Hints and tips:
...Online jewellers such as Blue Nile, which offers diamonds ordered in easy-to-understand categories, and includes price guarantees and a 30-day return policy, have proved hard to compete with....
...The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8 per cent to 12,937.17, as the blue-chip heavy index was dragged down by Walmart’s shares....
...Traditional retailers that run websites, such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, already collect sales tax on their online shipments....
...At Wal-Mart, for instance, more than 40 per cent of the online orders on the retailer’s website are sent for pick-up at a local store, as customers seek to avoid the costs and timing uncertainties of home...
...Wal-Mart tries to stick to its own system and does not allow a local management style,” he says....
...The woman leaving the Target discount store at the Eastwood Mall in Niles, Ohio, just after 7am on Friday seemed a little perplexed by the bustling pre-dawn scene....
...As Mr Muller says: “When a big chain opens next door, we can help [convenience store owners] fight off the competition” – which will be bad news for Wal-Mart if he is proved right....
...The warning from Wal-Mart was the latest in a series of glum corporate developments from a diverse range of blue chips this week....
...In Long Island, a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death as the store opened. Two people were shot dead at a California Toys R Us, but details were unclear....
...Carrefour’s new chief executive vowed to put France at the heart of a strategic recovery plan for the world’s second-largest retailer behind Wal-Mart, after it reported a 45 per cent drop in 2008 net profits...
...Nearly a fifth of women in the US visit a Wal-Mart store at least once a week, a large proportion of them white and relatively low income....
...In this category, funds I co-manage own Berkshire Hathaway, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, but the list of the best beaten-up blue chips today would also include Altria, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson...
...Paris-based Carrefour, the world’s second-largest retailer after Wal-Mart of the US, reported a recovery in sales at its French hypermarkets driven by promotions....
...The stores will be trading under a logo depicting a pile of stylised vegetables and fruits, with the Marketside name in green and a small blue star providing the only branding reference to Wal-Mart....
...Not a big deal on the face of it, but for the French group – the world’s second-biggest retailer after Wal-Mart of the US – the importance of its home market cannot be underestimated....
...But its new logo, filed in planning documents in Arizona and consisting of green lettering with a stylised tomato, egg and grape topped by a Wal-Mart blue star, suggests the format will – like Tesco’s Fresh...
...Yet to judge by much of blue-collar Sam’s Club America (named after Wal-Mart’s discount cards), there are other, more distracting, things to worry about....
...In mid-November, Gregg Steinhaffel, president of Target, Wal-Mart’s discount rival, gave some indications that concerns were changing buying patterns....
...Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, is dipping its toes into online grocery sales, with the expansion of a home shipping service for products including Perrier water and free-trade coffee at Sam’s Club, its...
...But Wal-Mart’s same-store sales rose 1.4 per cent in September, slightly less than expected. The shares gained 2.9 per cent to $46.90....
...Last year’s Art Parade on the trendy Lower East Side was led by supposedly pro-Wal-Mart protesters wearing its characteristic blue vests, chanting ironic slogans such as “No Way but Sam’s way” in an event...
...Wal-Mart makes a high-profile target for local groups, which argue that the US chain has a history of wiping out small high street stores....
...On that landscape, Beliefnet has emerged as a sort of spiritual Wal-Mart, with everything under one roof, and easily accessible....
...Other retailers fell, led by Macy’s , off 3.7 per cent at $40.12, Wal-Mart , down 1.9 per cent at $47.58, and Costco , lower by 1.4 per cent at $60.51....
...Following lower-than-expected results from Wal-Mart and Home Depot on Tuesday, Macy ’s results cast a shadow over retailers....
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