Macy’s president Hal Lawton is stepping down to become CEO of Tractor Supply at CNBC. "Lawton will be leaving to join Tractor Supply as its CEO, succeeding Greg Sandfort, effective Jan. 13. He will also join Tractor Supply’s board." Read more   Kroger Q3 ID sales (ex-fuel) +2.5% Press release   Costco comps: November +5.3% / November ecom -3.6% / Q1 +4.3% Press release   Walmart’s McMillon says there is a ‘magic’ in being different, says online grocery business is ‘great’ by Kim Souza at Talk Business. "If customers don’t want stores, we won’t have them,” McMillon said during [...]

  Trump administration to introduce plan cutting food stamps for 750,000 people at The Hill. "The work or vocational training requirement applies to recipients who are “able-bodied” or those who are not caring for a child under six years old. Under the current guidelines, states can receive a waver for work requirements for those receiving benefits from SNAP, if its unemployment rate is at least 20 percent above the national rate, according to Bloomberg." Tiered subs.   Amazon doubles truck fleet to 20,000 by Nat Levy at GeekWire. Read more   Retail Created the Armchair Shopper and Now It Wishes [...]

  Cyber Monday totalled $9.2B in US online sales, smartphones accounted for a record $3B at TechCrunch. "Following the pattern set during Thanksgiving and Black Friday — the total actually just fell short of what Adobe had expected for the day, which was $9.4 billion. Adobe expected an increase of nearly 19%; in the end it was more like 16.5%." Read more   Supermarket Survival Means Matching Amazon by Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg. "If the new technologies work on a broad scale—and that’s a big if—they could slow Amazon’s advance, boost profits, help fend off deep-discount chains like Aldi and [...]

    Black Friday sees record $7.4B in online sales at TechCrunch. "The figures were up by $1.2 billion on Black Friday 2018 but they actually fell short of Adobe’s prediction for the day, which was $7.5 billion." Read more   Thanksgiving Day saw record online sales of $4.2 billion at CNN. "According to Deloitte's annual pre-Thanksgiving survey of American shoppers, 82% of Generation Z shoppers (18-22 years old) and 60% of Millennial shoppers (23-38 years old) said they planned to shop with family and friends. That compares to 49% of Gen X, 41% of Baby Boomers and 50% of seniors [...]