"Target Canada ♥ Boxing Day" by Thomas Lee at Star-Tribune.  "Target Corp.’s campaign to win over Canadian consumers continued Thursday with 6 a.m. store openings and early bird deals for one of the nation’s top shopping events of the year — Boxing Day...Boxing Day has actually lost some of its punch over the last two years. Canadian retailers are increasingly adopting Black Friday as the premiere shopping event of the season, mostly to win back shoppers who cross the U.S. border the day after Thanksgiving looking for holiday deals."  Read more   "Aldi's $3 Billion Expansion;  It Could Have [...]

  "Christmas Meltdown:  UPS Blindsided by Late Web Buying Surge" by Shelly Banjo at WSJ.  "UPS determined late Tuesday that it wouldn't deliver some goods in time for Christmas, as a spike in last-minute shopping overwhelmed its system. "The volume of air packages in the UPS system did exceed capacity as demand was much greater than our forecast," a UPS spokeswoman said.  Consumers were reporting missing deliveries from FedEx as well, although a FedEx spokesman said the company wasn't experiencing significant delays."  Read more   "UPS driver: 2013 'worst Christmas ever' for delivery" by Natalie DiBlasio at USA Today.  "Social [...]

  "Report:  Amazon #1 Most Trusted Retailer (Lowe's #2, Home Depot #3, Target #4...)" at Motley Fool. "Lowe's is most popular among Baby Boomers. The company's slogan of "Never Stop Improving" seems to be effective, but at the same time, that slogan doesn't appeal to most Millennials...Home Depot attracts more Millennials."  Read more   "NPD Group Claim:  Online Sales Will Account for 40% of Holiday Sales (Up from 26% in 2012)" by Jay Green at The Seattle Times.  "At the start of the holiday season, Cohen expected online shopping to account for 33 to 34 percent of total holiday sales, [...]

  "Breaking:  Walgreens Q1 Front-End Comp Sales Up 2.4%"  Q1 sales increased 5.9 percent from the prior-year quarter to a record $18.3 billion. Front-end comparable store sales increased 2.4 percent in the first quarter, customer traffic in comparable stores increased 0.2 percent and basket size increased 2.2 percent, while total sales in comparable stores increased 5.4 percent.  Prescription sales, which accounted for 64.7 percent of sales in the quarter, increased 7.3 percent, while prescription sales in comparable stores increased 7.2 percent."  Read the Full Q1 Release   "Walgreens Q1 Conference Call Today at 8:30 AM ET"  Listen to the Webcast   [...]

  Target Releases Statements on Data Breach; Says Issue Has Been "Identified and Resolved": "Target Confirms Unauthorized Access to Payment Card Data in U.S. Stores"  "Target is working closely with law enforcement and financial institutions, and has identified and resolved the issue...Approximately 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been impacted between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, 2013."  Read the Statement   "Target Releases "Dear Guest" Letter;  Says Hack Didn't Effect Target.com or Canada"  "We have determined that the information involved in this incident included customer name, credit or debit card number, and the card’s expiration date and [...]

  "Wall Street Guy Goes To Wal-Mart To Mock Protesting Workers" by Hayley Peterson at Business Insider.  "He asked Wal-Mart patrons whether they supported higher wages for the retailer's workers, and then demanded that they prove their allegiance by giving him 15% of whatever they spent at Wal-Mart that day. He claimed the money would go to Wal-Mart workers.  "Would you contribute 15% of the price of that TV for the Wal-Mart workers?"  The man declined.  "But they are counting on you to pay higher prices!" Schiff yelled.  The video was clearly edited, but in every case, the shoppers declined to [...]

  "Target No Fan of Beyonce:  Refuses to Sell New Album" at Variety. "Target will not sell Beyonce’s new album because she released it online first, the company announced Monday.  “At Target we focus on offering our guests a wide assortment of physical CDs, and when a new album is available digitally before it is available physically, it impacts demand and sales projections,” Target spokesperson Erica Julkowski told Billboard."  Read more   "Bloomberg Report:  Amazon #1 in Online Availability of 'Top 100 Toys' at 95%;  Walmart & Target Lag at 55% & 40% Respectively" by Matt Townsend at Bloomberg.  "Pricing: [...]

  "Target's Lean Inventory Problem:  Out-of-Stock on 60% of Top Toys; Where are the Green Beans?" by Thomas Lee at Star-Tribune.  "Out-of-stocks seem to be more frequent in groceries, with customers complaining that even SuperTargets frequently run out of basic items.  “I went to Target two days before Thanksgiving and they were completely out of fried green beans...” Twin Cities resident Alyssa Beck wrote in an e-mail. “I went to Cub and found displays of fried green beans in two different parts of the store.”...Target on average replaced its entire inventory just 6.4 times, according to the Kantar Retail consulting [...]