News

K-VA-T stays in the money
Arlington, Va. – Regional southeastern grocery retailer K-VA-T Food Stores is staying in the money, and doing it remotely.

The operator of the Food City and Super Dollar banners has implemented vbInSight by Balance Innovations as its corporate reporting solution.

vbInSight is a Web-based corporate reporting application that provides K-VA-T with immediate access, via alerts, to individual and aggregate bookkeeper and cashier data.
Dollar Tree profits from Family Dollar deal
The acquisition of Family Dollar in the second quarter led Dollar Tree Inc. to report quarterly sales that were up more than 48% from a year ago.

For the second quarter ended Aug. 1, Dollar Tree reported sales of $3.01 billion, boosted by $811.6 million in sales from Family Dollar. Same store sales rose 2.7%. Dollar Tree reported income of $138.9 million. The retailer’s earnings were 67 cents.

Another retailer joins the innovation lab ranks

Denver – Another company has joined the constantly expanding ranks of retailers who operate proprietary innovation labs.

Demonstrating that the appeal of innovation labs is moving beyond major chains, specialty online retailer eBags is teaming with Iterate Studio to jointly create a two-part innovation lab.
NRF offers retailers help with new holiday planning playbook

Washington, D.C. -- Retailers will reveal their 2015 holiday strategies in the weeks ahead and as they do so the National Retail Federation is offering a powerful new resource filled with industry best practices to benchmark against for this year and beyond.

The newly released report, called the 2015 Holiday Planning Playbook, was compiled by top retailers over the course of the past year who served on various NRF councils focused on retail industry disciplines.
Kroger Co. names a new key executive

Kroger already has a good relationship with shoppers, but the retailer is looking to elevate its brand even further by making a key hire in reputation management.

The Kroger Co. announced it has named Jessica C. Adelman to serve as Kroger's group vice president of corporate affairs, effective Nov. 1.
Dollar Tree merger good for sales, but related costs hammer earnings

Chesapeake, Va. -- Dollar Tree swung to a loss in its second quarter on higher integration costs related to its acquisition of a formal rival. But its revenue skyrocketed as a result of the merger.

On July 6, Dollar Tree completed its $9 billion acquisition of Family Dollar Inc.
Get your Gilt on at new showroom

In the latest example of clicks to bricks, online upscale discounter Gilt.com has launched a new service at its New York office that sounds a lot like what retailers call a “store.”
Target to test new store café options

Minneapolis -- Salads and fancy pizza will soon be on the menu at a very limited number of Target locations.

Starting in October, the retailer plans to test fast-casual concepts in some 14 stores as it responds to customers looking for higher-quality food and more of a café atmosphere, USA Today reported.
Start-up shopping site rewards social influencers

Charlotte, N.C. – How do social influencers discover the latest hot retailers and products?

Yuno, a new social shopping e-commerce site, allows users to discover and shop for more than 70 million products, curates fashion, lifestyle, sports and technology products from retailers including Macy's, Best Buy, Nieman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Foot Locker.
America’s most trusted brands revealed

Some surprising differences are revealed in new research from Nielsen about which brands men and women trust the most.

Nielsen released a list of America’s Most Trusted Brands that shows distinct trust difference between men and woman. The ist stemmed from a consumer packaged goods focused wave of the 27th annual Harris Poll EquiTrend study showcasing the top 10 most-trusted brands.