Supply Chain & Merchandising

St. Louis, Mo. -- Brown Shoe Co Inc. on Tuesday  posted a smaller second-quarter loss, helped by cost-cutting and higher sales at its Famous Footwear stores. The retailer also raised the lower end of its full-year profit outlook.

Brown Shoe’s quarterly loss narrowed to $2.5 million, compared with a loss of $4.6 million a year earlier.

Revenue decreased  to $599.3 million. Same-store sales rose 3.9%.
 

TORONTO — Supervalu has agreed to use LoyaltyOne's Precima customer-centric analytics solution, to develop a multi-dimensional customer segmentation, LoyaltyOne announced.

Precima's multi-dimensional segmentation analysis will use customer data to help Supervalue better understand its customers and classify them in a way that translates into actionable insights, the company said. Those insights drive improvements with a goal of being more responsive to customer needs.

New York -- Self-checkout technology continues to rise in importance at retailers in North America, according to a new study  by IHL Group.
 
The 2012 North American Kiosk Study finds that self-checkout shipments are increasing 8% year to year, with self-checkout transactions exceeding $255 billion annually in North America. Kooking Transactions are growing better than 7% per year in North America, and expected to grow past $1.0 trillion by 2014.
 

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- Domino's Pizza announced that it joined the SmartWay Transport Partnership, a collaboration between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and industry that provides a framework to assess the environmental and energy efficiency of goods movement supply chains.

Domino's Pizza will contribute to the Partnership's savings of 1.5 billion gallons of fuel, $3.6 billion in fuel costs, 14.7 MMT of carbon dioxide, 215,000 tons of oxides of nitrogen and 8,000 tons of particulate matter.

Certain locations present unique challenges when it comes to building and maintaining stores, and Hawaii qualifies in both instances. Ryno Irwin, CEO of Hawaii Retail Services, Makaha, Hawaii, spoke with Chain Store Age about logistics and demographics challenges in the Aloha State.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Meijer will double match every customer's $10 Simply Give donation made Sept. 2 to 8 in support of Hunger Action Month.

The Simply Give Week double match is part of a $1 million donation to the retailer's 2012 Simply Give program, which aims to replenish the shelves of nearly 200 food pantries in its five-state region each campaign.

York, Pa. -- The Bon-Ton Stores Inc. said that it plans to close its Carson's store in the River Oaks Mall in Calumet City, Ill., when the lease expires in January. 

The department store company said doesn't expect costs tied to the closing to be material.

Bon Ton received the leasehold interests in the store as part of its Northern Department Store Group acquisition in 2006.
 

By Jim Hogan, [email protected]

The retail industry is a bellwether for U.S financial health given that consumer spending is roughly 60%-70% of the economy. While the economy has sent mixed signals of late -- consumer confidence down, unemployment up -- consumer credit has swung up decidedly and leading companies in a wide swath of retail segments can point to positive year-over-year same store sales. This is prompting some retailers -- particularly discount stores--to begin opening new stores.