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 stations by Dan DeBaun at Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal. “(Target) currently has electric vehicle stations at 18 sites in California, Hawaii, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas…plans to grow the program over 100 sites (with a total of 600 spaces) in over 20 states in the next two years.” Read more

 

How merchants use Facebook to flood Amazon with fake reviews by Elizabeth Dwoskin & Craig Timberg at Washington Post. “These days it is very hard to sell anything on Amazon if you play fairly,” said Tommy Noonan, who operates ReviewMeta, a website that helps consumers spot suspicious Amazon reviews. “If you want your product to be competitive, you have to somehow manufacture reviews.” Read more (tiered subs.)

 

Old Navy to open 60 stores this year at CNBC. “In addition to opening new locations, Old Navy will also be remodeling roughly 150 stores over the next few months.” Read more

 

Walmart sets June 13 as its “Open Call” day…suppliers seeking a buyer meeting have until May 4 to sign up online by Kim Souza at Talk Business. Read more

 

Amazon Launches In-Car Delivery “In-car delivery is available at no extra cost for Prime members and is available today in 37 cities and surrounding areas across the U.S. with more cities rolling out over time.” Press release

 

…I gave Amazon the keys to my car last week and it went pretty well at USA Today. Read more

 

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Why Toys ‘R’ Us’ HQ is too close for comfort for Bed Bath & Beyond workers by John Crudele at NY Post. “(21 miles apart) is a little too close for employees of…Bed Bath and Beyond…(who) worry about…cheaper workers who will soon flood the market.” Read more

 

…New open dog policy at Bed Bath & Beyond HQ causing headaches for some “…management apparently thought it would be fun to allow — no, encourage — headquarters workers to bring their dogs to work. All dogs. Any day….“Dogs see and hear other dogs, so you now have territorial disputes, mating attempts when in heat.”

 

Amazon expands its Whole Foods delivery service to three additional cities: Denver, Sacramento, and San Diego by Taylor Soper at GeekWire. Read more

 

Competition Bureau of Canada approves $4.5-billion Métro/Jean Coutu merger at Montreal Gazette. Read more

 

Amazon eyes a move into home shopping TV by Ingrid Lunden & Katie Roof at Techcrunch. “Specifically, we’re told there have been acquisition discussions between Amazon and Evine Live, which operates a pay-TV home shopping channel of the same name.” Read more

 

Sears CEO offers to buy Kenmore, Sears real estate by Gina Hall at Chicago Business Journal. Read more

 

How Walmart capitalized on the ‘yodeling boy’ craze by Diana Bradley at PR Week. “Wal-Mart did not help set up (the Ellen DeGeneres) booking, but got involved after finding out he would appear on the show by gifting him a check for $15,000 to go toward his college fund.” Read more

 

15 Minutes With Target’s General Counsel by Sam Reisman at Law 360. “In a recent interview, Don Liu spoke to Law360 about what makes a successful in-house attorney, the changing landscape of cyberthreats and how clients can push for a more diverse legal industry.” Law 360 subs. required

 

Walmart releases summary of its eleventh annual Global Responsibility Report Press release

 

Loblaw Companies tax court trial begins via Toronto Star. “Loblaw Companies Ltd. and the Canada Revenue Agency faced off in Tax Court on Monday over allegations that the retailer’s Barbadian banking subsidiary had been misused for tax avoidance — a long-running dispute that could cost the retailer more than $400 million.” Read more

 

Retail Reckoning: How Private Equity Is Boosting Some Brands and Crushing Others by Phil Wahba at Fortune. Read more

 

Controversial New Milk Shakes Up Big Dairy by Mike Cherney at Wall Street Journal. “In the U.S., traditional milk sales have fallen about 7% annually on average over the last four years, according to the most recent data from Nielsen.” Read more (subs.)

 

Prince’s heirs sue Walgreens and the hospital that treated him after his first opioid overdose at Daily Mail. “It accuses Walgreen Co. and pharmacists at two of its Minnesota branches of ‘dispensing prescription medications not valid for a legitimate medical purpose.’ Walgreens and the hospital’s parent company both declined to comment Monday, citing pending litigation.” Read more

 

Coach, Nike, Fenty and others bypass retailers and sell straight to customers by Charisse Jones at USA Today. Read more

 

MEXICO ON MCMILLON – Walmart accidentally gives customer $21K, but pleas to take it back not taken seriously by Sean O’Shea at Global News. “…some of her friends suggested the money could be put to good use. “Let’s go Mexico, let’s go to Bermuda,” were among the ideas put forward. “I can’t do that.” Video/Read more

 

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