Content about Retailing

From the outside, the Mount Prospect, Ill., True Value hardware store looks a lot like any other True Value store. It’s only 2 years old, so the sign above the door appears extra bright red and white.

When you walk through the entrance, it still looks a lot like most of the Chicago-based co-op’s fashion-forward Destination True Value format stores. At 12,600 sq. ft., it’s a little bigger than most. The registers are ringing up front, and a racetrack is punctuated by 38 endcaps promoting product, as well as ideas for the home.

A report by Jack L. Hayes International, a loss prevention and inventory shrinkage control consulting firm, found that both shoplifting and stealing by employees are increasing, although the latter is growing at a faster clip. An annual survey of large retailers found that shoplifter apprehensions and recovery dollars rose 5.8% in 2011, while the same measurements applied to dishonest employees increased 11.4%.

An organized retail theft ring that targeted 70 Home Depot stores in six states has been taken down by multi-agency task force after the arrest of three men in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Two other suspects are still be sought. 

NCR has announced the introduction of a point-of-sale system that will allow independent retailers to manage transactions, track sales and inventory, process credit cards, and market to customers on both touch-screen terminals and Apple mobile devices.

The system is a cloud-based platform that NCR said would give independent retailers a multichannel "sell anywhere" capability.

U.S. retail and food services improved slightly in November, but NAICS code 444 retailers took a step backward. 

The U.S. Census Bureau announced Tuesday morning that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $399.3 billion, an increase of 0.2% from the previous month and 6.7% above November 2010.

Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, drew more crowds and generated more sales than ever before, according to Chicago-based research firm ShopperTrak.

Denver -- Ace Hardware stores are showing strong same-store sales, while the distributor's wholesale sales are running ahead of the budgeted 3% growth, CEO Ray Griffith told dealers.

Speaking Saturday morning at the General Session of the co-op's 2011 Convention & Exhibits here at the Colorado Convention Center, Griffith said data from about 3,000 Ace stores show a 2.4% comparable-store sales increase over last year. In each of the last four months, the stores showed comp-sales increases of more than 4%. 

With locations in Baton Rouge and Denham Springs, La., Do it Best Corp. member Holmes Building Materials operates two home centers, both with about 10,000 sq. ft. of retail space, supplemented by full lumberyards out back and powered by a 22-truck fleet. One location is heavily commercial, the other is heavily retail-oriented, and both operate a store-within-a-store Holmes Windows Doors & More.


A new municipal ordinance in El Cajon, a city just east of San Diego, has put restrictions on Home Depot, Sears, Walmart, and other retailers that allow shopping carts in their parking lots, according to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

It took at least 90 trips to the returns desk for a Pennsylvania man accused of shoplifting to steal $70,000 worth of merchandise from Home Depot and Lowe’s stores in Allegheny County, according to a criminal complaint filed by the state’s Attorney General’s office. 

Authorities are still looking for Jason Novak, whom they accuse of stealing merchandise, returning it for store credit, and then selling the gift cards on craigslist for 60% of their value. 

A police operation targeting businesses that allegedly buy stolen merchandise for resale resulted in nine arrests in New Britain, Conn., according to an article in the Hartford Courant. 

Shoplifters and dishonest employees stole more than $7 billion last year from just 23 major retailers, according to the 23rd Annual Retail Theft Survey conducted by Jack L. Hayes International. These 23 surveyed retailers apprehended more than 1 million shoplifters and dishonest employees in 2010 and recovered more than $148 million from these thieves.