General Merchandise

MINNEAPOLIS — rThe price wars among the nation's leading retailers has taken a new turn just ahead of the critical holiday selling season.

On Friday, Target revealed in a blog post on its website that it had lowered prices on "thousands" of items, from cereal and paper towels to baby formula, razors, bath tissue and more. The discounter said the move would help end shoppers' uncertainty over the timing of discounts on certain products, and make for "more consistent savings."

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Pharmacy is rolling out a new way for busy patients to easily buy on-the-go necessities. The company on Thursday introduced its automated retail vending machines, which contain such necessities as over-the-counter health products, better-for-you snacks and popular personal care products, and will be used as a vehicle to showcase products from the company’s exclusive store brands while meeting customers at well-trafficked areas.

CINCINNATI — With millions of people expected to travel this Labor Day weekend, Procter & Gamble has released a new version of its Charmin SitOrSquat restroom finder mobile app. The popular travel app helps people find clean public restrooms based on user-generated ratings and reviews.

CINCINNATI — The Procter & Gamble Company announced Wednesday it will share online all fragrance ingredients down to 0.01% for its entire product portfolio in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2019, which includes more than 2,000 fragranced products. P&G is the first company to commit to this level of fragrance ingredient detail across such a broad product portfolio, the company noted.

NASHVILLE – ­Retailers are opening 4,080 more stores in 2017 than they are closing and plan to open over 5,500 more in 2018, according to a new research report from IHL Group.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. — The back-to-school shopping season isn’t about one-stop shopping, The NPD Group reported Wednesday. Back-to-school shoppers make an average of 16 trips to purchase back-to-school related products between July and September, according to NPD’s receipt mining service, Checkout Tracking.

NEW YORK — In part two of Gordon Haskett's review of consumer behavior online, analyst Chuck Grom gives Amazon their due, as the online juggernaut "commands the majority of online traffic with an equal (or greater) share of household purchases when compared to all other e-commerce retailers combined," he said. But brick-and-mortar retailers shouldn't fret (too much), he added, because in-store sales still remain relevant, particularly in non-discretional categories.