Fresh & Easy to Deploy Smaller Shops

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is eyeing small store formats as it scouts for additional locations to place its shops in Northern California.  The new and smaller formats would likely be about 5,000 square feet.  Fresh & Easy's traditional markets range in size from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet.  Fresh & Easy also could wield the smaller format to undertake expansions through an array of methods, such as "renovating existing buildings, anchoring mixed-use developments, building from the ground up.  

The Oakland Tribune

Ingles Posts Higher Q1 Sales, Net Income

Ingles Markets Inc. reported an overall increase in sales of 3.8 percent to $872.8 million for its first fiscal quarter of 2011, which ended Dec. 25, 2010. For that quarter, net income rose to $7.7 million vs. net income of $6.0 million for the year-ago period.  Net sales increased 3.8 percent to $872.8 million for first quarter, compared with $841.0 million last year. Grocery-segment comps grew 2.9 percent, both with and excluding gasoline sales. 

Progressive Grocer

Meijer Launches New E-Commerce Site

Meijer Inc. has launched a new e-commerce site offering a range of dry grocery and HBC items for postal delivery.  The new site, MeijerDoorstepGrocer.com, is the retailer's first effort to sell non-bulk groceries online and is also the retailer's first foray into international online sales.  The site offers more than 5,000 items, including national- and Meijer-brand grocery and beverage products baby supplies, pet food, cleaning supplies, laundry products, health food and HBC items. 

Supermarket News

Poundstretcher Plans Over 20 New Shops in Ireland

British value chain Poundstretcher is to make a major move into the Republic of Ireland and plans to open more than 20 new shops here this year.  The aggressive program is part of an overall plan for the group that will see it increase the number of shops it runs in Ireland and Britain to 500 from 325 within two years.  Poundstretcher sells everything from toiletries and homewares to furniture, electric goods, beds, pet care products, toys and more. 

Sunday Tribune

Karstadt Department Store Sales Are Rising

Karstadt, Germany's biggest department store chain is increasing revenue as the retailer starts to revamp the business.  Karstadt has annual sales of "approximately" 4 billion euros ($5.48 billion), according to its website.  Smaller domestic competitor Kaufhof, a unit of Germany's largest retailer Metro AG, had sales of 3.6 billion euros last year, including some stores in Belgium.  Fourth-quarter revenue at Kaufhof rose 0.9 percent. 

Bloomberg

Poundworld to Roll Out Multi-price Store Format

Single price point retailer Poundworld is to roll out a multi-price format, Discount UK, as it opens its second store in Stevenage.  The news comes as the group revealed it is on track to clock up a £135m turnover in the year to March 2011, and expects turnover to exceed £200m next time.  Discount UK opened the Stevenage store at the weekend, and plans another 12 this year. In the longer term it plans to develop a national chain. Products will be priced up to about £25.

Retail Week

Wesfarmers Reports Strong Q2 Retail Sales

Wesfarmers has reported strong sales growth at its various retail units, despite cautious consumer spending and ongoing price deflation.  For the quarter, sales at the Coles chain rose by 6.7% to $8.8bn.  Meanwhile, the Target discount department store chain saw sales decline by 4.2% to A$1.3bn. Kmart saw sales edge up 0.8% to A$1.3bn. And the Bunnings and Officeworks chains saw sales grow by 4.7% to A$2.3bn.

Kam City