Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Franchisee Columnist Todd Michaud wishes 10 percent of his business cases looked this good. The problem is that even before he presents the business case, he knows that the project will never even get off the ground. Why? Because, Michaud opines, it crosses the IDM (It Doesn't Matter) Threshold. This magical perception number trumps value and speaks to psychological biases.Read more...

StorefrontBacktalk surveyed our readers this month to get a sense of how widespread the practice is today. Read more...

But other issues are emerging about tokens. For example, the risk of storing convenient metadata in the tokens, info such as SKUs and exact time/place of purchase and CRM info. Although tempting, such convenience could prove disastrous if a retailer starts holding the data internally and then outsources without remembering to do an intense data cleanse. Read more...

Some of these efforts are being artificially fueled by applications launched specifically for Apple's iPhone, while other retailers are getting their mobile acts together in time for this year's holiday season. J.C. Penny threw its hat in the ring by launching what it said was the first non-grocery system that can read 2D barcode coupons presented on mobile phones. The new imaging scanners were deployed at J.C. Penny store POS terminals in 16 Houston area stores.Read more...

In late September, Starbucks introduced two very different M-Commerce applications, both designed for the iPhone. One was for a very limited trial, impacting eight stores in Seattle and eight more in and around Silicon Valley (specifically Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale and San Jose).Read more...

The 792-store $32 billion chain said it is the first retailer in the U.K. to introduce a "coupons at the till" program, a multi-million-dollar project that will extensively use historical customer purchase information gleaned from its Nectar loyalty card database "to ensure that coupons are specifically targeted at what Sainsbury's Nectar card holders actually buy."Read more...

But in two recent conversations with a pair of E-Commerce execs from two unrelated multi-billion-dollar retailers, the execs showed some very different perspectives on when to let your people do the magic and when to hire a specialty firm. The technology on which they diverged was M-Commerce payment security and Web downtime monitoring (or uptime monitoring, if you're one of those perky glass-is-half-full people).Read more...

Coville said the chain suspected the thermal-imaging system wasn't too hot when it came to accuracy and, convinced by a pilot project that compared the system's capabilities for truthfulness with those of new equipment that relies instead on analysis of video data, In his testing, video-based counting was 20 percent more accurate than its thermal predecessor. Oh, the CIO added, it's also a lot cheaper, which makes it a hard combo to ignore.Read more...

When it comes to mobile investments, E-Commerce Director Dan Shelffo said "we're poking around" and that his group has made some "site modifications so that we can start to dabble" in mobile communications. But the spreadsheets do not look attractive. "I have to protect the billion-dollar brand. When I look at the dollars that I am going to invest, I look at the return. I know what my ROI is," Shelffo said. "When I look at mobile, I see a lot of investment."Read more...

But in recent years, PCI advocates—especially the card brand executives—have discouraged the practice, arguing that the safest process is to use payment card numbers to process a payment and to then delete it as quickly as possible. Having those numbers lying around—especially spread into marketing and sales departments—was simply increasing the chance that someone unauthorized could access the data. But the guidance is vague and subject to economic considerations.Read more...

Today, writes Franchisee Columnist Todd Michaud, his average restaurant has eight to 10 pieces of technology that are complex enough to house their own operating systems. These same restaurants now have five or more vendors providing technical support. With the high level of integration, when a problem occurs the store manager is often hit with the “It’s not us, it’s them” excuse. The store manager, who is typically not an IT administrator, is left trying to decipher cryptic error messages, leaning on a peer group and spending hours if not days on the phone with various support organizations trying to get to the root cause of the issue. Symptoms of this situation usually manifest themselves in screams from the back office: “I have already rebooted it 14 times. I am not doing it again!”Read more...

One approach that has been tried is leveraging services such as Facebook Connect, which lets a user log onto Facebook and then log onto an E-Commerce site (using the same browser) and allow that site to access Facebook names—with the customer's permission—without the customer revealing a Facebook password to the E-Commerce site. But then it runs into the limit of the system's inability to display a friend's shopping pattern without that friend's permission. ("Hi, Brenda! I see that you're shopping at Phil's Pervert Video House, too.")Read more...

This is the latest in a series of high-tech blunders from the 123-year-old $47 billion 3,900-store chain. Is this because of the chain's size or, more likely, because it has been pushing the envelope on what it's trying to do technologically, perhaps beyond its testing limits.Read more...

Grocery chains have historically been afraid to reach out to consumers with personalized pitches, fearing the consumers would be put off by what might be seen as a privacy intrusion. But with privacy expectations now much lower, more chains are willing to take the chance. Case in point: the $4.6 billion 1,400-store Big Lots grocery chain will launch its first CRM program in the Fall, the latest in a series of grocery chains slowly embracing official loyalty programs.

The Buzz Club card will offer consumers a discount when they make 10 purchases of more than $20 each, according to this DMNews report. The story quoted Big Lots CEO Steven Fishman as saying: “The program will allow us to learn more about our core customers’ shopping tendencies and opens up micromarketing capabilities we’ve have never had before as a business.” It will be used to create personalized follow-up offers and Fishman said that all of the chain’s “messages going forward will be more aggressive.” …

A 500-store franchise chain, for example, could easily have to indulge more than 50 different POS configurations, given various owner demands. Each location is likely to have it’s own nuances and, in a franchise environment, each store will likely have different needs than the rest. So what do you do when you have 500 locations that each have their own needs? You need to think of the rollout as more like 500 little project plans. Asks Franchisee Columnist Todd Michaud: Now doesn’t that sound like fun?Read more...

