The Retail TouchPoints Network

Retail Recap Of The Week

Greetings, all! Glad to see you’ve taken a break in your day
to check out some more weekly info on our blog! Here’s the latest buzz happening around the industry.

U.S.
Retail Sales Dip 0.3% In March Despite Expected Increase: The U.S.
Commerce Department revealed that retail sales declined 0.3% in March, a different
turn from the initial expectations of a 0.1% sales boost. However, this news isn’t
all bad for the majority of merchants. The news appears to be fueled by a cutback
on automobile purchases; retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building
materials and food services did have an uptick 0.1% last month.

Specific retail verticals appeared to have mixed success throughout
the month:

Sales at clothing stores fell 0.9%;
Sales at online retailers dipped 0.1%;
Sales at sporting goods and hobby stores rose
0.2%;
Sales at electronics and appliance outlets jumped
0.1%; and
Sales at building materials and garden equipment stores increased 1.4%, while sales at restaurants and bars fell 0.8%.

Wegmans
Takes Top Spot As America’s Favorite Grocery: As many as 76% of
consumers gave Wegmans as top scores in terms of overall satisfaction and
likelihood to recommend to friends, according to Market Force Information’s
Retail Grocery Study. Publix (75%), Trader Joe’s (73%), Hy-Vee Food (68%) and
ALDI (65%) rounded out the top five, marking the first time in five years
Trader Joe’s was not listed at number one. The survey also nearly half of
consumers prefer to purchase organic products when they’re available,
particularly product, meat and dairy.

Lands’
End Launches Canvas Clothing Line: Lands’ End has introduced a new line of clothing more focused on its
younger, more fashion conscious audiences. The collection features dresses,
sweaters, tops, pants and jackets for both men and women. The line, inspired by
the freedom of artistic expression, features a white label “symbolizing the
ability to personally create one’s own canvas,” according to a statement from
Federica Marchionni, CEO of Lands’ End.

Gilt Groupe
Co-Founder Unveils Image Shopping App: Alexis Maybank, Founder and
Chief Strategy Officer at Gilt Groupe, has launched a new shoppable fashion
app, Project September. The app is
designed to enable consumers to browse their favorite editors, stylists and
fashion icons and simply tap photo to purchase items that are displayed.
Influencers can place green dots on individual photos to make each photo
shoppable for users of the app. With Project September, users can create their
own editorial gallery by uploading original work or importing images from other
social networks.