Kroger explores sale of its convenience stores at CNBC. “Kroger operates more than 780 convenience stores across 18 states, which combined had sales of $4 billion last year. “Considering the current premium multiples for convenience stores, we feel it is our obligation as a management team to undertake a review,” Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman said in prepared remarks.” Read more

 

…Kroger’s Gasoline-Sales Goof Sends Its Shareholders on a Ride by Craig Giammona at Bloomberg. “The company issued a confusing sales figure for its convenience-store business on Wednesday, saying the division generated $1.4 billion last year. But that was just from sales inside the stores…rather than the biggest source of revenue for convenience stores: fuel. On a day when Kroger announced it may sell that business, the sales distinction was important to investors. Including the gas, the revenue figure was $4 billion.” Read more

 

…Kroger Must Admit Its Amazon Problem by Sarah Halzack at Bloomberg.”When executives proudly discussed achievements like knowing their shoppers’ hobbies or whether they use an iPhone or an Android device, all I could think was: Isn’t this simply the standard now that we’re many years into the era of Big Data? What retailer isn’t doing something like this, or at least trying to?” Read more

 

Amazon has quietly been growing a mysterious office in a small surf town near San Francisco at CNBC. “It’s unclear what exactly the team there is working on or why Amazon has picked Santa Cruz as an office location. But the report says the office has a group of engineers working on the Alexa voice technology and could possibly expand up to 200 people.” Read more

 

Walmart Canada Is Creating a New Scripted Branded Content Series That Aims for Authenticity by Sami Main at Adweek. “Upstairs Amy, a dramedy that will be available on YouTube, follows the lives of three modern women and is about millennial parents and the differences between what their lives are now and what they thought they’d become.” Read more

 

49% of teen shoppers identified Amazon as their favorite ecommerce outlet by Thomas Barrabi at Fox Business. “Nike ranked a distant second, with 6% of teen shoppers tapping the sports apparel giant as their preferred website. American Eagle (5%), eBay (3%) and Forever 21 (2%) rounded out the top five.” Read more

 

…”While Wal-Mart and Target have spent billions of dollars improving their website experience, supply chain and delivery, it seems to be lost on teens. Wal-Mart logged only 0.18 percent of mindshare online, Target did only slightly better at 0.44 percent.” Read @ CNBC

 

Debate over Costco processing plant moves to counties as farmers seek permits to build chicken barns by Barbara Soderlin at Omaha World-Herald. “In the next 18 months or so, between 100 and 125 farmers in a rural 14-county region of eastern Nebraska will go before their local county boards, seeking permits to build chicken barns on their land…Opponents vow to protest at every meeting.” Read more

 

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What Sephora Knows About Women in Tech That Silicon Valley Doesn’t by John Simons at Wall Street Journal. “In a San Francisco office an hour’s drive from some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley, Sephora has managed a corporate feat that would make the leaders of Google, Apple and Facebook envious: a majority of the cosmetics retailer’s technology workers—62%—are women.” Read more (subs.)

 

People are spending more time in top shopping apps like Amazon’s by Rani Molla at Recode. “In the U.S., time spent on the Top 5 digital-first shopping apps — Amazon, Amazon Shopping, Wish, Etsy and Zulily this year — grew 44 percent in the first half of 2017…Time spent in top traditional retailer apps — Walmart, Cartwheel (Target), Kohls, Home Depot and Kroger — grew 29 percent in that time. Time spent in apps of all types grew about 17 percent since last year.” Read more

 

Retailer J. Jill Cuts Sales Targets by Maria Armental at Wall Street Journal. “J. Jill said it expects comparable sales, a closely watched metric in the sector, to fall 3% to 5% in the third quarter, compared with its earlier view of a percentage increase in the high single digits.” Read more (subs.) | Press release

 

Amazon has replaced Google as the company others are most worried about by Rani Molla at Recode. Read more/Chart

 

Coach Inc. is changing its name, and shoppers are pissed via NY Post. “At the end of the day some of the social media reaction is misplaced because people think we are changing the name of the Coach brand, which we are not doing,” (CEO) Luis told Reuters. “It’s really about creating a new corporate identity for Coach as a house of brands.” Read more

 

Lowe’s illegally required payment in full for home improvement contracts in Mass. by Cheryl Fiandaca at CBS Boston. “The law states, for jobs over $1,000, contractors can only require a deposit of one-third the total contract price.” Video/Read more

 

People are getting sick from a bacterial disease — and pet-store puppies might be to blame at Washington Post via Denver Post. “A disease linked to puppies sold at Petland, a nationwide chain of about 80 pet stores, has sickened 55 people and hospitalized 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Read more

 

Safeway and other grocers seek donations for Northern California fire victims by George Avalos at Mercury News. Read more

 

Tour of the smallest Canadian Tire store in Canada by Jeff Walters at CBC News. “We are able to manipulate our spaces to cater to our demographic, our market.” The retail floor stands at 3,000 square feet.” Read more/Video

 

Metro to eliminate 280 jobs in modernization of Ontario grocery distribution network via Toronto Star. “The announcement follows comments by Metro in August that it would study automation as it looked to cut costs in the face of the Ontario government’s plan to raise the minimum wage next year.” Read more

 

Trump: Tearing up NAFTA ‘will be fine’ by Patrick Gillespie at CNN Money. Read more

 

Amazon consumer chief announces $10M donation to Code.org by Monica Nickelsburg at GeekWire. “I hope we choose a city (for HQ2) that has been focused on STEM education, particularly in computer science in the public high schools and middle schools in the area,” Wilke said on stage at the GeekWire Summit Tuesday. “I think it’s incredibly important.” Read more

 

Uniqlo, 7-Eleven Owners Bet Overseas to Counter an Aging Japan by Lisa Due at Bloomberg. Read more

 

Amazon Now Hiring for Over 120,000 Jobs in the U.S. This Holiday Season Press release

 

Tipsheet Extra Stories

Voice from drone tried to lure children away from playground…to Dollar Tree

Man stabs PetSmart shopper during fight in fish department

Aldi customer mad after being hit with two parking fines for not registering car in-store

First peek inside the world’s new biggest cruise ship (largest laser tag at sea!)

Cramer explains how Sports Authority’s bankruptcy cast a shadow on athletic retail

CVS robber nearly looses pants

KC mayor gives 1,000 Amazon products five stars in HQ2 stunt

How Jack Ma’s foresight helped Alibaba become an e-commerce giant

Read Tipsheet Extra Stories

 

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