By Paul Page 

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Amazon.com Inc. is reaching deeper into the supplier world in its bid to carve more business away from retailers. The e-commerce giant has a new deal with Nike Inc. to sell some of the sporting apparel maker's products, the WSJ's Sara Germano and Laura Stevens report, a concession from Nike that it can no longer afford to ignore the online retailing juggernaut. While Nike sells its shoes and sportswear through department stores and specialty retailers, it has refused to sell directly to Amazon, fearing it would undermine its own brand. But with traffic to traditional stores falling, Nike has been ramping up efforts to sell directly to consumers, especially its own e-commerce efforts. The supplier needs the outlets: the Sports Authority chain collapsed last year under the online competition, and moves by suppliers including Adidas AG and Under Armour Inc. to Amazon have added to the pressure on sporting goods retailers, stress that will only grow as Nike follows the same path.

Germany is finding the answer to protectionist trade talk in the U.S. is more business with Asia. The country's exports to the Far East are surging, the WSJ's Nina Adam reports, including a 12.3% jump in shipments to China and better-than 20% growth in goods to Indonesia and Vietnam. The export gains come as Germany has come under sharp criticism from President Donald Trump over its large trade surplus with the U.S. The barbs from Washington, along with tensions over issues such as climate, has led European leaders to scale up efforts to cultivate Beijing -- and pushed Germany to build on its already-strong trade with China. The country became Germany's largest trading partner last year, with overall trade of almost $223 billion. Germany's exports to the U.S. rose 3.9% this year through April, but the numbers suggest the country's trade interest is heading in another direction.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking its competition with Amazon to the cloud. The retailer is telling some technology companies they can't run applications for the company on Amazon's cloud-computing service if they want to do business with Wal-Mart, the WSJ's Jay Greene and Laura Stevens report. It's a rare showdown between companies over third-party suppliers, driven by Amazon's rise as the dominant provider of on-demand computing power and storage. Wal-Mart says it simply doesn't want "our most sensitive data" on a competitor's platform. Some technology vendors say other large retailers also have requested that service providers move away from Amazon Web Services. That push highlights the potential conflicts that are rising as Amazon spreads beyond the nuts-and-bolts of retailing, a growing question in the logistics field as the e-commerce giants builds shipping infrastructure that provides both business and competition to truckers and other operators. For Wal-Mart, there's no doubt AWS provides troubling competition, bringing Amazon big profits that help offset tight retail margins.

COMMODITIES

Everyone may be bullish about e-commerce, but the cattle aren't buying it. An online auction meant to help set prices in the volatile cattle market is in trouble, the WSJ's Benjamin Parkin reports, with technical breakdowns and dwindling participation undermining a business that aimed to bring an ages-old business into the modern trading world. The Fed Cattle Exchange has crashed multiple times in the last month alone, and traders say the auction isn't providing the promised reality check for pricing in the $19 billion cattle-futures market. Instead, it's provided a lesson in the difficulty in creating an independent commodity exchange in an industry that's already created its own processes for managing goods. Public cattle prices became scarce as the share of cattle sold on the open market has fallen, reflecting consolidation among ranchers and meat companies into a few large players that favor contracts over auctions. Still, the market remains so volatile that some traders insist they'll keep trying to work with the new exchange.

QUOTABLE

IN OTHER NEWS

Oil prices turned lower again even as U.S. data showed stockpiles are shrinking. (WSJ)

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes increased 1.1% from April to May. (WSJ)

Ports and maritime businesses along the U.S. Gulf Coast were bracing for the impact of tropical storm Cindy as it headed toward landfall. (WSJ)

Foxconn Technology Group is looking at several U.S. states as potential sites for new contract manufacturing sites and may make its first choice early next month. (WSJ)

Sears Canada Inc., which operates more than 200 stores, is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection in Canada. (WSJ)

The Japanese government seized the lead role in buying Toshiba Corp.'s chip unit after raising concerns about technology leaking to China. (WSJ)

Rio Tinto PLC rebuffed a $2.5 billion offer by Glencore PLC for its Australian coal assets and recommended shareholders approve a smaller bid by a Chinese company. (WSJ)

Trump administration officials say foreign investment will be central to their efforts to increase U.S. infrastructure spending. (The Hill)

Honda Motor Co. temporarily halted production at a plant in Japan after it suffered a ransomware cyberattack. (Agence France-Presse)

China Hongqiao Group Ltd., the nation's biggest aluminum smelter, is curtailing outdated capacity amid a government crackdown on production. (Bloomberg)

Taiwan's Evergreen Line joined other major ship operators in launching sea freight booking services on the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd platform. (Lloyd's List)

Mediterranean Shipping Co. took control of Brazil's port at Portonave, a key gateway for perishables exports. (Shipping Watch)

Ceva Logistics owner Apollo Capital Management is interested in selling the Netherlands-based operator. (The Loadstar)

The American Trucking Associations' Truck Tonnage index rose for the first time in four months, climbing 6.5% in May. (Commercial Carrier Journal)

Boeing Co. will convert three 767-300 passenger jets to freighters for United Parcel Service Inc. (Air Cargo World)

UPS acquired a 595,000-square-foot distribution center outside Carlisle, Pa. (PennLive)

Developers want to build a one million-square-foot distribution center south of Milwaukee for an unnamed customer. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Business intelligence software provider FusionOps gained $50 million in new venture capital funding and renamed itself Aera Technology. (DC Velocity)

Logistics accounts for up to 30% of the cost of home-delivery meal kits such as Blue Apron, an analysis shows. (Washington Post)

ABOUT US

Paul Page is deputy editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Follow him at @PaulPage, and follow the entire WSJ Logistics Report team: @brianjbaskin , @jensmithWSJ and @EEPhillips_WSJ. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.

Write to Paul Page at paul.page@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 22, 2017 06:47 ET (10:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.