Here are six of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
shopping
UPS Survey: Online Shopping Has Surpassed In-Store Buying For The First Time
By 6.8.16
While there are no doubt innumerable studies, surveys, and reports on the habits of modern shoppers, at least one survey says that consumers are buying stuff online more than they are in stores, for the first time ever. [More]
Ralph Lauren Closing Stores, Cutting Jobs In Effort To Turn Around Sliding Sales
By 6.7.16
In an effort to compete with the likes of fast-fashion retailers like H&M, Ralph Lauren Corp. says the company will be shrinking its real estate footprint, closing stores, and cutting jobs as it tries to make a comeback under its new CEO. [More]
Going To The Store To Buy Dog Food? You’ll Probably Pick Up Milk, Tuna, And Chocolate
By 5.25.16
While just about anything you’d buy at the supermarket can now be delivered to your house in a reasonable amount of time, there are still some purchases that you must — or at least tend to — make in person: Prescriptions, fresh produce, pet food, among others. Of course, even though you only meant to pick up one or two things, odds are you’re going to add a few items you either remember to buy or are tempted into purchasing once you’re in the store. [More]
Abercrombie & Fitch May Be Getting Worried Now That European Tourists Aren’t Shopping As Much
By 5.23.16
Even as Abercrombie & Fitch was struggling to bring American customers back into it stores, there was always one group the retailer good count on: European tourists who flock to the stores, waiting in long lines to purchase A&F-branded clothing. Abercrombie might not be able to count on that foreign bread and butter forever, however. [More]
What Are Shoppers Buying Since They Aren’t Buying Clothes?
By 5.23.16
It’s bleak out there for a clothing retailer, with sales slumping at many chains, leading some — American Apparel, Aeropostale, Pacsun, among others — to declare bankruptcy. So if we aren’t shopping for items to clad our bodies, what are we shopping for? [More]
TJ Maxx Parent Company Considering Opening Thousands More Stores
By 5.18.16
While other retailers are busy shutting down stores and trying to figure out how to grab a chunk of that online shopping business, one chain is considering beefing up its bricks-and-mortar presence. TJX Companies Inc., the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and other off-price stores, may open thousands more stores worldwide. [More]
Gap CEO Says He’s Open To Possibly Using Amazon To Reach More Customers
By 5.18.16
Although Amazon may be the big bad wolf at the door coming to blow the house down and eat up their business, some retailers are considering teaming up with the tech giant instead of fearing it. Like Gap, whose CEO said the company would consider working with Amazon if it means reaching shoppers. [More]
TJ Maxx And Marshalls Are Doing Great Because Bargain-Hunting Thrills People
By 5.17.16
For people who enjoy it, bargain-hunting combines all of the primal fun of hunting with no threat of being trampled by an antelope. That’s why, amid recent fretting that American department stores and malls are doomed, there remains a bright spot in the retail business. TJX, parent company of off-price stores T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, reported better-than-expected results this quarter, unlike its department store competitors. [More]
Amazon Planning To Sell Groceries, Diapers Under Its Private Label
By 5.16.16
From your closet to your pantry and everything in between, Amazon will soon have something to sell under its own private label: after making a recent foray into the fashion world with in-house clothing brands, the e-commerce giant is going to start peddling its own line of food and diapers. [More]
Costco Expected To Raise Membership Fees By 10% Sometime In The Next Year
By 4.22.16
The cost of a yearly Costco membership could be going up in the near future: according to analysts at UBS, the retailer is probably going to raise prices by 10% by late this year or early 2017. [More]
Whole Foods’ First 365 Store Opening May 25 In California
By 4.7.16
Nearly a year after Whole Foods announced the five cities that would become home to its new line of lower-cost stores, the company has revealed just when the first of those stores will open: next month. [More]
Kohl’s Ditching In-Store Cafe Concept After Seven-Month Test
By 4.5.16
If you were hoping to one day get a quick pick-me-up while spending all your Kohl’s Cash, you’d better bring your own. Less than a year after the company joined the ranks of retailers like Target, Sam’s Club, IKEA, Costco, and countless others in bringing weary shoppers sustenance while traipsing down the aisles, Kohl’s has ended its cafe concept test, with no expansion on the horizon. [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]
Amazon Bans The Sale Of Substandard USB-C Cables
By 3.30.16
Faulty USB-C cables – usually those purchased from a third-party as a replacement for the cords that typically come with your electronic devices – have been known to cause issues for consumers, from frying their gadgets to starting small fires and even being attributed to one death. Amazon, in an attempt to ensure you’re not on the receiving end of one of those unreliable chargers, has banned the sale of certain “rogue” USB type-C cables. [More]
Instacart Fires Minneapolis Drivers After Announcing Pay Cuts
By 3.23.16
Almost two weeks after cutting driver pay, grocery delivery startup Instacart appears to continue revamping its service in the aim of increasing profitability. To that end the company has fired all of its drivers in the Minneapolis area just six months after opening for business in the city. [More]
Here’s What You’ll Find Deals On In March
By 3.2.16
Our colleagues over at Consumer Reports have a relentless squad of price-watchers who can tell us all what we should buy and when. Every month, they tell the world about what’s come up this month on their Calendar of Deals, and we pass the news along. [More]
Oregon Police Thank “Anonymous Shopping Cart Guy” For Tripping Up Fleeing Suspect
By 2.29.16
Some heroes wear capes and have an arsenal of tools to fight crime hanging from their fancy utility belts. Other heroes, of the everyday sort, have different weapons at their disposal. To wit: one brave, mysterious shopper known only as “anonymous shopping cart guy” sacrificed his groceries to stop a fleeing suspect in Portland, OR. [More]
