Check out what women buy when they get tired of being a frugalista: boots, plaid and outerwear. 

Those were some of the products that helped October U.S. retail sales improve from a year ago, when the unfolding financial meltdown had shoppers fearing a second Great Depression.

“Frugal fatigue is setting in,” said NPD Group analyst Marshal Cohen. After a year of scrimping, he added, the numbers suggest that some women are going in for a little retail fix.

“Women (not only moms) are shopping their closets, discovering new and fresh looks and filling in with some key updates,” he said.

But selective shopping is not enough to ease worries about the all-important holiday sales.

Thomson Reuters research shows that while October sales rebounded, results from individual retailers were mixed.

Also in the basket:

Warnaco beats estimates; Liz Claiborne misses

Children’s Place October same-store sales beat estimates

CVS says won’t meet pharmacy benefits view in 2010

US commercial real estate to bottom in 2010-survey

Productivity at 6-year high, jobless claims fall

Statisticians in the drugstore industry (if they are out there), must be scratching their heads.

CVS opened its 7,000th store on Sunday.  It was a pretty big deal, with the drugstore company’s president, Larry Merlo, even heading to Little Canada, Minnesota, for Thursday’s grand opening celebration.

So, CVS now has 7,000 stores in 41 states and the District of Columbia, and calls its CVS/pharmacy chain “America’s largest retail pharmacy.”

But take a look at rival Walgreen.

Walgreen, or Walgreens, as the stores are called, has been around more than 60 years longer than CVS.  It has the lead, at least when it comes to stores and states covered.

Walgreen has been paring back its rapid store openings.  Even so, its 7,000th store actually opened the first week in September and it has stores in every U.S state.  Update: Walgreen’s current store count is 7,036.

Let’s take a look at revenue.  CVS has the overall lead, if you include its big pharmacy benefits management business.  If you focus on the stores, Walgreen holds the top spot.  Barely.  According to IBISWorld, Walgreen has 27 percent of industry revenue, while CVS holds 26 percent.

Still, CVS won the party game.  Walgreen’s 7,000th store celebration won’t take place until Oct. 1.

(Reuters photos)

People have been worried about the H1N1 flu, aka swine flu, for months but the vaccine for that flu is not expected until at least mid-October.

So, for the time being, we’re taking a look at how the three major U.S. drugstore chains are preparing for the seasonal flu, which is responsible for about 36,000 deaths in the United States each year.

A survey conducted by Walgreen in mid-August found that 50 percent of consumers plan to get a seasonal flu shot this year, up from 43 percent who say they got one last season.  Twenty-seven percent of respondents to the online poll said they were more concerned about getting the flu than they were a year ago. 

Another poll found more than 60 percent of Americans plan to get the H1N1 flu vaccine.

CVS is putting the biggest dollar figure behind its push, unveiled on Monday, offering $3 million worth of seasonal flu shots to the unemployed this season.  That’s 100,000 shots.

Walgreen has another lofty number in mind — 5 million.  That is the number of vaccinations the largest drugstore chain by revenue wants to administer this season.  Last flu season, it handled 1.2 million shots and nasal spray flu vaccinations.

Walgreen said it would give vouchers for $1 million worth of flu shots, or 40,000 of them, to uninsured consumers.  Walgreen is also asserting itself as having the largest U.S. retail network of immunizers, with 16,000 able to administer the shots. Last year, only 7,500 of the company’s pharmacists could do so, a spokeswoman said.

Rite Aid, the smallest of the three chains, said it has more than 2,000 certified immunizing pharmacists on hand at more than 1,500 of its 4,800-plus stores.

Pricing for shots will vary.  Walgreen is promoting its flu shots at $24.99, while CVS and Rite Aid each priced their shots at $30.

(Reuters photo)

CVS Caremark is set to meet with analysts and investors in New York on Friday, just days after it posted quarterly results, gave its forecasts and held its annual meeting.  How much more can the company say?  If it is up to some analysts, a lot more could come from the nearly four hours of presentations, especially about the pharmacy benefits business and how it is aligned with CVS stores. 

Jefferies & Co’s Scott Mushkin also said the company could use some better PR to counter some recent articles and angst from competitors.  Items like those might make one think of CVS as the Joker from a Batman movie, Mushkin told clients in a research note on Thursday. 

“Why the company does not do more to counteract clearly false and/or misleading statements is a mystery. We do know, however, that it needs to change or these efforts by competitors, unions and other entrenched special interests could eventually do great harm to shareholders.

