Indianapolis

Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.

As CVS sharpens its focus on customer health, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain will tweak its corporate name and stop the sale of tobacco nearly a month sooner than planned. CVS Caremark said it will now be known as CVS Health, effective immediately. The signs on its roughly 7,700 drugstores won't change, so the tweak may not register with shoppers. However, those customers will see a big change when they check out. The cigars and cigarettes that used to fill shelves have been replaced with nicotine gum and signs urging visitors to kick the tobacco habit.

Amazon.com announced yesterday that it will be expanding its same-day delivery service in six metro areas: New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dallas and Indianapolis. Customers in those cities will be able to have their orders delivered on the same day if they purchase before noon — for a fee, of course. The question remains, however, is same-day shipping worth it?

Genesco's LIDS Sports Group, a merchandiser of sports-related headgear and novelties, has purchased Dayton, Ohio-based Cardboard Heroes, which has 19 retail locations in Ohio and Kentucky. Those include four Buckeye Room stores that sell Ohio State University sports merchandise. The purchase also includes the websites cheroes.com and buckeyeroom.com, where the same goods are available online. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. LIDS Sports Group, based in Indianapolis, already had 936 headwear specialty retail stores, 151 sports fan retail stores and 57 team-specific professional sports and university athletics retail stores in North America.

Amazon.com has been testing the use of its own delivery vehicles in Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco following an earlier pilot in the U.K. Does Amazon's move mean it will compete with UPS and FedEx and become a third private player in the U.S. parcel delivery market? Certainly it will have an impact and could begin to manage inventory, fulfillment and delivery for other consumer products businesses.

More Blogs