Returned merchandise, which retailers have to discount or even dump, end up costing U.S. merchants as much as $20bn a year, and are a "ticking time bomb" that threatens retailers' profitability. To avoid that blowup, merchants are turning to new technologies.
Four years ago, when its little card reader attachments for phones and tablets began to show up in cabs and at farmers' markets, Square was one of the coolest, most innovative companies in Silicon Valley. That's over.
The recent introduction of Apple Pay was widely described as the dawn of a new era for smartphone payments. But within a week, two major pharmacy chains, Rite Aid and CVS, rejected Apple’s version of the future: Both disabled Apple Pay (as well as other tap-to-pay mobile payments systems Google Wallet and Softcard).
Amid all the fine financial news Boeing can tout - a record order backlog, robust profit margins, a higher profit outlook - one of the airplane maker’s dreariest performers continues to be its highest-tech, most fuel-efficient product: the 787 Dreamliner.
If there's one story that's been beaten to death by the media in search of feel-good news from what’s been a pretty tepid economic recovery, it's that of the supposed manufacturing renaissance in the U.S.
Amazon cleared $25.6bn in the fourth quarter of 2013. A lot of Christmas wishes were no doubt fulfilled, but that holiday season is likely going to be remembered more for the packages that didn’t ship on time.
Starting in January, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will require employers to notify the government within 24 hours every time someone loses an eye, suffers an amputation, or gets admitted to the hospital with an injury sustained at work.
Apple sold 150 million iPhones last year, each carrying dozens of parts made by other companies. That's why Apple is a perennial kingmaker among component manufacturers: Each time the company releases a model, some suppliers end up winners and others losers.
Organic foods have long carried a price premium along with a certain snob appeal or caricature, depending on your view: Fancy eats for affluent folks, not the hungry and thrifty masses. So much for that stereotype. Organic products sold under Kroger’s store brand are about to top $1bn in annual sales.
