“Target’s Chairman Takes Hands-On Role (Moving from CA to MN)” at Bloomberg.  “Facing a leadership void after abruptly replacing its chief executive officer this week, Target has turned to seasoned director Roxanne Austin to play an unusually active role as interim chairman.”  See the video

 

“Sozzi:  Walmart Store Closings Expected This Year” at The Street.  “No updates have been provided on the status of these laggard stores. I continue to expect Walmart to announce a store closure plan this year related to its large pool of underperforming locations. Note that Target will have closed seven stores by August of this year.”  Read more

 

“Why it’s far too soon to say Target Canada will shut down” by Hollie Shaw at National Post.  “One of the key factor’s behind Walmart’s success over the last 40 years has been just that it has always had the ability to build about a year’s worth of stores without having to add any distribution capability,” he said. “That is Target’s U.S. model, and the company deviated from that model to get into Canada.”  Read more

 

“Forrester Study: E-commerce sales to reach $414B by 2018, but brick-and-mortar still alive” by Taylor Soper at Geek Wire. “Forrester predicts that 54 percent of all e-commerce transactions will happen on a mobile device by 2018, although e-commerce will still only account for 11 percent of total retail transactions by then — good news for physical stores.”  Read more

 

“Why Banks at Wal-Mart Are Among America’s Top Fee Collectors” by Mark Maremont & Tom McGinty at WSJ.  “A Wall Street Journal analysis of federal filings found that the five banks with the most Wal-Mart branches, including Woodforest, ranked among the top 10 U.S. banks in fee income as a percentage of deposits in 2013. Other banks among the top 10 serve the U.S. military.”  Read more

 

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“Home Depot Canada uses iPad Minis to help customers & boost sales” by Carol Pinchefsky at Tab Times.  “…as Beggs detailed in a presentation at the recent Tablet Strategy conference, he sleeps more soundly now thanks to a deployment of iPad Minis. Specifically, he developed a program that gives select sales associates access to SMaRT (Social Mobile and Real Time) mobile performance support, via the iPad Mini.”  Read more

 

“Publix completes rollout of online deli ordering system” by Margaret Cashill at Tampa Bay Bus. Journal.  “Publix expects to offer it for all of its 1,077 stores by July.  The system allows users to place deli orders 15 to 20 minutes ahead of pick-up using a computer, smartphone or tablet.”  Read more

 

“Wal-Mart’s March into Financial Services Unsettling to Some” by Mark Friedman at Arkansas Business.  “Wal-Mart maintains it has no plan to revive its dream of operating a bank, said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services for Wal-Mart U.S.  “We have found a model that has proven both successful for our customers as well as for our partners,” Eckert told Arkansas Business last week. “We do best when we are a retailer. … We’re about partnering with financial institutions that have a shared alignment to serve the customer and to partner with Wal-Mart to do that.”  Read more

 

“Former Sears exec calls for retailer to liquidate” by Krystina Gustafsson at CNBC.  “His points were:…CEO Eddie Lampert “doesn’t know what he is doing,” and is investing in the wrong areas, such as the Shop Your Way loyalty program.  Its valuable assets, including proprietary brands Kenmore and Craftsman and its real estate portfolio, are becoming “less valuable every day…”  Read more / See the video

 

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