“Amazon Will Open Two Pop-Up Stores in CA Next Week” by Alice Truong at Fast Company. “Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it is opening up pop-up stores in San Francisco and Sacramento, California, next week for the holiday shopping season. The pop-up stores will carry Amazon-branded e-readers, tablets, smartphones, andstreaming media players. “While customers can already see our products online and at retailers like Best Buy and Staples, we wanted to provide another option to try out our full lineup leading into the holidays,” a representative told Fast Company.” Read more

 

Kantar:  And the Retailer with the Lowest Prices is...by Courtney Reagan at CNBC. “Dollar General widened its lead over behemoth Wal-Mart—which ranked second—with an overall basket price that came in 2.5 percent lower…Target‘s prices were the least competitive of the six stores studied, with a basket that was 52 percent more expensive than Dollar General’s.” See the price comparison chart

 

“Whole Foods to Rate Its Produce and Flowers for Environmental Impact” by Stephanie Strom at NY Times. “The upscale grocery chain will rate the produce of suppliers electing to participate in the program, Responsibly Grown, as “good,” “better,” or “best,” depending on, for example, how they handle plastic waste in their operations and whether they provide conservation areas to foster bees, butterflies and other pollinators.” Read more

 

“Amazon’s Company Town? The retail behemoth feels at home in Seattle. But the city’s not so sure.” by Nicole Brodeur at Politico. “It was as if one day, Seattle woke up to find that 30,000 new neighbors had moved in, with all the attendant headaches you can imagine: traffic jams, housing shortages and soaring rents. There’s a new, laissez-faire working culture of dressing down and dogs at your desk. Buses are so loaded with so-called “Am-holes” that they rush past stops.” Read more

 

“Target Takes Trick-or-Treating to Instagram” by Ashley Rodriguez at Ad Age. “The retailer is transforming users’ Instagram feeds into “Halloween Hills,” a virtual neighborhood made up of taggable images that are displayed together. Each image has two homes – a trick and a treat – that take users to different profiles when they’re tapped.” Read more

 

“Marvin Ellison gets $4M signing bonus to be J.C. Penney’s next CEO” by Danielle Abril at Dallas Bus. Journal. “In addition to his signing bonus, Ellison will also be paid a $1.3 million base salary, compared to Ullman, who had a base salary of $810,606 in fiscal 2013. The pay package also includes a performance-based annual bonus, which could be up to 300 percent his base salary or an additional $3.9 million for 2015.” Read more

 

“Giant Eagle to close 61 of its 100 in-store child care centers” by Teresa Lindeman at Pittsburgh Post Gazette. “The gradual decline in customer usage was a factor in this more regionalized strategy,” said Dick Roberts, a spokesman for Giant Eagle. The activity centers give parents of children ages 3 to 9 a place to hang out for as long as two hours while families are shopping in the store. The first Eagle’s Nest opened 21 years ago, Mr. Roberts said.” Read more

 

“Alipay to U.S. Retailers: Let Us Be Your One-Stop Shop for Selling Into China” by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “The move underscores the increasing appetite among Chinese shoppers for Western clothing and beauty brands, and the race to profit off of that interest by Chinese internet companies and U.S. retailers alike. If Alipay is successful, it could also develop into a competitor to companies such as Borderfree that help U.S. companies sells goods overseas.” Read more

 

“World’s 2nd-Biggest Retailer Faces ‘Operational Paralysis’ As Execs Have Laptops Confiscated” by Jim Edwards at Business Insider. “We believe the investigation requires all commercial department personnel to hand over communication systems (laptops) to be interrogated and all supplier meetings to be postponed.” Read more

 

“Kroger nabs P&G ecommerce exec for new senior role” by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati.com. “The Cincinnati-based supermarket chain tapped Alex Tosolini, currently a senior vice president of global ecommerce at P&G, to become Kroger’s first-ever senior vice president of new business development, effective Nov. 3.” Read more

 

“Wal-Mart to offer digital movie access to customers” at Reuters. “About 800 movies available at Walmart stores and 1,100 on walmart.com will be a part of the program at the launch, the company said.” Read more

 

“Nordstrom seeking space for a second Manhattan store, brokers say” by David M. Levitt at Seattle Times. “Executives of the department store chain have approached landlords of South Street Seaport and 1 Wall St. “and maybe one or two others,” Richard Hodos, an executive vice president at CBRE, said today at a briefing for reporters on New York’s commercial real estate market.” Read more

 

“Wal-Mart building giant ecommerce center near Atlanta airport” by Douglas Sams at Atlanta Bus. Chronicle. “The project, known in real estate development circles for weeks, is expected to be announced by Gov. Nathan Deal’s office as early as (today).” Read more

 

“Retail jobs are often perceived as lousy jobs. The industry is fighting to change that.” by Sarah Halzack at Washington Post. “During a campaign it has dubbed Retail Jobs Week, NRF is set to release research that it says will demonstrate the impact of the industry’s jobs on state and regional economies. It will release a study from the University of Georgia on Wednesday that found that retail wages are “highly competitive” with those in other sectors.” Read more

 

“Amazon jumps out to lead in Canada’s online shopping wars” by Jamie Sturgeon at Global News. “Amazon.ca, the Canadian arm the U.S. online retail behemoth, is attracting roughly five million Canadian shoppers to its website a month, a new report on Tuesday said. That’s a sharp increase in the last year that’s helped double the amount of e-commerce business Amazon is winning in Canada.” Read more

 

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