Strategy

Whole Foods Market is helping its shoppers make a choice between good, better and best when it comes to the level of growing practices they want to support when purchasing fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Bentonville, Ark. –- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reportedly piloting a service called InstaWatch that lets customers obtain digital access to movies they buy in stores or on the Wal-Mart site.  

Seattle –- Amazon.com will open a holiday pop-up store at San Francisco Westfield Centre, in San Francisco, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, according to the San Francisco Business Journal.   

Boston –- Between April and June of 2014, the retail sector led all industries in data breaches with 145 million records, or 83% of the total records compromised, costing retailers $195 per record apprehended. In response, Boston Retail Partners has released recommendations for data security best practices.    The recommendations include:  

A much anticipated acceleration of small format Walmart stores failed to materialize on Wednesday when the retailer announced plans to curtail domestic new store growth in 2016.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is planning to sharply cut back the growth of its U.S. supercenters in favor of smaller-format stores and acccelerated e-commerce and digital investments.    

Costco has extended its product offering to shoppers in mainland China by establishing a storefront on the Tmall e-commerce platform operated by Alibaba Group.

Boilingbrook, Ill. -- Ulta Beauty has named Michelle Collins, president of Cambium LLC, a business and financial advisory firm to its board of directors, and as a member of its nominating and corporate governance and audit committees, effective Oct. 13, 2014.