“Walmart Disappoints But Stays Course on Price Ads and Ecommerce” by Jack Neff at Ad Age.  “But executives pointed to things they said are producing positive results, including aggressive pricing, particularly on groceries, backed by local market-basket price-comparison ads on TV and radio that U.S. CEO Bill Simon said will now expand to 70% of Walmart’s markets, up from the current 60%…Its e-commerce sales rose more than 30% last quarter, ahead of rival Amazon’s 22% growth, which disappointed analysts.”  Read more:  https://adage.com/article/news/walmart-disappoints-stays-price-ads-ecommerce/241520/

 

“Walmart Canada customer traffic declined amid Target entry” by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post.  “Even Walmart Canada may not be not immune to what retail watchers are calling “the Target effect.” Same-store sales, operating income and foot traffic suffered at the country’s biggest mass merchant during Target’s first quarter in Canada, amid a period of dampened consumer spending and unusually cold weather.”  Read more:  https://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/16/walmart-earnings-2013/

 

“Wal-Mart Says Customers Remain ‘Stretched’ ” by Karen Talley at WSJ.  “While Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said the second quarter was off to a healthy start, he said employment remains customers’ primary concern and “our consumer is still stretched.”  U.S. same-store sales fell 1.4%. Wal-Mart in February forecast flat comparable-store sales. “When we provided flat comp guidance for the first quarter, we had expected, among other things, to recover a reasonable portion of tax refunds and had also assumed that customers would follow historical spending patterns with these funds,” said Wal-Mart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon. “This did not materialize.”  Read more:  https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324082604578486664288448182.html

 

“Walmart CEO Discusses Q1 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript” at Seeking Alpha.  Read it here:  https://seekingalpha.com/article/1439851-walmart-ceo-discusses-q1-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

 

“Target testing its own movie streaming service” by Steve Alexander at Star-Tribune.  “Target Corp. is testing a Netflix-like movie streaming service with its own employees.  Called Target Ticket beta (find it at www.targetticket.com/home/beta), the service claims to offer “instant access to 15,000 titles, new releases, classic movies and next-day TV.” The site requires a Target employee login to use.”  Read more:  https://www.startribune.com/business/207808061.html

 

“The Coming Rise of Sears Hometown and Outlets” by Michael Lewis at Motley Fool.  “At the recent Value Investing Congress in Las Vegas, Whitney Tilson came out in strong support of the company, which is now his fund’s 11th largest position. Tilson believes that Sears Hometown and Outlets is a vehicle for Sears Holdings CEO Eddie Lampert to transfer the high-performing assets of the latter into a tighter, less-bloated organization.  Store count could as much as double to 3,000 , leaving plenty of runway for growth and, more appealingly to value investors, royalties from franchised stores.”  Read more:  https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/05/15/the-coming-rise-of-sears-hometown-and-outlets.aspx

 

“Penney CEO says company needs time to climb out of ‘abyss’ ” at Reuters.  “J.C. Penney Co Inc Chief Executive Myron Ullman told Wall Street on Thursday that the department store chain is emerging from what he called an abyss but warned he needs time to fix the issues of the retailer.  Penney reported another steep quarterly loss on weak sales and heavy clearance deals.”  Read more:  https://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/17/us-jcpenney-results-idUSBRE94F15I20130517?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

 

“The $1 million mouse hunt” by Anne VanderMey at CNN Money.  “The Rice Business Plan Competition bills itself as the largest and richest of its kind in the world. It’s a three-day event during which 42 student teams (selected from some 1,600 applicants globally) face off for a pot of more than $1 million in cash and investment funding…The contest itself is surprisingly emotional, filled with unexpected plot twists for the competing teams. Judges can be scathing in their critiques, reducing contestants to tears.”  Read more:  https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/06/smallbusiness/mousehouse-rice-business-plan.pr.fortune/index.html

 

“Nordstrom shares slide after quarterly profit dips” by Amy Martinez at Seattle-Times.  ““Nordstrom did well. They just didn’t do great,” said analyst Richard Jaffe, of Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New York.  Nordstrom said its first-quarter profit declined 3 percent to $145 million from $149 million a year ago.”  Read more:  https://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021000838_nordstromearningsxml.html

 

Thanks for reading…have a great weekend.

 

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