Walmart

New York City -- Target, Kohl's and J.C. Penney ranked highest among discounters in consumer perception in the first half of 2011, according to YouGov BrandIndex. The company interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample, more than 1.2 million interviews per year.

Here is YouGov’s Retail Buzz scores for discounters in the first half of 2011:

New York City -- Wal-Mart Stores said its Walmart and Sam's Club divisions will now report their U.S. sales data to Nielsen Holdings, which will become the retailer's primary provider for market information, tools and training, the companies said in a joint announcement on Thursday.

Nielsen gathers and analyzes sales information from a variety of U.S. chain stores, giving manufacturers, Wall Street analysts and others a glimpse at how products are selling.

WASHINGTON — First Lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday afternoon will be joined by corporate chiefs from Walmart, Walgreens and Supervalu and smaller regional market chains as she announces a new initiative to support the Let's Move! campaign, according to a Monday posting on the blog site Obama Foodorama.

New York City -- First Lady Michelle Obama and the Partnership for a Healthier America on Wednesday announced that that several national and regional food retailers have pledged to open or expand stores in low-income markets where finding nutritious food options can be difficult. The chains participating in the partnership include Walmart, Walgreens and Supervalu, which, in total, agreed to open or expand hundreds of locations as part of the effort to eliminate what the Department of Agriculture calls “food deserts” throughout the country.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart announced that it is making back-to-school shopping even easier with new store improvements. Back-to-school items are now organized, both in stores and online, in one place and categorized by school age group, so families can quickly and easily shop supplies appropriate for their child’s grade, the company reported. Many of the most common school supply list items are located down the center of the back-to-school aisle allowing families to quickly check these items off their list.

Cape Town, South Africa -- A Tuesday report by Bloomberg said that South Africa’s parliament will let anti-trust regulators decide what conditions to impose on Wal-Mart Stores in its acquisition of Massmart Holdings Ltd.

The Competition Tribunal ruled on May 31 that Wal-Mart could proceed with its $2.4 billion purchase of a controlling stake in Johannesburg-based wholesaler Massmart on condition no jobs are cut for two years.

That was the provocative, if somewhat dated, question Smart Money used as a headline on a story this week based on a consumer survey conducted by Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Wiltamuth. He initiated coverage of Walmart with an ambiguous “equal weight” rating and was quoted as saying, “Many consumers no longer think Walmart has the lowest prices.”

Keeping tabs on key personnel moves at Walmart’s home office in Bentonville is hard enough, but the situation is even more challenging in overseas markets due to an uneven and selective disclosure strategy.

Small suppliers looking to establish business relationships with Massmart following Walmart’s acquisition of a controlling stake in the company would be well served to learn the correct pronunciation of Mncane Mthunzi.

Mthunzi will fill a new supplier development role at Massmart and comes to the retailer from an organization known as the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa where he served as CEO and Massmart CEO Grant Pattison serves as chairman.

The debate over whether online retailers should be collecting sales tax is one of those “level playing field” issues that puts traditional brick and mortal retailers at a disadvantage. Or does it?