Technology expert Evan Schuman takes an authoritative look at the faults and foibles of enterprise IT.
Far too often, retailers use technology to slightly accelerate current operations, rather than to leverage technology's power to radically rethink how business can be done. Fast casual chain Chili's is trying to do the latter.
The Apple Pay payment experience has been simple and elegant. No network connection needed. No need to find an app, launch an app or log in. Just hold the phone at the end of the transaction, place your finger ever so briefly on the button for a spli....
When shoppers at Walmart ran into a wide range of problems using their Green Dot/Walmart MoneyCard cards at Walmart—including checking balancing and accessing funds—last week, it was a grim reminder of how interconnected the payments worl....
Major retail shopping malls today function, for the most part, frighteningly similarly to how they did 20 years ago. Although individual stores might accept some NFC payments and broadcast beacon coupons to mobile phones, the stores are their own isl....
At South Bay Target last week in Boston, Target ran a trial for a new pricing effort. It charged more for the freshest produce or, put another way, it offered discounts for older produce. It's an interest pricing twist to see if shoppers will pa....
One of retail's worst-kept secrets is that retailers offer rebates only because so few shoppers bother to go through the effort to redeem them. A similar phenomenon happens with many after-the-fact purchase-protection programs. Shoppers research....
Could virtual assistants soon be calling retail stores directly and handling complicated discussions? If so, the implications are tremendous.
Kohl's and Apple's retail loyalty deal is a key step forward in mobile payment. Even though loyalty and CRM are essential kinds of apps to integrate into mobile payments, that's not why it's such an important step. The cool part h....
When the PCI council on Thursday (April 28) rolled out its new payment card security rules, it put additional emphasis on authentication and service providers, as expected. But it also took a key additional move by stressing the need for senior manag....
Of all of the apparel subspecialties, footwear has generated some of the most powerful sites, such as Zappos and Shoes.com. They fought back against brick-and-mortars with unlimited free returns and close-to-infinite inventory. But there is a persona....
When the PCI Security Council issues its new payments security requirements on Thursday, it is going to impose new rules about authentication and service providers. What is intriguing about the new edicts is that it shows the council's new ackno....
When Visa introduced its Quick Chip for EMV on Tuesday, it placed retailers in an awkward — but interesting — position. The good news: Quick Chip removes the most hated part of the EMV process, the part where the shopper has to leave the ....
It's become almost a cliché to say that mobile is having a seismic impact on all of technology and that no vertical right now is feeling it more than retail. But every now and then, an example illustrates what a complete reversal in think....
When Microsoft on Thursday (April 14) sued the U.S. Justice Department demanding more openness about data seizures, it made the case that its customers have the right to know when their data in the cloud is being examined. Retail IT execs need to wat....
Burberry last week said that it was the first brand to use Snapchat's QR Snapcode feature for in-store smartphone viewing. But as much as any innovation in-store is to be encouraged, it seems a shame to waste the ability to show shoppers any ima....
The idea of embedding RFID tags into clothing is hardly new, having been part of the anti-theft efforts of manufacturers and retailers for more than a decade. But one European apparel manufacturer, Moncler, has come up with a new marketing twist. Ins....
Domino's seems to be trying to master the sneaky tech move. For example, it has deployed a technology that, truth be told, has very little to do with technology and everything to do with making consumers curious enough to order its less-than-del....
Apple is touting its newly redesigned Apple Stores, and they are indeed quite impressive. Conceding that the very nature of Apple's stores (very limited inventory, complete control of key products, customers who walk in already willing to buy, e....
McDonald's is preparing to launch a full-scale CRM program later this year or early next year — and it may just prove to be a great case study for when a CRM program costs more than it helps.
With all of the effort by retailers to lure shoppers into their stores, one would think that granting those customers an easy and painless exit would be a priority. One would be wrong.
The retail mobile challenge today, especially when trying to interact with the youngest of consumers, is not merely what a message says or even how it looks. It's giving shoppers concrete reasons to interact with the messages, preferably in a pl....
E-commerce directors and their IT security and loss prevention counterparts play an endless cat-and-mouse game with cyberthieves. The trick to getting ahead of fraud is anticipating which customers are the most likely thieves, typically through some ....
For many years, gift cards have been ultra-popular for both shoppers and thieves. As mobile domination has soared, the convenience of gift cards — for both sides — has grown right along with it. In an attempt to fight theft, some retailer....
