News

As I prepare to pack my bags for New York to spend a few days in the NYC office and attend the National Retail Federation’s “Big Show” held at Javit’s Center from Jan. 13 to 15, I feel compelled to bring up this point about the annual NRF convention: it isn’t just for techies.

Wal-Mart Asia CEO Scott Price is among the feature speakers participating in this year’s World Retail Congress event scheduled for March 19-21 in Singapore.

New York -- Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP and its partners are nearing an agreement to buy parts of Supervalu Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported.

Cerberus and its partners plan to buy some assets of the retail chain and take a stake in the remainder, which is expected to remain public, according to the report.

Oak Brook, Ill.-based Ace Hardware launched Instant Savings, a program for Ace Rewards members that allows them to receive instant discounts at the register.

“We have made it even easier for our customers to shop with Ace by delivering more value and convenience for them,” said John Surane, senior VP, merchandising, marketing, advertising and paint. “We constantly look for ways to add value for our customers, and Instant Savings is a major new exclusive benefit to our Ace Rewards loyalty program that does just that.”

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Sam's Club is offering free health screenings as part of a New Year's promotion, the club retailer said Friday.

The chain will offer free glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index and vision screenings at all of its stores that have pharmacies on Jan. 12, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

SEATTLE — Amazon.com has entered into a content licensing agreement with A+E Networks to add prior seasons of series from A&E, Bio, History and Lifetime to the Prime Instant Video service.

Prime Instant Video now features more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes for Amazon Prime members to stream instantly, at no additional cost, on Kindle Fire HD or any of the hundreds of compatible Amazon Instant Video devices, including iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Roku, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U.  

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens reported Friday that sales for the month of December dipped 4% to $6.71 billion, from $6.99 billion in the year-ago period.
 
Total front-end sales fell 1.3% and same-store front-end sales decreased 2.3%.
 
Total same-store sales fell 6.1% in December.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Coinstar, a leading provider of automated retail solutions, has appointed its current CFO J. Scott Di Valerio as new CEO, effective April 1. At that time, Di Valerio will also be appointed to the Coinstar board of directors.

Di Valerio succeeds Paul Davis, who is retiring on March 31, and will remain a member of the board until then.

Di Valerio has been CFO at Coinstar since 2010, and has overseen Coinstar's corporate information technology and supply chain functions.