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Michaels Stores said John Menzer has resigned as CEO in order to focus on his recovery from a stroke he suffered in April.

Wal-Mart's Facebook page has more than 17 million fans and the company also pays to advertise on Facebook. Expanding its reach online is key for Wal-Mart as shoppers increasingly shop on their computers, tablets and smartphones.

Penney CEO Ron Johnson has said the retailer had too many legacy systems that were all customized and so came with expensive maintenance costs. The outsourcing move is one of the cost-saving decisions that Johnson is implementing with the goal of coming up with $900 million in annual expense cuts. Those cuts are paying for Penney’s transformation into “America’s favorite store.” Penney employees will run Oracle’s software and it no longer will need as many IT people as it did to run and update its legacy systems.

Retail sales fell for a third straight month in June as demand slumped for everything from cars and electronics to building materials, a sign the economic recovery is flagging.

Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. is laying off 600 staffers in its Geek Squad technical support division and 1,800 other store workers as it seeks to restructure operations and improve results, the company said Friday.

Target (TGT) and Macy’s (M) announced that June same store sales were below analyst estimates. Sales at Target increased by 2.1 percent, below expectations of a 2.8 percent gain. Macy’s reported a 1.2 percent increase in same-store sales, well below the estimate of 2.3 percent.

Richard Schulze, the founder of Best Buy, is exploring putting together a bid to take the struggling electronics retailer private, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Schulze, who resigned from the company’s board this month, has been begun working with bankers from Credit Suisse to consider such a move, these people said. They said he would probably team up with a private equity firm or other deep-pocketed investor. With a 20.1 percent stake, he is the company’s largest shareholder.

Thousands of small merchants depend on Amazon.com to reach customers who otherwise wouldn't know they exist. But some complain that Amazon itself often spots their popular products and then starts muscling in.

Barnes & Noble posted a loss for its fiscal fourth quarter on sales that barely inched higher. The loss, while narrower than the one a year earlier, was larger than expected and revenue growth fell short of hopes. Sales of the Nook e-reader fell.

Drug retailer Walgreen Co is buying a 45 percent stake in European health and beauty group Alliance Boots for $6.7 billion in cash and stock, creating the world's biggest buyer of prescription drugs.