January 2019

ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPERS WANT HOME DELIVERY WITHIN TWO HOURS!! More than half of e-shoppers say they would be more loyal to a store that offers

DEAD RETAIL BEING REPURPOSED INTO DISTRIBUTION WAREHOUSES. The empty Euclid Square Mall in Euclid, Ohio, is under construction to become a new Amazon e-commerce fulfillment

FEDERAL JUDGE IN WI. REFUSES TO DISMISS A PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT AGAINST WALMART, which for years has denied pregnant employees’ requests to perform fewer physical

CASHIER SUES WALMART FOR MALICIOUS PROSECUTION IN ‘PRICE MATCHING’ CASE. On October 14, 2014, Emily Rennhack, a Walmart cashier in Bradenton, Fl., was arrested at

THE PURPOSE OF A WITCH HUNT IS TO RID US OF WITCHES. Read more on Facebook

AMAZON CAN “APPROPRIATE” ANY MANUFACTURER’S PRODUCT & GIVE IT’S OWN BRAND PREFERENTIAL PLACEMENT ON ITS PLATFORM—EVEN ON GOOGLE SEARCHES. Independent producers are “chased off” of

OHIO CITY FORCES 8 MONTH DELAY IN CIVIL RIGHTS CASE OF A 22 Y.O. BLACK MAN SHOT BY POLICE while holding a pellet rifle inside

CHICKEN OF THE SEA TUNA WAR ENDS: StarKist owes Walmart $20 M from a price fixing scheme. StarKist, which is owned by South Korea’s Dongwon

TWO SEPARATE STUDIES SAY AMAZON’S FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE shows darker-skinned women as men 31% of the time. Lighter-skinned women were misidentified 7% of the time.

WALMART BODY COUNT: A WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT HAS BEEN FILED by the family of a man shot in 2017 at a Raytown,MO. WMT during an

WALMART SPLITS UP WITH GOOGLE, no longer making products available on Google’s Shopping Actions or Google Express. No reason was given, just a Tweet that

AMAZON IS TESTING “SCOUT” AN ELECTRIC SELF-DRIVING PACKAGE DELIVERY VEHICLE, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A ROBOT DOG. Cute, but easy to steal or vandalize: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/transportation/meet-scout

KNOCK-OFFS: TWO-THIRDS OF BRANDS THAT SELL PRODUCTS ON AMAZON say competing with Amazon’s private label versions of their products is a “major pain point” of

THE 3 WEEK STOPGAP FUNDING BILL WILL GIVE THE POTUS ENOUGH TIME TO FLY DOWN TO MEXICO CITY and get “the Mexicans to pay” for

FORTUNE’S LIST OF THE TOP 50 WORLDS MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES: AMZN #2, Costco #12, Home Depot #21, WMT #25, Target # 32. Fortune started by

WALMART SAYS “CUSTOMERS LOVE OUR GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICE,” BUT HAVE THEY READ THE FINE PRINT? “We will not provide you with a refund for certain

WALMART OFFERS TRUCKERS A 1 CENT/MILE RAISE & $1 FOR EVERY TRAILER LOAD DELIVERED, making the average salary $87,500. Amazon says its independent carriers can

AMAZON LOGISTICS & BEIJING JOYO SUBSIDIARY NOW LEASING SPACE ON CONTAINER SHIPS OFFERING CUSTOMERS IN CHINA DOOR-TO-DOOR SERVICE, a “seamless path” from Chinese factories/American ports/Amazon

AMAZON SELLS 100 M ITEMS ON ITS PLATFORM, but makes 80% of its sales revenue from 1% of its products—1M best sellers. Economist D.H. Taylor

The growth of coop businesses in Madison, WI, my alma mater. When traditional economics fails, coops find a new path: Growth in Madison co-ops reflective

ANOTHER SMALL TOWN IN NEW ENGLAND REJECTS DOLLAR GENERAL On Jan.17 in Cummington, MA. 200+ people asked Town officials to reject a 9,100 sf Dollar

CLOUD FIGHT: MICROSOFT & WALGREENS SIGN 7 YEAR CLOUD COMPUTING DEAL, to compete with Amazon Web Services. Walgreens, Walmart & Kroger are all using Microsoft’s

SMALL BIZ IN INDIA FIGHTS BACK VS. WALMART & AMAZON “COLONIALISTS”. India-based Reliance Industries & telecom co. Jio have formed a new internet platform to

WALMART BODY COUNT. The crime epidemic continues: A 16-year old teenager was shot and killed Jan. 20th in a Walmart parking lot in Renton, WA.

