VENTURE CAPITAL POST

U.S. retailer Target Corp on Tuesday said it planned to cut several thousand jobs, mainly from headquarters locations, as part of a restructuring that will cut $2 billion in costs over two years.

Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) reported flat or lower quarterly revenue in all its operating units on Tuesday, and forecast full-year earnings well below analysts' expectations due to the strong U.S. dollar.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's underwhelming holiday quarter performance and an escalating war of words with a powerful Chinese industry regulator highlight two major risks to its seemingly fairy-tale ascent: politics and the shift to mobile commerce.

China will allow online sales of prescription drugs as early as this month, a policy that will open up an over 1 trillion yuan ($161 billion) market to online pharmacy operators like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Major U.S. retailers missed fewer Christmas deliveries this year, according to two small, early surveys released on Friday, partly reflecting a year's worth of investments made to avoid 2013's last-minute shipping debacle.

China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the world's largest e-commerce company, spent over 1 billion yuan ($160.7 million) combating fake goods and for improving customer protection from the beginning of 2013 to the end of November, the firm said Tuesday.

McDonald's Corp said on Wednesday it plans to cut the number of items on its U.S. menus and use fewer ingredients in food as it moves to speed up service, bolster sales and offer consumers personalized options to compete better with Subway and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Amazon.com's launch of its own private label brand of consumer goods, starting with diapers and baby wipes, underscores the website's maturity as a grocery retailer and the migration of grocery shopping online.

Starbucks Corp, aiming to give cooling U.S. traffic a jolt, on Thursday announced it will add beer, wine, and evening snacks to thousands of domestic cafes, widen lunch offerings and roll out mobile ordering.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it will expand its offering of discounted products during the holiday season and may broaden a price-matching scheme to include online rivals, in the latest sign of an escalating price war among big U.S. retailers.

Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) once fairy-tale ride on Wall Street has hit its most jarring bump yet. The company that for years enthralled investors with improbable growth and earned one of the technology sector's highest valuations drew widespread ire after a spectacular results letdown on Thursday.

Determined not to repeat a holiday season that left millions of packages delivered too late and customers seething, United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) and FedEx Corp (FDX.N) are investing heavily in new infrastructure - but the continued dynamic growth of e-commerce will test those efforts.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that hackers it believes to be backed by the Chinese government have recently launched attacks on U.S. companies.

J.C. Penney Co Inc (JCP.N) named Home Depot Inc (HD.N) executive Marvin Ellison as its new chief on Monday, ending an 18-month search but barely allaying investor concerns over problems facing the money-losing department store chain.

HgCapital buys E-conomic, an online accounting company for SMEs.