5 mins read

Independent bookstores are multiplying, although many people still think they’re dying out

NEW YORK | Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, is used to strangers expressing sympathy when they learn what she does for a living. “It’s all so funny,” she says. “When I tell them I run the trade association for independent stores, they’ll say, ‘It’s just so sad that they’re disappearing.’ I don’t […]

8 mins read

Walmart and Amazon race to win over rural America with speedier deliveries

PEA RIDGE, Ark. | Walmart and Amazon are racing to speed up online order deliveries in rural areas of the U.S., a rich source of untapped sales that major retailers long wrote off as too sparsely inhabited, too remote or too impoverished to serve profitably. Walmart has a running start in the contest to build […]