Walmart

SEATTLE - Mark S. Hansen, 47, chairman and CEO of Fleming Companies Inc., was elected today to the board of directors of Amazon.com.

LONDON - Carrefour, the French hypermarket chain, will sign an agreement today with the Chinese State Economic and Trade Commission that will allow it to resume supermarket openings, which have been suspended for six months, the BBC reported.

BEIJING - A Wal-Mart executive said today the company hopes to open its first store in Beijing late next year or early in 2003, The Associated Press reported.

NEW YORK - Online retailing is expected to fare only about as well or as poorly as the retail economy as a whole during the Christmas season, The New York Times reported today. That stands in contrast to a steady growth since 1998, when online sales kept surging despite less favorable economic trends or even normal seasonal patterns.

LITTLE ROCK - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday it was mistaken when it said it would have exclusive rights to sell Polaroid 35 mm film at its stores, The Associated Press reported.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has purchased the rights to exclusively sell 35mm Polaroid film, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

America Online Latin America, Inc. today announced a marketing alliance between its AOL Brazil subsidiary and Wal-Mart Brasil, which operates Wal-Mart, Sam's Club locations and a new local format called Wal-Mart Todo Dia.

Britain's Safeway Plc reported strong second quarter sales on Thursday with like-for-like sales rising 5.4 percent, keeping the country's fourth biggest food retailer in the running among its top competitors.