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CBS News Announces StorefrontBacktalk Doing A Weekly Column

2:00 PM EDT 10/8/2010

The Coming Digital Sign Blitz: Help or Horror?

Retail Realities: The Day May Come When Suppliers Pay for Digital Signs at Retailers

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3:00 PM EDT 10/1/2010

Canada Delays Ultra-Secure Payment Card System

Retail Realities: Canada’s Move to Chip-and-PIN Still Nagged by High Glitch Rates

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8:00 PM EDT 9/24/2010

Maine Supreme Court: Consumers’ Time not Valued

Retail Realities: The Unanimous Decision Is a Very Temporary Piece of Good News for Retailers

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6:19 AM EDT 9/17/2010

Sears’ Web Goof: 5 Million Customers Blocked

Retail Realities: The Accident Was a Surprise at the End of Another Site Makeover

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1:30 PM EDT 9/3/2010

Could Chat Transcripts Be Security Minefields?

Retail Realities: Security Concerns Over Rite-Aid and Walgreens Idea for Pharmacist Chat

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2:30 AM EDT 8/13/2010

Next From Apple: A Privacy Nightmare?

Retail Realities: Apple Envisions Taking Secret Pictures-and Recordings-of People Using Their Phones

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1:00 AM EDT 8/20/2010

Data Breach Pits Police Against Processor

Retail Realities: Is Saying You’re Blameless Too Early a Bad Idea? (Hint: Yes, It Is)

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2:30 AM EDT 8/13/2010

Walgreens And Rite-Aid: Dueling Chat Strategies

Retail Realities: Pharmacies Divided On Safest Way to Offer Chats with Pharmacists

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2:30 AM EDT 8/6/2010

Another Bump in the Mobile Payment Road

Retail Realities: The Move to Shift Mobile Payments to Carriers is a Good One, but Politics Doom It

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12:00 PM EDT 7/30/2010

Down For 8 Days: American Eagle’s Site Disaster

Retail Realities: One of the Longest Site Outages Ever Hit a Multi-Billion-Dollar Retailer

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11:30 AM EDT 7/23/2010

Check Your Bill Next Time the Register Rings

Retail Realities: Technology to Automate Pricing Ringing Up More Errors Than Ever


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1:00 AM EDT 7/16/2010

When Thinking Mobile, Think Inside Vs. Outside

Retail Realities: What Works Inside a Store May Fall Flat Once You Step Outside

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1:30 AM EDT 7/10/2010

The Spy Who Shopped Me

Retail Realities: When Retailers Let Their Web Sites Transmit Secret Messages, We Should Ask Why

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1:30 PM EDT 6/25/2010

An Ice Cream Machine That Measures Smiles

Retail Realities: Unilever’s Testing a Vending Machine That Takes Smiles As Payment


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12:30 PM EDT 6/18/2010

Microsoft’s Catch-22 in Mobile Commerce

Retail Realities: For Impatient Consumers, Smartphone Services Remain a Work in Progress

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10:30 AM EDT 6/11/2010

The Paradox Posed by Mobile Commerce

Retail Realities: As Retailers Jump on Board, They Discover the Downside of Popularity

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12:05 PM EDT 6/4/2010

Time To Stop Mailing Fully-Activated Gift Cards?

Retail Realities: People Have Stopped Mailing Twenty-Dollar Bills in the Mail. To a Thief, a Gift Card is Even Better

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11:30 AM EDT 5/28/2010

Secure Credit Cards: Still a Pipedream?

Retail Realities: What Will It Take To Make Chip-and-PIN Happen In The U.S.?

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9:30 AM EDT 5/21/2010

Will Wal-Mart TV Cry When Your Team Loses?

Retail Realities: World’s Largest Retailer Exploring In-Store Video Ads That Change With The Weather, Sports Scores

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11:00 AM EDT 5/14/2010

Their Security Holes, Your Money

Retail Realities: How Glitches Let Strangers Tap Cash From Your Shopper Gift Cards

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5:00 AM EDT 5/7/2010

The Web’s Achilles Heel

Retail Realities: Try Searching For Anything Small And Specific

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9:45 PM EDT 4/29/2010

Announce A Data Breach And Say It’s No Big Deal?

