Retail Intel Weekly: Amazon, Best Buy & More

AMAZONAmazon has opened its fourth Amazon Fresh store in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Amazon launched the format with the opening of a location in Woodland Hills, CA, in August 2020, followed by a second store in Irvine, CA, in October and a third location in Northridge, CA, earlier in November.Amazon is letting shoppers pick up online orders at Amazon 4-Star or Amazon Books stores this holiday season, adding the locations to its existing Counter in-store pickup service. Prime members can also get free same-day shipping with no minimum purchase amount required this year. Amazon is also touting several other holiday package delivery, pickup and tracking services, some of them new, including:Amazon Map Tracking lets customers view the progress of their delivery on a digital map in real-time when the driver is close. Amazon Share Tracking gives customers the option to send tracking information to friends or family, and the recipient can also virtually “unbox” the item and send a thank you email.Amazon Photo-On-Delivery provides visual delivery confirmation.Amazon Estimated Delivery Window provides a two-to-four hour estimated delivery window.Rolling out its third pay bonus since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon will pay U.S. operations employees who work for the company for the entire month of December a one-time bonus of $300 for full-time employees and $150 for part-time workers.MASSWalmart is purchasing the talent, technology platform, and intellectual property of JoyRun, a Silicon Valley-based startup that operates a peer-to-peer last-mile delivery platform enabling users to pick up and deliver items for friends and neighbors. JoyRun has built a network of more than 540 official retail partners, and more than 30,000 people have served as drivers or “runners” since the company launched in 2015. According to Walmart, this acquisition allows it to further augment its delivery team and support ongoing efforts to explore more ways to deliver online orders in the future. In partnership with Intel, Walmart will put on a drone light show in the skies of eight communities with the help of nearly 1,000 of the tech company's drones. It will also be available for nationwide viewing through a live broadcast on Walmart’s Facebook, Instagram and TikTok channels on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7:40 p.m. ET.Walmart is adding new categories to the digital gift finder tool it introduced in 2019 that serves up personalized recommendations based information about the recipient and a selected price range. Additional filters for 2020 include nostalgia & retro; preassembled gift sets; and gift cards and e-gift cards, including options in categories like food, entertainment, and apparel that can be sent in the mail or digitally.Walmart has opened two Walmart Health locations adjacent to revamped Walmart supercenters in the Chicago neighborhoods of Chatham and Austin. The dedicated health care format made its debut in 2019, in Dallas, Georgia. According to reports, Walmart Health expects to have at least 22 locations in Georgia, Florida, Arkansas and Illinois by the end of 2021. Including the new Chicago locations, there are currently eight locations. SUPERMARKETAlbertsons Cos. has expanded its Open Nature private label, adding new frozen skillet meals as more consumers eat at home amid the pandemic and meal kits and solutions continue to trend. The Open Nature Savory Skillet Meals are stocked in the frozen section of the store and currently come in a dozen flavors, including prime rib roast with mushroom gravy, Chinese-style beef with broccoli, shrimp scampi with pasta, lobster tortellini, and Texas brisket fried rice. In some stores, the meals are merchandised in a freezer case with big supporting signage. Each package is meant to be cooked in one pan and is ready in minutes, no defrosting necessary. The retailer said in a press release that the meals are restaurant quality and only use natural ingredients that are free from antibiotics and artificial ingredients, flavors and colors.Albertsons Cos. is upping its safety standards in stores by implementing a contactless temperature check and health screening solution for associates and vendors across all locations, regardless of COVID-19 risk. The new technology, provided by Turing Video Inc., leverages a built-in touchless body temperature scanner and a digital COVID-19 health questionnaire. Upon successful completion of the screening, stickers stating “CLEAR” and the associate’s photo can be worn by those screened who are not in food production areas. For those in food production positions, the stickers will be logged in the department.Ahold Delhaize's Giant Co. is rolling out Cyber Days, a promotion that offers the grocer’s Giant Direct and Martin’s Direct online grocery shoppers savings on holiday items, pantry staples and specialty products, Nov. 30 through Dec. 3. The promotion leverages the traditional “Cyber Monday” sales occasion and enables online shoppers to purchase more than 115 sale items from national-brand partners, while first-time Giant Direct and Martin’s Direct shoppers can get $30 off their first order of $60 and 90 days of free pickup or delivery using dedicated codes.Kroger this week shared plans to use software and other technology from English online grocer Ocado to boost in-store fulfillment of pickup orders starting in 2021. Ocado software will help Kroger workers assemble orders and make it "easier and more efficient for them to find products," according to a media release from the retailer. Moreover, the partners will build an additional U.S. automated customer fulfillment center (CFC) in the South region. The newly named location will complement Kroger's previously announced CFC sites in Monroe, OH, Groveland, FL, Frederick, MD, Atlanta, Dallas, Pleasant Prairie, WI, Romulus, MI, Pacific Northwest and West regions. Kroger plans to open the country's first two CFC sites in Monroe, a suburb of Cincinnati, and Groveland in early 2021. ELECTRONICSBest Buy had a better-than-expected third quarter (ended Oct. 31) with domestic revenue of $10.85 billion increasing 21.0% versus last year, primarily driven by comparable sales growth of 22.6%, which was partially offset by the loss of revenue from permanent store closures in the past year. From a merchandising perspective, the company generated comparable sales growth across most of its categories, with the largest drivers being computing, home theater and appliances. These growth drivers were partially offset by a decline in mobile phone sales. Domestic online revenue of $3.82 billion increased 173.7% on a comparable basis, and as a percentage of total Domestic revenue, online revenue increased to roughly 35.2% versus 15.6% last year. CEO Corrie Barry said the strong financial performance has allowed the company to raise employee starting wage to $15 an hour, pay recognition bonuses to field employees and reinstate its short-term incentive compensation. It also recently made a $40 million donation to the Best Buy Foundation to accelerate the progress towards our goal to reach 100 Teen Tech Centers across the U.S.Best Buy CFO Matt Bilunas said: “While the demand for the products and services we sell remains at elevated levels as we start the fourth quarter, it is very difficult for us to predict how sustainable these trends will be due to the significant uncertainty related to the various impacts of the pandemic."

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

You May Also Like

Retail Radar: Black Friday Blitz; Best Buy Livestreams

Forecast: Holiday E-Commerce Sales to Increase 9% YOY