"Target looks to hit pause on holiday partnerships" by Thomas Lee at Star-Tribune.  "While the Minneapolis-based retailer hasn’t completely ruled it out, creating an extensive line in time for December would be highly impractical, since Target normally needs a year or so to plan such an ambitious project.  “We have no current plans for a holiday design partnership,” spokeswoman Katie Boylan said.  Target’s decision not to deploy its most potent weapon for the most crucial sales period of the year follows its failed collaboration with Neiman Marcus last Christmas."  Read more: https://www.startribune.com/business/214090631.html   "Walgreens Gets A Makeover As It Tries To [...]

  "Wal-Mart sits safely atop list of 100 retailers" by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  "Given the current trajectory Wal-Mart would have roughly $444.4 billion in annual U.S. sales by 2020, enough to maintain the No. 1 rank among its competitors. Amazon would rank No. 2 with $215.12 billion sales if maintaining the 30% annual growth rate through 2020."  Read more:  https://www.thecitywire.com/node/28465#.UdIOKPnVDpU   "Buying a Picasso on Amazon? Not So Crazy Anymore" by Robert Frank at CNBC.  "Reports from the Art Newspaper and the Wall Street Journal say Amazon is making plans to sell fine art online. The reports [...]

  "3 Hottest Retail Topics for the First Half of 2013 - Retail Trends to Watch in the Second Half of 2013" by Barbara Farfan at Retail Industry.  "Better over bigger is an obvious trend that will continue in the second half of 2013 in the U.S. retail marketplace saturated with choices. The largest U.S. retail chains will continue to "rightsize" with fewer stores and smaller formats because consumers have made it clear that more is not better - better is better."  See the full list:  https://retailindustry.about.com/b/2013/06/30/13-hottest-retail-topics-for-the-first-half-of-2013-retail-trends-to-watch-in-the-second-half-of-2013-aapl.htm   "Walmart Competition Gives Entrepreneurs the Chance to ‘Get on the Shelf’"  "Walmart [...]

  "Rona closing 11 stores in Canada,  50 more on 'watch list' " by Paul Delean at Montreal Gazette.  "The Canadian hardware and home-improvement chain announced the closing of another 11 money-losing stores in Ontario and British Columbia by the end of this year. The stores — seven of them big-box — represented about $130 million in annual sales.  Fifty other stores among the 800 in the Rona network are on a watch list, as they "need some work" to generate "adequate returns," chief financial officer Dominique Boies said.  Read more: https://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Rona+closing+stores+Ontario/8586338/story.html#ixzz2XVbqeTXl   "Kroger closes in on $100B sales" by [...]

  "Nations First Lowe's Express Opens (in NJ)" by Michael Diamond at Asbury Park Press.  "Lowe’s Cos. Inc. Thursday will officially unveil a retail store half the size of its traditional store in a move experts said reflects consumers who increasingly believe that less may not be more, but it is enough.  The Lowe’s Express, opening in a former Pathmark supermarket, will be 50,000 square feet...The express concept is the first nationwide for Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe’s."  Read more & see the video:  https://www.app.com/article/20130626/NJBIZ/306260116/Smaller-Lowe-s-Express-in-Wall-is-first-in-the-nation?nclick_check=1   "Wal-Mart, Home Depot end relationships with Paula Deen" by Vldya Rao at NBC News.  ""We are [...]

  "Tesco could soon offer 3D printing so customers can print their own products" at Daily Mail.  "Paul Wilkinson, who is heading on a fact-finding mission to San Francisco with a team from Tesco, added in The Grocer magazine: 'We already print photos and posters in many of our larger stores, so why not other gifts and personalised items?  'How about letting kids design their own toys and then actually being able to get them made? What if we had a digital catalogue of spare parts for items that you’d bought?"  Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2348278/Tesco-soon-offer-3D-printing-customers-print-toys-spare-parts-clothes.html#ixzz2XHqR2OEu   "Home Depot to Sell 'Magical' [...]

  "Interview with Walmart CMO Stephen Quinn:  Walmart Gets a Boost From Local Price-Comparison Ads" by Jack Neff at Ad Age.  "Ad Age: How do you do all those price comparisons and bulletproof them legally?...Stephen Quinn: We have a protocol around how each of these is done. It's somebody's real list. We don't tell them what to buy. We take those groceries from the competitor and scan them across our scanner so there's no doubt about ... if it's the same item."  Read the interview:  https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/walmart-a-boost-local-price-comparison-ads/242755/   "Higher fees and coupons to boost Sam's Club profits" by Kim Souza at [...]

  "Role reversal: Online retailers seek physical stores" by Thomas Lee at Star-Tribune via Charlotte Observer.  "“I feel that everything we’ve done with this company was backward,” joked Simone Xavier, who launched Sigma with her husband, Rene Xavier Filho. “But we wanted to put a face on the brand, and we wanted people to touch and feel the product.”  Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/22/4121627/role-reversal-online-retailers.html#storylink=cpy   "Microsoft Explored Plans to Build Amazon Rival" by Bensinger and Ovide at WSJ.  "The software giant held discussions with retailers and technology companies about a marketplace, proposing to equip it with an array of merchants, as [...]