News Briefs

Wisconsin-based Festival Foods is expanding its omnichannel competitive intelligence program.

Festival Foods is adding the Price Image Management suite from Engage3 Powered By Dexi to its existing Engage3 competitive intelligence platform. Leveraging its new solution, the retailer will utilize data science and proprietary machine learning (ML) to identify and optimize the items with the greatest influence on customers' price perception.

As a result, Festival Foods hopes to generate price recommendations that drive revenue and margin growth while growing customer loyalty. Festival Foods relies on Engage3 for omnichannel data visibility via in-store audits and online web scraping, as well as the Engage3 Lighthouse AI-based product linking module.

"The customer is at the heart of everything we do at Festival Foods," said Benjamin Plaza, Festival Foods manager of business analytics. "Engage3's Price Image solution gives us unprecedented insights into customer psychology that help us deliver exceptional customer experiences while growing revenue and trips."

"We're happy to build on our previous success with Festival Foods and provide new tools to help them build trust and loyalty with their customers," said Engage3 CEO, Edris Bemanian. "The addition of Price Image Optimization gives Festival Foods a completely new way to balance customer engagement with bottom-line growth.”

[Read more: Regional grocer unifies data management]

Founded in 1946 as Skogen's IGA, Festival Foods is a Wisconsin family- and employee-owned grocer that began operating as Festival Foods in 1990 and today operates 32 full-service supermarkets across the state of Wisconsin.

Dollar General has promoted an 18-year company veteran.

Dollar General said it has promoted Rod West to executive VP of global supply chain effective September 1, 2023. He will lead the company’s distribution center operations, transportation, supply chain modernization and its private fleet. 

Dollar General’s distribution network consists of 31 distribution centers, which employ more than 15,000 individuals.  In August, the company opened its first-ever dual distribution center, which is designed to combine the efficiencies of traditional and DG Fresh supply chain functionalities.

West, who most recently served as DG’s senior VP of distribution, joined Dollar General in 2005 as VP of process improvement and led supply chain, finance, merchandising, marketing and store operations initiatives.  He served as the VP of perishables growth and development from 2019 to 2021 where he strategically led the DG Fresh initiative from ideation to full implementation.

“Rod is an outstanding leader who will continue driving Dollar General forward through his considerable internal knowledge and experience on our supply chain team,” said Jeff Owen, CEO, Dollar General. “I am confident his leadership and expertise will further benefit Dollar General’s business, customers and communities.”

Prior to joining Dollar General, West held roles of increasing responsibility within the retail and consumer products consulting practice at Kurt Salmon Associates. 

As of August 4, 2023, the company’s 19,488 Dollar General, DG Market, DGX and PopShelf stores across the U.S. and Mi Súper Dollar General stores in Mexico.

 

The offices of Chain Store Age will be closed on Monday, Sept. 4, for Labor Day. We will resume publishing on Sept. 5.

The CSA team wishes you and your family a happy and safe holiday weekend.

 

A strong performance outside of the U.S. gave a boost to Costco Wholesale Corp.’s same-store sales in August. 

The company reported that its net sales rose 5% to $18.42 billion for the four weeks ended Aug. 27, up from $17.55 billion in August 2022.

Total company comparable  sales rose 3.4%,  but e-commerce sales fell 2.5%.  

Comp sales rose 2.8% in the U.S. and 3% in Canada. International comps rose 7.3%. 

Total comparable sales excluding the impacts from changes in gasoline prices and foreign exchange rose 4.1%. Comp sales rose 3.2% in the U.S. and 7.5% in Canada.  International comps rose 5.4%.

Costco currently operates 861 warehouses, including 591 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 107 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 33 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 18 in Korea, 15 in Australia, 14 in Taiwan, five in China, four in Spain, two in France, and one each in Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.

 

TJX Cos. continues to expand its Canadian home furnishings banner southward in the United States.

The brand, which has 154 stores in Canada and 79 in Europe, recently opened four new stores, including two locations in Florida  (Sawgrass Mills Mall, Sunrise; and The Shoppes at New Tampa, Tampa) and  two in North Carolina (Afton Ridge, Concord; and The Shops at the Fresh Market, Cornelius).  Homesense has 51 U.S. locations. 

Homesense stores features a wide array of furniture, a rug emporium, a wall art and mirror gallery, an extensive lighting department that includes chandeliers, and a general store section with project supplies. 

Customers can also shop for seasonal items, including décor and entertaining essentials. 

As of July 29, 2023, TJX  operated a total of 4,884 stores in nine countries, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia, and seven e-commerce sites. These include 1,305 T.J. Maxx, 1,190 Marshalls, 907 HomeGoods, 83 Sierra, and 49 Homesense stores in the United States; 299 Winners, 154 HomeSense, and 106 Marshalls stores in Canada; 636 T.K. Maxx and 79 Homesense stores in Europe; and 76 T.K. Maxx stores in Australia. 

 

A longtime executive at Genesco Inc. is departing.

The footwear giant announced the planned retirement of Mario Gallione, president of Journeys Group, at the end of the company’s fiscal year, with an expected effective date of February 2024. Gallione, who has has worked at Genesco for 44 years, has served in his current position for six years. 

Genesco has started a search process to identify Gallione’s successor with the assistance of executive leadership firm Egon Zehnder. During the transition, Gallione will become Journeys’ president emeritus. 

“He [Gallione] has been part of the team since the beginning and has been instrumental in building Journeys into the leading teen fashion footwear retailer,”  said Genesco Board chair, president and CEO Mimi E. Vaughn.  “Mario’s merchant leadership and exceptional footwear expertise have been a significant part of Journeys’ long-term growth, record success and value creation. “Beyond Mario’s entrepreneurial strengths, his distinct desire to develop a world class organization with a strong foundation of culture and talent will define his legacy.”

In addition, Mike Sypert has been named Journeys’ COO,  responsible for aiding the transition of leadership as well as assuming day-to-day responsibilities for Journeys, Journeys Kidz and Little Burgundy’s business, including stores and websites in the U.S. and Canada.  Sypert is a 34-year company veteran who most recently served as Journeys executive VP of sales and retail operations.

In a statement, Gallione said it has been “an honor to work with the extraordinary team at Journeys and Genesco.”

“As I look back, especially over the past six years as president, I am incredibly proud of what our team has accomplished including successfully expanding our digital transformation enabling us to serve our customers with the right products in the ways our teens want to shop, as well as successfully managing through an unprecedented pandemic,” he added. “Our outstanding people have created the industry-leading teen footwear retail brand that is now serving its fourth generation. I am excited to help execute a seamless transition and see how this team takes Journeys to the next level.”

Based in Nashville, Genesco Inc. operates approximately 1,400 retail stores and branded e-commerce websites. Its Journeys, Little Burgundy and Schuh brands serve teens, kids and young adults with on-trend fashion footwear. Johnston & Murphy serves the successful, affluent man and woman with premium footwear, apparel and accessories in the U.S. and Canada, and Genesco Brands Group sells branded lifestyle footwear to leading retailers under licensed brands including Levi’s, Dockers and G.H. Bass.