Walmart Pulls Away From Grow-Everywhere Plan With $10 Billion Asda Deal at Bloomberg. "Asda will combine with British retailer J Sainsbury Plc, mixing the U.K.’s second-biggest supermarket chain with No. 3 Asda in a deal worth about 7.3 billion pounds ($10 billion). Walmart will retain a 42 percent stake in the combined company, and will take a noncash loss of about $2 billion on the transaction, according to a statement." Read more   Chico's shares jump as apparel retailer announces plans to sell on Amazon.com at CNBC. "The company said in mid-May shoppers will find a "select assortment" of clothing and [...]

  The Mad Dash to Buy Vintage Clothes on Instagram by Alexander Stratton & Kim Bhasin at Bloomberg. "Hundreds of accounts post carefully curated looks several times a day, and they often sell within minutes—or seconds. Since the clothes are plucked from thrift shops or a grandmother’s closet, they’re effectively one-of-a-kind. Miss an alert, and it’s gone forever." Read more   Tractor Supply Q1 Comp Sales +3.7% Press release   Welcome to the New Convenience Store by Jane Black at Wall Street Journal. "...new upstarts like Choice Market, Green Zebra Grocery in Portland, Ore., Foxtrot in Chicago, the Goods Mart in Los Angeles and [...]

  The Most Expensive Takeover in Retail Is Drowning in Debt by Eliza Ronalds-Hannon & Lauren Coleman Lochner at Bloomberg. "PetSmart’s owners thought embracing e-commerce would keep it competitive in the age of Amazon. Two chief executives and $3 billion later, they’re discovering it takes a lot more than web smarts to outrun an avalanche of debt." Read more   Why Walmart is partnering with everyone except Instacart for its grocery delivery service by Jason Del Rey at Recode. "The sticking point? Instacart wants Walmart to list its grocery items for sale on Instacart’s app, while Walmart simply wants to [...]

  Target Exec Rejoins Agency World by Erik Oster at Adweek. "Gina Gray joins Colle McVoy from Target, where she spent nearly seven years and most recently served as senior manager, strategic partnerships and agency management." Read more   Walmart Is Getting Suppliers to Put Food on the Blockchain by Camila Russo at Bloomberg. "Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety and health...spoke Monday at the MIT Technology Review’s Business of Blockchain conference...Yiannas said blockchain was able to cut the time it took to track produce to two seconds from six days." Read more   Target adding dozens of car-charging [...]

  Walmart Tests New Dress Code for Workers by Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg. "Employees in some of Walmart's stores will now be allowed to wear shirts of any solid color, rather than just blue or white, according to an employee manual obtained by Bloomberg News. Blue jeans are also permitted -- as long as they’re solid blue -- whereas previously only khaki-colored or black denim pants were allowed. Visible facial tattoos are forbidden for those hired after April 14, the manual said." Read more   Women's tall rain boots in Hunter for Target collection won't be sold due to production issues [...]

  Best Buy and Amazon partner up in exclusive deal to sell new TVs by Kavita Kumar at Star Tribune. "Best Buy and Amazon have teamed up together to design and sell new smart TVs embedded with Amazon’s Fire TV and integrated with the voice assistant Alexa. Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer...Bezos said they have been working closely together to make a “killer product.” Read more (tiered subs.)   ...“What we’re doing is so deeply integrated,” Mr. Bezos said, acknowledging the fact that his company and Best Buy are often considered rivals. “It’s only possible because we trust [...]

  Target expands beauty offerings with makeup made for women of color by Kavita Kumar at Star Tribune. "They are launching today on Target.com and will roll out to hundreds of stores next month where they will receive prime billing on two prominent displays at the end of aisles to draw more attention." Read more (tiered subs.)   Walmart to roll out redesigned website next month at CNBC. "The company said Tuesday that a new Walmart.com will roll out to customers as soon as next month. It's been years since the company made such large-scale changes to its website. The [...]

  Toy tycoon may submit last-minute $900M bid for Toys R Us by Lisa Fickenscher at NY Post. "...he will submit a last-minute bid on Friday to buy 274 top-performing Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores in the US for $675 million. That’s on top of a $215 million bid for the entire Canadian chain of 82 stores, as well as the company’s trademarks, Larian said." Read more   Gap Follows J. Crew in Giving Up on the Bridal-Wear Industry by Justina Vasquez at Bloomberg. "Gap Inc.’s Weddington Way brand, which has operated shops within Banana Republic stores, announced plans to [...]