And yet, if any segment of retail was underutilizing the magic of interactive E-Commerce, it's the glossy side of facial retailing: makeup. Drugstore.com—and one unidentified pharmacy chain, although it's not one of the four largest—are about to try and address that. The retailers will encourage customers to upload photos of themselves and the system will then project what various makeups will look like on their skin, leveraging facial recognition software.Read more...

The Missouri law is similar to most other state laws dealing with data breach notifications, but it includes medical and health information, data the states usually don't mention because it is protected by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).Read more...

In the world of retail CRM programs, warehouse chains such as Costco, BJ’s and Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club occupy a very specialized niche: they can boast that their customers use their loyalty cards just about 100 percent of the time, allowing for near-perfect purchase histories for all customers. Of course, requiring that the membership/loyalty card be displayed to get into the store and to make any purchases certainly doesn’t hurt. But it’s equally noteworthy how little those chains have pushed those extraordinary purchase history databases. Sam’s Club has now made such a move, claiming to be the first warehouse club chain to offer automatic paperless coupons. These chains have typically provided deeper-than-normal discounts, but they make it up with membership fees and, much more importantly, volume purchases.

That’s not merely buying huge quantities of products, but packaging the products to force consumers to buy larger quantities at any one time. If the consumer can use 100 bars of soap, they can enjoy that financial benefit. “There are no coupons to clip and no rebate forms to complete and mail,” said a Sam’s Club statement. “Members will receive customized offers tailored to them and discounts will be automatically taken at the register using their existing membership cards.”…

Retailers tend to get so caught up in their global rollout plans and product strategy that they often forget to look at things from the store owner's perspective. That phrase is what many franchisees hear when talking to their chain hierarchy about all the great things that the brand wants to do with detailed data from the store. “By analyzing the data that we collect from these various sources, we will be able drive sales far more effectively.” But, similar to other grand plans they have been sold in the past, franchisees are skeptical that that yellow brick road is so easy to follow.Read more...

The idea is for shoppers to phone the service and then speak the product name and the automated voice system will say the exact location of that product. If it works, the system's creators envision successor systems that will turn that consumer phone number into an impromptu CRM customer-identifier. Baalmann, who will try the system at a store in Desperes, MO (right outside St. Louis) starting Tuesday (Aug. 18), already has people ready to call manufacturers this week to sell them the ability to send text codes to customers who ask about certain product categories.Read more...

For matters of credibility, we overwhelmingly avoid reporting on studies that are actually vendor marketing departments pushing studies whose results were likely determined before the first question was asked. This gets us into a thorny editorial debate. If the idea or results are valid, should the source matter? The answer is that it probably shouldn't, as long as the methodology seems valid and fair. The premise of the report—which is that retailers should use the data they have to push for more sales—is a valid one, but we just wish the messenger didn't have such an obvious incentive to come to that conclusion.Read more...

This begs the question: How does an IT department successfully deliver retail technology that meets the needs of both a franchisor and the chain? Both sides need to change the way they think about large-scale IT projects. StorefrontBacktalk's new Franchise IT Columnist Todd Michaud contends that this is a lesson that shouldn't be ignored by non-franchise chains, too, as today's reality of Web-enabled, mobile-fueled, social-network-infested high-turnover low-margin is forcing everyone to play by very different rules or to die not trying.Read more...

The IDC report, which analyzed and compared the offerings by top RDI vendors, says Western European retailers are particularly enthused about RDI with about 35 percent of the companies surveyed in 2008 reporting that they planned to invest in the technology in the near future. "Considering the economic downturn, planned investments by 35 percent of respondents is remarkable," the report said.Read more...

When working on its annual study of manufacturer Web sites that try selling directly to consumers, Forrester Research pretty much found what it expected to find: that manufacturer sites are great for research with brand-loyal consumers, but the purchases are invariably made elsewhere. Forrester’s Sucharita Mulpuru, the principal analyst for Retail eBusiness and arguably the sharpest E-Commerce analyst working HTMLs today, said that, sometimes, the market works just as it’s supposed to. Many manufacturers were originally scared about offering direct-to-consumer deals, fearing that they’d undermine their channel and cannibalize sales. Turns out that consumers are smarter than they look and the product-maker sites haven’t hurt retail partners one little bit.

As Hershey’s concluded this month, the E-Commerce community trusts manufacturers to make stuff, not to sell it. It’s the exceptions that make the rule, Mulpuru said, pointing to two rare manufacturers that actually do make some direct to consumer sales: Apple and Dell. Apple does it by an almost biblically strict adherence to price, making the prices same regardless of whether the product is purchased directly, while Dell has a lengthy history of only selling directly (although it now sells through the channel). Still, Mulpuru argues that manufacturers should still offer E-Commerce for the CRM data collection and customer feedback info it provides.…

"Our goal is to have it be completely comprehensive, for both online and offline," said Zoe Strickland, the Wal-Mart VP who serves as the chain's Chief Privacy Officer. "We need to govern all the different ways that we collect and use information. Privacy is not just about using the Web site. It's everything that happens when you're interacting with the company." The new policy opens the doors to consumers being able to examine their full customer files. Or does it? Read more...