“Costco Comp Sales +6% in May”  “Costco reported net sales of $8.78 billion for the month of May, the four weeks ended June 1, 2014, an increase of eight percent from $8.13 billion during the similar four-week period last year.”  Read the release

 

“Walgreens Front-End Comp Sales +2.6% in May”  “Walgreens had May sales of $6.57 billion, an increase of 6.0 percent from $6.19 billion for the same month in fiscal 2013.”  Read the release

 

“J.D. Power Reports: Ace Hardware #1 in Customer Satisfaction among Home Improvement Retailers (Menards Beats Home Depot and Lowe’s)”  “Nearly one-fifth (17%) of customers purchase merchandise online from their primary home improvement retailer.” See the Top 6 List

 

“Sneak Peek Inside Walmart’s Innovation Lab” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Items revealed included 3-D digital printers in stores that allow shoppers to replicate their own images for wedding cake toppers and digital watermarks in print circulars that allow shoppers to scan the item on the page into their phone to glean a host of additional product information including reviews.” Read more

 

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“Walmart to Expand Savings Catcher Nationwide” by Anne D’Innocenzio at AP via Charlotte Observer.  “Wal-Mart also plans to offer thousands more products, from general merchandise like TVs and shirts to veggies and other produce…Wal-Mart says since it rolled out Savings Catcher in March in Charlotte, North Carolina, Huntsville, Alabama, Minneapolis, Lexington, Kentucky., Dallas, San Diego and Atlanta, nearly one million receipts have been processed through the tool.”  Read more

 

Not Bad:  “Bed, Bath & Beyond CEO’s 2013 comp: $50 million” by Gary Strauss at USA Today.  “Temares received compensation valued at $19.1 million, including $3.8 million in salary, $13 million in stock and stock options and nearly $1.8 million in deferred compensation. That’s up 20% from $15.9 million in 2012.”  Read more

 

“Cabela’s Announces Plans for Three New Stores”  “Cabela’s announced today plans to introduce the unique Cabela’s retail experience to three new markets – Huntsville, Ala.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; and Woodbury, N.Y.”  Read the release

 

“Houston: Five Below Opens Eight New Stores Friday”  “The grand openings mark Five Below’s first foray into Houston.  The company currently has 15 stores in the Dallas and Austin markets.  Last year, the Philadelphia-based retailer opened 60 new stores, and has plans to open approximately 60 stores this year.  With the Houston openings, there will be 338 Five Below stores in 20 states throughout the country.”  Read the release

 

“Online retailers Bonobos and Warby Parker open stores in Dallas” by Maria Halkias at Dallas News.  “On Friday, men’s apparel retailer Bonobos  is opening what it calls a guideshop at 1901 N. Henderson Ave…A block away, Warby Parker opens in two weeks at 2008 N. Henderson. The online prescription eyeglass retailer’s 1,050-square-foot store will be hard to miss, with a sculpture of a pencil sticking out of the roof.”  Read more

 

 

“Home Depot’s Kevin Hoffman – President-Online, Presents at Goldman Sachs Dotcommerce Conference “

 

Highlights:

 

We have a very-very healthy bath business online, a very-very healthy and big growing flooring business online, of course appliances, patio, power equipment, power tools, those things are kind of the mainstays of the home improvement online business.

 

We’re not transacting a lot and shipping a lot of 60 pound bags of concrete, you know we sell a 60 pound bag of concrete for $3, people aren’t buying that online and having it showing up to their doorstep, but there’s a ton of price checking, inventory look up.

 

We have about 35% of all of our online orders; for example, get filled out of our store locations.

 

Later this year we’ll offer a much-much more improved capability to have buy online and deliver from the store, won’t be same day, but it’ll be pretty accurate and within a couple hour window next day or scheduled delivery to your home.

 

We feel like we’ve got a pretty good full buffet of fulfillment options for our customers and that’s what we’re investing in and that’s what we’re building on.

 

90% of all of our online returns actually happen through the convenience of our store.

 

10% of all of our online orders are originating in the store with the customer and the associate engaging each other.

 

We watch (Amazon) closely. We watch them arguably just as closely, if not more closely than some of our traditional competitors you would think of.

 

Our pro app is only three or four quarters old, it’s had very good reception 400,000 downloads.

 

Pro Extra has got 1.5 million sign ups to it.

 

Read the full transcript via Seeking Alpha

 

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