Retail Realities: When a Web Site Started Accidentally Posting Customer Payment Card Numbers,Things Went From Bad to Worse

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1:00 AM EDT 4/23/2010

Amazon Bid to Make an (Expensive) Privacy Point

Retail Realities: Battling Over Online Sales Tax, the E-Commerce Giant Gets Personal

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11:00 AM EDT 4/16/2010

Consumers Changing Attitude Toward Web Savings

Retail Realities: Having Different Web/In-Store Prices Is No Longer A Big Deal

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1:00 PM EDT 4/9/2010

Get Ready for the Mobile Payments Era

Retail Realities: You May Soon Buy Your Coffee – and a Refrigerator to Store the Milk – From Your Phone

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11:31 AM EDT 4/2/2010

Flawed Assumptions in the Albert Gonzalez Case

Retail Realities: Whether it’s Stock Pricing, Consumer Apathy or Retail Cynicism, Lawyers Were Getting it Wrong

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12:00 PM EDT 3/26/2010

Amazon to Limit E-Mail Among Customers

Retail Realities: Setting Up Online Shopping Communities is Great, but Some Retailers are Getting Nervous

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11:00 AM EDT 3/19/2010

Cyberthieves Discover Bluetooth

Retail Realities: The Target is Gas Station Credit Card Data and the Bad Guys Are Getting Savvy

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9:30 AM EST 3/12/2010

Why Let eBay Have All The Fun?

Retail Realities: Best Buy Borrows a Page from the Giant Internet Retailer

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3:00 PM EST 3/5/2010

FTC: Web Site Security Seals Are Lies

Retail Realities: The Federal Trade Commission Proved What Most Suspected: There’s Nothing Behind Those Seals

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12:54 PM EST 2/26/2010

Target Thinks Little Bribe Will Do Wonders

Retail Realities: Target Is Getting Serious About Discounts for One Card Type: Its Own

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9:30 AM EST 2/19/2010

Will Retail Ever ‘Get’ Mobile Computing?

Retail Realities: Too Many Retailers Still Believe Mobile Technology is a Very Temporary Point of Convenience

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9:17 AM EST 2/12/2010

Saks Doing The Robotic Web

Retail Realities: What Can 700 Ultra-Strong Robots Do? Saks Fifth Avenue is Trying to Find Out

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10:00 AM EST 2/5/2010

How Slow Can Mobile Sites Go?

Retail Realities: Best Buy Does OK, Costco Tanks. Can’t Anyone Do a Good Mobile Site Anymore?

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5:00 PM EST 1/29/2010

Talk, Talk, Talk about Computer Security

Retail Realities: CEOs Still Have Not Internalized the Importance of Computer Security

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1:30 AM EST 1/22/2010

The Mobile Triple Threat

Retail Realities: Retailers Now Realize they Need to Support Three Distinct Mobile Strategies

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5:00 AM EST 1/8/2010

`IT’ Must Learn To Be Comfortable Failing

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Retail Realities: Take it from McDonald’s CIO: Retailers Must Learn to “Fail Really Small”

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5:00 AM EST 1/8/2010

Analysis: Best Buy Wrestles with Ethics

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Retail Realities – Chief Ethics Officer Helps Managers Think Beyond Immediate Profits

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12:00 PM EST 12/19/2009

7-Eleven Mobile, Ethics Questions

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Retail Realities:In A Test Of Mobile Coupons, The Convenience Chain Finds Underage Consumer Sensitivities

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3:30 PM EST 12/11/2009

Retailer Wants Breach Kept Secret

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Retail Realities: Major Chain Wants Court To Protect Its “Dignity,” Keep Shareholders In The Dark

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9:30 AM EST 12/4/2009

Google’s Clout Causing Retailers To Fret

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Retail Realities: The Slower A Retailer’s site, The Lower Its Google Ranking

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12:30 PM EST 11/28/2009

Bargains Despite Black Friday Gloom

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Retail Realities: A Weak Economy-Coupled With Strong Online Sales Growth-Means That Opportunity Awaits

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3:30 PM EST 11/20/2009

Bid Farewell To Coupon Clipping?

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Retail Realities: That Quaint Money-Saving Practice Is Fading As Consumers Increasingly Opt For High Tech

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10:30 AM EST 11/13/2009

Clock Winding Down On Patent Scams?

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Retail Realities: Supreme Court Seems Ready To Snuff Out Frivolous Patent Applications

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9:30 AM EST 11/6/2009

Will E-Commerce Catch The Flu?

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Retail Realities: A GAO Report Paints A Nightmare Scenario, But Is It Realistic?

