Gunman kills one employee at Walmart distribution center before police fatally shoot him at CNN. "The shooter drove through and around the parking lot four times before crashing his vehicle into the lobby area of the building, the Sheriff's Office said. When he hit the building and the car caught on fire, he then exited the vehicle and began shooting randomly into the building and through the parking lot area." Read more   US pending home sales bounce back 44.3% in May at AP. Read more   Albertsons CEO says grocery operator’s IPO is ‘a great accomplishment’ amid coronavirus [...]

  U.S. consumer spending rebounds; income plunges at Reuters. "consumer spending...jumped 8.2% last month...Economists polled by Reuters had forecast consumer spending rising 9.0%...personal income dropped 4.2%, the most since January 2013, after surging by a record 10.8% in April..." Read more   Microsoft to permanently close all of its retail stores at The Verge. "Microsoft locations in NYC, London, Sydney, and Redmond will be turned into experience centers." Read more   Texas rolls back its reopening at CNBC. "All bars and similar establishments that receive more than 51% of their gross receipts from the sale of alcoholic beverages are required [...]

  Amazon forms ‘Counterfeit Crimes Unit,’ under pressure to escalate fight against fake products at GeekWire. "The new unit, announced Wednesday morning, brings together former federal prosecutors with investigators and data analysts. The group will allow Amazon to “more effectively pursue civil litigation against bad actors, work with brands in joint or independent investigations..." Read more   Flipkart adds support for three more local Indian languages at TechCrunch. "The Walmart-owned firm said its online marketplace now has interfaces in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada, three languages that are spoken by roughly 200 million people in India." Read more   Instagram expands [...]

  Square, Jack Dorsey’s Pay Service, Is Withholding Money Merchants Say They Need at NY Times. "Thousands of small enterprises that use Square to process their credit card transactions...have complained that the company recently began holding back 20 to 30 percent of the money they collected from customers. The withholdings came with little warning, they said, and Square asserted the right to hang on to the money for the next four months. Square told them that it was doing this to protect against risky transactions or customers who demanded their money back." Tiered subs.   Amazon pledges $2 billion venture capital [...]

  Patagonia joins growing list of companies boycotting Facebook ads at CNBC. "Patagonia has joined companies like REI and The North Face, saying it plans to pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram to show support for a movement called ”#StopHateForProfit.” Read more   Coronavirus Changed Everything. Except T.J. Maxx. at Wall Street Journal. "For a lot of companies, e-commerce is a blessing and a curse,” said Janine Stichter, Jefferies Financial Group analyst...“My advice is if you don’t need a big online presence, don’t do it. TJX is one of the few companies that doesn’t need it.” WSJ subs.   Seattle [...]

  Amazon adjusts delivery routes in Seattle protest area as some customers can’t get orders delivered at GeekWire. "Reddit user nerevisigoth said “I know I wouldn’t want to drive an Amazon-branded van into a ‘cop-free’ area inhabited by volatile people who really hate Amazon.” Read more   At Home Group Q1 comp sales -46.5% Press release   Marathon Petroleum in Talks With Potential Buyers of Speedway Gas-Station Unit at Wall Street Journal. "Possible buyers include Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, people familiar with the matter said. It couldn’t be determined how much the business might fetch, but Marathon indicated last fall that [...]

  Kroger Q1 comp sales (no fuel) +19%; Digital sales +92% Press release   Amazon Uses ‘Hardball’ Non-Competes in Ways California Rivals Can’t at Bloomberg. "Amazon’s industry peers rarely seek to enforce non-compete clauses...The dearth of cases is partly the result of state law in California, home to the headquarters of Alphabet, Apple and Facebook...Washington state, home to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, has no such prohibition..." Read more   JD.com stock closes 3.5% higher in Hong Kong trading debut at AP. "JD.com’s Hong Kong debut coincided with its annual “618” sale, or June 18 online shopping extravaganza. The shopping festival, which [...]

  Walmart surpasses eBay in U.S. e-commerce for the first time at MarketWatch. "Amazon tops the list with 38.0% of all U.S. e-commerce sales share, followed by Walmart with 5.8% and eBay with 4.5%. Apple 3.5% and Home Depot 1.9% round out the top five." Read more   Carrefour and Google launch voice grocery shopping service in France at Reuters/NY Post. "The new service will allow users who associate their Google account with their Carrefour account to add items to a shopping list by saying generic words such as butter or milk, or names of products or brands." Read more [...]