Have you ever made a shopping list, driven to the store and then realized they were out of certain items? Apparently, Target has an answer to that frustrating experience in the form of an app update that can tell consumers what’s in stock and where to find those items inside the store. [More]
Retail Services
Authorities Have No Idea How Family Bought LSD-Contaminated Beef At Walmart
By 11.17.14
How does a package of beef become contaminated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD? Authorities in Florida and in the federal government have been trying to figure that out for the last right months. Last week, local police in Tampa released their report and made the case inactive. They still have no idea how the drug got there. [More]
MobiBlu MP3 Player Looks Forward To Spending 10th Birthday On Walmart Shelf
By 11.17.14
In the field of retail archaeology, some items are more common than others. For example, the Raiders of the Lost Walmart have excavated examples of the MobiBLU, a tiny MP3 player that dates back to around 2005, from the electronics departments of many Walmart stores almost a decade later. They have hilariously high prices, ranging from $109.73 to $60. We’ve been tracking this item since May of 2013, yet Walmart can’t mark it down to a more appropriate price of maybe five bucks.
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Employee’s Daughter Asks Kmart To Give Mom Some Time Off On Thanksgiving
By 11.14.14
Should stores be open on Thanksgiving Day? Some businesses, such as hotels, gas stations, airlines, and even restaurants must be open to keep civilization running and make sure other people can get to their destinations and enjoy their holidays. Yet many non-essential businesses are open. Like Kmart. The child of one Kmart employee is unhappy about this, and wants the store to consider maybe giving her mom, a 21-year employee, the day off. [More]
Pro-Holiday Activists Protest At Mall That Will Open On Thanksgiving Day
By 11.14.14
There’s less than two weeks left until Thanksgiving Day, and consumers are beginning to learn which retailers will be open on the holiday so they can either plan their shopping trips or get very, very upset. Some people in Michigan have taken the “get upset” option, holding a protest outside of a mall that is scheduled to open at 6 P.M. [More]
Walmart Employees Once Again Planning Black Friday Protests For Higher Pay
By 11.14.14
Despite a Walmart executive’s generalized promise to eventually raise the wages for the company’s lowest paid employees, a group of workers have announced plans to protest the mega-retailer on Black Friday for the third year. [More]
Best Buy’s Stupid Shipping Gang Sends 45 Packs Of Pens In 45 Separate Boxes
By 11.14.14
Buying stuff that’s on sale is always a heady moment on the retail battlefield, leaving your proudly standing over your vanquished enemy and wiping the sweat from your brow and knowing that the price you paid wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Then 45 separate boxes show up at the door. [More]
Wells Fargo to Sell $8.5B In Government-Backed Student Loans to Navient
By 11.13.14
Earlier this year, Wells Fargo announced plans to get out of the payday loan-like business of direct deposit advances. Now it looks like the banking giant is getting ready to shed another aspect of its business: government-guaranteed student loans. [More]
Amazon, Hachette Reach Multiyear Deal To End Months-Long Feud Over E-Book Pricing
By 11.13.14
The months-long standoff between Amazon and book publisher Hachette appears to have reached a ceasefire with the groups signing a multiyear contract. [More]
SUV Drives Into Closing Sears Store, Injures No One
By 11.13.14
When a driver lost control of her Lexus SUV in the parking lot of a mall in Solon, Ohio yesterday afternoon, the story could have had a tragic ending. Instead, only the driver sustained minor injuries. While there was property damage to the shopping center, the car ended up inside a Sears Grand department store…one that is scheduled to close before the end of the year. [More]
Walmart Tells All U.S. Managers They Can Now Price-Match Online Retailers Like Amazon
By 11.13.14
It’s a war out there in the world of retail, and having the lowest prices around is a weapon every brick-and-mortar store has been trying to keep in its arsenal. Not so easy when online retailers like Amazon are constantly lowering prices. All that might change for Walmart, as store managers have been told it’s time to officially start price-matching Amazon and others. [More]
Could Aerosol Deodorants Catch On Again In The United States?
By 11.12.14
Do you have difficulty applying your deodorant and/or antiperspirant without getting it on your clothes? Unilever thinks that you do. After spray-on personal care products applied to the armpits faded from the United States market in the ’80s when aerosol propellants were shown to be harmful to the planet. They’re still on the market, but Americans prefer our gels and sticks. For now. [More]
Hot Seller During Singles Day In China: Fake Girlfriends And Boyfriends
By 11.12.14
Yesterday, we told you about Singles Day, the day when uncoupled people turn to sweet, sweet material consumption to fill the voids in their souls. It’s the biggest shopping day in the world, but really only an excuse for retailers in China to put everything on deep discount. Yet one hot seller this year was appropriate: many Chinese singles took advantage of the holiday to hire a cut-rate fake significant other. [More]
Two Black Friday Shoppers Have Been Camped Outside Best Buy For A Week Already
By 11.12.14
In the rush of retailers opening their doors for big sales on Thanksgiving Day, the idea of devoted Black Friday shoppers so determined to score deals that they’ll line up hours ahead of time might seem like it’s a thing of the past. Not so, as two friends who have been camped out at their local Best Buy for a week already in order to get the best possible spot in line when the time comes. [More]
Walmart Bosses Want More Grocery Sales, Store Managers Complain About Understaffing
By 11.12.14
Walmart’s big bosses are unhappy with the mega-retailer’s grocery sales, but store-level bosses are in turn unhappy with the number of staff members they’re allotted to keep the shelves stocked and clean. What does this mean? A media war of words, where Walmart sent an “urgent” and “highly sensitive” memorandum to store managers last month, and one manager in turn leaked that memo to the New York Times to expose why the milk and vegetable sections at your local Walmart look so crappy. [More]
Mall To Stores: Open At 6 PM On Thanksgiving Day Or We’ll Fine You
By 11.11.14
Last year, the Walden Galleria near Buffalo, New York welcomed shoppers at midnight on Black Friday. This year, they’re moving that start time back by six hours, and other malls owned by the same company, Pyramid Management, will be opening at dinnertime on the holiday as well. [More]
Best Buy Also Has Better Things To Do Than Eat Turkey, Will Open At 5 P.M. On Thanksgiving
By 11.11.14
We’ve been here before; it’s all so familiar! Ah, yes. That’s because we just wrote earlier today that RadioShack will open its doors at 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, and yesterday that Target would open at 5 p.m. and so on and so forth. Best Buy is here to join the club of businesses who have better things to do than gorge on holiday feasts and snore off into a happy slumber, and will be open from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving. [More]
Quiz Results: Most People Confused How To Write Names Of Walmart, Popeyes, Lowe’s
By 11.11.14
Last week, we quizzed readers on the correct way to write the names of several retail businesses that abuse or play with punctuation. An awful lot of you gave it a shot and some of you did very well, but the results show that there is a lot of confusion out there for some of the country’s biggest retail brands. [More]
