“Walmart Reports Q1 Earnings:  Comp Sales Down 8 Basis Points / Sam’s Down .5%”  “Sam’s Club delivered 10.9 percent membership income growth for the quarter…E-commerce sales globally increased approximately 27 percent for the quarter…Walmart U.S. comp traffic decreased 1.4 percent, while average ticket increased 1.3 percent…April marked the 46th consecutive month of positive comps for Neighborhood Market.”  Read the release

 

CNBC’s Take:  “Wal-Mart misses, blames it on the tough winter”  “Wal-Mart reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ expectations on Thursday, laying the blame on a tough winter that chilled business activity and cost it about 3 cents per share.”  Read more

 

“Jeff Jones ‘Truth Hurts’ post hits the mark at Target” by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune.  “…Target employees immediately rallied around the piece.  “So very #proud to see such bold leadership!” tweeted Dustee Jenkins, a Target spokeswoman, soon after the post.  Even Target retweeted the link.  On Tuesday, Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said the company can’t speak for Jones’ decision to write this piece or why he decided to post it the way he did.”  Read more

 

The Gawker Post that Started it All:  “Target Headquarters ‘In Desperate Need of Help,’ Says Employee” by Hamilton Nolan. “Target purposely staffs assuming that everyone is working at 50% productivity. In essence they have 2 people doing a job that 1 person could do at another company, because the rest of the time you’re in status meetings or volunteer events or FFF events (that’s Fast Fun & Friendly, basically an excuse to not be working).”  Read the full email

 

It Could Be Worse, You Could be Working at Amazon.. :  “I Do Not Know One Person Who Is Happy at Amazon” by Hamilton Nolan at Gawker.  “Everyone is so tired, all the time. Dark eye circles, muttering under yawns, all. There could never be “lifers” here. Not at this pace anyway. When there are so few long-lasting employees around, it kind of goes unsaid that other smart people like you can find a better situation elsewhere and move on. You cannot help but start looking within a few months. So the proof is in the other people you see in the hallways every day. It is always “Meet Bob, he’s the new Jim” and I had no idea Jim was gone.”  Read the full email

 

“100 lawyers in a room: Target case draws the suits to St. Paul” by Tom Webb & Nick Woltman at Pioneer Press.  “I’m beginning to learn this data breach business is quite a cottage industry,” Magnuson said…The cases will be grouped into three clusters. The largest group of 111 cases is the consumer lawsuits.  A second group of 29 cases was filed by banks and credit unions, which suffered fraud losses and the costs of reissuing cards.  A third group of four cases is shareholder lawsuits.  Under an initial timetable, trials are scheduled for early in 2016 — unless the cases are settled first.”  Read more

 

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“Food Lion unveils new logo, strategy” by Ely Portillo at Charlotte Observer.  “The company plans to extensively remodel its 1,100 stores, as well as train its 63,000 employees in what it calls a new, more customer-centric way of doing business.”  Read more

 

“Kroger’s top two execs get $5 million raises” by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com.  “Newly-minted CEO Rodney McMullen received $8.8 million last year – up 145.5 percent from the $3.6 million he received in 2012.”  Read more

 

“Retailers move to ‘multiple touch points’ amid digital age” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Consumers are creators, curators and critics rolled into one. They will recommend only 5 to 9 brands to their friends and family, so making that list is important,” he added.  Shing said the smart phone is the first screen in people’s lives. It’s not their big screen television or tablet. But he said mobile is often the last place brands get creative with their messages, content and advertising.”  Read more

 

“Goldman Sachs:  Buy Stock in Dick’s Sporting Goods to Profit From Millennials” by Kevin Roose at NY Mag.  “If you want to bet on millennials, go long sports and organic food, and short chocolate and cereal.  That’s according to a new Goldman Sachs research report that lays out a strategy for trading the rise of millennials. Among the report’s recommendations: buy stock in Dick’s Sporting Goods.”  Read more

 

“Jimmy Kimmel Shops at Costco” by Zachary Pincus-Roth at LA Weekly.  “The Hawthorne Costco, near his beach house, is different from the Burbank Costco, near his Hollywood Hills home. “There are beach things there, like volleyballs and surfboards, that they don’t have at the Costco in Burbank,” he says. He’s been to Costco in Hawaii, in Cabo San Lucas…”People assume that I have someone that goes shopping for me,” he says.”  Read more

 

“Ace Hardware sets a revenue and profit record” by Lewis Lazare at Chicago Business Journal.  “Total revenues were $1.1 billion for the first quarter of 2014, an increase of $155.5 million or 16.8 percent year over year…Some 3,100 Ace outlets who submit daily sales data also saw same store sales increase 5.2 percent as customer counts grew in the quarter.”  Read more

 

 

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