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Retail: Page 407

Is Amazon About to Enter the Grocery Delivery Business in California?

Building a profitable service is difficult because grocery stores have painfully low margins. Remember dot-com flameouts HomeGrocer and Webvan? Peapod, a pioneer in the space, still delivers in such cities as Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, but recently it's resorted to opening actual pickup locations to make the model work. FreshDirect has come as close as anyone to building a brand around home grocery delivery, but it remains small, operating primarily in the New York area. Yet, Amazon seems poised to move into the business in at least two California cities.

Logility Releases New App for SKU-Level Forecasting

Logility Inc. has made available a new application that enables SKU-level planning for products where traditional forecasting techniques are ineffective.

Cognex Enhances Line of Barcode Readers With 2DMax+ Technology

Cognex Corp. has incorporated 2DMax+ software for barcode reading into its DataMan 100 and 200 fixed-mount readers.

China's 'Second Mice' Enter the Capitalist Maze

So we have a handful of Chinese companies that haven't grown up by the traditional method of attaching an umbilical cord to the government and receiving endless amounts of financial support and monopoly status in return. These "Second Mouse" ventures are going head to head, both in China and around the world, with entrenched, Western-style multinationals. The question is: can they really compete?

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Retailers Plan to Pump More Money Into Their Social Media Campaigns

Many companies are investing in strengthening their social media presence and related capabilities. In the summer and fall of 2011, Booz + Company and Buddy Media, a social enterprise software provider, conducted a quantitative survey of 117 leading companies and a series of in-depth interviews with senior marketing and media executives. The results revealed that strengthening social media is on the CEO's agenda at 40 percent of responding companies and is a top marketing priority for about 60 percent. Seventy-eight percent believe that social media efforts enhance their marketing effectiveness; 95 percent expect to invest more in social media.

Toys 'R' Us CEO: Future Belongs to Retailers Who Work Multiple Channels

Toys "R" Us CEO Jerry Storch has taken a light saber to the idea that the future belongs to the internet and that big box retailers are doomed to irrelevance. Storch says the successful brands will be those with a consumer-facing network across all channels, and says Toys "R" Us is leveraging its strengths, including its store base, to grow and thrive over the long term.

Glitcha, Glitcha: Little Caesars POS Systems Doesn't Process Card Payment for Eight Months!

A glitch that sat between a Little Caesars franchisee's POS system and its payment processor, Fifth Third, caused one of its pizza shops to process zero payment card transactions for more than eight months. (A second store didn't process transactions for two months.) And then, to the non-delight of that store's customers, the glitch was fixed and they started getting collectively hit with thousands of charges for eight months of pizza purchases.

China's 'Second Mice' Enter the Capitalist Maze

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Chemical Manufacturer Turns Fragmented Enterprise into Global Success Story

Challenge: The client's European operations location-by-location logistics was diminishing cost-savings and overall performance. Management developed four objectives: to obtain transportation cost-savings, to provide a supplier base for growth, to improve data capture for financial analysis, and to upgrade transparency and on-time delivery. The client turned to the experts at Odyssey Logistics & Technology (OL&T).

Seamlessly Correcting a Labeling Error to Save Client Resources

Challenge: Port Jersey Logistics began providing value-added services to a long-term client, a major specialty food distributor. PJL now handles labeling, bar-coding, ink-jetting and repacking, decreasing product travel time/mileage and vendor costs. The client aimed wanted its customers to obtain their product shipments faster and at lower prices.

Survey Finds Retailers Upbeat About Year-End Sales

Following a better-than-expected back-to-school season, retailers are optimistic for year-end retail sales. According to a new survey from BDO USA, LLP, retail CFOs expect a 4.5-percent increase in total 2012 sales.

Glum Forecast by FedEx Sends Depressing Signal to Financial World

FedEx Corp. slashed profit projections for 2012 after posting another quarterly slump in earnings, and its chief executive said trade has slowed to levels not seen during the last two significant economic downturns. That's not exactly what Wall Street wants to hear from a company considered to be a bellwether of the global economy. And it also portends bad news for the hundreds of major U.S. companies that will start reporting third-quarter earnings in a few weeks.

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