“Rite-Aid: Q1 Front-End Comp Sales Flat”  “The company reported revenues of $6.5 billion, net income of $41.4 million or $0.04 per diluted share, and Adjusted EBITDA of $282.6 million…Same store sales for the quarter increased 3.1 percent over the prior year. Front-end same store sales were flat compared to the prior-year period while pharmacy same store sales increased 4.6 percent.”  Read the release

 

“Kroger expected to post $543M profit in Q1” by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com.  “Wall Street analysts also forecast that newly added Harris Teeter stores will also power revenues to jump 8.5 percent to $32.6 billion, according to Bloomberg.” Read more

 

“Report: Lowe’s Sniffing Around NYC for Urban Concept Stores” by Lauren Elkies Schram.  “Lowe’s is looking to break into the New York City market with an urban concept a la the upscale Manhattan home furnishings chain Gracious Home, Commercial Observer has learned…Lowe’s is considering space in a condominium occupied by a Food Emporium until May 2013 at 2000 Broadway at the northeast corner of 68th Street, a source with knowledge of the search said.”  Read more

 

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“Amazon’s Fire phone designed to sear e-commerce rivals” by Phil Wahba at Fortune.  “Amazon shares shot up 3% when Bezos demonstrated the simplicity of the “scan-to-buy” feature. “If you’re a mediocre retailer, then this makes you extremely vulnerable,” said Doug Stephens, president of Retail Prophet Consultants in Toronto. “It’s shortening the distance between seeing an item you like and ordering it on Amazon—Firefly is like a trigger.”  Read more

 

“Contractor Gets Surprise Call to Appear in Home Depot Ads” by Ron Newberry at Whidbey News-Times.  “The crew had rubbed him down with dirt and sawdust to make him look like he’d been working hard on a construction site. “I told them I could have brought clothes from home and been just fine,” Linson said. The beads of sweat weren’t artificial, so a director listened to Linson’s advice and made an adjustment. “I was holding a 60-pound bag of concrete for about two and a half hours,” Linson said. “I said, ‘Can we take a little out of this?’ He said, ‘Good idea.”  Read more

 

“Family Dollar Names New Sr. VP of Merchandise Operations”  “Jeffrey Thomas joined Family Dollar in 2003 as a Director of Vendor Performance with responsibility for item data integrity and vendor relationships. Between 2005 and 2013, Mr. Thomas assumed greater roles with increased responsibilities, and in 2013, he was named Vice President – Merchant Services. Mr. Thomas holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from The University of Tennessee.”  Read the release

 

“U.K. Retail Sales Drop .5% in May” by Fergal O’Brien at Bloomberg.  “Food sales slid 2.4 percent after surging the previous month during the Easter holiday. Sales at other retailers jumped 2.2 percent, helped by demand for replica football jerseys before the World Cup tournament.”  Read more

 

“Office Depot CEO:  Turnaround to Bear Fruit by 2017” by Joann S. Lublin at WSJ (tiered subscription).  “(Roland Smith) is moving fast to fix the merged company, cutting more than 50% of middle and senior managers, and aiming to close at least 21% of Office Depot’s 1,900 U.S. stores by the end of 2016. Those and other consolidation efforts are expected to reap savings of $180 million this year.”  Read more

 

“How Retail Upstarts are Beating Amazon” by Joel Dreyfus at CNBC.  “An Amazon works for commodity products,” said Stephanie Palmieri, a principal at SoftTech Venture Capital in Palo Alto, California. “But there are giant niches out there.” The niches are big because the Internet is increasingly where America shops.”  Read more

 

“Kroger Pulling Out of Big Pension Plans” by Steve Watkins at Cincinnati Business Courier.  “The Cincinnati-based company that is the nation’s largest operator of traditional supermarkets said Wednesday that the move will give it more cost certainty and cut its potential liability.”  Read more

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