Costco’s popular Kirkland diapers shifting suppliers at Bloomberg/Orange County Register. "First Quality is replacing Kimberly-Clark Corp. as the maker of Costco’s diapers, with the official change set to happen in January...Earlier this month, Kimberly-Clark CFO Nelson Urdaneta said that the company’s exit of private label businesses, “allows us to dedicate our capacity and our investments to our own technologies and brands to differentiate them.” Read more   Amazon is officially in the online car sales business at TechCrunch. "Amazon is kicking off the new endeavor with Hyundai in 48 U.S. cities...Amazon Autos will function, in many ways, like the [...]

  Costco November comp sales (ex-fuel & f/x): Total company +4.9% / US +4.3% / Canada +5.7% / Other Int'l +7.3% / Ecom -2.5% "E-commerce sales in November were negatively impacted by an estimated 15 percentage points, due to Thanksgiving / Black Friday / Cyber Monday occurring a week later this year versus last year. Total and comparable sales were negatively impacted by approximately one and one-half percent as a result of the shift in E-commerce sales." Press release   Kroger Q3 identical sales without fuel +2.3% Press release   Five Below Q3 comp sales +0.6% Press release   ...Five [...]

  Cyber Monday US spending breaches $13 bln as steep discounts online drive sales at Reuters. "Consumers spent 7.3% more compared to Cyber Monday in 2023. That follows the roughly $10.8 billion Americans spent online on Black Friday this year, according to Adobe, which keeps track of devices that use its software to help power more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites." Read more   Porch Pirates Steal So Many Packages That Now You Can Get Insurance at WSJ. "PorchPals, a subscription-based startup that launches nationwide on Monday, says it will cover the cost of your stolen packages. [...]

  Best Buy Q3 comp sales down 2.9% Press release   Abercrombie expects a strong holiday quarter as growth run continues at CNBC. "Sales rose to $1.21 billion, up around 14% from $1.06 billion a year earlier....For the holiday shopping quarter, Abercrombie is expecting sales growth of 5% to 7%, ahead of the 4.8% growth that analysts had expected, according to LSEG." Read more   Target’s Slide From Cheap Chic to Dull Chore at WSJ. "Middleton remembers the excitement of the houseware collections at Target in decades past and the convenience of picking up contact-lens solution at the same time [...]

  BJ’s Wholesale Q3 comp club sales (ex-gas) +3.8% "Digitally enabled comparable sales growth was 30.0%...reaches milestone of 7.5 million members...effective January 1, 2025. The Club membership fee will increase by $5 to $60 a year. The Club+ membership fee will increase by $10 to $120 a year." Press release   Target’s recent trade imports data tells the real story behind massive earnings miss at CNBC. "...the trade data shows it still brought in way too much in dollar value. According to customs data aggregated by Panjiva, Walmart imported 25,000 shipments from May 31-Aug. 31, valued at $1.3 billion. During [...]

  Walmart Q3 comp sales (ex-fuel) +5.3% / Int'l net sales +12.4% / US Ecom +22%   ...Sam's Club comp sales (ex-fuel) +7% Walmart press release   Walmart hikes its outlook again as shoppers spend more outside the grocery aisles at CNBC. "The discounter now expects net sales will grow between 4.8% and 5.1% for the full year. That compares to its previous forecast for between 3.75% to 4.75% sales growth for the period...CFO John David Rainey said sales of general merchandise – outside of the grocery department – grew year over year for the second quarter in a row [...]

  Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in October, in line with expectations at CNBC. "...up one-tenth of a percentage point from September...On a 12-month basis, headline wholesale inflation was at 2.4%. Excluding food and energy, core PPI rose 0.3%, also one-tenth more than September and also matching expectations. The 12-month rate was at 3.1%." Read more   US weekly jobless claims fall; unemployment rolls shrink at Reuters. "Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ended Nov. 9... Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 223,000 claims for the latest week." Read more   [...]

  100 Most Powerful People in Business (Bezos #11, McMillon #18, Jassy #26, Tome #59) at Fortune List   Home Depot Q3 US comp sales down 1.2% "..reported sales of $40.2 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2024, an increase of 6.6% from the third quarter of fiscal 2023. Comparable sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2024 decreased 1.3%..." Press release   ...Home Depot’s Q3 results top Wall Street estimates at AP. "...a marked improvement from the second quarter, when sales at stores open at least a year declined 3.3% and dropped 3.6% in the U.S. Third-quarter customer transactions [...]