DoorDash races higher in IPO. What four market analysts see ahead

DoorDash shares are dashing higher on the company’s first official trading day. The food delivery giant went public to huge fanfare on Wednesday, with its stock surging nearly 86% to close at $189.51 per share.
“Right now, the time is really to invest,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “We’re playing in one of the biggest yet still most underpenetrated categories in the world.” Here’s what four market analysts, including CNBC’s Jim Cramer, said about DoorDash’s...

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Online sales reach $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday, the biggest U.S. e-commerce day ever, Adobe says

Holiday shoppers went online Monday and spent $10.8 billion, setting a record for the largest U.S. internet shopping day ever, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday spending rose 15.1% year over year, according to Adobe, which analyzes website transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers. That came in short of Adobe’s original forecast of $12.7 billion. The firm had been revising its Cyber Monday estimate downward in recent days.
Adobe cut its online sales forecast...

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Salesforce deal to buy Slack expected to be announced Tuesday after market close

The deal is expected to be about half cash and half stock, the sources said, and will price Slack at a premium. Salesforce is set to report quarterly earnings on Tuesday. Slack’s market cap was more than $24 billion as of Monday morning. Shares of Slack rose about 4% Monday on the news. Salesforce shares were down more than 3%. Talks between the two companies were first reported last week by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by CNBC, sending...

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11% of Americans have already subscribed to Walmart+

Early September, Walmart announced the launch of Walmart+, a membership program that offers a host of benefits to the company's retail customer base. At $98 per year or $12.95 per month, the service has inevitably been compared to Amazon Prime. A new survey shows that Walmart's new program has hit its mark.

Piplsay Research conducted an online survey of 20,179 Americans earlier this week, which found that 11% of respondents had already subscribed to Walmart+,...

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With TikTok deal, Walmart could gain ‘a front row seat to the next generation of consumers’

Brick-and-mortar giant Walmart may seem like an odd match for TikTok, an algorithm-driven social platform known for hosting memes and viral dance challenges. But a closer look at Walmart’s e-commerce and digital media moves shows that TikTok could help it blend the in-store and online shopping experience, while giving it an edge with young Americans. Walmart said Saturday that it has tenatively agreed to take a 7.5% stake of a newly created company based in the U.S. called TikTok Global. Walmart CEO Doug...

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Walmart’s Amazon Prime challenger is launching Sept. 15

Walmart Inc.’s answer to Amazon Prime finally has a launch date. The new subscription program, dubbed Walmart+, will be available on Sept. 15, the world’s largest retailer said in a statement. The program costs $98 a year, a discount to rival Amazon’s $119 annual Prime membership, and includes unlimited free delivery from stores -- including groceries -- plus gasoline discounts. “We’ve tried to make a membership that makes it easier for customers to shop, manage their daily lives, and to...

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Amazon Finally Finds a Good Fit at the Mall

Converting abandoned department stores into warehouses has the potential to benefit the online retailer, its shoppers and mall owners. Amazon.com Inc. might soon be filling online orders from the kinds of shopping centers it has helped destroy.
 The e-commerce giant, according to the Wall Street Journal, is in talks with mall operator Simon Property Group Inc. about setting up fulfillment centers in spaces currently or formerly occupied by J.C. Penney and Sears, two once-mighty department stores...

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This is California’s reopening plan for stores, offices, schools, sports, concerts, theaters

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California businesses seen as presenting less risk of spreading the coronavirus could open in the near future under a plan Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled Tuesday, the first of what he suggested were several slow steps toward easing the statewide shutdown order. “We believe we are weeks, not months, away from making meaningful modifications” in the current restrictions, Newsom said. But Newsom’s announcement of a four-phase plan did not come with a guaranteed timetable. He said while current public health...

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White House Turns to Corporate America to Fix Testing Shortfall

The Trump administration is leaning heavily on the nation’s drug retailers and lab-testing companies to try to solve a problem that has vexed it since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic: Getting mass testing up and running smoothly. Expanding on an earlier effort to ramp up testing in store parking lots, the White House on Monday revealed plans to partner with Walmart Inc., CVS Health Corp., Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and other chain retailers and diagnostics companies to...

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McKinsey & Co.’s “Store of the Future” Yields Retailing Insights in Real Time

McKinsey & Co., the global consulting giant with $10 billion in annual revenue, opened a pop-up luxury goods store this fall in the Mall of America in Minneapolis. It’s a laboratory where the firm’s clients are studying consumer behavior and experimenting with the digital tools that will define the future of retail. McKinsey’s research approach is novel and, after just two months in operation,...

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