Target's new 10-4 policy at USA Today. "The new policy requires employees who are within 10 feet of customers to smile, make eye contact, wave, and use friendly, approachable, and welcoming body language..." Read more   The Credit-Card Rule That Powers Rewards Cards Just Got Broken at WSJ. "Under terms being discussed, Visa and Mastercard would lower credit-card interchange fees, which are often between 2% and 2.5%, by an average of around 0.1 percentage point over several years, the people said. They would also loosen rules that require merchants that accept one of a network’s credit cards to accept [...]

  Target’s sloppy stores are wearing on shoppers, and its turnaround could hinge on cleaning them up at CNBC. "The company is now rolling out a new approach that designates only some of its stores as locations where employees pick and pack orders in cardboard boxes to ship to customers’ homes. Other stores have stopped fulfilling those orders entirely. The company has expanded that plan to 36 markets as of the end of October, more than half of its 60 markets, after a successful pilot in the Chicago area, said Gretchen McCarthy, chief supply chain and logistics officer. It plans to [...]

  Instacart Debuts White-Label AI Shopping Chatbot in Enterprise Push at Bloomberg. "The company said Tuesday that its AI shopping assistant will be offered as part of its white-label e-commerce service, which powers the online shopping sites for some grocery chains like Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. and Publix Super Markets Inc. The chatbot will be tested on Sprouts’ website and app over the coming months, Instacart said in a statement on Tuesday. It will also be available on Kroger Co.’s iPhone app, it said." Bloomberg subs.   Sex Dolls, Boycotts, Protests: Furor in France as Shein Opens Paris Store at [...]

  Target: Early Black Friday & Alpine Villages "...each of Target's...stores will transform into nostalgic Alpine Villages filled with festive décor...(and) will have weekend events in each store throughout the season...Target's three-day Early Black Friday Sale is back Nov. 6-8." Press release   Advance Auto Parts Q3 comp sales +3.0% Press release   How a lapse in SNAP benefits could affect consumers and retailers at CNBC. "On average, a SNAP beneficiary spends $832 per month on groceries, 20% more than a non-SNAP shopper...Hanus estimates a high-single digit percent of Walmart’s sales are related to SNAP, while Dollar General and Dollar [...]

  Amazon laying off about 14,000 corporate workers as it invests more in AI at CNBC. "This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones),” Beth Galetti, SVP of people experience and technology at Amazon, wrote. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and businesses.” Read more   Wayfair Q3 total net revenue +8.1% Press release   PayPal [...]

  Tractor Supply Q3 comp store sales +3.9%  "Net Sales Increased 7.2%...Comparable Average Transaction Growth of 2.7%...Gross profit increased 7.7%" Press release   As many retailers shrink their footprints, Dick’s Sporting Goods goes big at CNBC. "The retailer is building more sprawling “House of Sport” stores, which typically come in at 120,000 to 150,000 square feet, more than double the 50,000 for its traditional locations...“We needed to build the concept that will kill Dick’s Sporting Goods,” Edward Stack...told CNBC in an exclusive interview..." Read more/9:19 video   Time: The Best Inventions of 2025 Full list   Amazon introduces ‘Blue Jay’ [...]

  Inside Amazon’s Plans to Replace Workers With Robots at NY Times. "...interviews and a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives believe the company is on the cusp of its next big workplace shift: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots." NY Times subs.   ChatGPT Should Make Retailers Nervous at WSJ. "...easy comparisons and direct checkout could hurt retailers’ customer loyalty and take away add-on sale opportunities. It could also dent retailers’ important ad revenue. Of the roughly $59 billion that companies are expected to spend on U.S. [...]

  Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner says American manufacturing comeback is real at CNBC. "Furner was uncertain about the future (of tariffs). “As policies change, they’ll change. Environments will change. That happens. Commodities change,” he said. “We’ve landed in a place where we have more rollbacks going into the fall than we had at the beginning of the year, and that’s something we’re proud of.” Read more   Inside the Empire (Dick's) That Sports Parents Built at Bloomberg. "I’m a little embarrassed by this, but I love Dick’s,” one fellow soccer dad tells me. “When we walk in, I say ‘I [...]