Arguing that "the line between stores and the internet is blurring so much," Macy's has become the first major publicly held retailer to stop reporting its e-commerce stats.
Putting Albertsons back together again won't be as easy as it looks. The grocery chain was split in 2006 between Supervalu and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, with both chains using the same logo in different geographic regions. But on January 10, the two owners decided to reunite what will now be a 650-store chain in a complicated deal that leaves only one thing very clear: These money managers aren't thinking about IT when it comes to reassembling the chain.
As retailers are still trying to work through their new-found infatuation with the idea of same-day deliveries, it's quickly becoming a love-hate relationship. Beyond Amazon's discovery that shoppers loved the concept of same-day but ended up not using it, it now seems that some U.K. retailers are willing to very heavily subsidize same-day delivery charges.
When chains listen to their customers and create localized store inventory, and then they listen more and accept online returns to any store the shopper chooses, they run into inventory train wrecks.
With all the attention recently being paid to same-day deliveries by retailers including eBay, Walmart, Macy's, Nordstrom and tons of others, here's an interesting stat"”and a delicious contradiction"”from Amazon, the largest and earliest same-day retail deliverer: consumers consider the service, purchase an item, then don't opt to use same-day service.
Best Buy recently removed e-mail support from its web site, a move the company said was designed to improve response and to give customers the kind of interactions they seek. The problem with this change is twofold.
If you're looking for more evidence of the bipolar nature of mobile shoppers, look no further. The Harris Poll people have what you need. In what should be called the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) effect, some 66 percent of Americans polled said they expect mobile payments to eventually replace payment cards and even cash-but not their cards and cash.
The experience of a Houston-area couple indicates that maddeningly frustrating experiences with online shopping continue, and to the detriment of retailers.
A ring of Canadian thieves who were caught with 30,700 stolen payment-card numbers is providing a view inside the process of tampering with PIN pads - and it's not pretty. On November 9, Toronto police said a five-man gang had tens of thousands of stolen card numbers on PCs and USB thumb-drives, along with at least a dozen stolen POS devices.
So much for the enduring power of big-box brands. On Oct. 31, the owner of Circuit City and CompUSA's brands decided to kill the online remnants of the former chains, redirecting traffic to TigerDirect.com.
