Things got a bit heated at a Walmart in Massachusetts recently, after a employee allegedly set three fires inside the store. [More]
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Walmart May Invest $1B In Flipkart To Fight Amazon Overseas
By 9.28.16
Walmart’s apparent plan to become more like Amazon wasn’t realized when the company launched its $50/year Prime-rival Shipping Pass or after the company snatched up e-commerce site Jet.com for $3.3 billion. But not one to give up, the big box retailer is now reportedly in talks to invest more than $1 billion in fellow Amazon competitor Flipkart. [More]
Majority Of Shoppers Using Amazon To Search For Products, Even If They Buy Elsewhere
By 9.27.16
For years we’ve talked about “showrooming” — the practice of going to a bricks-and-mortar retailer just to look at a product you intend to buy online, and now Amazon has apparently supplanted traditional search engines as the place for most Americans to begin their product hunt.
[More]
New Jersey Walmart Wants You To Get Exercise By Parking Further Away
By 9.26.16
We’ve all been there: driving up and down the lanes of the local big box store’s parking lot seeking out the closest spot to the entrance. Now one Walmart store wants you to stop that, you know, in the name of being healthy. [More]
Christmas Creep Season Kicks Off Nationwide
By 9.21.16
Every holiday has two seasons: its actual season, and its creep season. The latter is that time of year during which people complain that it’s too soon to be selling decorations, cards, costumes, or other items for that holiday. Even things that aren’t really holidays can creep up, like back-to-school season. Here are some Christmas Creep sightings from across the country, so you’ll know where to pick up an artificial evergreen in mid-September for future reference. [More]
Consumers Suing Welspun Over Egyptian Cotton Bedding Made With Inferior Materials
By 9.15.16
There’s more bad news for textile manufacturer Welpsun: after Target cut ties with the company, and Walmart pulled its sheets from shelves, U.S. consumers have filed two lawsuits claiming the textile manufacturer fraudulently labeled its bedding as premium Egyptian cotton when it was in fact made from lower quality fibers. [More]
Walmart Patents Rolling Army Of Autonomous RoboCarts
By 9.13.16
In the last few years, Walmart has had problems with security and with keeping its shelves stocked, but of which it was able to fix by adding or re-allocating staff. One way that it could solve that problem is by having robots perform some tasks that robots can handle, and a patent that Walmart recently filed indicates that carts and merchandise that move themselves around may be coming to your local store. RoboCart? [More]
Walmart Pulls Welspun Not-Egyptian Cotton Sheets From Stores, Offers Refunds
By 9.9.16
After Target pulled sheets that it says were mislabeled as Egyptian cotton from its shelves, dropped the supplier, and offered refunds to customers, other stores that carry products from the same supplier conducted their own reviews. Walmart announced today that it will no longer sell the company’s Egyptian cotton sheets and will give shoppers refunds, but won’t drop the company as a supplier like Target did. [More]
Florida Walmart’s 9/11 Tribute Features Twin Towers Made Out Of Coke Products
By 9.8.16
Just as surely as Sept. 11 comes around once a year, we can also be sure that someone is going to exploit the anniversary of the attacks that happened that day with an ill-advised marketing gimmick. An early entrant to the marketing hall of shame this year is a Florida Walmart and its 9/11 “We Will Never Forget” American flag tribute — complete with the World Trade Center towers — made entirely out of Coca-Cola products. [More]
Why Does My Amazon Order Have A Walmart Or Target Shipping Order Inside?
By 9.1.16
It doesn’t happen a lot, especially if you’re an Amazon Prime member, but occasionally if you order an item from an Amazon third-party seller you might end up with an item shipped in a Target box, or containing a shipping receipt from Walmart. It’s not illegal or a scam, but it probably means you paid more than you should have. [More]
Walmart Starting Holiday Layaway Early Again So It Can Sell More ‘Star Wars’ Stuff
By 9.1.16
You want Star Wars merchandise this holiday season? Walmart has Star Wars stuff, which is the entire reason the retailer is kicking off its holiday layaway program a full two weeks early for the second year in a row. [More]
Study: The “Better” Walmarts Are In Higher-Income, Whiter Areas
By 8.31.16
All Walmarts are, bluntly, not created equal. Some have better customer service than others and are just plain more pleasant shopping experiences. And if you’ve felt like the Walmarts in richer ZIP codes are more likely to be the nicer ones, well, one study says you’re right. [More]
Pre-Cut Veggies Sold In Walmart, Publix, 6 Other Stores, Recalled Over Listeria Concerns
By 8.29.16
Picking up a package of pre-cut, pre-washed fresh vegetables at the grocery store can make preparing dinner (lunch or breakfast) a bit easier. Unless, of course, you could get sick from those convenient vegetables. Walmart, Publix, and six other retailers have recalled packages of pre-cut veggies over listeria contamination concerns. [More]
Walmart Worker Turns Herself In To Police After Accepting $1,000 In Movie Prop Cash
By 8.24.16
When a movie or TV show needs stacks of cash for a scene, they don’t usually withdraw millions from the bank and hope no one walks away with it. Instead, they use prop money that will pass for the real thing on camera, but that any cashier with eyes would immediately notice is fake. So when some Walmart shoppers in Georgia managed to buy $1,000 of stuff with fake movie money, police were suspicious about the cashier’s involvement. [More]
Walmart, Home Depot Relying More On Physical Stores To Complete Online Orders
By 8.23.16
Walmart’s recent $3 billion acquisition of e-commerce company Jet.com may have been the retailer’s way of spurring its online business, but the largest retailer in the world has already been mingling its physical stores with its online presence. Much like fellow big box store, Home Depot, Walmart has increasingly used its vast network of stores to fulfill online purchases. [More]
Now Walmart’s Investigating The Sheet Manufacturer That Target Ditched
By 8.23.16
Days after Target terminated its relationship with one of the world’s biggest textile manufacturers after finding the company supplied the retailer with nearly a million sheet sets labeled as “Egyptian Cotton” that were actually made from non-Egyptian cotton, Walmart says it’s reviewing Welspun India’s records and cotton certifications. [More]
What Should Walmart Do Now That It’s Landed Jet.com?
By 8.23.16
It’s no secret why Walmart bought Jet.com for $3 billion: the company’s e-commerce know-howo and experienced could be the key to the brick-and-mortar retailer’s plans of catching up with Amazon, finally, after all these years. But now that the honeymoon is over, it’s time to look at how, exactly, this marriage will work. [More]
Target Shoppers Aren’t ‘Cautious,’ They’re Shopping At Walmart
By 8.19.16
This week, both Target and Walmart released their quarterly financial results. Based on the results and executives’ comments on those reults, it’s almost like they’re from two different quarters or years entirely, or at least not from two discount stores that are generally close competitors. Maybe it’s not that shoppers are clutching their wallets or spending on home renovations instead of everyday home goods, a Target speculated. Maybe Target’s shoppers are just heading to Walmart more often. [More]
