“Rumor Has It…Second Walmart to Go Store Being Prepped in Orlando, FL” by Kim Souza at City Wire. “The new Walmart to Go convenience store opened recently in Bentonville is not the retailer’s first experiment with the small-store format. Wal-Mart historians and former corporate officers told The City Wire that the first convenience store for the company was located in Springdale in the 1990s.”  Read more

 

“Brazil:  5,000 people line up for 7 hours for $4 tank tops” by Loretta Chao at WSJ.  “Low-priced fashion retailer Forever 21 Inc. opened its first store in Brazil this past weekend, causing a stir among the country’s price-sensitive shoppers who lined up for seven hours to buy $4 tank tops and other trendy items priced far below competitors.  Shoppers flocked to Morumbi, one of São Paulo’s largest shopping malls, where the store opened to lines reaching more than 5,000 people Saturday.”  Read more

 

“Dollar General:  Cigs Have Increased Avg. Transaction by 28%” at Motley Fool.  “When Dollar General first introduced tobacco products in the second quarter of 2013, roughly one-third of cigarette sales involved no other product, one-third included a single other item (a “smoke and Coke”), and the final third was part of a larger basket.  Fast-forward to today, and only 26% of cigarette sales don’t include at least one other item. More important, 44% now fall into the third and most lucrative category.”  Read more

 

“Home Depot’s ‘Store for One’ Could be First of Many; Pinewood Studios Store to Open April 3rd” by Leon Stafford at AJC.  “(Home Depot) has built a 45,000-square-foot store dedicated solely to Pinewood Studios, the British filmmaker behind James Bond and the Harry Potter series, and its associates. “It’s a new venture for us,” said J.T. Rieves, vice president of pro business for the retailer. “What they (Pinewood Studios) are trying to do is to create a level of control of predictability for someone who wants to make a movie.”  Read more

 

“Walmart Looking to Sell Large Home Appliances?” by Kim Souza at City Wire.  “Wal-Mart already has the supplier relationships with top appliance brands through Sam’s Club. Given its buying power, Spieckerman said Wal-Mart could negotiate competitive prices against Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Sears — the major players in kitchen appliance sales.  There are also add-on service fees for home delivery and set-up which could pad overall margins in this category. As more Millennials seek to set up new households, it would also be an opportunity to cater to those needs.”  Read more

 

“Costco teaches Grandville (MI) students about real-life budgeting” by Kyle Moroney at MLive.  “The Grandville Costco store sells about $2 million worth of merchandise each week, and had $102 million in sales in 2013, according to Jones.  Students were shocked to learn the warehouse club retailer’s most popular sale item is its signature Kirkland brand toilet paper. The store sells nearly 56,200 packages of toilet paper each year, equating to more than 1.6 million toilet paper rolls.”  Read more

 

“Ralph Nader Really, Really Wants a Higher Minimum Wage (Quotes Craig Jelinek, Says Doug McMillon May Do “Right Thing”)”  at USA Today.  “Craig Jelinek, CEO of Costco Wholesale Corp., told me that he starts his workers at $11.50 an hour plus benefits because it results in “less turnover, more productive workers and it’s the right thing to do.” After two years of internal deliberation, Doug Mcmillon, Walmart’s new CEO, is also nearing a decision to do the right thing and abolish Walmart’s poverty wage regime.” Read more

 

“Costco closes in on second upstate NY location, is Albany next?” at Albany Business Review.  “The company, which already is planning to open a store in the Syracuse suburb of Camillus, reached an agreement to open another store in Rochester”  Read more

 

” ‘Ground’ broken on $325 million Mall of America expansion” by Janet Moore at Star-Tribune.  “On Tuesday, that retail guessing game concluded once and for all, with mall officials announcing a luxury 342-room JW Marriott hotel, an office tower and more than 50 shops and restaurants aimed for an unassuming concrete patch on the Bloomington behemoth’s northern flank.  The new $325 million iteration of the nation’s biggest shopping mall and one of the country’s top tourist destinations is expected to debut in August 2015.”  Read more

 

Happening Today:  Retailers Present at ISI 4th Annual Retail Summit:

Walmart @ 11:00 am ET   Webcast

Lowe’s @ 11:35 am ET   Webcast

Home Depot @ 12:30 pm ET  Webcast

 

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