PriceSmart (NASDAQ: PSMT), an operator of warehouse clubs in Central America and the Caribbean and headquartered in San Diego, announced results for the third quarter on Friday. Judging by the reaction to the stock, I'd say the market wasn't too thrilled by the company's performance. As I write this, PriceSmart shares are down almost 14% on heavy volume in afternoon trading.

Net warehouse sales increased nearly 8%. Total revenue went up by a similar amount. Earnings came in at 30 cents per diluted share. Unfortunately, that means that PriceSmart's bottom line declined by 17%.

Recession or not, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is pushing ahead. Its latest innovation: Hispanic-themed retail locations called Supermercado de Walmart.

The world's largest retailer opened a new Supermercado in Houston in April and just launched one in Phoenix as well. It's no surprise Wal-Mart is focusing on the Southwest with this new strategy, given the region's heavy concentration of Hispanic shoppers.

Who said big oil was a dying business? Fortune has released its Global 500, their "annual ranking of the world's largest corporations," and topping the charts is Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A), which, much like a Mariah Carey song, bumped up into the coveted number-one slot after some time at number three. The Netherlands-based oil company trumped its U.S. rival, Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) by $15 billion in sales and saw its revenue spike nearly 29% from 2007.

Speaking of Exxon, the company once again had a tiger in its tank, ranking number two in the world as oil futures bounced around in a nearly $100-dollar range, hitting $146 per barrel at its heights.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will soon be allowing customers of its UK-based Asda retail chain to tell it what to stock. Instead of the usual retail "you'll buy it since we ordered it" mentality, Asda will be e-mailing its customers with pictures and descriptions of items available to them from Far East suppliers for feedback. In a word, this is a paradigm shift for retailing.

The idea of real-time (or near-to-it, anyway) feedback from consumers on product trends and other valuable data is an excellent one. It saves frustration from the consumer end and it allows for huge gains in merchandising productivity, inventory turns, and efficiency from the retailer's end. I hope this is successful for Asda, and that Wal-Mart carries the concept into more of its holdings throughout the globe.

When Circuit City filed for bankruptcy, it was easy to see who the obvious winners are: Best Buy (NASDAQ: BBY) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stood to split the market share previously occupied by the second largest electronics retailer in the country.

But then a funny thing happened: Much of the sales volume that Circuit City was doing simply vanished. The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that The Census Bureau's estimate of electronics and appliance store sales -- which include Best Buy -- fell just 0.9% in February. But they dropped an average of 11.2% over the next three months. Overall retail sales declines actually narrowed slightly over that time. . . Best Buy has increased revenue through store expansion, but traffic has declined even after Circuit City's liquidation."

Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.

The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.

When Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) changed its corporate slogan from "Always Low Prices" to "Save Money. Live Better" over a year ago, little did the retailer know that a recession would pour many new customers into its doors for bargains. With millions of families still strapped for cash, the retailer is still booking green at a time when many retailers are seeing red on the bottom line. The question, then, becomes this: can Wal-Mart retain its newer customer legions once the economy returns to normal (whatever normal is)?

It was easy to discount a company dedicated to selling high-end groceries in the midst of a terrible global downturn. And Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) has indeed suffered from investor fears. Shares of the company fell from year-ago levels of about $22 per share to lows of near $8 per share in the dark days of December 2008. They have since rebounded to the $22 level on green shoots speculation. On Monday, however, they tumbled again to $18.80. Is it time to buy?

That's a tricky question. First, the positives. Whole Foods is a well-managed grocery chain. It has been extremely disciplined in its expansion push, choosing good locations. It has also overcome relatively low revenues per employee by posting higher margins on items and much higher average cash register rings.

Retailing behemoth Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) won't be aggressively rolling in health clinics into its retail stores in 2009, as it has scaled back its plan to 31 locations with clinics from the original estimate of about 400 stores in 2009. Wal-Mart even had as many as 77 locations with in-store clinics in 2008, so it has drastically rolled back its plans here. What happened?

