Al Norman

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,”

‪CHICO’S, THE WOMEN’S APPAREL CHAIN with 1,400 stores in the US & Canada, will close 250 stores. To make it sound good, the company is

AMC is a large company with revenue to AFFORD to PAY EVERY INDIVIDUAL employee O/T H/P SICK LEAVE. AMC is a large company with revenue

WALMART CANADA IGNORED TARGET’S “TOY BOMB” FIASCO IN OCTOBER, now says it won’t reorder the toy. WMT had to pull sexually offensive hockey T shirts

THERE WAS NO MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET THIS XMAS FOR MACY’s, and the fact that it’s stock is snowballing down is upsetting to all department

‪THE BEZOS DIVORCE MAY GENERATE SOME TABLOID “DRAMA” but isn’t likely to create any real business news at Amazon. Their joint statement predicts “wonderful futures

ANOTHER WAY AMAZON HURTS LOCAL EMPLOYERS: 71% of IT employees in D.C. area surveyed said they would leave their current jobs to work for Amazon

SEARS/KMART CLOSURES MAY OPEN DOORS FOR AMAZON/WHOLE FOODS. Walmart already has a huge brick & mortar footprint of 4,200 US stores—but the closure of 328

WALMART USES CHINESE SOFTWARE FOR ITS DRIVERLESS CAR GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICE IN AMERICA. (Couldn’t find an American software developer?) https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/tech/baidu-walmart-udelv/index.html Read more on Facebook

AMAZON GO CASHLESS, CASHIERLESS STORES MAKING PLENTY OF CASH. Study says Amazon Go stores make around $1.5 M in sales annually. The only workers there

MORE THAN 40% OF THE DRUG OVERDOSES IN AMERICA INVOLVE SYNTHETIC OPIOIDS LIKE FENTANYL, which Trump tweets “comes pouring into the US postal system from

COSTCO LOSES FAKE TIFFANY RING CASE: A federal judge in N.Y. has denied Costco’s bid to overturn a $21 million award to Tiffany from August

NEIMAN MARCUS PAYS $1.5 M TO SETTLE CREDIT CARD HACK LAWSUIT. The 2013 data breach at the upscale retailer exposed 370,000 customer credit cards from

KROGER & MICROSOFT FOLLOW AMAZON LEAD INTO DIGITAL GROCERY STORES. Customers will see personalized visual ads based on their shopping history: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/microsoft-kroger-take-on-amazon-with-a-futuristic-grocery-store-pilot.html Read more on

WALMART SHAREHOLDERS HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED OF A $160 M CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT THAT WMT EXECS. FAILED TO DISCLOSE A “MULTI-MILLION BRIBERY SCHEME IN MEXICO…used to

DON’T EVER GIVE UP ON YOUR LOCAL MERCHANTS! I just bought a 4qt. Pyrex Smart Essentials glass mixing bowl for $9.78 at Wilson’s department store

THE NY TIMES YESTERDAY WROTE THAT Walmart, Home Depot & Target have resorted to a “far-fetched tax dodge” called “dark stores” that cheats local property

THE GOLDEN BLOB AWARD GOES TO…WALMART FOR SPENDING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON INSIPID IMAGE ADS LAST NIGHT instead of giving its workers a decent wage.

POLICE CHARGE 20 YEAR OLD WHITE MAN WITH MURDER OF 7 YEAR OLD BLACK GIRL AS CAR LEFT WALMART, the most dangerous place in America

WALMART IS ONE CONTINUAL CRIME SCENE: Children being killed in a WMT parking lot, and headlines like the one below, make Walmart the most dangerous

AMAZON & WMT ARE BOTH FIGHTING TO ROLLBACK GAINS MADE BY SMALL MERCHANTS IN INDIA TO PREVENT MONOPOLIES ONLINE: “these companies have over $20 B

DOLLAR GENERAL & DOLLAR TREE OPENED 13 X MORE STORES IN 2018 THAN WALMART. DG & DT sold more “groceries” (mostly snack food) than Whole

AMAZON SETTLES TRANS LAWSUIT IN KENTUCKY WAREHOUSE: a 2017 case brought by Allegra Schawe-Lane & Dane Lane, who claimed severe harassment & physical threats forced

TWO DAYS AGO I POSTED THE PHOTO OF THE 7 YEAR OLD WHO WAS KILLED IN A WALMART PARKING LOT. Now celebrities are offering thousands