News

New York -- Concerns about regulators blocking Staples’s proposed acquisition of Office Depot have surfaced in the wake of a Federal judge blocking Sysco Corp.’s purchase of US Foods, reported 247wallst.com.

Read the store here.

An investigation of Whole Foods Market stores in New York City has found systemic overcharging of its customers for prepackaged food, according to government officials.

North York, Canada - Leon’s Furniture has launched a newly upgraded e-commerce site featuring a fully responsive design, using technology and development services from Blueport Commerce. The new Leon’s website features design and functionality improvements including JavaScript technology to improve homepage, product detail page and shopping cart speed.

Shoppers looking for creative projects to do with their kids this summer will love a new collection from actress Jennifer Garner at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.

The leading fabric and craft specialty retailer has launched We Made It by Jennifer Garner, a new line of creative kits for active kids, available only at Jo-Ann stores and Joann.com.

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Amazon just obtained a new competitor for its Amazon Web Services cloud hosting and development platform. Oracle is going head-to-head with Amazon with a slew of more than 24 new additions to the Oracle Cloud Platform.

Oracle’s new integrated cloud services include infrastructure, platform and software delivered as a service. Specific cloud-based services include hosted Exadata-based production databases, archive storage, Big Data, enterprise mobility, and application integration.

A year after it first announced a major minimum wage hike in its U.S. stores, Ikea said Wednesday that it plans to implement another nationwide raise to its wage floor next year, bringing the average store's starting pay to nearly $12 per hour.

Carpinteria, Calif. -- With more Americans using credit, debit and prepaid goods to pay for goods and services, the amount merchants pay to process those cards continues to rise.

At the recent MIT CIO Symposium, Bryan Kirschner, director of the research/strategy organization Apigee Institute, and Jerry Wolfe, CEO and founder of food industry platform services provider Vivanda, participated in a panel discussion on consumer connectivity and engagement. Chain Store Age followed up with the two experts to ask a few more questions about engaging today’s connected customer.

How can retailers use APIs (application program interfaces) to provide a more personalized customer experience?