Kroger Testing Whole Foods-Like Store
December 23, 2015 at 12:48 pm

Kroger Co. is about to open a new store brand focused on fresh produce, food-preparation advice and high-quality prepared foods. It will open its first Main & Vine shop in the Seattle-area town of Gig Harbor, Washington. Cincinnati-based Kroger, the nation’s largest operator of traditional supermarkets, already runs Quality Food Center and Fred Meyer supermarkets…

Top 10 Stories of the Year
December 23, 2015 at 11:20 am

With this being the last issue of Total Retail Report of 2015 (it returns on Mon., Jan. 4), we thought it would be a good time to put together a list of our most popular content of the year. This content is ranked in order based on the number of page views. Our best wishes…

Stores Prep for Crush of Last-Minute Super Saturday Shoppers
December 18, 2015 at 10:53 am

Retailers are prepping for a crush of procrastinating shoppers this weekend as the holiday season starts to wind down, and they're throwing everything from gift card deals to 24/7 store hours to coveted Star Wars toys at shoppers to keep them spending right up until Christmas. Despite holiday sales starting as early as October, retailers…

Kohl's to Open Stores for 170 Hours Straight
December 16, 2015 at 11:42 am

Kohl’s will keep its doors open for more than seven days straight before Christmas in a move that shows just how tough the holiday season has been for retailers. The mid-tier department store said on Tuesday that stores would open at 7 a.m. on Thursday and remain open around the clock for the 170 hours leading…

Kitson, Boutique for Young Starlets, is Closing All 17 Stores
December 14, 2015 at 10:15 am

Kitson, the Los Angeles boutique chain once frequented by rising starlets, is going out of business. The company said Thursday that it's closing all 17 of its stores in California, Oregon and Nevada. Its online shop will also shut down. James Wong, Kitson's chief restructuring officer, said in a statement that Kitson was talking with…

Key Retail Sales Measure Jumped in November
December 11, 2015 at 9:46 am

Retail sales rose modestly in November, but a key measure posted a healthy jump as the holiday shopping season got into full swing and solid job growth buoyed spending. Sales rose 0.2 percent, the Commerce Department said Friday, slightly below the 0.3 percent expected by economists. But excluding volatile autos and gasoline, sales increased 0.5…

Target Opens Holiday-Themed Playground in New York
December 8, 2015 at 9:56 am

Over the years, Target Corp. has pulled many stunts to generate buzz in New York City — from building a life-size dollhouse in Grand Central Station a couple of years ago to perhaps, most memorably, setting up a temporary holiday store on a boat docked on the Hudson River more than a decade ago. The…

Store Traffic at Best Buy, J.C. Penney Soars on Black Friday
December 3, 2015 at 11:03 am

In the race for shoppers on Black Friday, electronics chain Best Buy and retailer J.C. Penney won the biggest surge of bargain-hunting shoppers, according to data from Foursquare. On the day after Thanksgiving, which has traditionally kicked off the holiday season, Best Buy enjoyed traffic that was 4.2 times what its stores normally see on…

Small Business Saturday Spending Tops $16.2B, Up 14% From Last Year
December 2, 2015 at 10:24 am

Small Business Saturday took place this past weekend. American Express created Small Business Saturday in 2010 to help bring more awareness and consumer dollars to small businesses during the busiest shopping season of the year. It's accomplished just that, with the most recent edition the most successful yet according to results from the Small Business…