Data & Analytics

Boston -- Walmart Canada and Target Canada are very competitively positioned from a basket price perspective, according to a recent report by Kantar Retail.  

Based on the study’s results, Kantar Retail believes that Target’s “Pay Less” consumables prices will stack up well against its Canadian competition and that the retailer will prove to be a formidable challenge to Walmart Canada’s price position in the market.  

Seattle -- Starbucks Coffee Company announced that it has appointed Matthew Ryan as global chief strategy officer. Ryan was previously SVP of global brand, franchise and customer relationship management for The Walt Disney Company.

Whether you are a retail analyst or a casual observer, it can be all too easy to get lost in the negativity of recent store closings and retail bankruptcies.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens reported Wednesday that sales for the month of March increased 2.3% to $6.2 billion.

Total front-end sales increased 5.4% compared with the same month in fiscal 2012, while same-store front-end sales increased 4.2%. Front-end sales will have benefited from a March 31 Easter — last year Easter sales fell in April. As a result Walgreens said it will report combined comps for March and April with its April sales results.
 

Oklahoma City -- CVS Caremark Corp. will pay $11 million to settle federal claims that the company’s pharmacies in the state violated record-keeping requirements of the Controlled Substances Act.

Federal prosecutor Sanford Coats said Wednesday that CVS has agreed to the settlement to resolve all allegations. However, while CVS said that its stores must comply with the record-keeping requirements, it does not admit liability.

By Greg Munves, [email protected]

If you’re like many mid-level or tier one retailers, online or brick-and-mortar, you’ve probably made a significant investment in Big Data, capturing and analyzing customer buying patterns across your business. You may not realize, however, that this huge IT investment can actually be a profit center, if you sell your data back upstream to your suppliers.
 

Boulder, Colo. -- In survey results released Wednesday by Market Force Information, DSW was named America’s No. 1 shoe retailer by more than 4,000 consumers polled.

Nordstrom, Nike, Shoe Carnival and Famous Footwear rounded out the top five.

Burlington, Mass. -- Demandware said Wednesday that Avenue Stores has selected the Demandware Commerce platform to support its omni-channel vision.  

Avenue Stores signed with Demandware in first quarter 2013.

Avenue needed a scalable and comprehensive digital commerce platform to realize its omni-channel vision, and will also utilize Demandware’s web design capabilities to optimize its sites for mobile and tablet commerce, as well as explore opportunities to integrate digital into its brick-and-mortar stores.