With fears that the coming months could be the toughest for them since the 1991 recession, retailers are fighting to gain any edge they can over their rivals. The stores' strategies vary. So do their prospects for success. Many are redeploying staff and revising promotions; some are putting a new stress on low prices. Stores are trying to ease their pain from the slowdown in consumer spending by taking care not to stock too little of the latest hot fashion or product--or to showcase it too late. Many stores are working more closely with overseas suppliers to settle quickly …

Daily Queen owner associations with franchise members in 10 states are suing the company, claiming that it is trying to force them to spend between $275,000 and $450,000 to remodel stores and to adhere to an unproven concept that will cost more to operate, double staffing requirements, and cut into profits. Dairy Queen's plans center on two relatively new restaurants lines. DQ Grill & Chill establishments would sell meals and desserts, and would expand to include limited table service, among other things. Outlets that sell only Blizzards, Dilly Bars and desserts would combine with the Orange Julius beverage chain …

With sales to emerging economies representing the fastest-growing chunk of General Electric's revenues, the company is making a big splash at the Beijing Olympics to impress potential customers and shareholders with its "Imagination at Work" campaign. The company is building an imagination center in the middle of the Olympic Green--a two-story building that is half fun house, half museum exhibit. And it is putting the finishing touches on a series of print ads and commercials that put an Olympic spin on its effort to bring desalination technology to the Middle East, X-ray technology to China and heart monitoring gear …

Chinese basketball fans, bloggers and multinational companies all expressed their condolences yesterday to Yao Ming, the 27-year-old, 7-foot-6 superstar center, who announced Tuesday that a stress fracture in his foot would prevent him from finishing the season with the NBA's Houston Rockets and threatens his participation in the Beijing Olympics in August. Yao's grin seems to be plastered everywhere in China, from cans of Coke to billboards for Visa. A Web site launched by Reebok--www.reebokyao.com--features a "Yao-o-meter" of Chinese support for the star, measuring the growth in digital sentiments such as clicks and phone messages. So far, the …

At a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R- Texas) assailed the Humane Society for waiting four months to inform the federal government that it had an undercover video of cattle being abused at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company. His criticism echoed a point made last week by Ed Schafer, the secretary of agriculture. As the meat industry scrambles to recover from the public-relations disaster, Humane Society representatives say that the criticism is misplaced. They say the primary concern of their organization is animal welfare, not food safety. As soon as they had the tape they took …

Scorned customers are turning into vigilantes, arming themselves with video cameras, computer keyboards, and mobile devices to launch their own personal forms of insurrection. Frustrated by the usual fix-it options--obediently waiting on hold with Bangalore, gamely chatting online with a scripted robot--more consumers are rebelling against company-prescribed service channels. Behind the guerrilla tactics is a growing disconnect between the experience companies promise and customers' perceptions of what they actually get. Consumers already pushed to the brink by sliding home equity, job insecurity, and rising prices are more apt to snap when hit with long hold times and …

Will Ferrell, one of the most tireless--some would say shameless--promoters on Hollywood's A-list, stars in a series of jocular TV spots pitching Procter & Gamble's newest addition to the Old Spice product line, Pro Strength antiperspirant. The spots help raise the profile of Farrell's R-rated "Semi-Pro," while reaching the young male consumers P&G covets. The actor ad-libbed much of the material in the eight ads during a daylong shoot, signing off with such politically incorrect tag lines as "Don't smell like a turtle cage" and "The finest street-legal antiperspirant you can get outside of Mexico that's not poisonous." …

On Monday, Estée Lauder will hand the post of president to Fabrizio Freda, a Procter & Gamble executive who is expected to eventually succeed William Lauder, scion of the third generation, as CEO. In two generations, the Lauder family has turned a skin-cream line into one of the best-known names in beauty, but cracks surfaced on the family's famously united front as business turned south. A seismic shift occurred less than a year into William's tenure as CEO. For decades, Estée Lauder had used the strength of its brand names to control department-store display space and even the timing …