First grocery store reopens, draws hundreds in Wilmington, N.C. by Josh Shaffer at The Virginian-Pilot. “A crowd bordering on a mob formed in Wilmington Saturday as the first grocery store opened in four days, drawing 500 storm-soaked residents to push through the doors…As doors opened at 10 a.m., Harris Teeter employees loudly warned shoppers elbowing each other at the door to be civil, and that Wilmington police had nothing better to do than haul unruly people out of the store.” Pic/Read more

 

Amazon Investigates Employees Leaking Data for Bribes at Wall Street Journal. “In exchange for payments ranging from about $80 to more than $2,000, brokers for Amazon employees in Shenzhen are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers’ email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts, the people said.” Subscription

 

Walmart Finally Makes It to the Big Apple by Michael Corkery at NY Times. “Walmart may think they have found a new, under-the-radar path into New York City by buying up businesses already here, but we should not be fooled,” Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We intend to be watching very carefully.” Tiered subs.

 

First Amazon Go store outside of Seattle opens this morning in Chicago by Nat Levy at GeekWire. “The 2,000-square-foot Chicago store, at 113 S. Franklin St., is the fourth Amazon Go location overall, with the other three in Seattle.” Read more

 

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Out of Stock This Holiday Season: Store Workers by Suzanne Kapner & Inti Pacheco at Wall Street Journal. “There’s going to be a war for retail talent,” said Andrew Challenger, vice president of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. “We might be getting to a point where there is a limit to how much companies can grow because it’s hard to get labor.” Subscription

 

Google lets retailers feature videos in Showcase Shopping ads by James Melton at Internet Retailer. “The Showcase Shopping ads integrate YouTube videos into retail paid search ads for the first time and allow advertisers to create ads attached to pictures in the content of certain Google publishing partners. Google plans to roll out the new video ads with 500 advertisers this month in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany.” Read more

 

Amazon launches Storefronts to give 20K small businesses a bigger spotlight by Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch. “Storefronts will highlight different merchants in the mix with videos that profile the owners, and highlight a selection of items that they sell via Amazon. It will also feature the small businesses in a marketing campaign.” Read more

 

Walmart’s Flipkart unit is in talks to buy a stake in Star India’s video streaming service Hotstar at Reuters. Read more

 

Strawberry sabotage scare spreads to all six Australian states at The Guardian. “Coles and Aldi had pulled all strawberries from their shelves across Australia except in Western Australia, and on Monday police in that state said a suspected case had been identified there…A 62-year-old woman was caught putting a needle into a banana in Mackay, central Queensland, in what is believed to have been a copycat act.” Read more

 

Coca-Cola Is Eyeing the Cannabis Market at Bloomberg. “…is in talks with Canadian marijuana producer Aurora Cannabis Inc. to develop the beverages, according to a report from BNN Bloomberg Television.” Tiered subs.

 

Former Allen Edmonds CEO launches online upscale clothier CircleRock by Jackie Crosby at Star Tribune. “Where a custom suit might take three or four months, CircleRock pledges to deliver the same quality within weeks — and at a much lower price point because it ships directly from the manufacturer.” Tiered subs.

 

Former eBay COO and Yahoo chairman Maynard Webb shares advice for founders by Taylor Soper at GeekWire. Read more

 

Retailer slammed for selling sweatshirt with ‘Being Fat Is Not Beautiful’ on it by Kaitlyn Frey at People via AJC. “The cropped sweatshirt, which is shown being worn by a sample size model, read, “BEING FAT IS NOT BEAUTIFUL IT’S AN EXCUSE.” Pic/Read more

 

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