But this time he's trying to get doctors and nurses to buy medical books from MedBook-Store.com, the Manhattan-based on-line retailer he founded in September 1997 with three college friends.

FORBES: What the doctor ordered

This week alone saw a bankruptcy filing from a New York-based toy retailer, FAO Schwarz, more store closures and 37, 000 job losses at a bankrupt discount retailer, Kmart, and poor same-store sales growth from Sainsbury's itself.

ECONOMIST: When you can’t sell the goods, sell the shop | The

The Bradford-based retailer will use the purchase to build a new convenience store franchise, especially in London and the South East.

BBC: Morrisons buys 49 Blockbuster stores

Safeway, a Britain-based retailer, built a 2-terabyte database with IBM to store almost four years' worth of customer data.

FORBES: From nuclear bombs to net assets

"People think 'I'm going to buy this, and then my second kid will use it, and then I'll give it to my niece, ' " said Todd Thedinga, CEO of San Francisco-based online retailer Design Public and its sister site, Danish Design Store.

WSJ: Midcentury-Modern Furniture for Kids

On a constant-exchange-rate basis, which excludes the effect of translating foreign-currency-denominated sales into U.S. dollars, worldwide net sales and comparable store sales increased 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively, the New York-based luxury jewelry retailer said.

FORBES: Tiffany Q1 Sales and Earnings Better than Expected

Time and again, traders work themselves into a frenzy, buying or selling based on whether the world's largest retailer hit its latest comparable-store sales forecast.

FORBES: Wizardry At Wal-Mart