficeMax said its comps dropped 2.8% in the U.S. and 2.2% in Mexico.

The combined company will use the name Office Depot, Inc. and will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP.

Albertslund, Denmark -- Danish grocery chain Coop Denmark A/S has chosen Galleria to help automate and optimize its merchandising strategy and improve the customer experience within its more than 1,200 stores. Coop will roll-out Galleria’s cloud-based customer-centric merchandising solution throughout its family of supermarkets.

Coop Demnark A/S operates more than 1200 stores across Denmark under the following trade names: Kvickly, SuperBrugsen, Dagli’Brugsen, LokalBrugsen, Irma, Fakta and Fakta Q.