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Store No. 8 Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s new investment arm, Store No. 8, has hired Jenny Fleiss as the chief executive officer of its first portfolio company. Fleiss will lead Code Eight, which will develop personalized, one-to-one shopping experiences, according to a blog post from Store No. 8 principals Seth Beal and Katie Finnegan. Previously, Fleiss was the co-founder and head of business development for fashion rental company Rent the Runway. She announced her departure from the company last month. Wal-Mart announced the creation of Store No. 8 in March, opening the Silicon Valley-based innovation hub to identify, invent and invest in ideas that will "transform the future of commerce." The hub will operate as a stand-alone entity and focus on retail technology innovation in areas like robotics, virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence. — April 25 Marc Lore Wal-Mart Stores Inc. U.S. e-commerce chief Marc Lore was the highest-paid executive in America in 2016, according to the Bloomberg Pay Index. Lore, who was placed in charge of Wal- Mart's domestic e-commerce business as part of the Sept. 19, 2016, $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com, earned $243.9 million in total compensation from the Bentonville-based retailer. Most of Lore's compensation was in stock awards connected to Wal-Mart's acquisition of Jet.com. Lore, who was the co-founder, largest shareholder and CEO of Jet.com, received 3.5 million shares of restricted stock as part of the acquisition. If not for the restricted shares, Wal-Mart said in an annual proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Lore's compensation package for the year would've been about $7.6 million. Lore was followed by Apple CEO Tim Cook ($150 million), Evercore Partners Inc. Executive Chairman John S. Weinberg ($124 million), Google CEO Sundar Pichai ($106.5 million) and Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk ($99.7 million) on Bloomberg's list of the highest-paid executives. — May 11 its annual "year-beginning meeting." Suppliers attended session that included topics like direct imports, growth with U.S. manufacturing and sustainability, and inventory expectations. Digital acceleration was also a session on the agenda and has been a focal point for the retailer under Chief Exec- utive Officer Doug McMillon and U.S. e-commerce chief Marc Lore. Wal-Mart has emphasized efforts to increase its online offerings and has boosted the assortment to more than 20 million items. Carol Spieckerman, a retail consul- tant and president of Spieckerman Retail, said Wal-Mart has been able to expand aggressively through its online marketplace. Now the retailer is taking steps to ensure items available in its 4,600 stores can be efficiently added to Walmart.com under the new buying plan. "This is a worthwhile effort given that shoppers expect most items available in a Wal-Mart store to also be avail- able online," Spieckerman said in an email. "The move may also be a boon to suppliers, particularly new ones, giving them the opportunity to build omnichannel scale with Wal-Mart more easily and through existing contacts." The change is not a merger between Wal-Mart's store and online buying teams. Both will continue to operate separately. Suppliers who only have products to sell at Walmart.com will continue to work with the retailer's online buying team in San Bruno, Calif. Those who have products in Wal-Mart stores, but additional items that sell online only, will go through the Walmart.com buying team as well. Eric Howerton, chief executive officer of Fayetteville-based digital marketing firm WhyteSpyder, believes the adjust- ment could alleviate confusion for both Wal-Mart buyers and suppliers. Howerton also said the change "makes total sense" for Wal-Mart because of its ongoing efforts to tear down any barriers that exist between its stores and e-commerce businesses. "It's one Wal-Mart, one experience for the shopper," Howerton said. "So it's going to be one experience for the supplier to an extent because, really, they're not selling to dot-com and/or stores. They're selling to Wal-Mart." We're The First National Bank of Higher CD Rates. 7 Month CD 16 Month CD 26 Month CD 1.10% APY* 1.30% APY* 1.40% APY* Call us today at (479) 631-8888 $1000 minimum balance. Penalty for early withdrawal. Not IRA eligible. *Annual Percentage Yield APY and terms as of November 4, 2016. 20 NWA Democrat-Gazette Walmart Shareholders Thursday, June 1, 2017 Buying v Continued from Page 16 Wal-Mart Notes