It’s the first week of baseball season, and pro hockey and basketball teams are making their final pushes for the playoffs, so the last thing on many sports fans’ minds is football. Perhaps that’s why the judge in the “photo bombing” spat between the Minnesota Vikings and Wells Fargo is telling the two parties to stop wasting everyone’s time and just work something out. [More]
Retail Services
Best Buy Moving Forward With Same-Day Delivery, Adds 11 Cities To Pilot
By 4.7.16
Six months after Best Buy jumped on the same-day delivery bandwagon by launching a pilot program in San Francisco, the electronics retailer plans to expand those tests to additional cities around the country. [More]
Police: Mother-Daughter Duo Stole $28K In Target Merchandise Through Return Scheme
By 4.7.16
When you think of someone stealing merchandise from a big box retailer you probably first think of smaller items that could easily be concealed in purses or on your person. But that certainly wasn’t the case for a mother-daughter duo accused of making away with bed sets, ottomans, chairs, and other items through a return scam at several California Target stores. [More]
Clothing And Accessories Now The Biggest Category In E-Commerce
By 4.6.16
What do Americans buy the most of online? Thanks to improved return policies and ever-expanding selection, purchases of clothing and accessories took the top spot in 2015 for the first time. That’s according to research by analytics company ComScore, which tracks online sales by categories, and noticed this important change. [More]
Forget The Internet — H&M Wants To Double Its Number Of Retail Stores
By 4.6.16
With traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers continuing to lose ground to online sales, and longtime mall mainstays like Sears and JCPenney either closing locations or selling off floor space, the trend is definitely toward smaller retail footprints and focusing on the web. But the CEO of one of the world’s largest clothing retailers plans to buck that trend in a big way. [More]
Walmart Denies That Cashier Was Fired For Hugging Customers, Matching Prices
By 4.6.16
Last year, people around the country rallied behind two Walmart employees who they believed were unfairly fired for redeeming $5.10 in discarded soda cans and for waiting half-an-hour to turn in $350 dollars he found in the parking lot. Now, consumers are once again showing support for another cashier of the big box retailer who says he was fired for hugging customers and discounting a jug of tea. [More]
Will Costco’s Switch From American Express To Visa Affect My Credit?
By 4.6.16
In June, Costco will officially change its store-branded credit card from American Express to a Visa card issued by Citi. The wholesale club is promising a seamless transition, but some longtime Costco customers have concerns: Will my credit score or history be dinged? Can I opt-out? [More]
Walmart Will Switch To All Cage-Free Eggs By 2025
By 4.5.16
With competitors like Target and the Kroger and Albertsons families of supermarkets pledging to sell only cage-free eggs, Walmart apparently didn’t want to be left behind. The mega-retailer announced today that by 2025, all of the eggs it sells in Walmart and Sam’s Club stores will come from hens that were not raised in individual cages. [More]
Sports Authority Comes To Agreement With Suppliers To Sell Winter Gear
By 4.5.16
Should you trust someone who’s broke to hold on to your stuff and sell it for you? Suppliers to the bankrupt Sports Authority decided that they didn’t, and filed lawsuits to keep the retailer from selling winter sports merchandise and cold-weather gear and to get it back. Now they’ve reached a settlement over the merchandise… now that winter is over, naturally. [More]
Fuzzy Math At Walmart Means Bigger Chicken Broth Carton Costs You More
By 4.5.16
On the shelf, the 48-ounce carton of Swanson’s chicken broth brags that it’s 50% bigger. “50% bigger than what?” the cynical consumer might ask. The fine print tells us that it’s in comparison to the company’s 32-ounce container. This is all factually true, but the problem is that while the package makes shoppers think that they’ll get more, they’re actually paying more per ounce to buy the bigger package. [More]
Target’s Cartwheel App Now Clips Manufacturers’ Digital Coupons
By 4.4.16
For the better part of three years, Target has offered a standalone app — Cartwheel — that provides customers with discounts on certain products. While shoppers have always been able to combine actual coupons with this discount, the retailer is now aiming to make the process easier, by adding digital manufacturer coupons to the Cartwheel app. [More]
Walmart Doesn’t Know The Difference Between Maryland And Massachusetts
By 4.4.16
It looks like someone at Walmart is due for a geography lesson, or could at least use a refresher on how to pull up a map of the United States on the internet, after a sharp-eyed Twitter denizen pointed out that the chain is selling University of Maryland T-shirts bearing an image of the state of Massachusetts. [More]
Wells Fargo Must Pay $203M To Customers After Supreme Court Rejection
By 4.4.16
Nearly six years after a federal court ordered Wells Fargo to pay $203 million in refunds to customers victimized by the bank’s overdraft policies — and after years of bouncing back and forth through the appeals process — the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to let that judgment stand. [More]
Amazon Opening Prime Now Same-Day Delivery Service To Web Users This May
By 4.4.16
As of right now, the only way for customers to use Amazon’s Prime Now — which provides same-day delivery for household items and local restaurants and stores — was with the service’s mobile app for smartphones. That is set to change in May, a new report says, with the e-commerce giant taking Prime Now to the Web. [More]
10 Years After Verdict, Walmart Must Pay $151 Million To Employees Who Worked Off The Clock
By 4.4.16
A case that has been trickling through the state and federal court system for nearly 15 years came to an abrupt ending this morning, with the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear Walmart’s appeal of a 2006 verdict ordering the company to pay $151 million to Pennsylvania employees who worked off the clock. [More]
All Hancock Fabrics Stores Will Liquidate, Close
By 4.1.16
Back in February, the long-troubled craft store chain Hancock Fabrics filed for bankruptcy for the second time in a decade. This time, there will be no reorganization. The chain planned to close 70 stores and tried to find a buyer for the remaining 185 that would keep the open and preserve thousands of jobs across the country. The winning bidder in yesterday’s auction in bankruptcy court was Great American Group, a liquidator. [More]
Yep, Spring Black Friday Is Still A @#$@*$% Thing
By 4.1.16
Most retailers use Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to kick off their biggest shopping season of the year, even if they also move the sales kickoff around a bit. For stores that sell home-improvement and gardening supplies, spring is their biggest shopping season. That impeccable logic led to the invention of Spring Black Friday, which we first noticed in 2013. It isn’t going away. [More]
Facebook, Reddit, Wells Fargo, Bank Of America CEOs Among Those Urging North Carolina To Repeal New Anti-LGBT Law
By 3.31.16
Earlier this month, in a hurried legislative process, North Carolina lawmakers passed HB2, a bill that overrides and prevents local governments from establishing anti-discrimination rules against gay and transgender people. This morning, advocacy groups delivered a letter to NC Gov. Pat McCrory signed by top executives from more than 100 companies, all calling for the state to repeal the law. [More]