Reminiscent of Wal-Mart, which earlier this decade stood dumbfounded as entrenched interests tore at its reputation due to its market strength and competitive advantages, CVS also looks impotent based on a rising swell that is determined to use any and all means to tear it down. It is time for the company to launch a meaningful counter assault.

Indeed, CVS is not the joker, it’s Batman … and needs to address Gotham City on Friday,” Mushkin said.

(Reuters photo)

Online retail may be outperforming brick-and-mortar rivals amid the U.S. recession, but that’s no reason to get complacent.

In a wake-up call to the industry, a new survey shows that customer satisfaction with online retailers declined 3 percent from last year.

The slipping satisfaction level uncovered in ForeSee Results’ Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index is a “remarkable trend,” according to its author.

The report — which surveyed 22,000 respondents to measure customer satisfaction at the top 100 online retailers by sales volume — found that the top performers were outweighed by more bottom performers, with 55 online retailers seeing their scores drop from last year.
 
“Customer satisfaction, when measured scientifically, is not just a number or a beauty contest. It is a direct precursor of customer behaviors that have a measurable and quantifiable ability to impact sales and profitability,” warned author Larry Freed.
    
A 1 point increase in customer satisfaction is equivalent to nearly 9 percent growth in online sales, the report found, while a satisfied shopper is 71 percent more likely to buy than a dissatisfied one. 
    
First, the good news: Netflix.com is still No 1, followed by Amazon.com, with the top two companies maintaining their spots for five years in a row.  Avon.com came in third.

While a score of 80 or above represents a superior job, those logging lower than a 70 need some help.

That group includes 1800Flowers.com, BlueNile.com, JCrew.com, UrbanOutfitters.com and RestorationHardware.com.

The biggest year-over-year declines in customer satisfaction came from discounter Etronics.com and book retailer efollett.com, both also among the worst performers.
    
“It is surprising that any of the top 100 retailers could get away with scores in the 60s and maintain any kind of market dominance for very long,” wrote Freed.
    
While not in the bottom group, sites including CVS.com, NeimanMarcus.com, Apple.com and Blockbuster.com all saw their ratings fall over 6 percent from the prior year.

The biggest year-over year improvement came from Kohls.com, which improved nearly 6 percent.

Check out the latest earnings reports, which give a hint of hope that things could be looking up, if it weren’t for that pesky stronger U.S. dollar.
 
Avon’s revenue fell 13 percent to $2.18 billion as the stronger U.S. dollar decreased the value of overseas sales by 16 percentage points. On a local currency basis, sales rose 3 percent. 
 
“Foreign exchange significantly pressured first-quarter profit, as expected,” Avon Chief Executive Andrea Jung said in a statement. “We are taking aggressive action to lessen the foreign-exchange impact … the benefits of which should be stronger in the second half of 2009.”
 
Kraft Foods posted a higher-than-expected first-quarter profit helped by price increases and cost-cutting.  While profit rose, the maker of Oreo cookies said sales fell 6.5 percent to $9.4 billion, hurt in part by — you guessed it — the stronger dollar, which lessens the dollar-value of sales made overseas. Organic revenue, or sales excluding currency fluctuations, acquisitions and divestitures, rose 2.3 percent. 
    
Over at MillerCoors, the combined U.S. operations of SABMiller Plc and Molson Coors Brewing Co, net sales rose 3.8 percent to $1.72 billion. Sales from wholesalers to retailers, a good gauge of consumer demand, rose 0.4 percent.  Molson Coors said its overall profit rose, as increased prices and cost cuts helped offset steeper commodity costs, lower sales volume and, of course — the stronger U.S. dollar. 

One company that couldn’t put any blame on forex is CVS Caremark, which operates solely in the United States.  Even if people are cutting back, net revenue still jumped 9.7 percent, to $23.4 billion. CVS profit was better than expected. 

Also in the basket:

ADM misses Wall Street forecast as profit slips

Spectrum posts higher second quarter operating profit

LeapFrog’s Q1 flops

Designers and execs see positive points (WWD, subscription required)

(Reuters photo)

A small number of Americans have used in-store health clinics according to a study released on Monday by the Commonwealth Fund and conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Only 2.3 percent of American families, or nearly 3.4 million families, had used a retail clinic, according to the group’s 2007 Health Tracking Household Survey.

“While overall use of retail clinics remains modest, families with unmet medical needs tend to use the clinics more than the rest of the population,” said Ha T. Tu, M.P.A., an HSC senior researcher and coauthor of the study.

According to the report, there were more than 900 retail clinics in 30 states at the end of 2007, up from just about 60 in 18 states at the beginning of 2006.  The study does not include 2008 data.  Among a variety of retail clinic operators, Walgreen owns the Take Care brand of clinics and rival CVS runs MinuteClinic.

