Retail

Walmart’s sharpest critics will acknowledge that much good has come of the company’s sustainability efforts, but there are voices who maintain an inherent conflict exists between saving the planet and a business model based on selling as much low-priced stuff as possible to as many people as possible.

PITTSBURGH — Giant Eagle on Thursday unveiled its fifth Market District location in five years — and its first in Pittsburgh’s North Hills suburbs.

Was it a good holiday season or a bad one? Depends who you ask and how results are interpreted as evidenced by conflicting perspectives on U.S. Commerce Department statistics released Thursday morning.

It was widely reported that December sales were a disappointment by media outlets, which cited Commerce Department statistics released Thursday morning showing a rise of 0.1% versus the 0.3% that was widely reported as the expectation of economists.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $400.6 billion.

The December figure is up 0.1% from November, and up 6.5% from December 2010.

Total sales for the October through December 2011 period were up 7.0% from the same period a year ago.

Julie Roehm may have only spent a short time in Walmart’s marketing department over five years ago but she made quite a name for herself during that brief tenure and after she was fired. Now, Ad Age is reporting the former Walmart SVP has turned up in a similar capacity at software maker SAP.

In an era when retail cashiers look warily at a $100 bill, hard to imagine what a man was thinking when he tried to pass a $1 million bill at a Walmart in North Carolina.

LOS ANGELES — Kohl's has signed on as the exclusive retail partner of "¡Q’viva! The Chosen," a documentary celebrating Latin culture, music, and dance is making its Spanish-language U.S. debut January 28, 2012 on Univision and will also air on leading networks throughout the Americas, according to a press statement released by Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Jamie King, Simon Fuller and XIX Entertainment.

MINNEAPOLIS — Target's board of directors has approved a new $5 billion share repurchase program, which will be implemented upon the completion of the company's current $10 billion program.

Target said while it expects to complete its current program early this year, it expects to complete the new $5 billion authorization in the next two to three years, saying the program "represents an opportunity to apply excess cash flow to what [the company believes] will be an attractive long-term investment."