’Tis the season of hot dogs: from grilling weiners at your weekend barbecue to scooping up an authentic dog at the ballpark. If you’ve been hankering for a hot dog, today might just be the day to satisfy that craving, as it’s National Hot Dog Day, which means free frankfurters are up for grabs. [More]
Retail Services
McCormick Spices Buys Maker Of French’s Mustard, Other Sauces For $4.2B
By 7.19.17
Making a tasty, tangy sauce takes a little bit of spice, but the maker of French’s Mustard and Frank’s RedHot brands is about to get a lot of spice: Ingredients maker McCormick & Company – the company behind those red bottles of seasonings and brands Lawry’s, Zatarain’s, Old Bay, and others — will buy condiment maker Reckitt Benckiser for $4.2 billion. But don’t expect the deal to change the condiment aisle too much. [More]
Now Amazon Wants To Sell You Meal Kits
By 7.18.17
It’s not enough that meal kit services are advertising on every screen you see and every podcast you hear: Now even the Everything Store wants to sell them to you, too, through its Amazon Fresh grocery service. [More]
Sears Holdings CEO Lends Company Another $200M To Stay Afloat
By 7.18.17
As other retailers around it go out of business or reorganize, Sears Holdings, parent company of Kmart and Sears, is still in business somehow. Why? Those other chains don’t have what SHC does: A massive base of stores that it owns and can sell, and a CEO able to lend the company a few hundred million here and there. [More]
Chipotle Temporarily Closes Location After Customers Report Becoming Violently Ill
By 7.18.17
If you live in Virginia and were planning to grab Chipotle for lunch, you might want to make sure your local restaurant isn’t closed: The fast casual chain temporarily shut down a location in the state after more than a dozen customers became ill. [More]
Chick-Fil-A Testing $30 Family Style Meals So Everyone Can Just Share
By 7.18.17
Taking a page from KFC’s finger-lickin’ chicken book, Chick-fil-A is stepping away from fast food’s traditional individual meals — you know the ones where everyone has their own fries they never finish — and dipping its toes into family style meals. [More]
Retail, Fast Food Companies Still Hate Laws Regulating ‘On-Call’ Schedules
By 7.17.17
While the Fight for $15 movement hasn’t been successful in raising starting wages to $15 in every industry and across the country, one thing that it has done is bring attention to worker-unfriendly scheduling practices like on-call shifts and publishing work schedules shortly before they go into effect. [More]
Starbucks Expanding Nitro Cold Brew To Nearly 1,500 Locations This Year
By 7.14.17
If you’re itching for a taste of Starbuck’s Nitro Cold Brew, you might be in luck: The coffee chain is expanding the offering to nearly another 1,000 locations. [More]
Sears Canada Lays Off Mike Myers’ Brother And 2,899 Other People Without Severance
By 7.14.17
Not long ago, as Sears Canada (a separate company from Sears Holdings here in the United States) was struggling and closing a few stores, one longtime employee did something important for the company’s morale and good publicity. He asked his brother, comedian Mike Myers, to make a commercial for Sears Canada. Four years later, Peter Myers has been laid off with no severance. [More]
Alfred Angelo Abruptly Closes Stores, Freaks Out Brides Nationwide
By 7.14.17
Planning a wedding is already pretty stressful, and an unknown number of brides across the country have an extra and unanticipated source of stress: Alfred Angelo, a retailer and maker of bridal and bridesmaids’ gowns, abruptly closed its doors and stopped answering the phone yesterday. [More]
Walmart Squeezes Suppliers Again, This Time With Fines
By 7.13.17
It’s no secret that Walmart has had issues keeping shelves stocked in some stores, leading customers to head to competitors. While the company finally addressed the problem nearly two years ago, the big box retailer is taking additional steps to ensure customers have products to choose from when they visit, by holding suppliers accountable — financially — for shipments that show up before or after their intended arrival date.
[More]
Dollar Stores Go Corporate As Big Chains Put Indie Discounters Out Of Business
By 7.13.17
Across the country, the Dollar Store Wars mean that the national chains Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Express are fighting it out across the country for customers’ affection and brand loyalty. National chains have taken over just about every other retail category, so will independent dollar stores be able to survive? [More]
Here Are The 331 Stores Gymboree Plans To Close
By 7.12.17 — Updated: 7.13.17
Last month, children’s clothing retailer Gymboree announced that it would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help it get out from more than $1.4 billion in debt. Part of its reorganization would also include closing some stores, and a month later, the chain has released its initial list of store closings. [More]
Target Testing Curbside Pickup For Online Orders…. Again
By 7.12.17
Sure, Target isn’t new to the online retail game, but the big box chain seems to perpetually be playing catchup to rivals like Walmart and Amazon. Case in point: Target is once again testing a curbside pickup program, a year after shutting down a similar pilot program. [More]
Get Your Soylent Shakes At 7-Eleven
By 7.11.17
Nine months after Soylent stopped selling — and eventually brought back — some of its products following reports from customers who became ill after consuming the company’s powder and nutrition bars, the meal replacement startup is set to offer is items at physical stores for the first time… at 7-Eleven. [More]
Survey: Male Republican Baby Boomer Northeasterners Are The Best Tippers
By 7.11.17
Among Americans, who are the most generous tippers? If you believe the results of a recent survey, if you’re in the service industry, you should hope that your next customer is a male Republican from the Northeast who’s a member of the Baby Boomer generation and pays on a credit card. [More]
JCPenney, Kohl’s & Others Jumping On Amazon’s Prime Day Coattails With Their Own Promotions, Deals
By 7.11.17
Amazon isn’t the only retailer looking to shore up sales with its annual Prime Day promotion. As with previous years, some traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are jumping into the Prime Day fray, offering their own discounts and deals, too. [More]
Best Buy, Amazon Fighting To Get Into Your Home To Install Smart Devices
By 7.11.17
For years, Best Buy’s Geek Squad has offered to enter customers’ homes to install, troubleshoot, or teach people about their new electronic devices. With the rising popularity of the connected home, such a service seems all the more useful. Not one to be left on the sidelines, Amazon is getting into the installation and education business when it comes to their own connected home devices, setting up a house-call showdown of sorts between the e-commerce giant and the brick-and-mortar electronics retailer. [More]
