New data from Juniper Research has revealed that global e-retail sales are expected to reach $1.7tr this year, up by more than 17 percent on 2014's total. It argued that while recent growth had been buoyed by factors such as public Wi-Fi deployments and 4G rollout, in the medium term sales would receive a strong fillip from the trend of social media companies to act as direct sales platforms.

Walmart has committed to investing $250bn in products that will support and create American jobs by 2023. Based on data from Boston Consulting Group, it is estimated that one million new U.S. jobs will be created through this initiative. Responding to feedback from its vendors that finding U.S. sources of supply was a challenge, Walmart plans to use ThomasNet's platform for product sourcing and supplier discovery.

Could it be that the Internet of Things is actually under-hyped? Yes - it could have a total economic impact between $3.9tr and $11tr a year by 2025, including $410bn to $1.2tr per year in retail environments.

Walmart is out to improve the quality of product information available to consumers on the internet - particularly from social media sources - with a supplier data collection program that will launch later this year.

There's so much milk flowing out of U.S. cows these days that some is ending up in dirt pits because dairies can't find buyers.