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☆ Lidl closes 11 stores as it struggles in the US. See the full list.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Nancy Luna | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

German grocer Lidl opened its first US stores in 2017. It closed 11 underperforming stores this week, according to various news reports. Lidl, whose US headquarters are in Virginia, closed 11 stores recently in North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, South Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the Daily Mail first reported. Lidl has roughly 170 stores in the US and over 12,000 stores worldwide. According to Grocery Business, here are the locations of the 11 recently closed Lidl locations.

Persons: Lidl, Chandler Spivey, Spivey, Sebastian Rennack, Rennack, Cary, Randolph St, King of Prussia, Florence Virginia, Richmond Organizations: Service, Aldi, Daily Mail, D.C, Grocery, Grocery Business, Brooklyn Park, King of Prussia South Locations: Virginia, Wall, Silicon, North Carolina , Virginia , New Jersey, South Carolina , Maryland, Pennsylvania, East, North Carolina, Washington, Lorton , Virginia, Germany, Europe, American, Maryland, Oxon, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Park New Jersey, Howell, Holly, Burlington Township North Carolina, Thomasville Pennsylvania, Dekalb Pike, King of Prussia South Carolina, North Augusta, Palmetto St, Charlottesville, Broad St

☆ Amazon really wants you to shop at an Amazon Fresh store this Prime Day
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon is offering Prime members up to 25% off Amazon Fresh purchases for Prime Day this year. The retail giant is beefing up its grocery deals after nearly three years of running Fresh stores. Amazon is also offering 6% back to Prime members who use its Visa credit card at Amazon Fresh. The deals are more substantial than what Amazon offered at Amazon Fresh on Prime Day in the past. The latest deals also come as Amazon tries to find a path forward for its Fresh grocery stores.

Persons: hasn't, Andy Jassy, —, We're, Jassy Organizations: Amazon, Service, Amazon's, Foods, Albertsons

☆ Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba expands number of physical grocery stores ahead of the unit's IPO
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Alibaba's grocery unit Freshippo expanded its number of physical stores in China, the company said on Friday, as the business prepares to spin off from its parent company and go public. Freshippo, known as Hema in China, plans to open 12 new stores across mainland China in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Last week, JD set up a new business unit to house its grocery business 7Fresh, and appointed a company veteran to lead the division. Users can order online and get groceries delivered, but can also head to the physical stores known for their fresh produce such as lobsters. The expansion comes three months after Alibaba split itself into six separate business units in a bid to get the company back to growth.

Persons: Alibaba's, Hema, JD, Alibaba's Freshippo, Alibaba, Freshippo Locations: China, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou

☆ China's JD.com brings back veteran to lead new grocery business as rival Alibaba plans spinoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

JD.com set up an "Innovative Retail" division that houses its grocery business 7Fresh. The "Innovative Retail" unit will house JD's grocery store business 7Fresh and group buying unit Pinpin, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC. Yan Xiaobing, who retired from JD in 2021 after leading the company's international business, will return to head up the Innovative Retail group, the spokesperson said. Alibaba , JD's biggest e-commerce rival in China, split its company into six separate business units this year, the biggest restructuring in its history. One of the business units Alibaba separated out in its restructure is a "local services" group, which covers its food delivery and grocery businesses.

Persons: JD.com, Yan Xiaobing, Yu Rui, Hu Wei, JD's, Daniel Zhang, Alibaba, Eddie Wu, Joe Tsai, Sandy Ran Xu, Xu Lei, Xu Organizations: CNBC, JD, Innovative Retail, JD Logistics Locations: China

☆ Amazon's own Prime members prefer Walmart over Whole Foods. It's a worrying sign for the tech giant's grocery aspirations.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Prime members are more likely to buy groceries online at Walmart than Amazon's stores, per a survey. Previously, Prime members could get free delivery from Amazon Fresh if they ordered at least $35 in items. Although they tend to prefer Walmart, Amazon Prime members are much more likely to order from Whole Foods than non-Prime members are. Noam Galai/ContributorDespite Walmart gaining ground, Coresight found that Prime members were still more likely than non-Prime subscribers to order from Amazon-owned grocers. Do you work or shop at an Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods store and have a story to share?

