News

Issaquah, Wash. – Costco Wholesale Corp. on Thursday reported that its revenue for the fourth-quarter climbed 9% to $34.8 billion. Total same-store sales, excluding negative impacts from gasoline price deflation and foreign exchange, increased 7%.

Costco plans to open nine new warehouse stores before the end of calendar year 2014.

During the full fiscal year 2014, Costco reported a 7% jump in net sales to $110.2 million from $102.9 million. Total same-store sales rose 6%.  

Costco said it plans to open nine new warehouse stores before the end of calendar year 2014, following a boost in net sales for August and the fourth quarter.

During the month of August, net sales were $8.8 billion, an increase of 10% from $8 billion during the similar period last year. Same-store sales in the United States increased 7%.

For the 16-week fourth quarter, the company reported net sales of $34.8 billion, an increase of 9% from $31.8 billion in the year-ago period. Same-store sales in the United States increased 6%.

Hayward, Calif. – Posiflex is releasing the HS2310, an ultra‐small, all‐in‐one point‐of‐service terminal with a multitouch projected capacitive screen. The HS2310 is winner of the 2014 Red Dot Award for Product Design and the 2013 COMPUTEX Design & Innovation award.

This 10-inch projected capacitive touch screen terminal comes integrated with a three-inch thermal printer, encryption‐capable magnetic stripe reader, WiFi and optional secondary customer displays.

Rite Aid reported a 3.2% lift in sales for the 26 weeks ended Aug. 30, ringing in $12.9 billion.
 
Same-store sales for the period increased 3.6% over the prior-year period. Front-end same store sales increased 0.6%, while pharmacy same store sales increased 5.1%. Prescription count at comparable stores increased 3% over the prior-year period.
 
Prescription sales represented 68.6% of total drug store sales for the 26-week period, and third-party prescription sales represented 97.5% of pharmacy sales.
 

Clearwater, Fla. – AccuStore, a provider of site profiling technology and services, announced The Pantry, a chain of 1,500 plus convenience stores, has licensed AccuStore’s site profile management platform with plans to reduce operating costs and improve execution.
 

Amazon has rolled out KDP Kids, a program designed to help children’s book authors prepare, publish and promote both illustrated and chapter books in Kindle Stores worldwide.

Children’s book authors can use Amazon’s new Kindle Kids’ Book Creator tool to create illustrated children’s books that take advantage of Kindle features like text popups. Once the book is ready, authors can upload it to KDP, and use KDP’s category, age and grade range filters to help Amazon customers choose the right books for their kids.

Hudson's Bay Company has appointed Andrea Wong as a director of the company. Including Wong, who is considered an independent director, the board is now made up of 10 directors.

New York -- With U.S. social commerce sales expected to reach $14 billion by 2015 and social networks like Twitter and Facebook ramping up their commerce capabilities, a survey by global marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi, and conducted online by Harris Poll, shows that while only 5% of Americans have made a purchase on a social media site, 20% would consider doing so.