Retail Watchers

I got my free Gyro this evening! I doubt I'll use this promo every week as Arby's are few and far between in my area. The app definitely isn't the greatest..it encourages you to walk in to pick up your order vs. using the Drive Thru (although I'm sure they would have just handed it to me at the driv...

I'll probably add this to the national thread as well, but G.O. is pushing that they now offer an "app" and that it can search your store's inventory, so you know if they will or won't have something in stock. Interesting. I know they already partner with Instacart, but I just don't see t...

Do they not blanket the area around a new store with free memberships where you are? Maybe they only do that in some markets. Absolutely not, and I have never heard such a thing being done as a 10+ year employee. I know in areas of new stores, they would set up sign-up stations either outside of wh...

Didn't see this coming but maybe it is not so surprising. Burlington seems to be having some issues. They keep blocking off more and more of their sales floors. I honestly can't differentiate between Burlington/Ross/Gabe's these days...all three, and to some extent you can throw TJMaxx/Marshall's i...

IMO, they are growing too quickly and they don't have enough merchandise to fill their stores with. I popped in a few times to the new location in Jamison and it was very underwhelming. Unless they were incredibly busy earlier in the day, the shelves were quite light throughout and most of the merch...

I'm still confused as to why Costco, who gives away free membership at new store openings and has a perpetual $25 first year campaign with other freebies and a fat coupon book, I have never heard of Costco giving away free or severely reduced memberships in any recent history. They used to do a she...

The only way I see either chain surviving long term is if they shrink their stores down to something maybe a bit larger than a 'Fedex Office/UPS store' sized space and focus on services like printing, shipping, and perhaps a very abbreviated selection of office supplies.

I'm more surprised that it took Sam's this long to do something like this, especially given their technology. I've only gone into Sam's a few times (when I had the $8 'Super Bowl' membership promo a few years back). I was given a physical card which had nothing other than a barcode on it, and never ...

Costco self checkout is terrible since there are no handheld scanners. I had to lift huge items onto the scanner and then onto the weighing pad. There are so many heavy bulk items at Costco. I would rather have a cashier at a compact cash register scan my items. It is a time consuming process to li...

If I had to guess the real technological rush will be getting the self checkout register to show the pictures while the member is checking out so they can see if a non member managed to get in and borrow a card. The best solution would be for Costco to follow the lead of other retailers and severel...