Persons: —, Sujeet Naik, Naik, Coresight, Noam Galai, Jason Buechel, Alex Bitter Organizations: Walmart, Foods, Service, Amazon Prime, Coresight Research, Amazon, Kroger, Costco, Shoppers Locations: Bentonville , Arkansas

☆ Top Wall Street firm writes a brutal open letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: 'It's time to get back to Day One'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Bernstein, one of the top Wall Street research firms, wrote an open letter to Amazon's leadership. Jassy wrote in the letter that the company is optimistic about grocery, satellite internet, international businesses, and healthcare services. Bernstein wrote. Bernstein wrote. Investor communications win investor trust: Amazon's leadership should cut down on the rhetoric and share more specifics with investors.

Persons: Bernstein, you'd, Andy Jassy, Mark Shmulik, Amazon's, Jassy, There's, Eugene Kim Organizations: Amazon, Healthcare, Whole, Amazon Media, Alexa, Investor Locations: Amazon, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, India

☆ Amazon is abandoning several of its Fresh stores and seeking tenants to sublease them and one landlord is suing over rent
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon is trying to sublease several planned Amazon Fresh stores in the Midwest. Amazon has opened fewer Fresh stores for months, but grocery remains a priority for the company. Amazon is also facing a lawsuit from its landlord at a planned Amazon Fresh location in Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. Amazon has been slowing the pace of new Amazon Fresh store openings for the better part of a year. Do you work at an Amazon Fresh store and have a story idea to share?

☆ Walmart shares rise slightly on higher full-year guidance. Here's how to play the stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Joshua Natoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Market Movers rounded up the best reactions from investors and analysts as Walmart increased its full-year sales forecast on Thursday. The pros, including Jim Cramer , discussed the retail giant after it beat quarterly earnings and revenue expectations. After sales rose nearly 8% in its most recent quarter, Walmart is raising its guidance. The company now predicts consolidated net sales will rise about 3.5% in the fiscal year. Walmart said consumers are buying fewer big-ticket discretionary items like TVs, but its grocery business helped offset those weaker purchases.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: Walmart, Take-Two Interactive, Bath & Body Works and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sale signs inside the Bath and Body Works store in Edmonton. Walmart also reported stronger-than-expected adjusted earnings and revenue, according to Refinitiv. Take-Two Interactive Software — The video game company surged 14% after posting better-than-expected revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter. Bath & Body Works — The retailer of body care and fragrance saw its stock surge nearly 10% in premarket after the company posted stronger-than-expected earnings and revenue for the latest quarter. Bath & Body Works also raised its full-year earnings guidance.

☆ Uber rival Bolt seeks to turn profitable next year, IPO in 2025
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Supantha Mukherjee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

STOCKHOLM, May 8 (Reuters) - Estonian ride-hailing and food delivery startup Bolt expects to turn profitable in the next 12 months and be ready for an initial public offering in 2025, its Chief Executive Officer Markus Villig said in an interview. The company, a rival of Uber (UBER.N), was valued at over $8 billion when it raised 628 million euros from investors in January last year. "We expect to be the first European mobility platform that will be fully profitable over the next 12 months," said Villig, who doesn't have a driving license. Bolt, run by 29-year-old Villig, does not plan to raise external capital through another funding round but will get ready for an IPO instead. It also expects its grocery business to break even or turn profitable in two or three years.

☆ Why Prices, Inflation Are Still Soaring: Corporate Price Gouging
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

While many of the problems that helped trigger the upward spiral have abated, prices are still high and getting higher. The idea that companies are taking advantage of disruptions to push price increases on consumers has many names — greedflation, excuseflation, price gouging, corporate profiteering — but the gist is the same. Supply-chain issues and other disruptions made sense as drivers of higher prices, Chris Becker, a senior economist and the associate director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, told me. "Working people are suffering thanks to corporate greed, so we need to enact tougher rules to ensure corporations pay a price when they price gouge." Working people are suffering thanks to corporate greed, so we need to enact tougher rules to ensure corporations pay a price when they price gouge.

