LAVAL, Quebec -- Alain Bouchard, the chairman, president and CEO of Alimentation Couche-Tard, has been cited by The Toronto Star as a business leader who has been able to rise above the recession.

"It's fair to say no one has come out a 'winner' from the Great Recession in the conventional sense," said an opinion piece in the newspaper. "Mere survival counts as winning in the worst economic downturn since the Dirty Thirties.... Unlikely as it seems, there have been a few winners by any definition of that term in the midst of these remarkably trying times."

GASTONIA, N.C. -- The recession is leading to some hitherto rival retail concept combinations. At the new Kingsway Dollar Plus in Gastonia, N.C., consumers can fill up the gasoline tank, pick up some groceries and buy a birthday card and balloon without going to multiple stores, said The Gaston Gazette. The channel-blurring hybrid is a sign of the economic times, seeing dollar stores thrive as consumers try to pinch pennies any way and anywhere they can. The "marriage of convenience."

CHICAGO -- Deal seeking, investing time to hunt for the best price and "search engine" shopping represent characteristics of the post-recession shopper, according to researchers with TNS Retail Forward. "We're looking at a new retail world," said Lois Huff, senior vice president for Retail Forward Inc., Columbus, Ohio, as she addressed the 175 attendees at its 2009 Strategic Outlook conference last week. "We'll be headed back to normal, but it will not be a wholesale return."