Retail Watchers

http://www.columbian.com/news/2009/nov/14/after-35-years-vancouvers-kmart-store-will-close/ I am surprised the Vancouver store stayed open as long as it did. Sears has a store less than a mile away, as does Target, and Vancouver has three Walmarts with more in the works. The article has a neat inter...

Stopped at my local Fred Meyer last night, and noted the large gift card display at the front of one of the aisles. This had gift cards for a variety of different businesses, various restaurants, Home Depot, etc. But what I found interesting is the number of gift cards available for Fred Meyer's com...

I do remember though, the earlier version of Costco's food court, where the pop included with the polish dog was a can of a Pepsi product, and no fountain pop. It would not be overly difficult to go back to pepsi.

The ONLY way a program like this might work at Kmart/Sears is if they give a rebate of some sort for using it. If you need to use the card just to purchase items at a sale price, it has a very good possibility of backfiring, especially since the big players, Walmart & Target, don't have such a p...

Does this also affect the Coca-Cola products served in Costco's food courts?

I do remember one other type of checkstand Fred Meyer used in their grocery department. In the mid-80s, when Fred Meyer opened the Garden City store in Boise, they had a "dual cashier" setup which looked almost identical to the type that Waremart stores were using at the time. This was sti...

I recently noticed, in many of the Fred Meyer stores that have been remodeled over the last five years or so, that the checkstands have a second conveyor belt after the cashier. What I also have noticed is that these second belts are rarely, if ever, used. The way the checkstands are set up the cash...

What Rite Aid stores in Idaho were sold to Walgreens?

I never noticed the change in hours for fall in past years though. I was wondering if it was Westfield's decision or if it was brought on by tenants who were not doing enough business. It would be a good move for Westfield though if it means keeping tenants.

So it seems that Target is definitely getting rid of service jewelry and is switching to self-serve jewelry only. Target recently opened 26 brand new stores in California several days ago. I assume that they time the grand openings so that they can have regional grand opening celebration sales. The...