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Rethinking the return of the consumer
Expectations outpaced the willingness of consumers to spend during December, as large numbers of retailers reported results that were less than expected. Weather certainly affected the ability of shoppers to get to stores, as heavy rains pelted California and blizzards hit the Northeast, but that type of stuff happens in December. A bigger factor was that retailers were victims of their own success. Recall November was something of a promotionpalooza and shoppers found offers that arrived early and often to be irresistible.
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Think twice before suing Walmart
Not that anyone ever forgets Walmart is a really big company, but every now and then a fresh reminder surfaces. That was the case this week with an announcement by Datacert, Inc., that Walmart had selected its Passport technology platform to help manage domestic legal processes and systems. Big companies that make a lot of money tend to get sued a lot, and in Walmart’s case the situation is magnified by the fact that it has more than two million employees interacting each week with 200 million customers in its 8,000 stores.
