Cabela's Enters into Revised Transaction Agreements in Connection with Bass Pro Shops Merger Press release   ...Cabela's stockholders face hit of $4 per share in revised Bass Pro sale plan by Paige Yowell & Cole Epley at Omaha World-Herald. "...shareholders may be relieved that the sale is moving ahead. “It’s better than having the deal fall apart,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business." Read more   Floor & Decor launches IPO to raise $133 million by David Allison at Atlanta Business Chronicle. "Founded in 2000 and led by Home Depot veteran [...]

  Toys R Us Q4 Consolidated Comp Sales -3.0% "Domestic decreased by 2.3% primarily due to declines in the entertainment and baby categories, partially offset by improvements in the learning, seasonal and core toy categories. International was down 4.2%, with notable weakness in Europe." Press release   Pier 1 Q4 Comp Sales +0.2% "Net sales decreased 2.6% as the average number of stores declined approximately 3%. E-com sales increased 28% as compared to the same period a year ago." Press release | Earnings call transcript   Canada grocers making headway in the fight for food market share against Walmart, Costco by [...]

  Wal-Mart to Discount One Million Online Items Picked Up in Stores by Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg. "Wal-Mart will first cut prices on about 10,000 web-only items such as Britax car seats and Lego toys, according to a statement. The Pickup Discount program, which starts on April 19, will expand to more than a million so-called “long tail” items by the end of June, the company said." Read more   Amazon Said to Mull Whole Foods Bid Before Jana Stepped In by Spencer Soper & Craig Giammona at Bloomberg. "The e-commerce giant considered internally whether Whole Foods would help invigorate [...]

  Activist Investor May Pressure Whole Foods to Sell Itself by Phil Wahba at Fortune. "Jana has lined up a slate of potential board nominees with the deadline to launch a proxy fight still four months away, giving the investor ample time to pressure Whole Foods to make the changes it is advocating." Read more   Kohl's hires Best Buy executive as chief marketing officer by Melanie Lawder at Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal. "Prior to his role at Best Buy, (Greg) Revelle served as chief marketing officer at AutoNation, and was also previously vice president of worldwide online marketing at Expedia [...]

  Amazon’s Third-Party Sellers Hit By Hackers by Laura Stevens & Robert McMillan at Wall Street Journal. "In recent weeks, attackers have changed the bank-deposit information on Amazon accounts of active sellers to steal tens of thousands of dollars from each, according to several sellers and advisers. Attackers also have hacked into the Amazon accounts of sellers who haven’t used them recently to post nonexistent merchandise for sale at steep discounts in an attempt to pocket the cash, those people say." Read more (subs.)   Microsoft, eBay and Tencent invest $1.4 billion in India’s e-commerce giant Flipkart by Garen Gilchrist [...]

  Wal-Mart de Mexico sales growth sputters in Q1 by Anthony Harrup at MarketWatch/Wall Street Journal. "...sales in the January-March period...up 7.3%...slowest growth since the fourth quarter of 2014, and below the 12% growth for all of 2016. Same-store sales in the first quarter, which exclude stores opened in the past year, rose 4.1% in Mexico and 2.1% in Central America." Read more | WSJ article (subs.)   American Apparel making goods outside US for first time by Lisa Fickenscher at NY Post. "The company, which prided itself on being the largest domestic apparel maker, is now producing shirts in [...]

  How Target Botched Its Response to the North Carolina Bathroom Law by Khadeeja Safdar at Wall Street Journal. "Mr. Cornell, 58 years old, expressed frustration about how the bathroom policy was publicized, and told colleagues he wouldn’t have approved the decision to flaunt it, these people said. Target didn’t adequately assess the risk, and the ensuing backlash was self-inflicted, he told staff. Now, it was too late to reverse course. “You can’t take it back,” said one of these people, adding that Mr. Cornell “felt very stuck.” Read more (subs.)   Costco March Comp Sales +6% "Costco reported net [...]

  Walgreens Q2 Comps: Pharmacy sales +4.2%, Retail sales -0.8% Press release   Walgreens still expects to finish Rite Aid acquisition by Nathan Bomey at USA Today. "Walgreens Boots Alliance maintained its previously stated expectation that it would receive the U.S. government's authorization to complete the Rite Aid deal by the end of July." Read more   Amazon stealing Google’s ad thunder by Claire Atkinson at NY Post. "Amazon’s ad business will generate $3.5 billion this year, and will grow 63 percent, to $5.7 billion, next year, Salmon predicted. By comparison, the entire TV industry books around $70 billion per [...]