eCommerce

Online retailer—and would-be rival to Amazon— Jet.com is continuing to spread its wings. The retailer is testing a home delivery service for fresh groceries in certain markets in the metro areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. According to an email sent to some customers, produce delivery will take one to two days, with no fee for orders of $35 or more.

Walmart is escalating competition with Amazon’s Prime service. The discounter’s online subscription ShippingPass program, which is still in pilot, will begin offering delivery in two days rather than three, Bloomberg reported.

Even luxury department stores got no love from shoppers in the first quarter. Following a pattern set by Macy’s and Kohl’s, Nordstrom reported dismal results for the first quarter, including a steep drop in profit, with the only positive sign being the company’s off-price division. The retailer lowered its full-year outlook.

Party City Holdco Inc. narrowed its loss in the first quarter as gross margins improved. The party supplies retailer and wholesaler reported a loss of $394,000, in line with Wall Street expectations, for the quarter ended March 31, down from a loss of $8.5 million in the year-ago period. Total revenue was flat at $457.7 million, which missed Street forecasts.

For vertical medical accessory retailer Cielo Pill Holders, simply getting its products in front of potential customers is a key business challenge. To meet this challenge and also obtain third-party fulfillment support, North Bend, Washington-based Cielo has been leveraging the Amazon Exclusives program of the Amazon Marketplace platform since summer 2015. The Exclusives Program, which provides extra benefits in exchange for agreement not to sell items on any other third-party retail platform.

Folks in the state of South Dakota can no longer buy baubles from popular online jewelry retailer Blue Nile.

Petco is expanding its store portfolio and distribution center network. In keeping with its 2016 growth plan, which includes 27 new store openings year-to-date, Petco will open a new distribution center on May 11, 2016, in Reno, Nevada. The company will also open a new Unleashed by Petco store in Maryland, and re-open a newly expanded Southern California Petco store in place of a previous Unleashed by Petco locations.

The nation’s two largest office-supply chains have pulled the plug on their $6.3 billion merger.