“Survey: Six fewer days between Thanksgiving & Christmas could cost retailers $1.5 billion” by Amrita Jayakumar at Washington Post.  “There are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, the shortest holiday season in more than a decade.  That could cost retailers $1.5 billion in lost sales, according to a report released Tuesday, in another signal of the high stakes for stores the holiday season.  That is one reason “holiday creep” started earlier this year, analysts said.”  Read more

 

“How Walmart Brought Low-Cost LEDs To The Mass Market” by Peter Kelly-Detwiler at Forbes. “I asked John Prince, Walmart’s Senior Buyer of Hardware Consumables, why Walmart felt that now was the right time to launch its LEDs.  “The first big reason we launched now is that LEDs finally got to the point where they were a viable alternative. In the past, LEDs have not been good enough that I could put them in my house and have a quality product. But the technology has now advanced so that we felt comfortable in putting our Great Value label on it.”  Read more

 

“Walgreens Front-End Same-Store Sales Up 2.3% in October” at WSJ.  “Walgreens had October sales of $6.37 billion, an increase of 6.1 percent from $6.0 billion for the same month in fiscal 2013.  Total front-end sales increased 3.5 percent compared with the same month in fiscal 2013, while comparable store front-end sales increased 2.3 percent. Customer traffic in comparable stores increased 0.6 percent while basket size increased 1.7 percent.”  Read more

 

“Is Black Friday dead?” by Katie Little at CNBC.  “Black Friday has reached unplanned obsolescence, and [on] Black Saturday and Sunday the stores get more and more deserted,” said Burt P. Flickinger, managing director at SRG Insight, a retail consulting firm. “By moving sales to Thursday, Black Friday loses its retail relevance.”  Read more

 

“Adobe:  Thanksgiving to Soon Surpass Black Friday in Online Sales; Cyber Monday to Break All Records”  “Thanksgiving Day sales are projected to surpass $1 billion and could overtake Black Friday within the next five years. The growing importance of Thanksgiving Day, the shortened holiday season and the growing role of mobile and social will make 2013 a very different shopping season than ever before.”  Read more

 

“Morale at J.C. Penney is mending” by Maria Halkias at Dallas News.  “They were called “dopes” (dumb old Penney employees) by a newly hired senior executive. Many suspected correctly that they were training their replacements. They cried with longtime co-workers who were sent packing…One former corporate staffer said there was definitely a lockdown in the last few months of Johnson’s regime.  “Paranoia started to set in, and they lost control of the story,” she said.”  Read more

 

“Target offers $200 trade-in on any undamaged iPad” by Steve Alexander at Star-Tribune.  “Target is offering at least $200 in store credit to customers who trade in any undamaged iPad, no matter how old, an attention-getting promotion that coincides with Apple Inc.’s release of a new full-sized iPad and an iPad price cut by rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc.”  Read more

 

“True Value Poaches New Chief Merchandising Officer from Ace Hardware”  “Ken Goodgame will join the company as senior vice president and chief merchandising officer, most recently serving as general merchandising manager for Ace Hardware. He will replace Mike Clark who announced his retirement, and brings diverse executive leadership in retail, consumer goods and hardware manufacturing.”  Read more

 

“Office Depot Sales Off 3% in Q3”  “Total Company sales for the third quarter of 2013 were $2.6 billion, down 3% compared to the third quarter of 2012 in both U.S. dollars and in constant currency.”  Read more

 

“Brookstone YTD Same-Store Sales Down 3.6%”  For the third quarter ended September 28, 2013, comp sales increased 0.7% and Adjusted EBITDA improved by 10% to ($5.0) million, while net sales decreased 7.3% to $88.3 million…For the thirty-nine week period ended September 28, 2013, consolidated net sales decreased 6.5% to $268.3 million and comp sales decreased 3.6%.”  Read more

 

“Walgreens CFO To Present At Credit Suisse 2013 Healthcare Conference Nov. 12” at The Street.  Read more 

 

“Home Depot To Host Third Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call On November 19”  at WSJ.  Read more

 

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