Target saw strength in April ‘across our entire portfolio,’ CEO Brian Cornell says at CNBC. “While business was “normal” in February, sales growth accelerated by 16.5% in April, Cornell explained. Electronic sales were up 45%, food and beverage climbed 20%, household essentials also rose 20% and kitchen sales improved by 25% in the month of April, he said.” Read more/Video

 

Alibaba revenue, profit beat as online sales surge during lockdown at Reuters. “Sales from the company’s core commerce business rose nearly 19% to 93.87 billion yuan ($13.16 billion) in the fourth quarter and revenue at its cloud computing business surged about 58%.” Read more

 

Foot Locker reports Q1 loss of $98 million at Fox Business. “Sales fell 43.4% to $1.12 billion.” Read more

 

Canadian retail sales plunge record 10% in March, led by car sales at Reuters. “Sales excluding autos declined only 0.4% in March, which was better than the expected 5.0% drop analysts had predicted.” Read more

 

Store Brands Eye a Bigger Share of the Dinner Plate at Wall Street Journal. “American consumers have traditionally shown more loyalty to big food brands than their British counterparts, but there are signs of change. During the first quarter of the year, sales of store brands in U.S. retail outlets increased by 14.6% compared with the same period last year…” WSJ subs.

 

Ross Stores Q1 total sales down 53% Press release

 

Inside Amazon’s new 8-floor family homeless shelter attached to its Seattle HQ at GeekWire. “The Mary’s Place Family Center in The Regrade is an 8-floor, 63,000-square-foot facility with the capacity to serve 200 people per night and more than 1,000 family members per year.” Pics/Read more

 

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Does Walmart’s Express Delivery Deliver on Its 2-Hour Claim? at Field Agent. “15 of 18 deliveries took no longer than one hour to make the trip from store shelves to customers’ doorsteps. In fact, seven orders made it home in less than 45 minutes.” Read more/Video

 

Walgreens president leaves to head company behind South Beach Diet Press release

 

Why Best Buy’s CEO thinks the appointment-only shopping strategy was the best approach at CNBC. “Best Buy said it retained 81% of last year’s sales for the last six weeks of the quarter — but the decision (to close stores) potentially left sales on the table as other essential retailers saw customers continue to flock to stores. Barry defended the decision to close stores Thursday. “I absolutely believe the decision we made is the right one,” she said.” Read more

 

Eighth Amazon warehouse worker dies of coronavirus at The Hill. Read more

 

Schnucks’ New Natural Format to Fill Lucky’s Void at Progressive Grocer. “EatWell, A Natural Food Store by Schnucks, will debut in early summer 2020. The first location is in a former Lucky’s Market store in Columbia, Missouri, which Schnucks acquired in an auction earlier this year.” Read more

 

Bentonville ranked 5th fastest-growing U.S. city at Talk Business. Read more

 

Pandemic highlights big box stores’ ability to pivot at AP. “Late last year, Best Buy began testing curbside pickup at select stores as a way to respond to customer needs. But that was then. The pandemic accelerated the company’s plans and what was supposed to take months instead took just 48 hours…” Read more

 

Jeff Bezos joins $76M round for secretive biotech startup led by Isilon co-founder, Stanford scientist at GeekWire. Read more

 

Video captures wild paint fight at Home Depot store at NY Post. “Crazy video captured four men outside a Home Depot in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday, nailing each other with blows and throwing open paint cans at each other…A large man in a blue T-shirt and paint-covered jeans is seen flinging a can at another man near a red pickup truck, as an accomplice in a white shirt swings a garden hoe.” Video/Read more

 

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