News Briefs

Whole Foods Market is opening a flagship in Los Angeles that will feature several new venues, including a taproom and elevated specialty department.

The 63,082-sq.-ft. store, scheduled to open on Nov. 11, is located in the Bloom on Third shopping center. Situated at the intersection of 3rd & Fairfax, the outpost is a relocation of the original Fairfax store next door, which has open since 2002. (On Nov. 11, Whole Foods will open in Simi Valley, Calif., marking its 96th location in the Golden State. It follows the September openings of two additional stores in California.)

The new flagship, which has a designated parking structure with some 600 spaces, houses a taproom offering wine by the glass and beer on tap, including local selections. While at the bar, customers can also order charcuterie and cheese plates while at the bar from a new charcuterie venue adjacent to the taproom. The taproom will also host events with two currently scheduled from 2-7 p.m. on Nov. 14 and 21, featuring a DJ, wine tasting and special demo activations.

Other features include an elevated specialty department featuring a charcuterie venue offering a menu of pre-curated cheese and charcuterie boards or build-your-own options. There is also a coffee and juice bar offering made-to-order coffee, tea, juices and smoothies.

The product assortment includes more than 1,900 local items from more than 400 California-based suppliers. The store also includes signature Whole Food offerings such as a curated grocery section, full-service meat counter, extensive beverage selection including spirits and more than 780 wines, prepared foods, bakery, and wellness and beauty. 

[READ MORE:Amazon investing $230M in pay, benefits for Whole Foods employees]

Whole Foods Market, which is owned by Amazon, has more than 560 stores across the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

Neighborhood Intelligence will bring supply chain planning processes across its store and distribution network together on a single artificial intelligence platform.

The company formerly known as Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. has selected RELEX Solutions to unify supply chain planning in its enterprise, which includes the Bed Bath & Beyond, The Container Store, Kirkland's, BuyBuy Baby, and Overstock banners. Neighborhood Intelligence will implement technology to support forecasting, replenishment and allocation capabilities; as well as merchandise financial planning, open-to-buy, and the RELEX Diagnostics solution.

By bringing AI-driven forecasting, replenishment, allocation, and merchandise financial planning onto a single platform, Neighborhood Intelligence intends to provide its planning, allocation and merchandising personnel a shared view of the business. With that unified foundation, the company hopes to open supply chain visibility to protect in-stock rates, improve sell-through, and make faster and more informed decisions as it continues to grow.

[READ MORE: Bed Bath & Beyond/The Container Store in big pricing move]

"We needed a platform that could allocate across a business growing fast in scale and complexity, all on one intelligent data layer," said Ashley Prado, COO of the retail pillar, Neighborhood Intelligence. "RELEX breaks down the silos between our brands and gives our teams a single place to plan, allocate, and act on the same data, with AI that simplifies and optimizes how our teams work. As we build our ‘Everything Home’ strategy, that foundation is critical to running leaner, and getting smarter about how we serve every customer."

Neighborhood Intelligence is a holding company based in Nashville operating more than 335 stores and multiple online brands across North America.

Grocery shoppers have limited patience when it comes to poor in-store experiences.

That’s according to a new survey from AI-powered frontline workforce platform Axonify’s latest report, which revealed that 42% of consumers say they notice in-store problems more than they used to.

Nearly six-in-10 (58) say a poor in-store experience feels frustrating in the current higher-price environment. Nearly all (92%) shoppers surveyed say grocery prices have risen over the past year, and two-thirds (67%) say they are extremely or very concerned about the cost of groceries.

[READ MORE: Numerator: Prices have increased 35% for low-income households since 2019]

A vast majority (88%) of shoppers report that they shop at more than one grocery store in a typical month, with 69% of that group saying they shop multiple stores to find better prices. 

A large chunk (42%) of respondents said they have cut back on visits to their most-frequented store, with rising prices, long checkout lines, out-of-stocks, and a better experience elsewhere cited as reasons for shopping at different retailers.

"Grocery and retail operators can't control inflation, but they can control how their frontline workers and managers deliver the best in-store experience,” said Melissa Burghardt, CEO at Axonify. “While some operators may consider cutting labor to protect margins, this new data shows the risk of allowing the customer experience to erode when shoppers are already feeling squeezed. Protecting frontline capacity is an investment in the experience that keeps shoppers coming back."

Axonify’s “Eye on the Aisles: Higher Prices, Higher Stakes for Customer Experience” report, the group surveyed over 1,200 U.S. and Canadian grocery shoppers in August 2026. The full report can be found here.

[READ MORE: Under-30 minute delivery use to continue growing among consumers]

Amazon is acknowledging it has made reductions in corporate staff.

In an email to Chain Store Age, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed media reports that the company has laid off some corporate employees.

“We’re always looking at our team structures to ensure we’re best set up to move fast as we innovate for customers,” the spokesperson said in the email. “We’ve adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities. As part of these changes, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles, and we’re committed to supporting affected employees through their transition.”

According to reporting from Business Insider, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, some Amazon employees posted messages in an internal Slack communications channel that they had received emails notifying them about the elimination of their positions. The jobs are in the retailer’s Stores division, which handles retail and e-commerce operations, and reportedly include customer service, marketplace support and engineering positions in the U.S., U.K. and India.

While Amazon has not publicly released an exact figure of how many employees have been affected, Business Insider reports the total number is less than 1,000.

These latest layoffs follow Amazon’s elimination of roughly 16,000 positions across the company in January.  In October 2025, Amazon laid off roughly 14,000 corporate employees as part of what Reuters reported was a larger initiative to reduce expenses and rectify excessive increases in staffing levels it made during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

[READ MORE: Amazon cutting 14,000 corporate roles]

Combined, the October 2025 and January layoffs represented close to 5% of Amazon’s then-roughly 350,000-person corporate workforce and were the largest workforce reduction in company history according to CNBC.

The Best Buy Ads retail media network continues expanding its reach via partnerships with content platforms.

Best Buy is now allowing advertisers participating in its Best Buy Ads retail media network to activate campaigns across the LG Electronics TV ecosystem, including the Home Screen operating system and connected TV (CTV) devices. 

This collaboration between Best Buy Ads and the LG Ad Solutions CTV and cross-screen advertising unit marks the first time LG’s Home Screen inventory has been made available through a retail media network. Inventory is transacted programmatically through the Magnite modular ad platform, with Best Buy’s closed-loop measurement connecting campaign exposure to sales outcomes.

Best Buy has been partnering with numerous content platforms in the past few years to provide advertisers more channels to reach its customers. These efforts include a recent agreement to offer brands access to Amazon Fire TV advertising inventory on all new and existing Insignia TVs. 

In addition, as part of a broader collaboration with TikTok, advertisers will soon be able to use TikTok creator content in their Best Buy Ads campaigns to feature products, give shoppers a direct path to purchase through shoppable content and affiliate links, and extend the reach of the content through paid advertising. Campaigns connect back to Best Buy’s first-party data and measurement capabilities.

[READ MORE: Best Buy to launch TikTok storefront with creator and advertiser links]

“Advertisers increasingly want the ability to connect retail media investments with premium media experiences and measurable sales results,” said Lisa Valentino, chief ads and media officer of Best Buy. “This partnership expands the ways brands can reach Best Buy shoppers, combining our first-party audience insights and closed-loop measurement capabilities with LG’s premium CTV inventory to create a more accountable and effective advertising solution.”