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7:30 AM EDT 10/30/2009

Going Back In Technological Time

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Retail Realities: After A Data Breach, One Retailer Got Off The Grid

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10:00 AM EDT 10/23/2009

Behind The ‘Governator’s’ Surprise Veto

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Retail Realities: California Governor, No Fan Of Data Breach Rules, Delivers Thumbs Down Decision

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1:00 PM EDT 10/16/2009

Open Season For Retail Cyber Thieves?

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Retail Realities: New Questions As Details Of Past Retail Data Breaches Come To Light

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2:00 AM EDT 10/9/2009

Holiday Hints: Sales Down, Crashes Up

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Retail Realities: The Economy Will Impact Sales, But Mobile Is Going To Rewrite Everything Else

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1:30 PM EDT 10/2/2009

Starbucks’ Mobile App Can’t Buy Anything

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Retail Realities: Starbucks’ iPhone Application Is Beautiful, Stable and Virtually Worthless

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10:30 AM EDT 9/18/2009

New Privacy Question For Social Networks

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Retail Realities: New Technology Lets Retail Sites Siphon Off Names Of Friends And Contacts Without So Much As a Password

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10:30 AM EDT 9/11/2009

New Hurdle For Mobile Commerce: Success?

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Retail Realities: Companies Are About To Find Out It’s A Double-Edged Sword

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10:30 AM EDT 9/4/2009

Is E-Commerce Due For Cosmetic Makeover?

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Retail Realities: Demands Of Makeup Retailers Sparks New Use Of Interactive Tech

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2:00 PM EDT 8/28/2009

A Cyberthief Conundrum For The Cops

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Retail Realities: Is The Hacker Detained by the Feds A Master Criminal Or Pawn In A Larger Scheme?

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3:00 AM EDT 8/14/2009

Phone Shopping? Not Any Time Soon

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Retail Realities: Phone Sales Soaring But Mobile-Commerce Just Can’t Seem To Make A Connection

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3:00 AM EDT 8/14/2009

Retail Versus Privacy: New Questions

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Retail Realities: To Protect Privacy, A Retailer First Must Understand It. Does Wal-Mart?

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5:30 AM EDT 8/7/2009

When Thieves Order Off The Menu

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Retail Realities: A Glitch In The System Threatens To Become A Huge Problem, Especially With Fast-Food Chains

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7:00 AM EDT 7/31/2009

Data Breach Bill’s Flawed Assumptions

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Retail Realities: Sen.Patrick Leahy’s Data Breach Bill Likely To Boomerang

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7:30 PM EDT 7/24/2009

The Credit Card Reform Backlash

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Retail Realities: Bottom Line Is That You’ll Be Feeling The Pinch

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7:30 AM EDT 7/17/2009

When States Attack, Retailers Relax

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After 41 Attorneys General Tried To Punish $19 billion retailer TJX, Guess Who Came Out On Top? (Trick Question Alert)

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7:00 AM EDT 7/10/2009

Trusting Wal-Mart to do the Right Thing

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Retail Realities: How Data from a Wal-Mart Test May Wind Up Determining How Consumer Information Gets Used

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10:00 AM EDT 6/26/2009

An E-Commerce Survival Plan

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Retail Realities: In A Recession, E-Commerce Needs To Start Listening To Consumers

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7:30 AM EDT 6/19/2009

The License Plate Loyalty Card

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Retail Realities: A Science Fiction Scenario Is About To Come True

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11:30 PM EDT 6/16/2009

Still Trust Your Web Site? Don’t

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Retail Realities: Is A Product In-Stock? The Web Site May Have No Clue

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3:30 AM EDT 6/5/2009

Beyond Ice Cream And Hamburgers

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Retail Realities: Dairy Queen’s Bold Mobile Coupon Experiment With RFID

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12:30 PM EDT 6/1/2009

Does Data Impose A Duty?

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Retail Realities: A Case Involving Lead And Childrens’ Necklaces Heads To Court

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12:30 PM EDT 6/1/2009

Credit Cards’ Unintended Security Hole

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Retail Realities: Why Zero Liability Programs Are a Wonderfully Early Holiday Gift to Cyber Thieves Everywhere

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2:00 AM EDT 5/22/2009

The Diabolical Duplicate Debit Debacle

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Retail Realities: How A Debit Card Glitch Can Turn You Into An Inadvertent Debtor

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Weekly, Monthly Newsletters

Quickly catch-up on the latest in E-Commerce and Retail Tech with our free weekly report, with urgent bulletins as news merits—along with our monthlies on Mobile, Security, In-Store, E-Commerce and CRM.
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Most Recent Comments

"Is there really an improvement between a mag swipe and contactless tap if multi-factor authentication is required?" -Ed

The Backward World Of Loyalty: "I'd Like A VCR, A Wired Phone and a Plastic Card-Based Loyalty Card, Please"

Walt Conway
The common thread in each case is immediacy. I carry no additional plastic in my wallet I can avoid. Then again, I'm not a typical consumer so maybe others have different experiences as retailers or consumers. Read more...

