Neiman Marcus Brings Its Insane Holiday Fantasy Gifts to a Mall For First Time by Phil Wahba at Fortune. "The retailer has just staged an exhibit at the upscale Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, Long Island as part of its efforts to drum up interest among the wealthy shoppers in the New York City suburbs ahead of a new store opening on February 19." Read more   Target's 'future of food' collaboration lands Kendall Square office by Sara Castellanos at Boston Business Journal. "Target's recently announced collaboration with the MIT Media Lab and global design and consulting firm [...]

  Costco November Comp Sales Flat, +6% Excluding Gas and Foreign Exchange "Costco...reported net sales of $9.68 billion for the month of November...an increase of three percent from $9.43 billion during the similar period last year." Read more   Dollar General Q3 Comp Sales +2.3% "We achieved 7.3 percent sales growth, 2.3 percent same-store sales growth and adjusted diluted earnings per share growth of 11 percent," said Todd Vasos, Dollar General's chief executive officer." Read the release   Reuters: Dollar General's quarterly sales miss estimates "The company's same-store sales rose 2.3 percent, also below the 2.7 percent growth expected by analysts [...]

  Target Goes Big on Discounts This Holiday Season, Bringing Some Headaches by Shannon Pettypiece at Bloomberg. "Its toy prices were 1.3 percent below those of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. during Black Friday and 5.2 percent cheaper than Amazon.com Inc., according to an online survey by Bloomberg Intelligence. Target also undercut Toys “R” Us Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart chain, the survey found." Read more   Amazon Received 12 times as Many Twitter Mentions as Walmart on Cyber Monday by Phil Wahba at Fortune. "...509,000 to 51,100. Target, though a much smaller digital retailer than Walmart, got 112,000 mentions. Though [...]

  Target: We didn't 'crash' on Cyber Monday by Daphne Howland at Retail Dive. "Target was insistent Monday that its site hadn’t crashed, but rather that the retailer had resorted to a tactical metering of traffic that allowed customers to “stay in line” to complete their shopping expedition." Read more   Walmart: Nearly half of our orders since Thanksgiving have been placed on a mobile device "...that’s double compared to last year... Mobile is making up more than 70 percent of traffic to Walmart.com." Read the release   Target Canada creditors unsatisfied with recovery plan’s details by Marina Strauss at [...]

  More Americans Shopped Online than at Stores over Black Friday Weekend by Phil Wahba at Fortune. "Talk about a seminal moment in American culture. Some 103 million Americans shopped online over the Thanksgiving-Black Friday weekend, slightly more than the 102 million who went out to stores." Read more   NRF: U.S. holiday sales on track amid online boost by Nathan Layne at Reuters. "U.S. holiday shopping is on track for a modest 3.7 percent rise this year after strong turnout during the Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend and thanks to strong online sales, the National Retail Federation said on Sunday [...]

  U.S. Probes Possible Wal-Mart Misconduct in Brazil by Aruna Viswanatha & Sarah Nassauer at WSJ. "Federal prosecutors are examining $500,000 in payments that they believe ultimately went to an individual hired to obtain government permits the company needed to build two stores in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, between 2009 and 2012, an investigative document shows." Read more (subscription)   ...Walmart spokesman Greg Hitt told the Journal that the retailer is cooperating fully with the government but declined to divulge any details via International Business Times. Read more   Apple's Failed Retail Revolution: Beacons Still Won't Be Big on Black Friday [...]

  U.S. retailers hunt for attacks after being warned of stealthy malware by Jim Finkle at Reuters via Globe & Mail. "This is by far the most sophisticated point-of-sale malware seen to date,” said Maria Noboa, lead technical analyst for privately held iSight Partners, which uncovered the malware and was due to release a technical report about it on Tuesday." Read more   The 20 Best Workplaces in Retail by Jonathan Chew at Fortune. "Here’s Fortune’s second annual list of the best workplaces in the retail industry..." See the top 20 list   Report: Clues point to secret Amazon.com air [...]

  Petco Nears $4.7 Billion Sale to CVC and Canadian Pension Plan by Leslie Picker at NY Times. "The deal is likely to be announced on Monday, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were still private." Read more   Walmart is About to Turn Cyber Monday into Cyber Sunday by Phil Wahba at Fortune. "Walmart said on Monday it would offer its Cyber Monday deals beginning on Sunday for the first time ever, looking to get a head start on an online shopping day expected to generate $3 billion across the retail industry. [...]