Friday Tipsheet: 1st TargetExpress | Senator Rips Wmart | BJ’s HQ Sold
“Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2014; Wegmans #12, Whole Foods #44” See the Top 100 Rankings
“Heads up Walmart Express, Here Comes TargetExpress; Target to Test Smallest Store Yet @ 20,000-square-feet” by Elizabeth Harris at NY Times. “The first TargetExpress will be in the most urban of spaces, at the base of an apartment building called the Marshall, which is under construction near the University of Minnesota campus. The test store is scheduled to open July 27…Even the name, TargetExpress, will sound familiar to some.Walmart’s smallest stores are called Walmart Express…Mr. Griffith said Target was not bothered by the similarities, and thought the familiar word would help customers understand what the new stores are.” Read more
“Fed: Target Hackers Struck Others; Links to Russia” by Jennifer Bjorhus & Steve Alexander at Star-Tribune. “The iSIGHT report doesn’t mention Minneapolis-based Target by name but describes a new malware variant “associated with the KAPTOXA operation which is behind a large-scale point-of-sale’’ cybercrime…POS malware that includes memory scraping capabilities has been available in the Russian language underground for some time,” the report said.” Read more
“How Porch Landed a Partnership With Lowe’s” by Patrick Clark at Businessweek. “How did this partnership come together? We were trying to keep our business very quiet for the better part of a year as we were getting going on aggregating all of this data. As we did start to let the world know we exist, Lowe’s found us and reached out.” Read more
“Sen. Bernie Sanders rips Walmart’s founding family at Hill inequality panel” at Market Watch. “Do you think the wealthiest family in this country should have large numbers of employees that depend on Medicaid,” Sanders asked a panel of experts. In response, Robert Reich, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, said: “That is corporate welfare of the worst kind.” Read more
“Report: Neiman Marcus Breach Went Undetected for Nearly 6 Months” by Nathaniel Popper at NY Times via CNBC. “The computer network at Neiman Marcus was penetrated by hackers as far back as July, and the breach was not fully contained until Sunday, according to people briefed on the investigation.” Read more
“Rahm Emanuel’s grocery store task force coming up empty so far” by Lewis Lazare at Chicago Business Journal. “Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel formed a grocery store task force to focus on finding new tenants for the vacated Chicago (Dominick’s) properties sooner rather than later…But this week the Mayor’s office had little progress to report. Said Emanuel: “The task force’s number one priority is to get these buildings filled as quickly as possible with grocers or other businesses.” Read more
“Walmart Hires New Sam’s Club Online President/CEO, 1,500 Now on Team” by Zak Stambor at Internet Retailer. “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has hired Barnes & Noble Inc. executive Jamie Iannone as SamsClub.com president and CEO. The move comes a week after Wal-Mart announced it was moving Sam’s Club’s e-commerce operations under the umbrella of its broader global e-commerce unit.”…Wal-Mart has more than 1,500 employees working on its e-commerce team in San Bruno and other offices in Silicon Valley.” Read more
“Surprise! Target Data Breach Could Include Your Info From Purchases Made A Decade Ago” by Clare O’Connor at Forbes. “On Wednesday, I received an email from Target that will by now be familiar to many of you. It turns out my personal data was stolen during the retailer’s massive breach…I distinctly remember buying towels for my college dorm at a Philadelphia outlet of the department store around 2004. Since then, I haven’t lived anywhere near a Target..Meaning my personal data from that bath towel purchase in 2004 was stolen during this breach? “I don’t have the specific time frame, but yes, that is the idea,” the press officer told me.” Read more
“Amazon Dodges Union Bullet, for Now” by Douglas McIntyre at 24/7 Wall Street. “The number of people who voted was tiny. But Amazon.com Inc. workers in Delaware turned down the opportunity to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers by a margin of 21 to six.” Read more
“Family Dollar could pay former exec Mike Bloom nearly $4.8M” by Jennifer Thomas at Charlotte Business Journal. “The Matthews-based discount retailer disclosed last week that Bloom had left the company to pursue other interests.” Read more
“BJ’s Headquarters Complex Sold for $25.69 Million” by Michael Novinson at Worcester Business Journal. “The ownership change will have no impact on BJ’s operations, said company spokeswoman Kelly McFalls…The 68.4-acre site is capable of supporting an additional 250,000 to 500,000 square feet of commercial development.” Read more
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