Many companies today embrace some form of continuous improvement process, under which they strive to make their products, services and systems better over time. The CIP concept seems very professional and corporate, but former Dollar General Corp. chief executive officer Cal Turner Jr. had a blunter version of the same idea. “Would you like to
Despite his fiery rhetoric and sometimes unpredictable policy positions during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump has mostly turned out to be the kind of president that business leaders can appreciate. The National Retail Federation praised the tax reform bill signed into law by President Trump, for example, calling it a “major victory for lawmakers.” And
We are moving quickly toward a world where it no longer makes sense to talk about “online retailers” and “traditional retailers.” Increasingly there are just retailers, who allow their customers to shop however they like. The merging of physical and digital retailing is the main takeaway from this year’s “State of Retail Online” study from
Retailers can expect no letup on competitive pressure in the year ahead. But as they continue to battle across formats and trade classes for market share, at least the economic pie they are fighting over appears likely to keep getting bigger. That is good news for retailers for a couple of reasons. On the political
As recently as last August, online grocery shopping seemed destined to remain a niche pursuit in the United States. A Gallup survey released at the time found that just 4% of Americans said they shop online for groceries on a weekly basis, while only 9% did so at least once a month. That compares to
BOISE, Idaho — Albertsons Cos. has had a remarkable story over the past 11 years, growing from a group of 661 mostly unloved grocery stores into one of the nation’s leading food retailers, with more than 2,300 supermarkets operating under 20 banners and across 35 states and the District of Columbia. As executive vice president
Many observers of the changes affecting the business of selling consumer packaged goods out of brick-and-mortar stores have been arguing about whether the industry is facing a kind of “retail apocalypse.” The idea is that e-commerce represents an existential threat to the kind of shopping that takes place in physical spaces. Once the remaining wrinkles
The shuttering of brick-and-mortar stores and the continued explosive growth of e-commerce have led to an ongoing series of news articles suggesting that hard times are ahead for the retail industry. One of the latest appeared in Bloomberg earlier this month under the headline “America’s ‘Retail Apocalpse’ is Really Just Beginning.” The article argues that
Retail jobs are changing, and the arrival of robot “workers” in stores will only accelerate that evolutionary shift. Walmart recently acknowledged that it is testing the use of robots that can move down the aisles of its stores, scanning shelves for out-of-stock items, missing shelf tags or other problems. The robots are said to be
Retailers are speaking up about the contributions they make to the nation’s economy, in the hope that their needs will be taken into account when lawmakers rewrite the tax code. Earlier this month the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) released its “Grocery Industry Economic Impact” analysis, which quantifies the food retail industry’s annual economic impact. FMI’s
The recent holiday season turned out to be a pretty merry one for retailers, preliminary figures suggest. And while consumers are shifting more of their shopping to online venues, they also continue to flock to brick-and-mortar stores, and even once again proved willing to fight the crowds to take advantage of Black Friday deals. That