Retail Stores

More than two dozen attorneys general sent letters on Sunday to five of the country's largest retailers, encouraging them to stop selling tobacco products in stores that also have pharmacies, which would follow the example CVS set with its announcement earlier this year. The letters were sent to Rite Aid, Walgreens, Kroger, Safeway and Wal-Mart, five companies that are among the biggest pharmacy retailers in the country. "There's a contradiction in having these dangerous and devastating tobacco products on the shelves of a retail chain that services health care needs," the letters said. 

Nordstrom is a 123-year young company. Its management is innovative and looking for future growth. While many competitors speak about omnichannel, this company has done it for many years. At Nordstrom it is called multichannel, and I recall how years ago sales associates would use the telephone and try to find the correct size of a garment in other Nordstrom stores, that was innovative at the time. Multichannel selling allows the company to use its fulfillment warehouses as well as its inventories on the selling floor to make a sale to

Could J.C. Penney be on the verge of a turnaround? It has seen no shortage of bad news in the years since the financial crisis - including a weak 2013 holiday season, a boot from the S&P 500 and a below — $10 stock price that was once closer to $80 a share — but according to Citi analyst Oliver Chen, brighter days are on their way. Chen upgraded the beleaguered retailer's rating from

Google plans to open its first retail location in the United States in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, situated just around the corner from an Apple store, a new report suggests. According to Crain's New York, Google will open an 8,000-square-foot retail location. If the reports are true, the

For most companies, Twitter provides a place for self-promotion, a vehicle for customer engagement. For Sears, Twitter often spotlights the company's failure. Not the standard somebody erred in judgment and tweeted something offensive failure, but the organization-wide attitudinal and operational failure that defines Sears. Over the weekend, I was in Toronto. While on Yonge Street by the Eaton Centre, I snapped pictures of the Sears store that, at one time, anchored this mall. Now the store's empty, leaving a hole in the heart of Toronto, literally and figuratively.

These are rough times for America's brick-and-mortar retailers. Last week, it was Radio Shack announcing plans to close 20 percent of its stores and Staples shuttering 12 percent in North America. Last week, it was Best Buy, announcing plans to cut 2,000 managers. Before that, Blockbuster going out of business, or J.C. Penney reporting another round of bad, bad news. Battered by the economy and the growth of e-commerce, the signs of decline of the American retailer have been many and hard to miss. 

The suburban, car-loving, McMansion-owning parents of millennials represent Costco's core customer base. But what about millennials themselves? As far as retail success stories go, few can compete with Costco's run in recent years. In surveys, customers routinely weigh in on how much they love the Costco shopping experience, and the company's unique business model is celebrated in TV documentaries and glowing magazine profiles alike. But the fact that in early March Costco reported lower-than-expected earnings and its stock price has slumped now has some wondering if the company can stay on its hot growth streak going forward.

"Forgive and forget" — it's a mantra that's embraced by many. Unfortunately for Target, not as many of its shoppers are abiding by the principle as it had probably hoped. According to a new report from Kantar Retail, only 33 percent of U.S. households said they shopped at either a Target or SuperTarget in January, the retailer's lowest level of shopper penetration in the past three years. It's also a 22 percent decline compared with the same month in 2013.

Staples on Thursday joined its smaller rival, newly combined Office Depot Inc. and OfficeMax, in reporting disappointing sales and bottom-line earnings, adding to worries about the the future of the office supplies industry. Despite hope that the company may be able to pick up some market share from the merger disruption of its rivals, Staples’ results showed that the headwinds thrown the industry are simply too big to offset any edge it may have over its direct rival. 

Staples will close 225 stores in North America by the middle of next year as the office supply retailer tries to trim costs in the face of weaker sales. The store closings will come to about 12 percent of its stores in North America. The closings build upon the 40 stores it closed in the region in 2013. Staples said it's aiming to save $500 million annually through the closings and other cost-cutting measures. The announcement comes two days after electronics retailer RadioShack announced plans to close up to 1,100 stores, or about 20 percent of its locations.