“Wal-Mart to invest $500 million in Canada, create 7,500 jobs” at Reuters.  “Wal-Mart said on Tuesday it planned to complete 35 supercentre projects in Canada by January 31, 2015, adding one million square feet of retail space.  Wal-Mart’s store count in Canada will rise to 395 by the end of January 2015, including 282 supercentres and 113 discount stores, the retailer said.”  Read more

 

“Let the Grilling Begin:  Target CFO to Appear Before Senate Judiciary Committee Today (and House on Wednesday)” by Jennifer Bjorhus & Jim Spencer at Star-Tribune.  “CFO John Mulligan will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with federal officials charged with protecting consumer information. Mulligan returns to the witness stand Wednesday before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Lawmakers are expected to grill Mulligan on the details of how hackers gained access to the payments data or personal information of up to 110 million Target customers late last year.”  Read more

 

“This Corporate Wal-Mart Office In Brazil Is Totally Gorgeous” by Paige Cooperstein at Business Insider.  “The São Paulo, Brazil, headquarters of Walmart.com — full of beach chairs, game rooms and a rooftop golf course — recently won ArchDaily’s Building of The Year award for best interior architecture.”  See the 21 Pics

 

“Lowe’s still looking for Canadian acquisitions: president Sylvain Prud’homme” by Hollie Shaw at National Post. “We are a big company, not a small company trying to compete with a larger company because we are sister banners with a large company in the U.S. That doesn’t give us critical mass in Canada, and that’s what we need to get at — scale is the biggest thing we have to crack…We have been around for a while, the customer likes what we are offering, and that is our focus right now. At the same time, we need more stores.”  Read more

 

“Brand Keys Loyalty Index Highlights:  Target Will Repair Loyalty in 9 Months; Home Depot #1 in Home Improvement” by Sarah Mahoney at Marketing Daily.  “Target was already vulnerable, “since backing away from its cheap chic marketing focus, and shifting to the ‘We’ve got everything and it’s always on sale’ approach. That just sets it up against the juggernaut of Walmart. Then when you feel one is less careful with your credit card, why not switch? When consumers have relatively comparable options, they have more room for second thoughts.”  Read more  See the Full Brand Keys Index

 

“Kroger reveals its hacker strategy: Be more secure than “the guy next door” “ by Dan Monk at WCPO Cincinnati. “Your goal in that world is just to become more difficult than the guy next door to you to breach,” said Kroger Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman. “You will never hear us say we’ve got defenses that can’t be breached because that just becomes a challenge for the bad guy. Our goal is to make it more difficult to breach us than anybody else.” Read more

 

“A greener Wal-Mart is a slow work in progress” by Kim Souza at The City Wire.  “Another area where EDF believes Wal-Mart can move the needle is working with suppliers to reduce nitrogen based fertilizers, which is responsible for nearly half of Wal-Mart’s carbon footprint in its supply chain.

  Ware said the EDF has spent several years working with farmers to optimize fertilizer use on farms. Wal-Mart recently announced commitments from 15 suppliers to encourage better fertilizer use in their supply chain. These changes will touch more than 30% of the food and sales in the North America.”  Read more

 

“Buying Valentine’s Candy at Walgreen’s: Women buy Early, Men on the Way Home on Feb. 14th” by Claire Suddath at Businessweek.  “The big chocolate hearts, no. Those don’t sell until right before the holiday,” says Paul Minger, Walgreen category manager for confections. In fact, 70 percent of chocolate hearts sold at Walgreen are purchased within the last 48 hours leading up to Valentine’s Day. But Walgreen isn’t focused on chocolate hearts in January. It’s focused on everything else.” Read more

 

“Items They Only Sell at a Chinese Walmart (Frogs, Anti-Bacterial Underwear for Men, More Frogs, etc.)” at Ned Hardy  See the 14 Pics

 

“Accenture Retail Report:  21% plan to increase in-store purchases vs. 9% last year.”  “Asked to name what retailers need to improve the most in the overall shopping experience, 40 percent of respondents ranked improving the in-store shopping experience first, compared to just 16 percent who said the same of online shopping…“The survey results indicate that retailers have an opportunity to increase in-store sales but only if they make the experience worthwhile for consumers,” said Chris Donnelly, global managing director of Accenture’s Retail practice.”  Read the release

 

“Ex-hacker details scheme to steal credit cards from Lowe’s” by Ross Jones at WXYZ-ABC7.  “Their scheme was to implant special software inside Lowe’s own servers so that every card used would be intercepted—in real time—and copied, before being passed on to the credit card company. In the hacker world, it’s called a “man in the middle” attack…Lowe’s detected that the trio had been inside their servers and called the FBI. On a day while Derrick was being driven to the airport, he saw some flashing lights in the rear view mirror. They were for him.”  Read more / See the video

 

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