“Whole Foods and Instacart turn up the heat in the delivery wars” by Beth Kowitt at Fortune. “Starting next month, rather than dispatching an Instacart shopper to a Whole Foods when an order is placed, shoppers will already be embedded in its stores. The service will start in Boston and Austin before rolling out to other participating cities.” Read more

 

“Report Says Retailers Are Emerging From A Yearlong Apparel Slump” by Barbara Thau at Forbes. “For the first time since September 2013, apparel industry inventory levels are growing at a rate slower than sales growth, according to a Credit Suisse report released Friday, “CS Softlines Industry Inventory Tracker.” “As a result, we believe that a nine-month period of excessive markdown activity and margin degradation for the group is coming to an end,” the report said.” Read more

 

“Dick’s Field & Stream Store Opens in Columbus, OH” by Tim Feran at Columbus Dispatch. “Along with the Columbus store, another location will open this weekend, in Cary, N.C. Next weekend, Dick’s will open a store in Washington, Pa., and plans to open four more locations later this year. The company plans to open about 55 stores by 2017.” See the video / Read more

 

“Everything you need to know about the dollar store love triangle” by  John Kell at Fortune. “Dollar Tree did provide a few meaningful updates. It now says it will divest “as many stores as necessary” to win antitrust clearance. It also expects the timing of the transaction to accelerate and close as early as the end of November. Dollar Tree also says the Federal Trade Commission has issued a second request for additional information.” Read more

 

“Kmart’s first Christmas ad of the season? You decide” by Christina Cheddar Berk at CNBC. “It’s too early for Christmas, so just to be clear, this is not a Christmas commercial,” the ad begins. “Let’s say you have an event in late December that you need a lot of gifts for, like, maybe your entire family is having a birthday on the same day,” the ad says.” See the video / Read more

 

“Wal-Mart’s Rick Webb Talks STEM & Drive Up Grocery” by Kim Souza at The City Wire. “This Drive Up Grocery solution is a new concept in the U.S. but it’s quite common in France. In order for Wal-Mart to test it here, there was a lot of collaborative work to do to get this up and running,” Webb said…He said the logistics team that gets the order also will get some type of routing detail that tells them where the product is located in the small warehouse, so they don’t wander around looking for each item.” Read more

 

“Debt-averse millennials steer clear of credit cards” by Sarah Whitten at CNBC. “According to a new Bankrate.com study, 63 percent of individuals aged 18-29 don’t own a credit card. This holds true for 35 percent of adults 30 and over, nearly half the number of the younger generation.” Read more

 

“Nielsen Finds Older Adults Are Embracing Digital Video” by Emily Steel at NY Times. “People 50 to 64 years old watched an average of 19 minutes a day of digital video during the second quarter of 2014, up from 11 minutes a day during the same period last year.” Read more

 

“Good Eggs Raises $21 Million From Index Ventures To Deliver The Farmer’s Market To Your Door” by Ryan Lawler at TechCrunch. “Good Eggs is kind of like Instacart, but purely for locally sourced organic and sustainable meats, produce, and other goods. It offers up a marketplace to enable customers to buy from nearby farms and vendors, but then handles all the logistics associated with packaging up their orders and handling delivery.” Read more

 

“Amazon Prime auto-renewal charges frustrate customers” by Nicole Bogart at Global News. “I was misled that I would have 6 months free to try it. Is this a new scam of theirs? I am seeing a lot of people being charged on the same date here for memberships they did not want. Hmmm…..a little fishy,” another added.” Read more

 

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