"Rona closing 11 stores in Canada,  50 more on 'watch list' " by Paul Delean at Montreal Gazette.  "The Canadian hardware and home-improvement chain announced the closing of another 11 money-losing stores in Ontario and British Columbia by the end of this year. The stores — seven of them big-box — represented about $130 million in annual sales.  Fifty other stores among the 800 in the Rona network are on a watch list, as they "need some work" to generate "adequate returns," chief financial officer Dominique Boies said.  Read more: https://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Rona+closing+stores+Ontario/8586338/story.html#ixzz2XVbqeTXl   "Kroger closes in on $100B sales" by [...]

  "Nations First Lowe's Express Opens (in NJ)" by Michael Diamond at Asbury Park Press.  "Lowe’s Cos. Inc. Thursday will officially unveil a retail store half the size of its traditional store in a move experts said reflects consumers who increasingly believe that less may not be more, but it is enough.  The Lowe’s Express, opening in a former Pathmark supermarket, will be 50,000 square feet...The express concept is the first nationwide for Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe’s."  Read more & see the video:  https://www.app.com/article/20130626/NJBIZ/306260116/Smaller-Lowe-s-Express-in-Wall-is-first-in-the-nation?nclick_check=1   "Wal-Mart, Home Depot end relationships with Paula Deen" by Vldya Rao at NBC News.  ""We are [...]

  "Tesco could soon offer 3D printing so customers can print their own products" at Daily Mail.  "Paul Wilkinson, who is heading on a fact-finding mission to San Francisco with a team from Tesco, added in The Grocer magazine: 'We already print photos and posters in many of our larger stores, so why not other gifts and personalised items?  'How about letting kids design their own toys and then actually being able to get them made? What if we had a digital catalogue of spare parts for items that you’d bought?"  Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2348278/Tesco-soon-offer-3D-printing-customers-print-toys-spare-parts-clothes.html#ixzz2XHqR2OEu   "Home Depot to Sell 'Magical' [...]

  "Interview with Walmart CMO Stephen Quinn:  Walmart Gets a Boost From Local Price-Comparison Ads" by Jack Neff at Ad Age.  "Ad Age: How do you do all those price comparisons and bulletproof them legally?...Stephen Quinn: We have a protocol around how each of these is done. It's somebody's real list. We don't tell them what to buy. We take those groceries from the competitor and scan them across our scanner so there's no doubt about ... if it's the same item."  Read the interview:  https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/walmart-a-boost-local-price-comparison-ads/242755/   "Higher fees and coupons to boost Sam's Club profits" by Kim Souza at [...]

  "Role reversal: Online retailers seek physical stores" by Thomas Lee at Star-Tribune via Charlotte Observer.  "“I feel that everything we’ve done with this company was backward,” joked Simone Xavier, who launched Sigma with her husband, Rene Xavier Filho. “But we wanted to put a face on the brand, and we wanted people to touch and feel the product.”  Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/22/4121627/role-reversal-online-retailers.html#storylink=cpy   "Microsoft Explored Plans to Build Amazon Rival" by Bensinger and Ovide at WSJ.  "The software giant held discussions with retailers and technology companies about a marketplace, proposing to equip it with an array of merchants, as [...]

  "Kroger raises outlook on stronger 1Q profit" at USA Today.  "The Cincinnati-based company, which also owns Ralphs, Fry's and Food 4 Less, said sales at stores open at least a year rose 3.3% during the period, excluding fuel."  Read more:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/20/kroger-raises-outlook/2441337/   "Kroger execs talk double coupon impact on earnings call" by Steve Watkins at Cincy Business Courier.  "“We invested the monies that were saved from double coupons into lower everyday pricing,” President and COO Rodney McMullen said on the call. “So if you look in total, it actually had no effect on gross margin. What we found was [...]

  "Home Depot's Fetish For Amazon Is Coming At The Expense Of Shareholder Return" at Seeking Alpha.  "Home Depot's management has begun to view the world as full of constraints, not opportunities, by spending too much time looking over its shoulder at Amazon.  Instead, and given Home Depot's ability to execute, it should be aggressively opening new stores to the benefit of shareholders and customers alike. Put another way, management's current focus on integrating online sales into the channel mix to fend off Amazon is not an excuse for neglecting the brick-and-mortar portfolio."  Read more:  https://seekingalpha.com/article/1510442-home-depot-s-fetish-for-amazon-is-coming-at-the-expense-of-shareholder-return?source=google_news   "Kroger Releases Q1 [...]

  "Wal-Mart Faces Steep Climb to Dominate Online Retailing" by Shelly Banjo at WSJ.  "Until recently, a warehouse in Carrollton, Ga., west of Atlanta, was Wal-Mart's only company-owned U.S. distribution center dedicated to online orders.  By contrast, Amazon has spent 15 years building its e-commerce network, with more than 40 U.S. warehouses within 35 miles of major cities.  Figuring out how to get Web orders to online shoppers "has become a critical battleground," said Eric Best, chief executive of e-commerce technology firm Mercent Corp. "As Amazon's bets on infrastructure pay off, it can sell products at lower costs and puts [...]