Breakfast briefing: Retail news on Walmart and John Lewis

Walmart gets new dotcom CEO

Fernando Madeira, who has been serving as the president and chief executive for Walmart’s Latin America region, has been declared as the chief executive for Walmart.com wherein he’ll be heading the US, Latin America and other regions as well, Bloomberg reported.

A Sao Paulo native, Madeira will replace Joel Anderson who is leaving to join another company on 20 June. He’ll be working towards integrating the company’s web sales with its brick-and-mortar stores which forms a key part of its growth strategy. Madeira will soon be relocating to San Francisco where the Walmart.com business is based.

Start-ups get an opportunity to become John Lewis suppliers

Retailer John Lewis and tech-giant Stuart Marks are eagerly looking forward to a revolutionized consumer experience with an app that can build virtual versions of customers’ homes, a system to track shoppers in stores and smart labels that could help fix a washing machine, The Guardian reported. The retailer-techie duo is up for an investment of as much as £100,000.

In this regard,  five start-up companies have been offered  £12,500 each to work on developing their inventions for 15 weeks by working alongside mentors, including Pizza Express co-founder Luke Johnson, Confused.com founder Sara Murray and John Lewis’s IT director Paul Coby under the JLAB scheme. The best project awaits a chance to become a supplier to John Lewis with a further investment of £50,000 and will win a similar investment from Marks.