When the FTC on Monday announced a probe into how PCI operates, it threatened to shine a light into how merchants deal with payments security. Even for merchants — who typically express bitter resentment about the paperwork-intensive and labor-....
A key concern now is not what lead this chain to bankruptcy court as much as what its plan for going forward is today. And it appears that it's post-bankruptcy plan of attack suffers from the same misguided strategy that got it to bankruptcy cou....
Reebok gets clever with a kiosk that gives away free pairs of $100 sneakers if the consumer runs fast enough.
Domino's is potentially one of the best masters of contra-marketing. That's where a company's core product/service is pretty bad, and it's widely known among customers/prospects that it's pretty bad, and marketing is charged ....
Nordstrom, a longtime leader in customer service in-store, is learning how expensive a merged channel strategy is. But as it fights its way through new costs, it is illustrating the changing nature of retail itself.
One of the longtime problems that Walmart has had with its many e-commerce efforts is that the retailer has a very healthy heritage of being physical-store-centric and that perspective colors the thinking of many Walmart execs.
The folk over at RIIS, an IT services firm in Troy, Mich., have put out an annual report over the last few years exploring Android security. That report has opted to look at the largest romance sites as they publish in mid-February, near Valentine�....
Under the best of circumstances, figuring out e-commerce ROI is challenging. The e-commerce chief at RainbowShops.com found that PayPal support adds a lot more complexity.
Note to all retailers: No matter how much you fear Amazon, regardless of how many sales you think you've lost to it, I am here to tell you that it's about to get much worse.
Retailers have overwhelmingly avoided any attempts to dabble with voice recognition, but that is a huge error. One of the inherent limitations in GUI design for mobile as well as desktop devices is the pulldown menu.
New Accenture research says retailers are not delivering for their customers. It's the right conclusion, but for the wrong reasons.
The apparel and accessory chain gets creative with its RFID magic mirror trial-and leverages special dressing room paint to block both RF and mobile signals.
The visions of where drones will head is a fascinating glimpse into the mindsets of both companies.
Technology gadgets won't help a retailer if they don't have good customer service. RFID and NFC won't bring Walmart customers back—or increase their average basket size—if the shopping experience is unpleasant. But when goo....
A recent AdWeek piece touched on how the five senses drive luxury purchases and found that touch was the most persuasive. In the never-ending effort of physical stores to try to deliver something that e-commerce sites can't, this would seem to b....
Retail marketers have known for years the critical nature of social media communications. But every now and then, one retailer takes it up a notch and shows some of the huge potential in up-to-date social campaigns. This time, it's 1,139-store a....
Amazon UK is experimenting with a page lifted from 1970s Sears: loaning customers money to make purchases.
When Visa and Dell this month agreed to invest $3 million in a program to upgrade the e-commerce capabilities of the Girl Scouts, it was a concrete glimpse into the marketing minds at Visa. Although a healthy chunk of credit certainly deserves to go ....
There's something very black-coal-in-your-stocking about having a price-match policy that is 90% exceptions and exemptions. Your lawyers may think it is protecting you, but the only practical impact is that it associates your brand far more with....
Why do younger consumers seeing the technology security/privacy threats as greater challenges? Is it ignorance-based fear, making them afraid of high-tech issues that they don't understand? Or is it the opposite, that they understand the systems....
Target has a vision of a new kind of physical store to compete with online rivals, one that attempts to sidestep the drudgery of shopping by wiping out the need for customers to lug around their purchases through the store's aisles.
A throwaway reference in a Reuters story last week showcases a critical retail IT problem, which is that chains in the hectic holiday shopping season are quite willing to try new technology but are almost never willing to support it. That means insuf....
Retail's bizarre fascination with high-tech mirrors that shoppers show no interest in using at all continues. This time it's Ralph Lauren toying with RFID-enabled dressing-room mirrors.
Pizza chain Domino's has rolled out an e-commerce tool that is so obvious it could be brilliant. It's a big, physical button that you press to instantly order a Domino's pizza delivery. It's so simple that it may just have an over....
Watching a lot of the commentary and excitement last week about Square's Nov. 19 IPO, one might think that Wall Street had never been given a shot at a retail POS investment before. The truth is that, in many of the ways that count, it hadn'....
As I sit here and notice all of the glowing financial pieces about Amazon this week, it's hard to not sit back and think, "How can Wall Street employ so many smart people and yet be so consistently stupid?"
Retail merged channel strategies should leverage all channels in a way that makes the most sense for the shopper rather than trying to feed all shoppers into whatever channel the retailer finds the most profitable.
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