“Target tries to win hearts and clicks of Gen Y” by Hadley Malcolm at USA Today.  “Millennials aren’t smitten with Target, and the company knows it.  Last fall, Target learned that to Millennials, the company is nothing more than a big-box store. Buy from Target online? Who does that?  Not Millennials, apparently.” Read more

 

“Walmart:  Fountain Drinks Coming Back to Stores?” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “(Bill) Simon added that the learnings from the Walmart to Go convenience store format in the past 90 days have been huge. On area is in the fountain beverages from milkshakes to coffee and soda. “We took these fountains out of our supercenters and we are now evaluating the feasibility of bringing them back,” Simon said.”  Read more

 

Happening Now:  Walmart Shareholders Meeting 2014  Live Webcast

 

“Rite Aid Front-End Comp Sales +.5% in May”  “Total drugstore sales for the five-week period increased 2.5 percent to $2.484 billion compared to $2.423 billion for the same period last year. Prescription sales accounted for 68.0 percent of drugstore sales.” Read more

 

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“CVS to be tobacco-free by October” by Peter Frost at Chicago Tribune.  “CVS is on track to remove all tobacco products from its 7,600 stores by Oct. 1, the president of its pharmacy division said Thursday.”  Read more

 

“CVS Doubles Up Walgreen In Retail Clinics As Obamacare Patients Seek Care” by Bruce Japsen at Forbes.  “Tom Charland of Merchant Medicine, a health care consulting firm that tracks retail clinic growth, said CVS now has 836 of its Minute Clinics opened in 28 states, compared to just 388 clinics for Walgreens in 19 states. Meanwhile, CVS also continues to open clinics up at a much faster rate.”  Read more

 

“Home Depot, the Place to Go for Toilet Paper?” by Shelly Banjo at Serena Ng at WSJ.  “Home Depot’s push into consumer staples came almost by accident, said the company’s U.S. retail president, Craig Menear. Employees in the garden department noticed cleaning supplies would boost the division’s sales in the winter, when customers weren’t buying potting soil and shrubbery, and suggested giving them more space. The company worked with Procter & Gamble Co. to understand how to add cleaning supplies that would appeal to general consumers in addition to its professional customers. “Once we made it more visible, it became a growing category for us,” Mr. Menear said.”  Read more

 

“Former Home Depot Credit Manager Now Lead Singer for 70s Mega Band Boston” by Michael Solender at Charlotte Observer.  “I grew up as a teen listening to Boston,” said DeCarlo, 49, who was working as a credit manager at a local Home Depot when he joined the band in 2008 after its original lead singer, Brad Delp, took his own life.”  Read more

 

“Sears’ Lampert met Ford’s Mulally for restructuring advice” by Nadia Damouni at Reuters. “One of the sources said that Mulally, who is due to retire from Ford in July, was left with the impression that Lampert was gauging whether Mulally might be open to the possibility of becoming Sears’ next CEO.”  Read more

 

“Missouri will act as “baby sitter” for Walgreen stores for 3 years” at KMOV 4 – St. Louis.  “The announcement comes less than a year after Missouri filed a lawsuit in Jackson County accusing the Chicago-based drugstore chain of deceptive pricing.  “Having a baby sitter over a major national corporation is an unprecedented penalty,” Koster said. “To do it for three years has never been done before that I’m aware of in the country.”  Read more

 

“Back-to-school deals before the year even ends” by Krystina Gustafson at CNBC.  “Back-to-school is going the way of Christmas, as retailers such as Lands’ End are beginning to push next year’s school necessities before many children have closed the book on the current semester.”  Read more

 

“Fred’s Comp Sales -.4% in May”  “Fred’s total sales for the month were $151.9 million, approximately flat with $152.3 million in May 2013.”  Read the release

 

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