☆ Amazon could buy 100s of grocery stores being divested by Kroger and Albertsons, according to a top research firm
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Gloria Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon has also shut some Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations. In a note published this week, the firm suggested Amazon could buy some or all of the divested stores from the planned Kroger and Albertsons merger. "Buying the divested Kroger/Albertsons stores should definitely be on the table at Amazon," the analysts wrote. That presents an opportunity for Amazon, Bernstein analysts wrote. The authors described several scenarios for the company, such as quickly rebranding stores or focusing on stores in particular regions.

Whole Foods plans to reorganize certain global and regional support teams over the next two months, the company's executive team wrote in a memo to employees on Thursday. Creating a unified, companywide Operations team by transitioning category-specific store operations support from regions to a single Field Support team within our Global Operations team. by transitioning category-specific store operations support from regions to a single Field Support team within our Global Operations team. Enhancing Team Member Services (TMS) support for Team Members and Leaders across the company by realigning TMS team structures. Adjusting structures and improving processes of several other Global Support teams to provide more effective, timely, and consistent support to stores and ensure support teams can focus on priority initiatives.

☆ Walmart US merchandising chief Redfield to step down
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 14 (Reuters) - Walmart Inc (WMT.N) U.S. chief merchandising officer Charles Redfield is stepping down after just over a year in the role, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Friday, at a time the retailer is navigating a tightening spending environment. Redfield will assume an advisory role supporting the U.S. business effective May 1, Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner wrote in a memo to US-based associates on Friday, without naming a successor. Data from the Commerce Department on Friday also showed U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in March. Redfield started his Walmart career as a cashier at Sam's Club and has been with the company for 32 years. He had led the U.S. food and grocery business since 2015 prior to taking up his role as chief merchandising officer.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says his letter to shareholders follows one of the toughest economic years in recent memory. Read it in full.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +38 min

Further, as machine learning adoption has continued to accelerate, customers have yearned for lower-cost GPUs (the chips most commonly used for machine learning). While some areas of the economy have struggled over the past few years, Amazon Business has thrived. Some people have never heard of Amazon Business, but, our business customers love it. For years, Amazon customers had asked us when we'd offer them an online pharmacy as their frustrations mounted with current providers. More recently, a newer form of machine learning, called Generative AI, has burst onto the scene and promises to significantly accelerate machine learning adoption.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he's confident he can get costs under control in shareholder letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +38 min

☆ How Amazon virtual health clinic's top doctor thinks about patients as customers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Ian Thomas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

In 2018, it bought online pharmacy PillPack for $750 million, which it followed up by launching its own virtual clinic for chronic conditions. Now Amazon Clinic, which launched in November, is looking to open up a new option for virtual care to help with common issues like allergies, acne and hair loss. That hasn't come without some setbacks – Amazon Care, its effort to take on telemedicine and primary care for the employer market nationwide, was shut down in August after just three years. Health care, he said, can at times be correctly described as paternalistic. "Care can be a thing that we do to patients rather than with patients or for patients," Ayogu said.

☆ Yes, that TikToker is wearing an Aldi tracksuit
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Aldi unveiled a line of clothing and accesories featuring the company's colors and logo. The line, called "Aldi Gear," is available nationwide, and none of the items sell for more than $9.99 each, the company said. The latest products come about a year after the first line of Aldi Gear, which included water bottles, t-shirts, and sandals. Since then, Aldi has opened roughly 2,300 stores in the country and remains one of the fastest-growing grocery chains, according to industry publication Winsight Grocery Business. Roughly half of all grocery stores opened in the US last month were Aldi locations, Winsight reported.

