Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart, Target and other large retailers are ratcheting up a political campaign to force Amazon to collect sales taxes, sensing opportunity in the budget crises gripping statehouses nationwide. The big-box stores are backing a coalition called the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, which is leading efforts to change sales-tax laws in more than a dozen states including Texas and California.

Following its restructuring program, Family Dollar Stores announced calculated actions to reinforce its operations by chopping more than 100 jobs. The move will permit Family Dollar to sustain its streamlined group, thus facilitating the company in making rapid decisions in a vivacious working and aggressive situation.

Kantar Retail IQ has released a report comparing a basket of goods bought at Target with an identical basket bought at Wal-Mart. The findings were good news for Target customers, because the study found that Target is cheaper than Wal-Mart.

The biggest players in the world of retail have come together to form a Super Friends-like coalition, whose mission is to address the environmental and social impacts of their products. Made up of global retailers like Nike, Wal-Mart, Target and Gap among others, the “Sustainable Apparel Coalition” intends to create a universal Apparel Index that would eventually give retailers the opportunity to publish environmental scoring metrics on their products.

Wal-Mart has made a push to capitalize on Amazon’s ongoing tax troubles in California, by reaching out to the online retailer’s business partners. In a public statement, Wal-Mart said that it was “committed to supporting the affiliate programmes which help to drive Walmart.com's online business.”

Retail giants, non-governmental organizations, academic experts, and the Environmental Protection Agency are banding together to reduce the social and environmental impacts of apparel and footwear products sold worldwide. 

Target posted an 11 percent gain in fourth-quarter profit thanks to strength in its retail division, a discount credit card program and a cleaned up credit card business.

Wal-Mart is losing customers to dollar stores as it stuggles with pricing, and it continues to recover from a poorly executed decision, since reversed, to pare down the number of items it offered.

Borders Group filed for bankruptcy in New York today after management changes, job cuts and debt restructuring failed to make up for sagging book sales in the face of competition from Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Bernadette Clark used to visit Wal-Mart twice a week. Now it's twice a month. She got fed up last year when Wal-Mart stopped stocking some of her favorite brands and she couldn't count on low prices.