Data & Analytics

The timing of Easter this year left Costco with 27 days of sales in April, rather than last year’s 28. But despite the Easter holiday shift, Costco still came out on top with a 7% increase in net sales that reportedly beat analysts’ expectations.

Fred's plans to implement a long-term marketing strategy stressing everyday low pricing and the convenience of a smaller box to help bolster sales against what the company describes as "intense competitive pressures." The company's pharmacy operations continue to grow, however.

Fred's reported $150 million in sales for the four weeks ended May 3, representing a decline of 1.6% as compared to year-ago sales. For the first quarter ended May 3, sales totaled $498.5 million, down 0.6%.

Roundy's saw net sales increase by 1.9% to $1 billion, and reported a net loss of $4.5 million compared with net income of $8.6 million.

Interactions, a leading global integrated sales and marketing programs developer, has appointed David Zierman as director of insights.
 
Based in San Diego, Zierman will lead the company’s market research efforts including managing primary data collected via Mystery Shopping, Customer Intercept Surveys, Web Based Surveys, electronic customer satisfaction surveys (bottom of the receipt surveys) and Retail Audits. He will be responsible for the organization’s P&L as well as business development and operations.
 

Sprouts Farmers Market’s president and CEO Doug Sanders credited the company’s focus on offering healthy food at affordable prices for 28 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales growth as well as record first quarter results that outperformed its targets.

Although specialty retailer Cato had a rough March thanks to the shift of Easter from late March last year to mid-April this year, April was a whole other story.

The company reported sales of $93.5 million for the four weeks ended May 3, a 21% jump from sales of $77 million for the four weeks ended May 4, 2013. Same-store sales increased 18% for the month.

New York -- Chain Store Age will host a webinar sponsored by Voltage Security on the steps retailers can take to secure their store and online networks against costly data breaches. Speakers will also discuss key lessons learned from the recent breaches, and the latest developments in data security and retail fraud protection.
   

Washington, D.C. -- Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.5% in May as negotiators prepare to begin talks on a new contract for West Coast dockworkers, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Toronto -- Opterus Inc., a leading provider of cost-effective, web-based store communications and task management solutions, announced that luxury retailer Cole Haan has selected Opterus’ Store Ops-Center as its communications and task management solution.

Cupertino, Calif. -- Voltage Security announced a new product integration with device manufacturer Uniform Industrial Corp. (UIC) that provides end-to-end data encryption for the retail payments industry, a key technology in light of the recent data breaches. (Chain Store Age will host a Webinar on data security sponsored by Voltage Security, “Lessons Learned: What to Do NOW to Protect Stores Against Data Breaches,” on May 13. Register here.)