The amount that Walmart invested in ecommerce initiatives in 2013, according to an article this week in the Wall Street Journal. That includes building three new efulfillment centers and paying 1000 employees at its ecommerce think tank and R&D center in Silicon Valley. It plans to invest another $150 million in ecommerce this year. It is also opening up dozens of new much smaller sized outlets, such as Walmart Express. The action comes as new CEO Doug McMillon is pushing his executives fast and furious to change and innovate, given recent struggles at the company, which has seen US same store sales growth fall for five straight quarters. Among Walmart's challenges: to achieve just 1% in sales growth, the giant must raise sales by $5 billion. The law of large numbers applies to Walmart too.

Number of drayage drivers that walked off the job this week at the ports of LA and Long Beach, complaining of unfair policies at three short-haul trucking companies. That's a tiny fraction of the some 12,000 drayage drivers said to be working the ports. But as we reported this week, the real game here is to have independent truckers be designated as employees of the trucking companies, which would require them to join the union in unionized carriers, or to be more easily organized in non-union shops. The walk off was orchestrated and supported by the Teamsters union. A new law in New York this year will change the status of many independents in that state. The numbers may be small here in this action, but the stakes are high - costs may rise as much as 30% for a carrier from such a change from independent to unionized.