Carrefour weighs Best Buy executive to replace CEO at Reuters. “Carrefour SA shareholders could appoint a new chief executive this year and have identified Best Buy SA CEO Hubert Joly as one of their favorites for the post, Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported on Friday.” Read more

 

Rick Gomez will become Target’s new chief marketer by Kavita Kumar at Star Tribune. “Gomez — who previously worked at MillerCoors, Quaker Oats and PepsiCo — will become part of the senior executive leadership team that reports directly to Cornell.” Read more

 

Procter & Gamble’s 2Q Results Top Expectations at Fox Business. “Net sales of $16.85 billion came in ahead of Wall Street estimates of $16.77 billion…P&G said it expects organic sales to grow 2 to 3 percent, up from its previous forecast of about 2 percent.” Read more

 

Sarah Davis named Loblaw president amid Galen Weston executive shift by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post. “Davis was most recently chief administrative officer at Loblaw, with responsibility for supply chain and IT, including overseeing the final stages of the retailer’s arduous SAP point-of-sale software rollout.” Read more

 

Central Texas H-E-B store getting Whataburger drive-through by Gary Dinges at Austin American-Statesman. “This will be the first Central Texas H-E-B location to feature a Whataburger drive-through and the second in Texas. The first was in Lytle, southwest of San Antonio, a spokeswoman said.” Read more

 

Amazon job posting suggests plan to bring shopping experiences into VR by Lucas Matney at TechCrunch. “The job is with the company’s A9 division, which oversees product search and advertising technologies. The posting claims that the division is “building Amazon’s VR shopping experience for use by millions of customers on a wide variety of VR devices.” Read more

 

Whole Foods to Open a Lower-Priced ‘365’ Store in Brooklyn by Keiko Morris at Wall Street Journal. “The first 365 store in the tri-state area will sit at the base of 300 Ashland Place, a new 35-story tower next to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and not far from the Barclays Center, the company said.” Read more (subs.)

 

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Amazon just launched virtual ‘Dash’ buttons for one-click buying from the homepage by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “The new virtual Dash buttons started appearing on the Amazon.com homepage and the Amazon app home screen on Thursday night…An Amazon spokesperson said Prime members can create a virtual one-click button for tens of millions of products available for Prime delivery. “Add to your Dash buttons” is now an option on the product page of all eligible products.” Read more

 

Costco agrees to pay $12M to resolve federal painkiller investigation by Coral Garnick at Puget Sound Business Journal. “The Issaquah-based retailer acknowledged that certain Costco pharmacies improperly filled prescriptions for controlled substances and kept poor records between 2012 and 2015, according to the settlement announced Thursday.” Read more

 

Amazon is creating an apprenticeship program to train veterans for tech jobs by Megan Rose Dickey at TechCrunch. “Amazon and the U.S. Department of Labor have signed an agreement to create a registered apprenticeship program…Through ApprenticeshipUSA, people can earn a salary while learning the skills needed for the job.” Read more

 

Ads for Google products topped Google search results 91 percent of the time by Tess Townsend at Recode. “According to a data analysis in the Wall Street Journal, the search giant has been buying millions of its own ads and displaying its products such as Google Home and Nest thermostats atop search results, over those of ad-buying customers.” Read more | WSJ article (subs.)

 

ShopRite Supermarkets Names Brett Wing New President “Prior to joining SRS, Wing served as VP of FoodMaxx, a division of Save Mart Supermarkets in Northern California. He also spent 25 years with Cub Foods, a division of Supervalu.” Press release

 

Nordstrom spurs tangible shows of affection with personal love stories at Luxury Daily. “One video features jewelry designer Arpana Rayamajhi and her tattoo artist beau Bruno Levy. The pair talk about their stubborn tendencies, characterized by the frequency of their arguments decreasing from daily to every other day. At the end of the 30-second film, Nordstrom includes the tagline of the campaign, “Love is a gift. Give freely.” Read more

 

Target CIO Mike McNamara Talks Tech Transformation at A Bullseye View. “I’ve been attending the annual NRF show long enough to remember when there were as many vendors showing off the latest in shelves and fixtures on the expo floor as there were vendors selling technology…” Read more

 

Mall Closures Ripple Through Small Town America by Esther Fung & Kris Maher at Wall Street Journal. “It’s very, very sad,” said Jamie McCallister, a Macy’s jewelry associate who stood behind a glass case of gold and silver chains and earrings as a liquidator earlier this month walked through the store adding discounts to individual products. “I’m just heartbroken.” Read more (subs.)

 

How Kraft Heinz Plans to Build a New Global Food Giant by Geoff Colvin at Fortune. “In Madison, they still struggle to accept that it’s really happening. On a not-yet-specified day before the end of March, a Kraft Heinz employee will turn off the lights in the sprawling Oscar Mayer plant, and for the first time in 98 years, no one will be coming back to work…” Read more

 

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