News

Sam's Club seeks to beat Costco on car shopping
Sam's Club is taking on Costco in the auto buying program business by teaming up with one of the biggest names in car-shopping in an effort to boost its auto business.

The all-new Sam's Club Auto Buying Program will now be powered by TrueCar, Sam's Club announced Thursday. Sams Club says members will have access to more than 10,000 TrueCar Certified Dealers nationwide, more than three times the nearest competitor in the warehouse club channel (i.e., Costco).
Five Below’s Q2 sales performance raises questions, but store expansion remains on track
Philadelphia -- Teen and tween fave Five Below Inc. may not be meeting sales projections, but it remains on track for store expansion, with plans to open a total of 70 net new stores during fiscal 2015, including 16 net new stores in the third quarter.

The company, where every item costs no more than $5, is achieving its profitability targets, but doing so with productivity improvement in its selling space that is surprisingly weak given the newness of its store base.

Retail solutions showroom now open in Philly

As the demand for differentiation grows among retailers and suppliers, Daymon Worldwide’s Omni Global Sourcing Solutions has opened a new showroom to allow customers access to in-demand seasonal and general merchandise imports.
Lowe’s supporting wireless IoT standard

Milpitas, Calif. – Lowe’s Companies Inc. is strengthening its support of the ZWave wireless Internet of Things (IoT) standard.

Lowe’s has joined The Z-Wave Alliance, a global consortium of more than 325 member companies, with its Iris smart home solution.

Launched in July 2012, Iris by Lowe's is a smart home solution created to monitor and control virtually everything in the home anytime, anywhere from a computer, smart phone or tablet.
Ikea to open its largest store in U.S. in 2016

Ikea will open the largest Ikea store in the United States in Burbank, Calif., next year.

The new store, on 22 acres along Interstate 5 in Burbank, be 456,000 square feet (the biggest Ikea in the world, at 594,000 square feet, is in Stockholm). Plans include parking for 1,700 cars, "improved access and parking and a larger warehouse space," plus "50 'inspirational room-settings,' three model-home interiors, a supervised children's play area and a larger restaurant for serving Swedish specialties."
Online giant expanding instant-order program — with big new benefit

New York -- Amazon is not only expanding its instant-order “Dash” button program, it’s also making the buttons virtually free.
Genesco takes the Lid off sales in Q2

The CEO of Genesco Inc. says the company had strong sales despite the later start to the back-to-school season and some pressures to right-size inventories.
Do shoppers still like physical stores?

Lincolnshire, Ill. – Reports of the store’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

According to the annual Global Shopper Study from mobile solutions provider Zebra Technologies Corp., more than three-quarters (76%) of shoppers feel positive about shopping in stores and nearly one-half think that technology solutions are helping retailers enable and improve their shopping experience.
Why Costco may be the envy of Walmart

Despite reporting ho-hum sales for July, Costco said Thursday that its comps for the fourth quarter and fiscal year were up an impressive 6%.
CVS: Consumers don’t smoke ’em if they don’t got ’em

Woonsocket, R.I. – When consumers have less access to cigarettes, they smoke fewer of them.

This is the basic conclusion of a new report from CVS Health showing that overall cigarette sales fell in 13 states where CVS has more than a 15% market share.