☆ PDD Holdings names Jiazhen Zhao co-CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 4 (Reuters) - PDD Holdings Inc (PDD.O), which owns discount e-commerce platforms Pinduoduo and Temu, on Tuesday named Jiazhen Zhao as co-chief executive officer of the company, effective immediately. Zhao, who is one of the founding members of PDD and has served as senior vice president since 2018, joins CEO Chen Lei to steer the company as it grapples with tepid consumer demand as China's post-reopening recovery remains patchy. "In the future, Jiazhen will concentrate more on supply chain management and China operations, while my focus will be more on globalization efforts," Lei said in a statement. Zhao was behind PDD's Duo Duo Grocery business and led the operations of some product categories in the Pinduoduo platform, including agriculture. Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra EluriOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Amazon, other retailers revamp 'free' shipping as costs soar
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Lisa Baertlein | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Alyssa PointerLOS ANGELES, March 24 (Reuters) - There is no such thing as free shipping. "The days of free delivery are numbered," Ken Morris, managing partner at Cambridge Retail Advisors, said of the fast-changing retail marketing tool. It is an open secret that most retailers raise product prices to subsidize free shipping. Postal Service hitting record levels, the industry where nearly three-quarters of e-commerce companies offer some sort of free shipping is rethinking the financial cost of habituating shoppers to free shipping. While retailers like Amazon and fashion purveyor Asos Plc (ASOS.L) have raised thresholds for fast shipping, others are dropping free shipping altogether or taking product prices up again.

☆ Dollar General is luring more shoppers with its cheap groceries — but it might be backfiring
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Mary Hanbury | Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

While more people are shopping for groceries at Dollar General, other categories are suffering. Dollar stores, in general, have been gaining market share in the grocery sector as inflation bites and shoppers look for cheaper alternatives. According to a recent report from Coresight Research, Dollar Tree and Dollar General ranked in the top five retailers from which consumers bought food in 2022. Dollar General shoppers are still employed but are "relying more on savings, credit cards, and, quite frankly, borrowing money from friends," Dollar General CEO Jeff Owen said on Thursday during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. "While Dollar General has been steadily improving the offer ... there is still more work to do to improve the proposition," he said Thursday.

☆ Eggs are so expensive that Dollar Tree has just given up stocking them
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Dollar Tree said Tuesday it will stop selling eggs because of soaring prices, Reuters reported. The dollar store chain plans to bring add eggs back to its stores this fall. Dollar Tree will hold off on stocking the grocery staple until this fall, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday. The decision will remove eggs from the grocery sections of about 8,000 Dollar Tree stores across the US and Canada. Dollar stores have expanded their grocery offerings in recent years in a bid to capture more of consumers' food budgets.

☆ How DoorDash Uses Analytics and Forecasting Amid Economic Uncertainty
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Jessica Lachs, vice president of analytics and data science at DoorDash Inc. Photo: DoorDash Inc.WSJ’s CFO Journal talked to Ms. Lachs, who reports to Mr. Inukonda, about how analytics support DoorDash’s financial operations, particularly at a time of high economic uncertainty. A cool thing that we did that empowers our CFO to make good decisions is by building out what we call the DoorDash item price index. We have our own internal price index that tracks and measures changes in the average item price on the platform weekly. Ms. Lachs: The experimentation the analytics team has done to help grow our grocery business is timely. The analytics team found that ensuring an item is in stock and available on the DoorDash platform is more important for consumer retention than providing a good substitution.

☆ Amazon to close eight Go convenience stores in cost-cutting move
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The company will shut two Go stores in New York City, two locations in Seattle, and four stores in San Francisco. The stores will close on April 1, and Amazon said it will work to help affected employees secure other roles at the company. "In this case, we've decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the U.S., and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores." Amazon executives previously confirmed the company would close some Fresh supermarkets and Go stores following its fourth-quarter earnings results.

☆ Warren Buffett is missing out on this year’s market comeback
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Paul R. La Monica | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

But the Oracle of Omaha has missed out on this year’s stock market rally. Buffett, in fact, has promoted that idea to investors many times, arguing that most individual stock pickers will not be able to beat the market. And to his credit, that usually pays dividends: Berkshire stock was up 3% last year in a down market. “High rates of inflation create a tax on capital that makes much corporate investment unwise,” Buffett said in his 1980 shareholder letter to Berkshire investors. Investors will get several more clues about consumer spending this week when several top retailers report earnings.

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