“Jay Z and Mariah Carey, Coming to a Walgreens Near You” by Zack O’Malley Greenburg.  “The partnership stems from a meeting (former Def Jam chief Kevin) Liles had with executives from Walgreens. They were talking about foot traffic and demographics…Liles asked for a list of the company’s best-selling product categories, and discovered that the beverage segment was among the top. That’s when the inspiration struck, he says, to partner with major artists and create something capable of becoming a significant player in that niche.”  Read more

 

“Eight Largest Cities Without Walmart” at MarketWatch.  “There are no Walmart stores in five of the country’s largest 25 cities – New York City, San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle or Boston. That is a total of 11.23 million consumers that Walmart cannot reach. Adding in Newark and Jersey City, N.J., and Arlington, Va., brings the total to nearly 12 million.”  Read more

 

“Inside Amazon’s Secretive R&D Lab” by Brad Stone at Businessweek.  “One group at Lab126 is working on a device that projects a computer image onto any surface. A second is developing a wireless speaker that responds to voice commands. Apparently there are many more. Lab 126 insiders whisper about a credit-card reading device similar to Square, which could help propel Amazon’s fledgling payments business, plus a remarkably thin upcoming version of the Kindle Paperwhite, code-named Ice Wine.”  Read more

 

“T-Mobile honcho scoffs at AT&T-only Amazon phone” by Kaja Whitehouse at NY Post.  “Let’s hope @amazon doesn’t fall victim to the @att curse that is the facebook phone,” T-Mobile’s colorful CEO John Legere tweeted on Tuesday.”  Read more

 

“Morningstar Likes Target” by Mike Cherney at WSJ.  “Morningstar said the data breach appeared to be doing little long-term damage to the Target brand, noting that its “well-recognized brand still drives traffic.”  “Some consumer surveys indicate that a majority of the customers who initially changed their shopping habits after the breach have shopped at Target at least once through the end of the first quarter,” Morningstar said.”  Read more

 

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“UPS to consider box size in ground-shipping prices” by David Koenig at AP via San Jose Mercury News.  “UPS says it will consider box size when setting prices for ground shipment of parcels within the U.S. and Canada. The move announced Tuesday follows a similar change last month by rival FedEx.”  Read more

 

“Meet the 2014 ‘CNBC Disruptor 50’ company list (Warby Parker #2, Etsy #3)”.  “In the second annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC features private companies in 27 industries—from aerospace to enterprise software to retail—whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking upstarts have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses.”  See the Top 50 List

 

“China’s #2 Online Retailer Wants to Take #1 Spot from Alibaba” by Paul Carsten at Reuters.  “JD.com has a logistics-focused e-commerce business. The company, whose delivery staff outnumber Alibaba’s 22,000 employees, promises same-day delivery in 43 of China’s biggest cities.  That sets it apart from Alibaba, which still depends on China’s often unreliable postal infrastructure to get goods to its customers’ doors as it accounts for about 80 percent of all e-commerce in China.”  Read more

 

“aisle411 Provides Indoor Mapping for Marsh Supermarkets”  “Shoppers can use the new Marsh App, built for Marsh by Taqtile Mobility, to find where products are located inside the 81 Marsh, O’Malia’s or Mainstreet Market Stores in Indiana and Ohio.”  Read the release

 

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