GameStop shares jump after retailer taps Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen to lead e-commerce shift at CNBC. “Cohen is serving as chairman of a special committee formed by GameStop’s board to help its transformation. Board members Alan Attal, Chewy’s former top operations executive, and Kurt Wolf, chief investment officer of Hestia Capital Management, also serve on the committee.” Read more

 

Big Lots Q4 comp sales +7.9% Press release

 

Amazon-backed Deliveroo reveals it lost $309 million in 2020 ahead of IPO at CNBC. “A date for Deliveroo’s initial public offering has not been officially announced but it is likely to be in the next few weeks, and the company could be valued at up to $10 billion. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Cazenove have been appointed as the joint global coordinators.” Read more

 

Inside Jeff Bezos’s failed attempt to make Amazon “cool” like Apple and Nike “Ficklin worked for months under clandestine conditions he had never experienced before: inside a faraday cage, or an electrified room, with walls that blocked wireless signals. This level of security ensured no wireless signals could go in or out to leak information on the product. Eight perfectly clean human bodies, working on laptops that were required to stay in that room over the course of months, eventually permeated the space with an unavoidable biological odor. When his team visited Amazon’s Seattle offices, they were banned from taking Ubers, which could theoretically be tracked, or even from entering the building through the same entrance, lest an eagle-eyed reporter notice.” Fast Company subs.

 

PriceSmart February net merchandise sales +1.3% Press release

 

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How Amazon landed a key role in ‘Nomadland’ at GeekWire. “McDormand told THR that one downside of Amazon letting her in was that “some people got some packages that I packaged that were pretty bad.” “Nomadland” cinematographer Joshua James Richards told The Wrap that it was great to show Fern working in an actual Amazon FC, that the company was “totally accommodating” and that McDormand did real work.” Read more

 

Bezos Scores $218K Fees After ‘Overstaffed’ Legal Team’s Win Law 360 subs.

 

Walmart adds former AT&T chairman to board of directors at Talk Business. “Randall Stephenson, 60, retired in January 2021 as executive board chairman of AT&T after a 38-year career with the company…” Read more

 

H-E-B’s Stephen Butt shares the grocers new plans Dallas Morning News subs.

 

UK’s Tesco commits to healthy food sales target after shareholder pressure at Reuters. “…committed to increase its sales of healthy food to 65% of total sales by 2025 following pressure from some shareholders to set targets…would represent a jump from the current level of 58%…” Read more

 

Tipsheet Extra Stories

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