News

Shoe Carnival celebrates profit hike in Q2, plans new stores
Evansville, Ind. -- Shoe Carnival Inc. kicked up its heels about its profit in the second quarter, but missed on sales.

Aided by higher merchandise margins and lower advertising expenses, Shoe Carnival reported net earnings of $4.8 million, up 84% from $2.6 million a year earlier. Its results easily beat estimates.

Net sales rose 2% $227.8 million, less than expected, from $222.1 million. Same-store sales rose 0.5%.

Shoe Carnival plans to open 21 new stores and close 15 stores by the end of fiscal 2015.
HEB joins Instacart bandwagon
Regional supermarket operation H-E-B wants to make its customers lives’ better and believes its new relationship with Instacart accomplishes that objective.

H-E-B is the latest retailer to reach an agreement with grocery delivery service provider Instacart to offer home delivery in the Austin and Houston markets.

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.
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.
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.
Fresh Market looks to roar with ex-Food Lion exec

After a monthslong search for a new president and chief executive, the Fresh Market Inc. has turned to a retail veteran to provide leadership at a time when the company's growth has been stagnant.

The Fresh Market announced that its board of directors has named veteran food retail executive Richard Anicetti as the company’s president and CEO, effective immediately. Anicetti has also been elected to the company’s board of directors.
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.
Belk goes omnichannel for back-to-school

Belk Inc. looks like it has found a winner in a just-completed omnichannel back-to-school promotion.

Working with digital marketing provider HelloWorld, Belk allowed customers to both submit and vote on “looks” such as dorm room, game day and night out, created with Belk merchandise.
NRF offers retailers help with new holiday planning playbook

Washington, D.C. -- Retailers will reveal their 2015 holiday strategies in the weeks ahead and as they do so the National Retail Federation is offering a powerful new resource filled with industry best practices to benchmark against for this year and beyond.

The newly released report, called the 2015 Holiday Planning Playbook, was compiled by top retailers over the course of the past year who served on various NRF councils focused on retail industry disciplines.