RETAIL NEWS

Focusing on kids’ health isn’t child’s play to food retailers.

More than ever, it demands lots of adult brainpower because the stakes are higher.

For supermarkets, children’s health is the focus of their most prized customer base, millennial parents, who are deluged with media stories about childhood obesity. Yet finding solutions that interest kids while meeting the health expectations of parents is no easy task.

Supermarkets know that success will help bolster their efforts in the battle with other food retail competitors.

Target is spending more this year on Spanish language marketing as it looks to draw more Latino customers into its stores, according to a new report from Marketplace.org.

Target's spending on Spanish-language TV is up 67% over the year for the holiday season. Its ads running now on English- and Spanish-language TV networks feature bilingual actors.

Read more about Target's outreach to Hispanic consumers by cliking here.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Monday announced findings from a collaborative study with the Scripps Translational Science Institute suggesting that automated health tracking can significantly improve long-term health engagement.

“This is the first chapter of a remarkable collaboration with Walgreens, enabling us to understand real world connectivity with mobile device health applications, along with behavior and outcome patterns, in an exceptionally large and diverse cohort,” stated Eric Topol, director, STSI.

A Florida-based supermarket company tops J.D. Power’s 2016 U.S. Pharmacy Study.

Publix Pharmacy, the in-store pharmacy at Publix Super Markets, came out on top in the J.D. Power report, a customer satisfaction benchmark study that provides pharmacy-specific performance comparisons among brick-and-mortar pharmacies.

SEATTLE and BENTONVILLE, Ark. — The state of brick-and-mortar retail appears poised to change significantly in the near future with Amazon and Walmart introducing smaller grocery and convenience locations in early December.

Amazon introduced its first Amazon Go small-format location, spanning 1,800 square feet in downtown Seattle, a step beyond its current Amazon Fresh online ordering service. The store is currently open as a beta version to employees only and is expected to open to the general public in early 2017.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fred’s acknowledged it had a tough fiscal third quarter, but the company is making many changes and looking forward to a brighter future.

Looking back on its Q3, the Memphis-based retailer reported a net loss of $38.4 million for the quarter ended Oct. 29, compared to $1.4 million in net income in the year-ago period. On a per-share basis, it lost $1.05 per share. The loss adjusted for non-recurring costs, was 27 cents per share.

Fred’s revenue decreased 4.5% to $516.6 million in the period. Same-store sales fell 3.8%.

SEATTLE — The Bartell family, owners of the Washington chain of Bartell Drugs stores, won the Seattle Business Magazine “2016 Washington Family Business Award for Legacy” presented at a special event held Wednesday night at the Westin Hotel.

The Bartell family was in the running with a number of multi-generational, distinguished family business enterprises nominated from all over the state. Eleven other family enterprises (averaging over 77 years of continuous family ownership each) from across the state were also in contention for the award.

CHICAGO -- Nielsen on Thursday identified three core consumer groups who are gravitating toward utilizing the kind of convenient and affordable health services available through retail clincs in a pharmacy setting including households with children, Hispanic shoppers and millennials.