Wal-Mart Nears Web Deal with Lord & Taylor by Suzanne Kapner & Sarah Nassauer at Wall Street Journal. "The world’s biggest retailer is near a deal with Lord & Taylor that would give the department store dedicated space on walmart.com, according to a person familiar with the matter. Such an agreement would be the first step in creating an online mall that shoppers could access from Walmart’s website, this person said." Read more (subs.)   Walmart Labs now employees around 6,000 people around the globe by Kim Souza at Talk Business. "(CTO Jeremy) King was the afternoon keynote speaker [...]

  Walmart says it will acquire more startups by Katie Roof at TechCrunch. "Lore claims that it already has the infrastructure to do overnight delivery for 87 percent of the country and is working on spreading out inventory to these warehouse locations. Expect Walmart to “crush it over the next two years,” said Lore. He says he “wouldn’t trade our position with anyone right now.” Read more   ...Wal-Mart Sees ‘Second-Mover Advantage’ in E-Commerce by Laura Stevens at Wall Street Journal. "E-commerce is a scale game,” Mr. Lore said in an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ D.Live technology [...]

  Amazon is now the biggest corporate lobbyist in Washington by Jade Scipioni at Fox Business. "According to the New York Times, Amazon has increased its lobbying staff to 83 members this year compared to 60 members last year, making it one of the biggest corporate lobbying shops in town. To top it off, the company is also on its way to surpassing its previous high for lobbying spending last year, which was $11.3 million." Read more   Nordstrom can’t find financing to go private by Lisa Fickenscher & Josh Kosman at NY Post. "...the proposed $10 billion deal was also [...]

  Costco is 58 percent cheaper than Whole Foods, JPMorgan finds at CNBC. "Wal-Mart's private-label products turned out to be the cheapest of the group when compared with national brands. But Costco's Kirkland Signature nameplate is a stronger player than its peers when it comes to quality, Horvers added." Read more   NY Times Takes a Look at "Test Market, USA" - Columbus, Ohio by David Gelles. Read article (tiered subs.)   Hobby Lobby CEO's Museum of the Bible Set to Open in November by Candida Moss & Joel S. Baden at Politico. "In November, the Museum of the Bible, [...]

  Two startups from Target + Techstars accelerator moving to Minneapolis by Kavita Kumar at Star Tribune. "St. Paul-based Local Crate, a meal kit delivery service similar to Blue Apron, said it has created a retail meal kit during the program that will be sold at 10 Target stores around the Twin Cities starting Sunday...Savitude, which gives clothing suggestions based on a person's body shape, will be tried out on Target.com. And StoryXpress, the firm moving to Minneapolis from India, is finalizing an agreement to create thousands of product videos for items sold on Target.com." Read more   Sen. Rand [...]

  Kroger explores sale of its convenience stores at CNBC. "Kroger operates more than 780 convenience stores across 18 states, which combined had sales of $4 billion last year. "Considering the current premium multiples for convenience stores, we feel it is our obligation as a management team to undertake a review," Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman said in prepared remarks." Read more   ...Kroger's Gasoline-Sales Goof Sends Its Shareholders on a Ride by Craig Giammona at Bloomberg. "The company issued a confusing sales figure for its convenience-store business on Wednesday, saying the division generated $1.4 billion last year. But that was [...]

  Jeff Wilke, CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, spoke at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle on Tuesday...Wilke said it’s possible that some of Amazon’s existing grocery services will shut down as a result of the Whole Foods deal. “One thing I’ve learned in my 18 years is that nothing is permanent — other than that customers like low prices and not high prices, and a big selection, not a small selection,” he said." by Taylor Soper at GeekWire. Read more   ...On HQ2: "Not everybody wants to live in the Northwest” said Wilke, who grew up in Pittsburgh." by [...]

  Wal-Mart reiterates earnings outlook with plans to grow grocery, digital at CNBC."Wal-Mart on Tuesday reiterated its earnings outlook for the current fiscal year and announced plans to add 1,000 online grocery pickup locations at its U.S. stores in fiscal 2019." Read more | Press release   Jeff Wilke: The Amazon Chief Who Obsesses Over Consumers by Laura Stevens at Dow Jones/Fox Business. "WSJ: What Whole Foods practices could you see adopting? Mr. Wilke: I hope we're going to learn about how physical stores work. They know a lot about food, produce -- supply chains at a very large national scale. [...]