"Amazon Will Pump $55 Million into Secretive Silicon Valley Lab" by Deepa Seetharaman & Noel Randewich at Reuters. "Amazon is testing a simple wi-fi device that could be placed in the kitchen or a closet, allowing customers to order products like detergent by pressing a button, one of the people said. Lab126 is also interested in wearable devices, the other person said. Both sources stressed that such devices may never come to market." Read more   Report: Ron Johnson to Start a High-End, On-Demand Delivery Service for Gadgets by Susan Berfield at Bloomberg. "A report claims Johnson is starting [...]

  NY Times: "Finding a Door Into Banking, Walmart Prepares to Offer Checking Accounts" by Hiroko Tabuchi & Jessica Silver-Greenberg. "Walmart is teaming up with Green Dot, known for its prepaid payment cards, to supply checking accounts to almost anyone over 18 who passes an ID check...Daniel Eckert, senior vice president at Walmart, said on Tuesday that the accounts would be available nationwide by the end of October. The accounts are intended to be low-cost alternatives to traditional bank checking accounts, with no fees for overdrafts or bounced checks and no minimum account balance." Read more   WSJ: "Fraudulent Transactions [...]

  Home Depot's Carol Tome at Atlanta Rotary Club:  Do-it-Yourself Automotive is Next Big Opportunity by Maria  Saporta at Atlanta Bus. Chronicle. "In response to a question about what was the next area of opportunity for the company, Tomé said the company currently had “Do-It-Yourself Automotive” in pilot “right now” in some of its stores. “And they make lots of money,” she said as she exited the stage. “Stay tuned.” After her talk, Tomé said Home Depot has pilots in about 50 stores in select markets across the country. “We really like what we are seeing,” she said. “It’s replacing your windshield [...]

  "Labor Groups Seek Probe of Wal-Mart's PAC" by Shelly Banjo at WSJ (Subscription). "Labor and advocacy groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart violated federal election laws by soliciting employees for donations to its political-action committee in exchange for charitable contributions to a fund that helps Wal-Mart employees in need...Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said the company is confident its matching program is lawful and that the FEC will find the complaint lacks merit." Read more   ...HuffPo's Take: "Walmart's Plan To Encourage Political Donations Violates Election Law, Groups Claim" by Jillian Berman. "Walmart’s program is particularly controversial for [...]

  "Fortune's Most Powerful Women 2014 (Rosalind Brewer #15, Ann-Marie Campbell #38)"  See the Top 50 List   "Walmart & Others Looted in Los Cabos, Mexico After Hurricane" at WNEM-5. "The problem is no longer the hurricane," resident David Garcia said in a radio interview. "Everything started with the looting. Not even eight hours had passed since the hurricane before people started destroying stores."...Inside a waterlogged Wal-Mart superstore, there was nothing but puddles, trash, empty shelves and graffiti on the wall: "Long live crime!" Read more   "Home Depot Hacked After Months of Security Warnings" by Ben Elgin, Michael Riley [...]

  "Kroger Testing Grocery Pick-Up Service in Cincinnati" by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com. "The service is not yet available to customers at the Liberty Township store. Kroger is in such early testing, only associates are using it. "We are now in the embryonic stages of a click and collect test at one of our local stores – so early in fact, we just started testing with our associates," said Rachael Betzler, a Kroger spokeswoman." Read more   J.D. Power Ranks Top Appliance Retailer Websites (Home Depot #2, Costco #5) "The incidence of using a smartphone or tablet to research information online [...]

  "Amazon Spends More on Google Search Ads than Walmart/Target/Home Depot Combined" by Tim Petersen at Ad Age. "Amazon spent $157.7 million on Google U.S. search ads in 2013, by far the most by any company...there's good reason to have expected more stores to make the ranking, considering that search is the dominant digital-ad format for direct-response advertisers like retail brands." See the rankings / Read more   "Savings Catcher returns more than $2 million to Walmart shoppers" by Kim Souza at The City Wire. "Since inception we have helped our customers capture more than $2 million by using Savings Catcher. Immediately [...]

  "Wal-Mart's Chief Spokesman Said to Resign Over Resume Falsehood" by Renee Dudley at Bloomberg. "David Tovar, who announced last week that he was leaving the job as vice president of communications, has previously said he earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Delaware in 1996...Tovar gained attention this year by criticizing the New York Times on Wal-Mart’s blog. He posted a copy of a “wildly inaccurate” Times editorial by Timothy Egan and marked up the text with red editor’s notes." Read more   "Eddie Lampert giving Sears a $400 million loan" by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz at Chicago Tribune. "The loan comes [...]