“Target & Walmart Team Up on Sustainability” by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune. “The nation’s two largest discount retailers took the unusual step of co-hosting a meeting in Chicago to push beauty and personal care suppliers to be more transparent about the chemicals that go into their products…The forum was attended by about 75 people, including representatives from suppliers such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Estee Lauder and L’Oreal as well as other retailers such as CVS, Walgreens and Ulta. “It’s a pretty big deal,” said Janet Nudelman, director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “It’s surprising to see two such staunch competitors come together to tackle this problem.” Read more

 

Target Survey: Credit Suisse Surveys 2,000 Canadian Consumers (the Four Things they Found)” by Jonathan Ratner at Financial Post. “Target’s prices may not be compelling enough to drive basket growth. Credit Suisse’s channel pricing survey showed that its basket price premium versus Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been widening…Meanwhile, an investment in loyalty could have a disproportionate impact on traffic since Target’s more frequent customers and those that value loyalty most both fall into the $50,000-$100,000 income bracket.” Read more

 

Report: Whole Foods has 2nd lowest grocery prices in NYC at NY Post. “The supermarket chain ranks the second cheapest in the city, behind Fairway Market, on a list of popular grocery stores in Manhattan, according to a report released by Bloomberg Intelligence. Despite Whole Foods’ reputation as a wallet shrinker, it beat out local faves FreshDirect, D’Agostino, The Food Emporium and Gristedes for the best prices, the study says.” Read more

 

“Rev. Jesse Jackson Calls Jeff Bezos” by Jessica Guynn at USA Today “Rev. Jesse Jackson is calling on Amazon.com to release its work force diversity numbers…The Rainbow Push Coalition will respond with an “action” if Amazon.com does not release the information, Jackson said.” Read more

 

“The Amazon.com of Stolen Credit Cards Makes It All So Easy” by Dune Lawrence at Bloomberg. “On Sept. 1, the website Rescator.cc alerted customers to a big new batch of product about to hit its digital shelves. ”Load your accounts and prepare for an avalanche of cash!” a post on its News page read.  The items, marketed under the names American Sanctions and European Sanctions, appeared as promised the next day, spurring such an enthusiastic response that the site was pushed offline at times by the high demand.” Read more

 

***A message from Relax Sacks – Get Ready For the Most Comfortable Chair On the Planet! Consumers love the comfort of our ‘big and fun’ bean bag chairs (up to 7.5 feet in size!).  Incredibly soft micro-suede covers and uniquely comfortable shredded foam filling make the Relax Sacks experience one your customers won’t want to miss. Great for living rooms, basements, kids rooms, dorm rooms, etc. Bring some fun and excitement to your stores! www.relaxsacks.com.  Email info@eyeonretail.net for more information.

 

Walmart’s David Cheesewright Presents at Goldman Sachs Retail Conference See the Ppoint / Webcast

 

“Home Depot working ‘around the clock’ to find data breach, CEO says” by Phil Wahba at Fortune. “The most important thing for us is making sure that our customers feel comfortable shopping at The Home Depot, and that’s going to be our guiding principle,” said Blake, who announced his upcoming resignation before the possible breach came to light. Just look at Target’s travails to see why he feels that way.” Read more

 

“Jeff Gordon Greets Fans at Charlotte Walmart” by Kacie Hollins at Fox 46 Carolinas. “The most devoted fans arrived Wednesday evening and camped outside through the night before returning to the store to reclaim their spot in line when it opened Thursday morning. Others skipped work or pulled their kids out of school to come down to the store to get an autograph and picture with Gordon.” See the video / Read more

 

Target’s Jeff Jones Attends Altuzarra for Target Launch Event Pic 1  Pic 2

 

CA: Gov. Brown says he will sign bill that would ban plastic grocery bags by Phil Willon at LA Times. “I probably will sign it, yes,” Brown said during the televised debate. “ In fact, I’ll tell you why I’m going to sign it …. There are about 50 cities with their own plastic bag ban, and that’s causing a lot of confusion.’’ Read more

 

Home Depot’s Frank Blake & Carol Tome Present at Goldman Sachs Retail Conference

 

Home Depot’s Frank Blake on breach:

When you are in a situation like this, you have a choice. On the one hand, you can wait to communicate anything until you have the facts at hand or you can communicate the facts as you know them. We chose the latter path.

The downside of that is we can’t answer all of the questions, because we have told everybody what we know.

We will have all of our terminals fully enabled for credit card EMV PIN and chip by the end of this year, so well in advance of the October 2015 deadline.

 

Carol Tome ‘Doggone Proud’ of Ted Decker:

Blake: Ted’s learned a ton from Carol. Ted also back in the day did our M&A transactions.

Blake: Ted has spent a number of years really as the chief financial person reporting to Carol with responsibility for both operations and merchandising and has enormous insights into the business.

Tomé: If I could just add a personal note, I am so doggone proud of him.

Blake: Yes, he is going to do a great job.

 

Craig Menear

Blake: When I first got this job and more than intimidated by it, my wife’s comment to me was remember, it’s not about you. And I would say the same thing about Craig, Craig is a great leader.

 

Blake on International

China: We shut that business down and don’t have any plans of going back. We couldn’t figure out how to make any money in China to just bring it to a point.

Brazil: We have looked at Brazil several years ago. Have no plans, I mean Brazil is one of those things every couple of years you say, ought to be in Brazil and then every couple of years you go, good not to be in Brazil. 

Pro

Blake: We already do a lot of deliveries from the store. It is something particularly we do for our pro-customers, but the system underlying that is quite antiquated.

Blake: The new system is going to allow much, much better visibility and much, much more efficiency in terms of how we utilize the assets.

Blake: The good news for us is that our pro customer is from if you look at how they shop the store. The margin rate characteristics of that customer, is pretty much the same as our consumer. And that’s our business model and that’s the business model we want to maintain.

Tome:  If you just look at the market opportunity looking at the census data, the NAICS 444 data, it would suggest that the addressable market for the Home Depot is $260 billion, of which $80 billion is that retail pro customer. So, now we have got a lot of room for growth within that addressable market.

 

Read the full transcript via Seeking Alpha

 

 ***

About Eye-on-Retail

Eye-on-Retail is a daily tipsheet read by thousands of Retail Merchants/Executives every weekday morning. Eye-on-Retail is unique because it’s timely, smart and fun. It’s created bright and early every morning and delivered between 7-8 am CT. We love data, earnings reports, executive presentations and stories off the beaten path that get at what’s really happening in the world of retail.