News

Amazon, Sprouts team up in Dallas
Amazon.com is now offering one-hour deliveries of grocery items to Prime Now members in the Dallas area, via an expanded partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market.

The e-tailer will allow Dallas Prime Now members to shop for Sprouts items via their accounts. Orders will then be picked from a local Sprouts store by Amazon and Sprouts employees and given to a driver for delivery.
U.S. shoppers bid Joe Fresh stores adieu
Canadian retail conglomerate The Loblaw Cos. Inc. is pulling up stakes on store-based operations of its Joe Fresh banner in the U.S.

According to the Financial Post, Loblaw has closed the final remaining U.S. Joe Fresh store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, and also no longer distributes the apparel brand through J.C. Penney stores in the States.

Phillips Edison adds to portfolio

Phillips Edison Grocery Center REIT I Inc. is acquiring a grocery-anchored shopping center, expanding the company’s holdings in Massachusetts.

Northwoods Crossing is a 159,562-sq.-ft. grocery store-anchored shopping center in Taunton, Massachusetts, a suburb 40 miles south of Boston. The center is anchored by BJ’s Wholesale Club. It also features national and regional tenants such as Tractor Supply Company, Dollar Tree, Subway, Ruby Tuesday and Wendy’s.
Top Best Buy exec cuts stake in company

Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy Inc., is doing a little diversification of his personal stock portfolio.

Bloomberg reports that as of June 2, Joly has sold 398,000 shares of Best Buy stock, or 44% of his roughly 910,000 company shares, for $12.8 million.

The retailer said Joly is not exploring other opportunities and has no plans to leave his current position.
GameStop makes customer loyalty more rewarding

GameStop is making some changes to its PowerUp Rewards loyalty program.

Starting June 6, all U.S. members can choose to save their points and make selections from the PowerUp Rewards catalog or receive $5, $10 or $15 reward certificates that can be used to make purchases in any GameStop store. Members can enroll at any GameStop store and manage their accounts online or within the free GameStop mobile app.
Walmart shareholders decide on directors, compensation

Senior management of Walmart Stores Inc. should be happy with the results of its 46th annual shareholders meeting held June 3.
Dollar General adds to fulfillment network

Photo: Dollar General executives and local leaders cut the ribbon to celebrate the grand opening celebration of the company's new San Antonio Distribution Center. (L to R, Steve Sunderland; Wayne Peacock, Chairman, San Antonio Economic Development Foundation; Bexar County Judge, Nelson Wolff; Mike Kindy; Mario Tort; Todd Vasos, Dollar General CEO; Jeff Owen; Alan Warrick, San Antonio City Council; Jeff Owen; Bob Ravener; Jim Thorpe)
Hudson’s Bay names new directors

Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) shareholders have spoken.

In good news for the Canada-based department store operator, all of the nominees listed in its management information circular dated April 28, 2016 were elected as directors of HBC at the annual meeting of shareholders held Monday, June 6 in Toronto.

The newly-elected directors are:

· Richard A. Baker
· Robert C. Baker
· David G. Leith
· William L. Mack
· Lee Neibart
· Denise Pickett
Study: Everybody loves e-commerce

It seems safe to say the novelty of shopping online has worn off.

According to a new study examining the online shopping and purchase habits of the U.S. population from e-commerce platform BigCommerce, 96% of Americans are shopping online. E-commerce customers spend an average of five hours per week making online purchases and allocate an average of 36% of their shopping budgets to e-commerce.

Respondents ranked online shopping ahead of smartphone GPS and streaming media as a basic essential they could not live without.
Commentary: Everything Must Go

The term “post-department store era” was once considered so controversial that many in the retail world avoided using it, fearing backlash from powerful industry giants like Macy’s and Sears. Some saw the very idea of department store obsolescence as pure folly while others saw it only as a vague possibility too far in the future to consider.
JLL acquires construction-related consulting firm

JLL has broadened its project and development services (PDS) with the acquisition of Merritt & Harris (M&H), a leading provider of construction-related consulting services for real estate lenders and investors during new construction, renovations and workouts.
Commentary: Food Network offering shows increasing reach of e-commerce

The expansion of online fulfillment availability is giving retailers new avenues for selling goods via the Internet.

The latest example of how non-traditional e-commerce opportunities are popping up is a just-launched partnership between Food Network and Instacart. The lifestyle network/website does directly sell a variety of cooking-related products and utensils online, but until now has not been involved in the sale of food items.