Neiman Marcus Goes Down, But Only For A Special Few

Steven P
We insist our staff check all changes (how ever small) on all the popular browsers. Its something we'd recommend to everyone. Read more...

The Never-Ending Dance Of Contactless Security

ed
Contactless should require multi-factor authentication for financial transactions. However, multi-factor authentication will nullify the main benefit of contactless transactions which is speed. Is there really an improvement between a mag swipe and contactless tap if multi-factor authentication is required? Read more...

Home Depot's Try At Not Shutting Down Completely Leaves Customers Running In Circles

Bill N
This is SO Home Depot -- a lack of vigor resulting in rookie mistakes. I see it all the time in the stores. Read more...

MasterCard Pushing EMV PIN. Visa? Not So Much

James L.
When our company switched from AmEx to MC for business travel expenses, I thought we finally had the opportunity for chip/PIN & signature cards to facilitate the travel in Europe. "They're not available in the US yet", I was told by the bank representative who conducted the training on the new related expense reporting website. It was interesting to see that the chip card with mag stripe was available to my colleages in Canada. I thought the idea with chip & signature was to allow its use in both US & EU markets. One card - dual authorization methods. Read more...
Dan
I want Chip & PIN. With Chip & Signature, sure it has a an EMV chip, but then a fraudster could just steal my card, run it through the chip reader and then sign my name. The PIN adds an extra layer of security as only I (should) know it. At the very least, I would like to see a dual method wherein if the US insists on using Chip & Signature, our cards would work as Chip & PIN in countries where that is the norm. I am just sick of this back and forth. America needs to get off its high horse and comply with the world payment standards. Visa says Chip & Signature, MasterCard wants Chip & PIN and then Amex is mysteriously quiet. All of this talk....the government, banks, acquiring banks and card networks need to work together to make it affordable and easy to fast track EMV. Read more...

In The Security Vs. Compliance Battle Of The Mind, Security Is Winning

Andrew Jamieson
I think that this has the potential to provide a terrific win for the merchants in scope for these sorts of systems, and also to the security posture of payments as a whole - exactly because it should ensure that people who know what they are doing are the only ones involved in the details. Read more...

Guess CIO On iPad Trial: "This Is The Consumerization Of IT."

John Pruban
Because Apple provides little support at the enterprise level, it is interesting to watch the struggles as retailers implement. In Mike's case, he talks at great length about the augmentation of the customer experience. The biggest hole we see retailers struggle with here is basic wireless coverage. The experience goes bad quickly if, while your walking around, you get into the middle of a function and can't recover. Read more...

Brook
This phone is not "from Verizon". The operating system was written by Google. The hardware was manufactured by Samsung. The reason a person might buy such a device is to run Android software. Verizon is just the service provider that links the device to the telephone backbone and the Internet. Verizon has no right to tell users what software they can or cannot run on their devices. And "Google Wallet" or Verizon's (vaporware so far) competing product should be treated as just what they are: software. The users should be able to download and install their own choice. Read more...

Macy's In Australia: No, John, It's Not All Thanks To eBay

Ric
John Donahoe is so anxious to impress his Wall Street Masters that it comes as no surprise he exaggerated and got the facts wrong during the conference call. Read more...

In Theory, E-Commerce Sites Are Way Too Slow. But Do Customers Care?

Jason Goldberg
I love it when the data in vendor studies directly contradicts the conclusion, and thanks for calling it out. In the case of page load speed, while I am skeptical of the urban legends quantifying the effect of page load (1 conversion drop per 100ms, etc...), I have seen a number of first hand examples of improved performance directly improving bounce rate and conversion. So my own experience tells me that speed is an important factor in customer experience. I just don't believe it can be reduced to a simple equation. Read more...

Fortnum & Mason's PCI Weakness: Customer Service

Walt Conway
This is a great example of "customer service" trumping security. This situation also has me wondering if they also have a call recording system that captures and stores card data, too. Just for quality purposes, of course. It is disappointing that a leading retailer like Fortnum's would be so casually dismissive of their customers' security. Read more...
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