Rally held opposing Target Express in South Park at ABC 10 San Diego. "About 100 people rallied in South Park on Sunday to oppose a planned Target Express store in the neighborhood..."It's going to take shopping away from the locally-owned businesses, from the people who have lived here for a long period of time that do run those locally-owned businesses that need that income," said Christina Maida, who opposes the store." See the video / Read more   Lowe's opens its global innovation center in Bengaluru, India by Anshul Dhamija at The Times of India. "It will employ approximately 500 [...]

  Fortune: Humbled Amazon turns to rival Alibaba for help in China by Scott Cendrowski at Fortune. "Yesterday, Chinese reporters discovered that Amazon had opened a store on rival Alibaba Group Holdings’ Tmall platform..Amazon didn’t publicize the news of its store on Alibaba’s site, maybe because it doesn’t make Amazon look very strong in the world’s largest e-commerce market." Read more   Kroger Q4 Total Sales +8.5%  Read the release   Costco working to end use of human antibiotics in chicken by Nathan Layne at Reuters. "We are working towards, and working with our suppliers and the regulatory agencies... to see how we can [...]

  Costco Q2 Comp +2% / Excluding Gas Price & Foreign Exchange +8%  "Net sales for the quarter increased four percent, to $26.87 billion, from $25.76 billion last year. Net sales for the first half increased six percent, to $53.16 billion, from $50.22 billion last year." Read the release   CNBC: Costco's quarterly profit tops estimates on tax benefit  See the video / Read more   Jim Cramer: Target cuts are the right moves at CNBC "There's 13,000 employees at [Target's] headquarters, which is 12,975 more than what Warren Buffett has at his headquarters," Cramer said, adding that Cornell is leaning [...]

  Target to cut Minnesota jobs while expanding in N.Y., California by Tom Webb at Twin Cities/Pioneer Press. "What will give Minnesota economic officials heartburn is seeing the chief strategy officer, Casey Carl, boast that corporate Target is "branching out to other places" to secure talent - then showing a slide that listed Target's growing lineup of offices in California, New York and India, on the same day it said it would cut thousands of jobs from its hometown." Read more   ...Star Tribune's Kavita Kumar and Colleagues Tweet During Target Investor Conference  Read the Tweets   ..."We did not [...]

  Dick's Sporting Goods Q4 Comp Sales +3.4% "Same store sales for DICK'S Sporting Goods increased 3.8%, while Golf Galaxy decreased 7.1%."  Read the release   Best Buy Q4 Comp Sales +2%  Read the release   Forbes: 2015 The World's Billionaires (Walton's #8, 9, 11, 12; Bezos #15; John Menard, Jr. #142)  See the top 500 list   WSJ: Target Revamps Groceries for Millennials by Paul Ziobro. "Target has zeroed in on seven grocery categories—from granola and yogurt to candy and snacks—where it thinks it has the best chance of standing out to urban dwellers, younger families and Hispanics, two [...]

  Target's Brian Cornell Sits Down with Star-Tribune by Kavita Kumar. "We like light bulbs,” said Cornell, who celebrated his 56th birthday last week. “But we’re not going to be famous for selling light bulbs.”...Cornell met with the leaders of Warby Parker in New York, where he learned about how they vet ideas and quickly bring them to life. It was the first time a CEO of a big-box retailer had come to see the company’s offices...In November, Cornell met three generations of the Dayton family at a cocktail reception for Cornell and his wife, Martha, at the home of [...]