News

Houston -- In a deal that will create a national specialty bedding retail powerhouse, Mattress Firm Holding Corp. has agreed to acquire rival The Sleep Train Inc. for about  $425 million. As part of the deal, Mattress Firm said that it will also assume certain additional liabilities totaling about $15 million.

Sleep Train operates approximately 310 specialty mattress stores, primarily in California, Oregon, and other Western states. It reported net sales of $471 million for the 2013 fiscal year.

Sterling, Va. - Neustar Inc., a provider of real-time information services and analytics, has entered a partnership with comScore Inc. that will give marketers a unified marketing solution incorporating comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) ad validation metrics in its offering. The partnership builds on Neustar PlatformOne’s capabilities and partner ecosystem and enhances its ability to provide marketers with the visibility needed to measure and optimize digital campaigns.

Costco said it plans to open nine new warehouse stores before the end of calendar year 2014, following a boost in net sales for August and the fourth quarter.

During the month of August, net sales were $8.8 billion, an increase of 10% from $8 billion during the similar period last year. Same-store sales in the United States increased 7%.

For the 16-week fourth quarter, the company reported net sales of $34.8 billion, an increase of 9% from $31.8 billion in the year-ago period. Same-store sales in the United States increased 6%.

San Francisco – August 2014 sales results indicate the 2014 back-to-school period had a significant boost to shopping activity. According to new data from in-store retail analytics provider Euclid, traffic increased substantially compared to the previous month, aided by temperate weather and multi-year highs in consumer confidence.

Atlanta – The alleged security breach that recently hit The Home Depot Inc. may have compromised credit and debit card data at nearly all of the company’s stores. According to the security website Krebsonsecurity.com, the unique ZIP codes of a large batch of new cards listed for sale on underground hacker sites shows a more than 99% overlap with nearby Home Depot stores, suggesting a widespread breach.

Rite Aid reported a 3.2% lift in sales for the 26 weeks ended Aug. 30, ringing in $12.9 billion.
 
Same-store sales for the period increased 3.6% over the prior-year period. Front-end same store sales increased 0.6%, while pharmacy same store sales increased 5.1%. Prescription count at comparable stores increased 3% over the prior-year period.
 
Prescription sales represented 68.6% of total drug store sales for the 26-week period, and third-party prescription sales represented 97.5% of pharmacy sales.
 

Armonk, N.Y.  -- Online U.S. retail sales for August 2014 were up more than 11% as compared to the same period the prior year. According to new IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data, mobile traffic accounted for 41.5% of all online traffic, up 34% compared to the same period the previous year.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. - Kmart is offering a no-money-down layaway program to members of the Shop Your Way loyalty program for the holiday season, starting Sept. 4. Kmart's layaway program includes both online and in-store contracts for coveted items across dozens of merchandise categories, including apparel, home, toys and electronics.

Kmart is also running a new ad for the program both on TV and YouTube.