EQUITY RETAIL BLOG

Blockbuster may put itself up for sale

Grocery-anchored shopping centers are filled with Blockbuster stores, many of which are now vacant. The company’s latest move – after failing to come up with a plan to exit bankruptcy that investors can agree on – is to put itself up for sale. The following Wall Street Journal story has the details: Blockbuster Heads Towards […]

Whole Foods to Open 5 'Wellness Clubs'

Whole Foods plans to open “wellness clubs” at five stores this year, including one in Princeton, to help educate consumers about healthier lifestyles. Whole Foods to Open 5 ‘Wellness Clubs’

Whole Foods Identical Store Sales Up 9.1%

These are good times for Whole Foods… Whole Foods ID Sales Up 9.1%

Top grocery retailers from a different perspective

Below is an interesting story published on Seeking Alpha, a web site that bills itself as “the premier website for actionable stock market opinion and analysis, and vibrant, intelligent finance discussion.” The author, Rich Shea from Shea Marketing, comes up with his top grocery retailers based on current consumer shopping trends, margins, future growth and stock […]

Movie rental kiosks more popular than retail stores

The fact that more people now get their movies from a kiosk than a retail store is not shocking, given the downfall of Blockbuster, but it’s still noteworthy. According to the USA Today story below, in the third quarter of 2010, “subscription rental services like Netflix still represent the lion’s share of video rentals – […]

Supermarket News Names Top 75 Food Retailers

According to the Supermarket News, sales among the top 75 food retailers in North America (U.S. and Canada) rose 7.7% during 2010, compared with a cumulative drop of 0.2% in 2009. Total 2010 revenues (sales of food and non-food merchandise) totaled $960.3 billion. The top 10 companies (see list below) accounted for 69% of the […]

Grocery shoppers are getting thrifty

The USA Today story below describes the aggressive expansion of “limited-assortment” grocers like Aldi and Sav-A-Lot. According to Aldi, they plan to open 80-100 stores this year, and Sav-A-Lot says they will double their stores from 1200 to 2400 in the next five years. Some interesting tidbits from the story: A recent report forecasts a […]

Interview with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey

The link below contains a 24-minute Harvard Business Review interview with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. He talks about making a business “conscious,” navigating the company through economic crisis, the great food localism debate and the evolution of a company’s purpose, among other things. Bigthink.com/johnmackey  

Customer Service - The Difference Maker in Food Retailing

By George Latella, Professor of Food Marketing at Saint Joseph’s University   If you are over 40 years old, you remember the milkman, Sunday being a day of rest, reflection, and grocery stores being closed. And that all retailers valued customer service and a personal connection with their customers. Most of these stores started as […]

Together, let's plan for 2011

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been thinking very positively about 2011. Sure, the economy hasn’t recovered yet and retail is still sluggish, but 2010 was better than 2009, and holiday sales were pretty good. Almost all indicators point to continued improvement as this year progresses. Looking back, the last couple years were critical […]