STORES Magazine - April 2009 - (Page 19) fullprice/markdown & RETAIL HITS MISSES than an hour, with 30 minutes trimmed at the beginning and the end of each selling day. At malls open on Sunday, opening times have been pushed from 11 a.m. to noon. While it’s easy to understand the need to find ways to trim costs, reducing selling hours is not going to jump-start business. Spring is a time when the desire to buy kicks up a bit. If the weather cooperates, a few warm days can really lift sales. The last thing a retailer needs is to have someone arrive at 9:30 a.m. to begin shopping for a swimsuit – only to find the doors locked for another half hour. Wal-Mart Delves into Digital Recordkeeping BUYERS for Wal-Mart are experts at taking ordi- Chicken to the Rescue HERE’S an idea that’s bound to have the backL ing of budget-savvy moms from coast to coast. FUL ICE Sanderson Farms recently debuted its Pull from PR the Pantry program, encouraging families to prepare meals at home by utilizing inexpensive ingredients currently found in their kitchens. The program invites shoppers to choose from a lengthy list of chicken recipes found at www.pullfromthepantry.com. Menu options starting as low as two dollars per person include Sanderson Farm’s Asian Inspired Chicken and Basil Stir Fry and Classic Chicken Parmesan. For a new take on sandwiches, the Laurel, Md.-based provider of fresh and frozen chicken has developed Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and also has updated the traditional chicken pot pie. In most instances, the recipes can be prepared in less than an hour using basic ingredients like breadcrumbs, pasta, rice and frozen vegetables. No doubt celebrity chef Rachel Ray (“30 Minute Meals”) would approve. Time Out CITING the disRK mal economy MA N and pressure to DOW cut costs without alienating customers, Westfield Group and Simon Property Group have reduced operating hours at a handful of malls across the country. In most instances, opening and closing times have been cut by no more WWW.STORES.ORG accessible for a reasonable price. Now, they’re looking to apply that buying power and marketing expertise to electronic health records, bringing digital recordkeeping to physicians in small offices as well as large practices across the country. Through its Sam’s Club division, Wal-Mart will become a systems integrator, bundling hardware from partner Dell with software from eClinicalWorks. It will begin selling the service this spring. The news is timely given the support from the Obama administration, which included $17 billion in financial incentives in the stimulus plan to jump-start the shift to digital recordkeeping. According to a survey published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, only about 17 percent of physicians use electronic records and most of those physicians are in large practices. Until now, independent practitioners or doctors in small practices were slow to switch because of significant up-front costs. According to The New York Times, Wal-Mart plans to offer the service at about $25,000 for the first doctor in the practice and about $10,000 for each additional doctor. STORES / APRIL 2009 19 L nary products and FUL ICE making them widely PR http://www.pullfromthepantry.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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