The recession happened, that's what. The gap from the original 77 clinics to the present 33 occurred when venture capital-funded clinics had their funds dry up amid the credit crunch of late 2008 and they haven't returned yet. Although Wal-Mart sees health clinics as a still-untapped opportunity in its stores, they won't be coming to every possible Wal-Mart location any time soon. Indeed, former CEO Lee Scott said that it would take five to seven years to get 2,000 clinics inside Wal-Mart locations. Wonder where that estimate is now?

Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), which competes with Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), saw a big increase in volume on Wednesday after it reported earnings for the first quarter. In fact, as Douglas McIntyre observed, shares of Rite Aid were up 5% at one point during yesterday's session. However, the shares ended up losing their green status by the close of trading. Rite Aid actually lost 3% when all was said and done. What does it all mean?

Well, Rite Aid did beat analyst forecasts by a wide margin. The call was for a loss of 13 cents per share. Rite Aid lost only 6 cents per share once adjustments are made. Revenues dipped a little over 1%, and same-store sales, after excluding the effect of the Brooks Eckerd acquisition, increased 1.5%. Interestingly, the mix of this increase is as follows: the pharmacy sales went up 3.1% on a comparable basis, and the non-pharmacy sales went down 1.4% on the same basis.

Kroger (NYSE: KR), a supermarket chain that competes with Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), and Supervalu (NYSE: SVU), issued its Q1 earnings report today. Not much came of it, though. The stock, as of this writing, isn't doing much in afternoon trading. Too bad for shareholders, because the bottom line beat the analysts.

According to the earnings preview from Michael Fowlkes, Kroger was expected to deliver around 61 cents per share. Well, Kroger earned 66 cents per share. The number improved last year's performance by 8 cents. Revenues were essentially flat. Same-store sales increased a little over 3%. When you think about it, Kroger did pretty well.

Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has seen resurgent competition from mass retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT); are the employees of either retailer better? Best Buy seems to think so. Some of the newer advertising indicates that Best Buy employees are better at helping customers than Wal-Mart employees.

Although Wal-Mart has greatly enhanced the consumer electronics sections of its supercenter locations in the last 18 months, do the employees really know the ins and outs of all the new technology? Wal-Mart seems to really want to step up its competitiveness against Best Buy and others, but does it have the backbone to do so outside of just the products?

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), the electronics mecca that competes with retailers such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Target (NYSE: TGT), Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), and GameStop (NYSE: GME), will be issuing earnings for the first fiscal quarter on Tuesday, June 16. According to this source, Best Buy will see a decline in net income. Analysts believe that the retailer will do $0.34 per share, which represents a drop of about 20%.

But, according to that same source, Best Buy has beaten the analysts at their game in the last two quarters. If you ask me, I think the company has a good chance of beating the forecast yet again. With all the euphoria in the equities market as of late, and with all the talk about the recession possibly coming to an end late this year, I feel that consumers must have been in a better mood in the most recent quarter. And one would assume a big name like Best Buy would get its share of the traffic.

Last time I covered Talbots (NYSE: TLB), I was very bearish. I didn't like the stock's prospects. Since then, it's been up. The retailer, which counts Macy's (NYSE: M) and Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) as colleagues, has also seen its stock nearly double since the beginning of the year. But the company is still struggling, as the numbers from the fiscal first quarter clearly show. What am I missing?

Revenues from continuing operations declined 26%. The net loss on an adjusted basis was 23 cents per share. That was worse than last year's results for the similar quarter. Much worse. There was a profit of 42 cents per share at that time. The most dismal aspect of the current quarter can be found in the same-store sales statistic. Comps were simply massacred. They plummeted almost 27%! What a bloodbath.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is taking a larger stab with its apparel lines than in the past and has joined up with teen sensation Miley Cyrus for a new value-priced clothing line -- naturally. Cyrus, star of Disney's Hannah Montana, has hooked up with designer Max Azria for the new line.

The new junior clothing selection will include girls' tops, pants, t-shirts and shows -- all priced at under $20. Wal-Mart shoppers will see the new items in all Wal-Mart stores and at www.walmart.com sometime in August. If history holds, those same clothes will be falling apart from a few washing cycles sometime in December. Sorry, couldn't resist there. Quite a few relatives have told me about clothes from Wal-Mart literally falling apart after three months or so.