Also on Monday, Walgreen announced the opening of three more Take Care clinics, this time in the New Orleans area.  It now has 312 clinics in 18 U.S. states.

One-third of clinic users in the study said a major reason they chose to go to clinics was because they did not have a usual source of medical care. Not surprisingly, uninsured patients were more likely to visit the clinics.

(Photo from March 2007 Reuters/Take Care Health Systems/Handout)

Giving out your Social Security number on national television is bound to attract trouble. But that hasn’t stopped Lifelock Chief Executive Todd Davis from flashing his social - 457-55-5462 - on television, the Internet, and print ads.

Davis says he’s so certain Lifelock will protect your identity and preserve your credit he gives out his social security number to prove it. He’s gotten around 100 dings on his credit, including people trying to get loans under aliases like Jabba T. Hutt.

Someone ordered $400 worth of meat, and a Texas man named Daniel managed to get a $500 loan in Davis’ name.  Notified of the fraudulent loan by creditors, Davis sent the same TV crew that tapes “Cops” and “Cheaters” to Daniel’s house, where after some discussion Daniel apologized for copying Davis’ social off the Lifelock website and then taking out a loan in his name.

But none of this deters Davis, who knows a gimmick, and free publicity, when he sees it.

“In Texas our sales went through the roof” following media reports of the Texas encounter, Davis told Reuters on Tuesday.

Davis says Lifelock will make $90-$100 million in sales this year and expects the company to do $200 million in sales next year. He says Lifelock will remain private for the foreseeable future, especially in light of the global financial crisis.

(Photo/Courtesy of Lifelock)

Check out Longs Drugs’ share price now that it’s got a new suitor.

Longs, the drug store chain with a heavy concentration of stores in California, got a surprise offer from Walgreen late on Friday that topped its previous buyout agreement with rival CVS Caremark.
    
Longs shares opened on Monday ahead more than 5 percent to $75.80, slightly above the Walgreen offer of $75 per share and proving that investors believe they can’t lose as the two biggest U.S. pharmacy operators battle over an acquisition.
    
At the very least, analysts say, CVS will have to sweeten its earlier $71.50 per share bid, despite its protestations to the contrary. And that doesn’t even take into account the possibility that Walgreen will become even more aggressive to keep Longs out of its rival’s hands.
    
The Walgreen offer is also lending a helping hand to Longs’ two biggest shareholders, who said on Friday they wouldn’t give up their shares to CVS because the offer price was too low.
    
What’s clear is that even as Wall Street reels from the downfall of Lehman Brothers and a surprise buyout of Merrill Lynch, a deal for purveyors of Tylenol and toothpaste can still capture some investors attention.

Footnote: Lehman has been advising CVS on the Longs deal, along with Deutsche Bank. Curious how quickly CVS can regroup to make a higher offer, if it should choose to do so?

Also in the basket:

Best Buy nabs Napster for $121 million (Reuters)

Target gets naming rights to Minnesota Twins stadium (Reuters)

Reddy Ice suspends dividend, sends sales exec on leave (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

(Due to a tabulation error in the research, STORES Magazine has issued a corrected list. This is being corrected to remove Coldwater Creek from the Top 10 list and replace it with Citi Trends at No. 10) 

Though the retail industry cooled last year to its slowest growth since 2002, a number of retail companies experienced fiery growth, according to the National Retail Federation. The hottest retailers, in general, grew through acquisitions, according to the trade group’s STORES Magazine.

NRF’s 2008 Hot 100 Retailers list, which will be included in STORES’ August issue, ranks the nation’s fastest-growing retailers that are publicly traded and have more than $100 million in annual sales.

Topping the list this year is CVS Caremark, which grew 2007 revenue by 74 percent because of its acquisition of Caremark. The No. 2 spot also went to a drugstore chain — Rite Aid, which purchased Brooks Pharmacy units in New England and Eckerd on the East Coast, saw revenue grow narly 40 percent. IHOP, which recently changed its name to DineEquity Inc, was No. 3 with last year’s purchase of Applebee’s.

WalMart, the world’s largest retailer, clocked in at No. 80, with 8.6 percent growth. Its mass market rival Target Corp, brought up the rear at No. 100, with 6.5 percent revenue growth.

Here is a list of the top 10 retailers, according to STORES Magazine: 

          1. CVS Caremark

          2. Rite Aid

          3. IHOP

          4. Amazon.com

          5. American Apparel

          6. GameStop

          7. BJ’s Restaurants

          8. Chipotle Mexican Grill

          9. FTD

          10. Citi Trends

     (Photo: Reuters)