News

Seattle — Starbucks Corp. reported strong results for third quarter fiscal 2013, with net revenues, same-store sales and operating income all increasing substantially from the same quarter a year earlier.

Net earnings grew 25%, from $333.1 million to $417.8 million.

Net revenues totaled about $3.7 billion, up 13% from $3.3 billion. Same-store sales increased 8% globally, driven by 9% growth in U.S. stores.

New York – The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. (A&P), which exited bankruptcy last year, is reportedly looking to sell itself. A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that an internally distributed company memo from A&P chairman Gregory Mays to store managers states a sale of A&P is one of several options for funding growth, along with raising capital and refinancing.

St. Louis — Build-A-Bear Workshop narrowed its second-quarter loss to $6.2 million from $7.5 million in the year-ago period, boosted by improved sales and store productivity.

Total revenues were $81.9 million , up 1.9% from the $80.4 million reported in the second quarter of 2012.  Same-store sales rose 7.3%, including an 8.6% increase in North America and 1.7% increase in Europe. E-commerce sales rose 5.2%.

Menomonee Falls, Wis. – Bernstein Liebhard has filed a securities class-action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all those who purchased shares of Kohl's Corp. between Feb. 26, 2009. and Sept. 13, 2011.

Whatever a cloud-based Web site acceleration company is, Walmart acquired one this week called Torbit.

The retailer’s Silicon Valley innovation engine known as @Walmart Labs described Torbit as “a front-end optimization innovator that has been focused on making the web a faster and better place.”

Torbit is known for developing measurement, analytics and performance improvement tools to help companies identify and enhance their overall site performance.

Last week it was veteran retail analyst Walter Loeb bemoaning what he viewed as Walmart’s deteriorating store standards. This week Ad Age took aim at the company’s brand image.
 
In a piece by Simon Dumenco, he recounts how early shopping experiences at Walmart stores were an eagerly anticipated experienced. However, like Loeb Dumenco took a shot at the store experience and then when a step further.

Walmart.com is already a large, fast growing and dynamic organization, but global e-commerce president and CEO Neil Ashe is intent on executing an integrated vision of commerce that no one else has — or can.
 

No one would dispute that Lakeland, Fla.-based supermarket is a wonderful operator, but a piece in the August 12 issue of Forbes takes things a little too far and characterizes the regional operator of 1,073 stores as, “the Wal-Mart Slayer.”
 

Walmart knows it isn’t going to win any supermarket industry prizes for store experience, not when operators such as Whole Foods and Publix are involved, but not leading the pack on price is a different matter.

Walmart has opened its first supercenter in Canada’s eastern Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The retailer, which has operated in Canada for nearly two decades, plans to invest $90 million this year in the renovation and expansion of nine locations in New Brunswick and Novia Scotia.