News

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Retailers are sometimes accused of being laggards when it comes to technology and process adoption, but that does not appear to be the case when it comes to marketing. To assess marketing maturity across industries and demonstrate the business impact of modern marketing best practices, Oracle commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a global study of marketing decision-makers.

Overshadowed by Target’s bombshell announcement to exit Canada, the retailer said U.S. sales – and profits – were much better than expected during the holidays.

The favorable combination of increased traffic and stronger than expected digital sales enabled the company to produce a 3% same store sales increase during November and December versus an earlier forecast which called for 2% growth.

Solid sales of televisions and mobile phones in stores and online drove better than expected top line growth at Best Buy during the holidays with details on profitability yet to come.

The company said same-store sales grew 3.4% in the United States over the holidays (Nov.-Dec.) as it sold more large-screen TVs and mobile phones.

Manchester, Conn. -- Bob’s Discount Furniture has leased a 751,966-sq.-ft. warehouse and distribution building in Shorewood, Illinois, as it prepares to expand its growing retail furniture business into the Chicago area.

Bob’s, the 14th-largest U.S. furniture chain, has opened nearly a dozen new stores across the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions during the past two years. But this new facility marks its first move into the Midwest.

Chesapeake, Va. – In the latest scene from the continuingly unfolding saga of the battle for Family Dollar, two proxy investment firms have switched their recommendation for Family Dollar shareholders to accept and $8.5 billion bid from Dollar Tree, rather than a $9.1 billion bid from Dollar General. Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) both cited Dollar Tree’s bid as offering a greater likelihood of success, despite being lower.

Talk about ripping off the Band-Aid. Target Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell moved swiftly and decisively in deciding to exit Canada, however his actions aren’t without precedent.

Big Lots took similar action after it entered Canada and last fall, a month after Cornell took the helm, the prospects of Target’s exist from the market were explored in the third quarter edition of Retailing Today’s Target Supplier News publication. This is that story:

New York -- TGI Fridays Inc., in partnership with Microsoft Corp., is upping its guests’ experience by equipping servers with eight-inch tablets on which they can process orders and payments while at the table and respond promptly to requests. The chain has completed a six-city pilot in Texas and Minnesota, and plans to deploy the tablets in 80 additional restaurants, with more than 2,000 tablets in place by March.

Retailers already knew they had work to do to better meet online shoppers’ expectations, just maybe not as much as revealed by new research from IBM.