… and you’re an established but struggling department store operator (think a rubbish John Lewis) and obvious bid target. You’ve never heard of this bidder, but they insist they’re for real. What do you do?

Here’s Espirito’ Santo’s Caroline Gulliver with a look at what we can expect from “shopping in the future”. Some of the points echo our own beyond scarcity and multiple currency/payment method thoughts very closely… such as the idea that quality will become ever more important to customers while pricing will increasingly become a function of who you are and your relationship with the retailer. One price will fit fewer and fewer people. While supply chains and inventory holdings will respond ever more dynamically to demand in order to stay competitive.

Walmart shares were down as much as 4.9 per cent on Monday after the NYT’s investigation into the silencing of a bribery probe in Mexico, before recovering a bit. They were down 4.3 per cent at pixel time, while shares of Walmart Mexico were off 11.4 per cent.

Rather than being invested, the money paid in usually goes towards managing short-term liquidity needs.