Self-checkout checks out, Adidas and Kanye, McDonald's outage, and Trader Joe's totes: Retail news roundup
Plus, the dollar stores go different directions, Dick's bounces back, and Under Armour sinks
2 / 20
Self-checkout is all over the map. Dollar General is nixing self-checkout kiosks at 300 of its stores. Target is saying 10 items or less — otherwise get in the regular line.
Meanwhile, Adidas is in a battle with its Yeezy sneaker stock, and Starbucks is getting sued over its non-dairy milk charge.
Check out the slideshow above for those and more highlights from the week in retail news.
3 / 20
Dollar General says it’s yanking a bunch of self-checkout kiosks from its stores because an AI says that people are using them to steal. Target is rolling out a self-checkout express lane that limits customers to 10 items because self-checkout lines are too long. Maybe the self-checkout nightmare, in which customers fumble frustratingly with weird machines instead of going to cashiers who know how to operate a company’s point-of-sale (POS) system, is coming to an end.
4 / 20
Dollar General is planning to remove self-checkout kiosks for 300 of its stores — and it’s using artificial intelligence to do it.
5 / 20
Target shoppers with fewer items in their baskets will soon have the option to speed up their self-checkout experience — often marked by long lines and rampant theft, which has made self-checkout’s relationship with corporate America somewhat fraught.
6 / 20
Adidas has spent a lot of time over the last year and a half going back and forth about what it wants to do with all its Yeezy sneakers. Though the rapper’s tendency to occasionally drop off-color remarks like “slavery was a choice” was long a PR headache, it was his 2022 full heel turn — wearing a “white lives matter” shirt a fashion shows, publicly harassing his ex-wife, terrorizing fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, forcing Adidas executives to watch porn with him — that finally forced the company to part ways with him. Reputation-wise, the move made perfect sense. Business-wise was another story.
7 / 20
Last fall wasn’t a good season for Dick’s Sporting Goods. It wasn’t like during the peak social distancing era of the early COVID-19 years, when everyone was rushing to buy free weights and other things to occupy their bodies and themselves while they took a break from their prior lives. People weren’t buying sporting goods, and the sporting goods were building up on Dick’s Sporting Goods shelves. The stock fell 24% in a single day, and fell further from there. The company laid off a bunch of people, eating $3.4 million in severance costs alone over the next few months. Things were looking Dick’s Sporting bad.
8 / 20
Under Armour stock fell by almost 11% after the announcement that its ex-CEO and founder Kevin Plank is returning as the head of the American sportswear company. Its current CEO, Stephanie Linnartz, is stepping down after 13 months, and Plank will take charge effective April 1. — Vinamrata Chaturvedi
9 / 20
McDonald’s stores and online ordering suffered closures and delays in Europe, Asia, and Australia due to what the fast-food chain said was a tech outage.
10 / 20
Three Starbucks customers have filed a lawsuit against the coffee chain giant, alleging that its extra charges for non-dairy alternatives are discriminating against people with lactose intolerance.
11 / 20
Trader Joe’s mini tote bags are back. The navy, yellow, red, and green small canvas totes that Trader Joe’s loyalists have become obsessed with have been restocked. And it’s a relief for customers still in search of their own: The mini tote bags worth $2.99 were being sold on eBay for hundreds when they were out of stock at Trader Joe’s stores.
12 / 20
Shoppers may soon see price markdowns for home furnishing goods at IKEA. The Swedish budget furniture retailer pointed to cooling inflation and the declining cost of raw materials as key drivers that have influenced IKEA’s price markdowns.
13 / 20
14 / 20
If you’re a U.S. shopper who wanted to get one more skincare deal from The Body Shop, it’s already too late. The beauty company, which went into the U.K. equivalent of bankruptcy in February, announced that it was closing all of its U.S. stores as part of its restructuring.
15 / 20
Walmart is getting into artificial intelligence. Well, it’s at least planning to sell the software tied to it.
16 / 20
Apple is preparing to open a new store in Shanghai later this month, expanding its retail network after iPhone sales in China suffered a setback. The new store, Apple Jing’an, is expected to open on March 21 in Shanghai, accompanied by a live performance of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, according to a notice posted on the company’s website.
17 / 20
Shoppers are still making their way to Dollar General and piling up on food to cook at home. The discount retailer reported earnings beat Wall Street expectations, saying customers are buying groceries and other essentials. But Dollar General said consumers are holding back purchases of home products, clothing, and seasonal items as inflation lingers.
18 / 20
Shoppers may have to try a little harder to find bargains at Dollar Tree — because there will be fewer Dollar Tree stores to find. The discount retailer said Wednesday that it plans to close almost 1,000 of its locations, after it lost $1.7 billion in its fourth quarter.
19 / 20
20 / 20
Kohl’s is banking on a new demographic: babies. The department store chain announced that it’s bringing Babies “R” Us products to 200 Kohl’s stores by August in a new partnership struck with the baby brand.