CVS Health will spread its curbside pickup service to drugstores nationwide this year, as traditional retailers continue to hone their reputations for convenience and fight fierce competition online.
The nation’s second-largest drugstore chain has partnered with the technology firm Curbside to create CVS Express, a program that lets shoppers buy products with an app and then pick them up about an hour later at a nearby store, where an employee will deliver them to the car.
CVS Health Corp. launched the free curbside pickup service in December at a dozen stores in San Francisco and has since expanded it to Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. The company currently offers curbside pickup services at 361 stores but has room to grow with more than 7,900 retail locations nationwide. It expects to roll out the program in a majority of those stores nationally by the end of the year.
The CVS partnership with Curbside marks an extension of a trend that began a few years ago with other retailers. Target, Walmart and several grocery chains also have developed curbside pickup programs.
Visa fixing cards to speed up purchases
Visa is upgrading its software to allow chip-embedded credit and debit cards to function faster — addressing a source of grumbling from businesses and customers who are often forced to wait for transactions to go through.
The company said Tuesday that its program — Quick Chip for EMV — will let customers dip and remove cards, usually in two seconds or less, without waiting for purchases to be finalized.
Though the wait can be just seconds, in today’s economy of swipes and scans, the cards have been a nuisance for high-traffic retailers.
Target eases rules for transgender people
NEW YORK >> Target said Tuesday that transgender employees and customers can use the restroom or fitting room facility that “corresponds with their gender identity.”
The statement comes as a national debate is heating up over whether to restrict transgender people from using public bathrooms that only match their gender at birth. North Carolina is facing backlash for its recent ban on local anti-discrimination ordinances. And other states are considering legislation similar to that adopted by North Carolina.
Target Corp. says it regularly assesses issues and considers many factors that would affect business, customers and workers.
U.S. home construction fell in March
WASHINGTON >> Construction of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in five months, with weakness in all regions of the country except the Northeast.
Home construction dropped 8.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the third decline in the past four months and left construction at its slowest point since October.
Applications for permits to build new homes, a good indicator of future activity, dropped 7.7 percent in March to an annual rate of 1.09 million units.
On the Move
Pacxa has appointed three executives to its senior management team:
>> Jim Takatsuka is executive vice president. He has 30 years of technology industry expertise and was previously a Microsoft area manager in Hawaii for the past 15 years. Takatsuka was also the team lead for Sun Microsystems’ Hawaii office and held a variety of technical and sales roles at Apple Inc. in the San Francisco Bay Area.
>> Randy Isaki oversees the company’s professional services and managed services group. He has more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry. Prior to joining the company, Isaki served as an assistant vice president of information technology systems for First Insurance.
>> Doug Shimokawa is a member of Pacxa’s leadership team. He oversees its infrastructure consulting group and previously served as a consultant for Business Solution Technologies and a senior software engineer at Lockheed Martin. Shimokawa also led a number of projects for the Department of Defense in Hawaii and California where he tested, designed and developed software programs.
