Retail Watchers

No doubt that this will cost some sales, but it will also remove a huge expense. In the Northwest, the Fred Meyer ad in the Sunday paper sometimes has more pages than the entire Monday newspaper. I can't imagine how much it costs to send that out, but it's worth losing a few sales. This could also ...

The era of the weekly printed ad may be ending quicker than you think. It's a huge expense for a retailer. Back in the 90s, I worked for a chain in the west where I directly worked on the ad. It cost us $1 million a week to produce, print and insert the circulars. Obviously it's only gone up from th...

The second door could be a good idea if the point is to highlight grocery. Target actually has a pretty complete grocery selection outside of meat, service deli and bakery. Part of the issue is that it's an afterthought, hiding out in the back of the stores. If you put it up front with a really attr...

Let's put some of this into perspective. In 2016, Amazon did $136 billion in sales. $12 billion of that came from their cloud revenue business, so $124 billion in total revenue. Walmart did about $300 billion in the US, $478 billion for the entire world. Kroger did over $100 billion. So Amazon is st...

Fred Meyer doesn't build many new stores for several reasons. One, Kroger figures there are better opportunities elsewhere. Keep in mind that Kroger Marketplaces are essentially Fred Meyer stores without much apparel. Two, due to the large size of the stores and all the land use laws in the NW, siti...

The next mall that is becoming questionable is Mall 205. While they did make a very good effort to get new tenants in there after the closures of Montgomery Ward and Emporium, and the Target and Home Depot seem to do ok, the inside stores seem to not be doing as well. Quite a few empty spaces in th...

Another chain bites the dust:
http://www.kgw.com/money/business/lucy- ... /414438045

And I thought the yoga pants market was hot.

Logically, CVS could use a good number of stores being divested. It would strengthen their position in the east like NYC, Pacific Northwest, and Utah/Colorado/Idaho where they are trying to expand organically. I suspect CVS does not want to help Walgreens get bigger than they are, so they do not wa...

Where will Craftsmen go? Stanley Black and Decker would not have bought them unless they thought they could get it in to Home Depot and Lowes. If you can't sell them there, you will not get a decent return on the investment. My guess is that it will be marketing as a low end consumer line. There may...

Keep in mind that Sears Outlet is a completely independent chain from Sears. They spin it off a free years ago as part of the sell off of Sears. So are the tiny hometown stores.