Walmart

ATLANTA — PepsiCo and Feed the Children have teamed up with Compassion Atlanta and Walmart to distribute two tractor trailers full of food and essentials to 800 Atlanta-area children and families in need.  

No one would dispute that Lakeland, Fla.-based supermarket is a wonderful operator, but a piece in the August 12 issue of Forbes takes things a little too far and characterizes the regional operator of 1,073 stores as, “the Wal-Mart Slayer.”
 

Whatever a cloud-based Web site acceleration company is, Walmart acquired one this week called Torbit.

The retailer’s Silicon Valley innovation engine known as @Walmart Labs described Torbit as “a front-end optimization innovator that has been focused on making the web a faster and better place.”

Torbit is known for developing measurement, analytics and performance improvement tools to help companies identify and enhance their overall site performance.

By Jake Weatherly, [email protected]

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Kmart is offering members of its Shop Your Way loyalty program a new payment option called Pay in Store. The program launches nationally this month and allows online shoppers to reserve an item for 48 hours.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has some pretty vivid memories of back- to-school shopping: getting dragged out alongside my mother to buy new outfits and a few No. 2 pencils. Now, it seems like everyone in the retail world is finding a way to join the party.

Boston -- Although Target has narrowed Walmart’s basket advantage, the world’s largest retailer continues to demonstrate its price advantage, according to Kantar Retail’s semi-annual pricing study.

With an overall branded basket 2.4% less expensive than Target’s, Walmart’s overall price gap has still remained within a few percentage points of Target’s, although its lead has narrowed since the last iteration of the study. Importantly, Target’s edible basket was within cents of Walmart’s.

Walmart.com is the only conventional retailer to rank in the monthly Top 50 Web Properties report from comScore Media Metrix, but June traffic to the retailer’s site was below year-ago levels even as e-commerce is hailed as the next growth engine.