News

Urban street wear retailer Dr. Jay’s has updated its flagship store in Manhattan, with a fresh, bold look that invigorates the popular brand while enhancing the customer experience.

Italian luxury brand Missoni hits target stores this fall (Sept. 13 to Oct. 22) and like a lot of the edgier designer exclusives the retailer brings into its stores you have to wonder about the degree of brand awareness among the Target faithful. Missoni certainly sounds like it could be an Italian luxury brand, but then the same thing could be said of Mossimo, Merona or any brand that ends in a vowel.

Target shoppers whose Fourth of July activities involve more than eating Doritos and drinking Coke can expect to pay considerably more than last year. The company is again offering Doritos at two bags for $4, although this year the bag contains 11.5 ounces of product compared with 12 ounces last year, and Coke products are being offered at three 12-packs for $9 as opposed to last year’s comparable promotion of Pepsi product 12-packs for $3.

WAYNE, N.J. — Toys"R"Us announced that it will offer an exclusive collection of toys based on the animated short Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation, playing in theaters in conjunction with Cars 2.

Examples in the line include:

• Sheriff Woody 16-inch action figure dressed in Hawaiian shirt, straw hat and lei. The toy can say 20 phrases when kids pull the string on his back and plays Hawaiin music.

Janney Montgomery Scott analyst David Strasser downgraded shares of Target to neutral from buy on Monday. In doing so he cited some familiar concerns about the challenging competitive environment, rising input costs and anticipated difficulties passing through price increases to cash-strapped shoppers thereby negatively affecting gross margins.

Walmart attracted nearly 33.6 million unique visitors to its website in May, earning the company the 29th spot on comScore’s monthly ranking of the top 50 U.S. web properties. That sounds like a lot of traffic, but 7th ranked Amazon.com drew nearly three times that level with 94.9 million unique visitors. Other notable, retail-oriented companies and their rank included 13th ranked Apple, with 70.3 million unique visitors, 14th ranked eBay, with 67.2 million unique visitors and 20th ranked Craigslist, with 51.8 million unique visitors.

The monthly pricing survey Credit Suisse conducts at Walmart stores and various competitors in Chicago and Dallas market reveals the company continues to offer the lowest prices. That’s the good news for consumers; the bad news is Walmart, like every other company, is passing through increased product costs to shoppers.

CINCINNATI — Kroger CEO David Dillon said the company will continue to focus on customer loyalty, after reporting last week that it saw identical-store sales increase for 30 consecutive quarters.

During its shareholders meeting on Thursday, Dillon said the company will build its future growth around its Customer 1st strategy, which emphasizes "[our] people, products, prices and the shopping experience."