News

Another retailer joins the innovation lab ranks
Denver – Another company has joined the constantly expanding ranks of retailers who operate proprietary innovation labs.

Demonstrating that the appeal of innovation labs is moving beyond major chains, specialty online retailer eBags is teaming with Iterate Studio to jointly create a two-part innovation lab.
IHL: One vendor dominates hardgoods POS market
Franklin, Tenn. – Unlike the softgoods retail POS market where there are two leading vendors, one vendor clearly dominates the POS market for hardgoods retailers.

According to the new “POS Software of Hardgoods” study from IHL Group, Oracle is the clear market leader in the hardgoods market, with 39 of the top 200 accounts.

Amazon brings farm to table

Seattle – Amazon.com is piloting a program that delivers products from farmers markets to consumer tables (or at least their front doors).

Partnering with farmers market delivery service Fresh Nation LLC, Amazon is delivering individual orders of farmers market goods, as well as prepared gift baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables, to customers in Los Angeles and Orange and San Diego counties in Southern California.
K-VA-T stays in the money

Arlington, Va. – Regional southeastern grocery retailer K-VA-T Food Stores is staying in the money, and doing it remotely.

The operator of the Food City and Super Dollar banners has implemented vbInSight by Balance Innovations as its corporate reporting solution.

vbInSight is a Web-based corporate reporting application that provides K-VA-T with immediate access, via alerts, to individual and aggregate bookkeeper and cashier data.
Cool clothes in a high-tech store setting

New York -- Rebecca Minkoff has brought its “Store of the Future” concept to Los Angeles.
Gilt makes offline leap — but no walk-ins

New York -- Members of the flash sale site Gilt will soon be able to see close up some of the site’s designer deals on the popular website, complete with a personal stylist — but only if they book ahead.
H-E-B is Instacart’s newest partner

San Francisco -- Regional supermarket operator H-E-B has joined the ranks of retailers offering home delivery service.

The chain is the latest retailer to reach an agreement with grocery delivery service provider Instacart. Under the deal, Instagram will offer home delivery to H-E-B customers in the Austin and Houston markets.
Dollar Tree merger good for sales, but related costs hammer earnings

Chesapeake, Va. -- Dollar Tree swung to a loss in its second quarter on higher integration costs related to its acquisition of a formal rival. But its revenue skyrocketed as a result of the merger.

On July 6, Dollar Tree completed its $9 billion acquisition of Family Dollar Inc.
Lowe’s Canada to reward customers with air miles

Toronto -- Shoppers at Lowe’s stores in Canada will soon be able to turn their purchases into miles toward air travel.

Lowe's Canada and LoyaltyOne Co., owner and operator of the Air Miles Reward Program, announced an agreement to launch the reward program with an anticipated full roll-out to Lowe's stores in Canada beginning on Dec. 1.
Canadian Lowe’s customers will be able to earn Air Miles reward miles at all Canadian Lowe's retail locations and for purchases online at Lowes.ca.
European payments player launches in U.S., and its first retail partner is…

New York -- A Swedish-based payments company that allows mobile shoppers to pay for a purchase after has been delivered has entered the increasingly competitive U.S. payments market.

On Tuesday, Stockholm-based Klarna announced its official U.S. launch, with Overstock.com as its first major retail partner.
Amazon retooling its Prime program?

Amazon.com is reportedly doing some experimental tinkering with the two-day shipping guarantee for its paid Prime loyalty program.
Dollar Tree profits from Family Dollar deal

The acquisition of Family Dollar in the second quarter led Dollar Tree Inc. to report quarterly sales that were up more than 48% from a year ago.

For the second quarter ended Aug. 1, Dollar Tree reported sales of $3.01 billion, boosted by $811.6 million in sales from Family Dollar. Same store sales rose 2.7%. Dollar Tree reported income of $138.9 million. The retailer’s earnings were 67 cents.