San Diego Repeals Limits on Walmart Supercenters

The San Diego City Council has repealed an ordinance that strictly regulated construction of Walmart Supercenters in the nation's eighth-largest city.  Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said last week that it plans to build 12 stores in San Diego over the next five years, and the company gathered enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot asking voters to repeal the ordinance.

WHAS 11

Retailers Offer Financial Services to 'Unbanked'

Kmart has begun testing check cashing, money transfers and prepaid cards in stores in Illinois, California and Puerto Rico, with plans to roll out the services nationally later this year. Best Buy has installed kiosks in its stores for shoppers to pay utility, cable and phone bills. Wal-Mart has opened roughly 1,500 MoneyCenters that process as many as 5 million transactions each week.

Washington Post

Supervalu-owned Stores to Close in Maryland

Shoppers Food and Pharmacy stores in Maryland's Baltimore County are set to close their doors permanently by the end of February, along with an Acme store in Harford County. The Shoppers locations are in Owings Mills and Timonium, while the Acme store is in Fallston.  The banners' parent company, Minneapolis-based Supervalu, said the locations weren't meeting expectations.  Supervalu has been reporting losses and is looking to sell or close underperforming stores.  

Progressive Grocer

Quebec's Simons Department Store Expands West as U.S. Retailers Look North

Simons, the hugely popular Quebec department store, is headed west with a store opening next year in West Edmonton Mall, and owner Peter Simons planning another dozen openings in the rest of Canada.  The plan is to increase the seven Quebec stores to 20 throughout Canada within 10 years.  Simons is expanding at a time when U.S. retailers including Target, J.Crew, Nordstrom and J.C. Penney are looking north to Canada. Later this year, Simons will start offering its e-shopping service to U.S. customers.

The Vancouver Sun

Mountain Equipment Co-op: Reinventing an Outdoors Icon

This seller of gear for the hard-core - rock climbers, backcountry skiers - is in the midst of a full rethink of its products.  The overhaul started with the sale of bicycles, and plans include adding more colours and chic to the apparel on offer.  Details throughout the stores are being assessed, such as shelves full of trail-running shoes when running in cities has become much more common.

The Globe and Mail

Discount Grocers See Sales Resurgence

Sales growth at discount grocers Aldi and Lidl picked up, underscoring the pressure on British shoppers from rising prices, taxes and public spending cuts, market research data.  Britain's grocers rose 4.2 percent in the 12 weeks to January 23, down from 5.2 percent growth in the 12 weeks to December 27.  Both Aldi and Lidl have posted near 10 percent growth and lifted the total discounters' market share from 5.9 percent last year to 6.1 percent in the latest period.

Reuters

Asda Launches Dating Website for Shoppers

Asda has launched a dating website which will match potential partners based on the contents of their shopping baskets. The retailer said it was launching AsdaDating.com after a survey of 10,000 of its shoppers showed 71% of men and 64% of women look for a partner in their local supermarket before anywhere else. And 47% of those polled said they examined the contents of fellow shoppers' baskets to determine whether they were single.

Kam City

Coles Reports "Record" Christmas Boost for Q2

Coles reported comparable food and liquor store sales growth of 6.6% in Q2, and food and liquor sales of $7 billion - a 6.7% increase on Q2 last year.  The company's Q2 results for last year included sales figures for the 22 Coles supermarkets which have now been transferred to Foodworks, which the company said will continue to dampen comparisons between year-to-year sales growth until the third quarter of 2011.  Total figures for the 2011 financial year so far are a sales growth of 6.4% and headline sales of $13 billion.

AFN