News

New York City -- Roundy's Supermarkets Inc., which operates 158 supermarkets under several banners in three states, expects to raise $230 million through an initial public stock offering.

The Milwaukee-based Roundy's is currently owned by Chicago private equity firm Willis Stein & Partners. The number of shares to be offered and the price have not yet been determined.

Reston, Va. -- Retail e-commerce spending for the first 32 days of the November – December 2011 holiday season totaled $18.7 billion, a 15% increase versus the corresponding days last year, according to comScore.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens reported that for November same-store sales rose 1.8% while total sales climbed 4.2% to $6.09 billion, from $5.84 billion in the year-ago period.

Comparable pharmacy sales rose 1.2%, while total pharmacy sales rose 3.4%.

Total sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2012, which ended Nov. 30, were $18.16 billion, up 4.7% from $17.34 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2011. Same-store sales increased 2.5%, while front-end comp-sales for the quarter also increased 2.5%.
 

St. Louis -- Mobile retail navigation service aisle411 announced that Hy-Vee Food Stores has deployed the aisle411 platform. Shoppers can access the in-store shopping platform for Hy-Vee Food Stores within aisle411's iPhone and Android applications, as well as within the Hy-Vee Foods iPhone application.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. -- Dollar General Corp. reported that its fiscal third-quarter net rose 34% to $171.2 million on higher sales. The results beat Wall Street expectations and the discounter boosted its full-year earnings guidance

Revenue for the quarter ended Oct. 28, 2011, increased 12% to $3.6 billion from $3.22 billion, topping Wall Street's estimate. Same-store sales rose 6.3% as customer traffic improved and the average transaction amount rose.

By Selena Linde and Michael Sharkey

Pam Kohn and Cameron Geiger are the headliners at this year’s annual luncheon for the Northwest Arkansas chapter of the Retail Link Users Group also known as the nwaRLUG.

Organizers of the event expect upward of 800 people will attend the 13th annual affair, which couldn’t take place at a more opportune time considering the heightened emphasis Walmart has placed on store level execution and on-shelf availability as the only metric that matters when it comes to assessing in-stock.

As retailers assess what worked and what didn’t in terms of Black Friday promotions and Thanksgiving weekend sales, overall there are a few things that stand out.

Walmart prices are lower than dollar store competitors in two New Jersey markets, but not by much, according to a recent survey conducted by Deutsche Bank.

All retailers are taking price increases where they can these days, especially in food, but the pace of increases at Walmart has slowed, and its price gap relative to most competitors has widened, according to the most recent pricing survey conducted by Credit Suisse.