Wal-Mart de Mexico net profit surges at Market Watch. “Retailer Wal-Mart de Mexico reported a 42% surge in fourth quarter net profit Tuesday…The company, which accounts for around 6% of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s annual sales…reported quarterly net profit of 10.4 billion Mexican pesos ($698 million), as total revenue increased 4.3% to 129.44 billion pesos.” Read more

 

Amazon’s One-Hour Delivery Service Goes Live Across Manhattan by Jordan Crook at TechCrunch. Read more

 

2015 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index:

#1 Price Clubs: Costco

#1 Discount: Walmart

#1 Home Improvement: Home Depot

#1 Sporting Goods: Dick’s Sporting Goods

See the winning brands in each category

 

American Customer Satisfaction Index Rips Walmart by Catey Hill at Market Watch. “Walmart tied with armed forces store Exchange as the worst-rated department or discount store, in recent past years, it’s been the single worst-scoring store.” See the 13 discount stores ranked

 

Plans for TargetExpress in St. Paul take shape by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune. “Target’s newest and smallest stores are turning out to be kinda like snowflakes – no two will be exactly the same. That is becoming increasingly apparent as plans take shape for the second TargetExpress location in the Twin Cities, slated to open in July in St. Paul’s Highland Park.” Read more

 

Walmart Labs: Why we chose OpenStack for Walmart Global eCommerce written by Amandeep Juneja, Sr. Director of Cloud Operations and Engineering. Read more

 

New platform taps do-it-yourself sports merchandising by Benny Evangelista at SF Gate. “Coveroo has an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball…and has licensing agreements with the NBA, NHL, Major League Soccer, the Canadian Football League and the NCAA. Coveroo CEO Christopher Boone says the service taps into “the creative genius of the crowd,” without running afoul of the law. “As you would imagine,” Boone said, teams “were initially very hesitant.” Read more

 

CVS fights cost of new cholesterol drugs by Cynthia Coons at SF Gate. “Express Scripts has about 30 percent of the U.S. pharmacy benefits management market, and CVS about 27 percent, according to Robyn Karnauskas, an analyst with Deutsche Bank.” Read more

 

What toys won over the toughest critics at Toy Fair? by Christina Cheddar Berk at CNBC.  Read more / See the video

 

Home Depot to Present at Raymond James 36th Annual Conference  9:50 a.m. ET on March 3, 2015

 

Tennessee: Kroger Marketplace swapping furniture for clothes at The Tennessean “We are replacing furniture with apparel in our Marketplace stores,” (Melissa Eads, spokeswoman for Kroger) wrote in a recent email to the Gallatin News Examiner. “We will carry brands such as Carhartt, Fila, Champion, Dickies, Signature by Levi Strauss & Co., Jockey Activewear, Hanes Classics and Gloria Vanderbilt.” Read more

 

Cabela’s to Open First North Carolina Store on April 16th by Amanda Jones Hoyle at Triangle Business Journal. Read more

 

The cop who forced Target to drop their Irish t-shirts by Seamus Palmer at Irish Central. “The designers of the t-shirt saw fit to adhere to the British viewpoint that the northernmost six counties are not part of the island of Ireland, so they simply left them out. No, they didn’t just exclude them by way of a border line…they simply left them out.” Read more

 

Houston: Grocery stores go to new extremes for shoppers’ attention by Erin Mulvaney at Houston Chronicle. “The H-E-B opening Wednesday in tony Tanglewood boasts 91,000 square feet of not just traditional staples but also such foodie bait as a sushi bar, hummus in bulk sizes and a booth to order takeout barbecue…Kroger has already announced it will invest $409 million in the Houston region with new stores and upgrades. An estimated half of the 2.7 million square feet of retail development underway in Houston is said to be grocery.” Read more

 

…HEB strikes a new blow in the grocery store wars: Big name chef raises the bar “Our customers want food that tastes good — not just food that’s fast,” McClelland says. “The idea was to have people come in, eat our food and say ‘That’s not what we expected out of a grocery store.’ We’re trying to raise the level of expectations.” Read more

 

Tractor Supply Company Announces Grand Opening of 1,400th Store  Read the release

 

Ohio shoplifter arrested for 109th time in CVS bust by Doyle Murphy at Daily News. “Ferguson had a getaway car waiting and roared down the road where he was stopped by a couple of old acquaintances from the South Euclid Police Department, authorities said. They asked for his ID as a matter of procedure. He allegedly gave them the name of his brother. “Probably the majority of his arrests are just like that,” South Euclid Sgt. Mike O’Connor told the Daily News.” Read more

 

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