Data & Analytics

Pittsburgh – GNC Holdings Inc. demonstrated some weakness during the first quarter of fiscal 2015 with shrinking profit and revenue. Net income dropped 9% to $63.27 million from $69.9 million a year earlier, driven by rising selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses.

Net revenue fell slightly to $670.25 million from $674.46 million. Same-store sales decreased 4.1% in domestic company-owned stores (including GNC.com sales). In domestic franchise locations, same-store sales decreased 1.5%.

Austin, Texas - Whole Foods Market and Instacart are partnering to make it more convenient to show Mom how much you love her this Mother’s Day. Using the Instacart service, Whole Foods will deliver flowers in as little as one hour across 15 major U.S. metros, along with a selection of other gifts.

Watsonville, Calif. – West Marine Inc. slightly shrunk its net loss to $10.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from $11.4 million in the same period a year earlier. Cost of goods sold and selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses combined to total more than net revenues.

Camp Hill, Pa. – Same-store sales increased 3% in April 2015, compared to the same month a year earlier. April front-end same-store sales, which were negatively impacted by 0.9% due to a shift in the timing of Easter, decreased 0.5%.

Pharmacy same-store sales, which included an approximate 1.45% negative impact from new generic introductions, increased 4.6%. Prescription count at comparable stores increased 1.8% from the prior-year period.

New York - The U.S. retail and consumer sector experienced a strong first quarter in 2015 for merger & acquisition (M&A) activity, which was driven by seven megadeals (deals with a value of more than $1 billion). According to PwC's U.S. retail and consumer deals insights report, 39 deals were announced for the quarter (with values more than $50 million), up 11% from fourth quarter 2014, but down 9% from first quarter 2014.

Los Angeles - True Religion has expanded its partnership with Epicor to support omnichannel and digital innovation initiatives. The specialty apparel retailer has selected modules including the Epicor QuantiSense Retail Business Intelligence solution, and the Epicor ShopVisible cloud retail order management solution.

By Mihir Kittur, co-founder and chief innovation officer, Ugam

2015 is seeing enormous growth in the number of product SKUs listed online, and e-commerce and content managers will be tasked with the rapid onboarding of those SKUs. However, adding SKUs alone won’t be enough; they also need to have the right assortment and the right price and deliver a better shopper experience.

Quincy, Mass. -- Stop & Shop has broken ground on the company’s first anaerobic digester at its distribution center in Freetown, Massachusetts. The state-of-the-art digester will turn food scraps into clean energy.

As part of its sustainability efforts, Stop & Shop plans to donate and divert as much food waste and unsold food as possible to regional food banks and farms. But food that cannot be donated will be sent to the digester. The supermarket retailer has set a long-term goal to divert 90% of waste going to landfills.

New York -- Outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear retailer The North Face has collaborated with Jaunt, which provides virtual reality (VF) hardware and software, on an immersive VR in-store experience designed to boost customers’ connection to the outdoors.

The attraction arrived in select North Face locations beginning in March in Chicago, and is now being rolled out to the company’s store in Manhattan. It transports viewers to Yosemite National Park and Moab, Utah, alongside North Face global athletes Cedar Wright and Sam Elias.

Vernon, Calif. -- True Religion Apparel Inc. has opened its first global flagship, at 513 Broadway in downtown Manhattan. The 3,000-sq.-ft. space is the brand’s largest and most digitally-savvy store to date, starting with storefront windows that display a continuous stream of video content. The windows are also able to showcase style statements from shoppers themselves.

Inside the store, digital kiosks and iPads provide product-on-demand by offering the entire True Religion collection through an endless digital aisle.