WALMART HIRES 4 MORE DELIVERY COMPANIES TO GET GROCERIES TO YOUR DOOR. WMT has more than 25,000 “personal shoppers” to pick orders. It even wants

OOPS! WALMART OUT OF CVS DEAL—3 DAYS LATER BACK IN? 0n 1/15, Seeking Alpha reported that WMT was “pulling out of the CVS Caremark pharmacy

WALMART #1 IN WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION & HARASSMENT LAWSUIT PENALTIES. “The corporation with the largest number of cases with disclosed penalties is Walmart, at 27. Its

FED. JUDGE ALLOWS 5 MILLION WALMART JOB APPLICANTS TO BE PLAINTIFFS in a July, 2017 class action lawsuit alleging WMT violate the Fair Credit Reporting

TWO PEOPLE KILLED IN HOME DEPOT SHOOTOUT IN FORT WORTH. Police now believe a third person may have shot both men. Big box stores are

WALMART ABORTS PLANS TO START A VIDEO STREAMING SERVICE BEYOND VUDU. In addition to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, Sinclair Broadcast, Disney, and NBC Universal are

50,000 SEARS JOBS ARE ON THE LINE as Chairman bids $5.2 B at a bankruptcy auction to keep as many as 400 stores open. Sears

TRADEMARK TRIAL & APPEAL BOARD RULES WALMART CANNOT TRADEMARK THE PHRASE “INVESTING IN AMERICAN JOBS.” “It would be perceived by customers as a merely informational

SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP TO STREAM LOCAL NEWS. Sinclair owns 193 TV stations reaching 40% of US homes. Told Trump in 2016, “We are here to

SMALL BUSINESSES IN RURAL AMERICA SUFFER FROM NO ACCESS TO HIGH SPEED INTERNET. 39% of rural areas lack broadband. Fed law says states can’t prevent

PRESIDENT TANTRUMP SAT ON A WALL PRESIDENT TANTRUMP HAD A GREAT FALL. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S HORSES AND ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN COULDN’T OPEN TANTRUMP’S GOVERNMENT

“THE LIGHT BULB WENT OFF” AT TARGET WHEN THE CEO REALIZED HIS STORES COULD BE “FULFILLMENT HUBS” for online orders. “We knew we couldn’t build

AMAZON BEGAN BY SELLING BOOKS—BUT SINCE 2009 ITS BEEN PUBLISHING THEM TOO. Amazon Publishing and its self-published authors capture 49% of all new book sales

THE WHITE HOUSE should consider delivering the State of the Union address on Twitter. “Americans can hold their heads high. That will make it easier

FAMILY OF 22 Y.O. BLACK MAN KILLED INSIDE A WALMART IN OHIO while carrying an air rifle he took from a shelf, will be in

KROGER ADMITS IT BOUGHT HARRIS TEETER GROCERY CHAIN TO PREEMPT AMAZON. Kroger bought HT in 2014 for $2.5 B because they assumed Amazon was going

ANOTHER PERSON KILLED IN A WALMART PARKING LOT, this time in Jackson, Miss. Can Wal-Mart keep people on its property safe? The most dangerous place

TARGET OPENS 1ST. STORE IN VERMONT, 117 years after it was founded: a smaller (60,000 sf)store in South Burlington, in a repurposed building. Target plans

SMALL BUSINESSES CAUGHT IN GOVT. SHUTDOWN SQUEEZE. The SBA has stopped processing new loan approvals, meaning merchants can’t get money they need to start or

BIG BOX STORES ALL WANT TO BE “OMNI-CHANNEL” SELLERS, to enable shopping from anywhere, for anything, any way a customer wants. New survey says Target

ROBOTS ARE EVERYWHERE NOW,” says Walmart’s tech chief, “doing jobs that humans don’t do very well…These types of jobs are not super fun to do

A DEAD WALMART IN NAPERVILLE, IL. SAT EMPTY FOR 4 YEARS. “There’s not a lot of uses out there for those types of spaces anymore,”