“Wal-Mart hits the brakes on expansion in India” by Andria Cheng at Market Watch via Financial Times.  “Wal-Mart, which has counted on overseas markets to grow, has suffered a setback and is putting its expansion in India on hold, the Financial Times reported.  Wal-Mart hasn’t added a wholesale, or so-called cash-and-carry, shop to its 20-store portfolio since late October, the FT reported, adding it opened its first such location in 2009 in a joint venture with New Delhi-based Bharti Enterprises.”  Read more

 

“Don’t Expect Smaller, Urban Costco Stores Anytime Soon” by Chris Morran at The Consumerist.  “Jelinek, who worked his way up from warehouse manager to President and CEO, explains that Costco’s goal is to maintain a certain level of simplicity.  “If you start to drift and become complicated, it costs you a lot of money to be complicated,” he says, adding that this higher cost would then have to be passed on to the customer through higher prices, which would defeat the purpose of operating a discount warehouse store.” Read more

 

“Five Below Might Be Growing too Fast” by Dan Moskowitz at The Motley Fool.  “Five Below continues to open stores at a rapid rate. In fact, it plans on opening 60 stores this year. But what might really blow your mind is that Five Below wants its store base to grow at a rate of 20% annually over the next five years, and it ultimately plans on reaching a store count of 2,000. Remember, there are currently just 258 stores.  Five Below relies on hot teen and pre-teen trends, and almost everything it sells is discretionary.”  Read more

 

“Whole Foods & Starbucks Team-Up” at WSJ.  “Whole Foods will begin stocking 12 Evolution Fresh juices and three Evolution Harvest snack bars Tuesday. The snack line will eventually expand to include trail mixes, freeze-dried fruit and fruit snacks, opening up an opportunity for growth in a popular segment.”  Read more

 

“Mobile Commerce Sales Top $10 Billion in First Half of 2013, comScore Estimates” by Jason Del Ray at All Things D.  “The $10.6 billion total still accounts for less than 10 percent of total digital commerce sales, though the first iPhone was released just six years ago.” Read more

 

“How Do Target Cartwheel Coupons Work” at My Sweet Savings.  “The Target Cartwheel offer is taken off AFTER manuf. coupons and Target coupons.  Target Cartwheel offers may be used up to 6 times per day. You may use Target Cartwheel offer in conjunction with your manuf. coupons AND Target coupons for a triple stack! If you have a Target Red Card you may use that as well!”  Read more

 

“Home is where the spending is for cost-conscious consumers” by Matt Townsend & Cotten Timberlake at Bloomberg via Seattle Times. “Shannon Burke is typical of many American shoppers these days. She’s pouring money into her home and cutting back on everything else.  “If we don’t need it, we don’t buy it,” said Burke, a 33-year-old mother from Abington, Mass., whose two kids are mostly making do with hand-me-downs. “The money can be spent on our home. The more valuable our home is, the better it is for us in the long run.”  Read more

 

“Penney’s largest investor to sell entire stake” at LA Times.  “The news sent its shares down nearly 3 percent to $13 per share in after hours-trading after closing down 15 cents to $13.35 in the regular session.  The latest development comes as the beleaguered chain is trying to recover from a botched transformation plan spearheaded by its former CEO Ron Johnson that led to disastrous financial results.”  Read more

 

“Best Buy Founder Schulze Plans Stock Sale to Diversify Assets” by Chris Burrit at Bloomberg.  “Shares of Best Buy have doubled in the past year after Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly, who took charge in September, matched rivals’ online prices and cut annual costs by $390 million through Aug. 3…“The guy’s net worth has doubled in the past year,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. “Why not take some off the table?”  Read more

 

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