Stephan's Monday Picks

• Pete Wells reviewed restaurants for 12 years. They've changed, and not for the better (NYT)
• Williams Sonoma's CEO defied the retail apocalpyse. Now a gloomy economy is forcing even her well-off customers to spend less (Fortune)
• Shopify douses investor skepticism with solid quarter, shares jump 18 per cent (Globe and Mail)
• Meet AdVon, the AI-powered content monster infecting the media industry (Futurism)
• LLM to ROI: How to generate scale Gen AI in retail (McKinsey)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• A user's guide to the end of the world (as we know it) (RBC)
• The country where you can buy meat in a lab (NYT)
• Reckitt to sell some home-care brands, review infant formula unit in shake-up (WSJ)
• The real reason Erewhon is a cult brand (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (2021): Pellet ice is the good ice (The New Yorker)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Why millennials and Gen Z-ers fight over socks (Bloomberg)
• Abercrombie won by leaving teens behind. Sibling brand Hollister is taking the opposite approach (WSJ)
• Caisse de depot sells $700 million of Couche-Tard shares back to the company (Globe and Mail)
• Searching for the next hot cooking oil? It could come from algae (WSJ)
• Bank of Canada cuts key rate to 4.5%, tees up additional easing with focus on downside risks (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Online shopping has become a giant fake product machine (Bloomberg)
• Returns of the 'Amazombies': Unwanted packages are a retail nightmare (Washington Post)
• Halal meat is big business both within and beyond Muslim communities (CBC)
• Buyout firm L Catterton approaches Mattel with buyout offer (Reuters)
• Competition Bureau outlines what can be considered corporate greenwashing (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: A strategic framework for growth (Medium)
• Fairfax strikes $1.7 billion deal to buy Sleep Country Canada (Globe and Mail)
• Shipping costs are spiking again (Globe and Mail)
• Why couches aren't built like they used to be (Bloomberg)
• Luxury brands need to win back middle-class shoppers (WSJ)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Big box retailers can't raise prices forever (BloombergBloomberg)
• Fast food chains' value menu wars are a boon to consumers (Washington Post)
• The zombie mall king doesn't want to be a bottom-feeder forever (Bloomberg)
• The billionaire criminal who secretly profited off Jack Ma's deals (NYT)
• All major Canadian grocers agree to sign on to code of conduct (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Shoppers Drug Mart strikes partnership with blood testing startup Truvian Health (Globe and Mail)
• How retailers can attract and retain a strong frontline workforce in 2024 (McKinsey)
• Kroger-Albertsons deal is haunted by 'spectacular' previous failure (BloombergBloomberg)
• Plan Automation seeing growing demand for x-ray machines for food (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (2015): Albertsons struggling after trying to digest Haggen stores (WSJ)