Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

E-Commerce customers who speak English are “the most frequent victims of identity theft, twice the rate of France, Germany and Spain,” according to a study released Tuesday (Oct. 21) by PayPal. The E-mail survey of 1,000 consumers was conducted this summer and examined six countries: the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The survey touched on quite a few possible causes, but this was our favorite, even though it didn’t explain the language preference: “The survey found that about 40 percent of consumers in all six countries use social networking sites and some of these consumers display personal information that they also use for passwords.” I’m reminded of the line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Butch says he has no idea why he’s always broke, to which a colleague points out that he’s a really bad gambler, is always buying drinks for everyone, taking expensive vacations and is a soft touch. Butch replied: “Well, that might have something to do with it.”…

When 1,361-store $4.6 billion chain Big Lots unveiled its first E-Commerce site Tuesday (Oct. 21), it decided to borrow a gimmick from its brick-and-mortars and re-create what it dubbed the stores’ “treasure hunt atmosphere.” Specifically, every morning, the chain plans to announce on the site a “deal of the day,” which is a limited-inventory product at supposedly ultra-discounted rates. Big Lots is also posting certain advertising circulars online only.

It’s an interesting twist on giving consumers a reason to repeatedly come back to the store. It’s also coupled with a loyalty CRM program called BuzzClub, which seems to be offering the same kind of discounts available in most loyalty programs. But Big Lots has come up with a chutptza-ish marketing claim for those customers who successfully apply for a loyalty card, and the chain listed it as the first of eight bulleted advantages: “Get access to all merchandise on BigLots.com.” And that’s something that non-loyalty card members will be denied?…

Two new reports paint a relatively slow growth picture for holiday E-tailers, although the projections are for double-digit growth this year. The dour side is that both projections are about half of the growth rate experienced last year. Forrester Research on Tuesday (Oct. 21) reported an expected online U.S. E-Commerce growth rate of 12 percent this holiday season, projected to hit $44 billion.

Part of the slowdown is a reduction in first-time Web buyers, which is certainly not an unexpected development at this stage of E-Commerce’s existence. On Wednesday (Oct. 22), eMarketer projected a slightly less optimistic report, reporting only a 10.1 percent increase, to $32.1 billion. eMarketer found that last year’s increase was almost double, at 19.6 percent. Forrester’s report for last year saw an 18 percent increase.…

Two of the nation's largest pizza chains—Pizza Hut and Papa John's—have jumped into this trend this month, but they're far from alone. Read more...

"Of all the people that should meet the accessibility requirements it is those retailers with a social conscience and those who sell glasses," said Sitemorse Founder Lawrence Shaw, "but they don't seem to perform well at all, which is a pretty short-sighted strategy." Read more...

The issue is real, in that many consumers do object to the pricing differences as they see it being a scam. The Circuit City "one price promise" move could ultimately prove to be quite a clever piece of marketing. First, it will be trumpeted as a consumer advantage, even if it means that the price equality will be achieved by sometimes (all the time?) online pricing being raised to match the in-store price.Read more...

This month, it was the turn of Wal-Mart (or Walmart, depending on whether the reference is to online or a store. Of all of the people trying to derail merged channel efforts, Wal-Mart/Walmart's branding people are the Supreme Emperors).Read more...

Leaping into action following a federal court ruling, Wine.com trumpeted its return to the Michigan market this month, after the court ruled that the state’s laws banning direct-to-consumer wine shipments by out-of-state retailers were unconstitutional.

The site billed the move as “just in time for the holidays.” (When you care enough to send a gift that says, “I like you better drunk.”) But this is the latest volley in a federal court—and soon federal legislative—game of Internet taxation and control. Can states force E-Commerce sites to tax for them? Can municipalities police what gets sold in their communities, even via laptop or PDA? Just a cautionary note: The E-Commerce rules are about to be written, rewritten and then rewritten again. Come to think of it, maybe a drink or two might make sense right about now. …

With the new Web site that $1 billion Papa John's launched this week, restaurant workers update the site with topping out-of-stocks by calling a headquarters' call center, which sends a message to have the site updated for that specific restaurant. But the chain is preparing for a much faster system, where employees at each store could tell its POS system about running out of pineapple as easily as ringing up a cheesesteak to go.Read more...

Japan’s NTT and three large Japanese retail chains—Bic Camera, Nojima and Runsystem—confirmed Thursday (Oct. 9) a trial that the group says will “securely integrate the reward cards of more than 100 retailers into a single mobile phone.”

NTT will run the contactless card trial—called Gyazapo—from February to June 2009. “Once a dedicated application is downloaded into the phone, (the system) enables loyalty points, ID photos and other membership information of multiple retailers to be registered under a single platform,” according to an NTT statement.…

Will eBay's move prompt Amazon to reconsider accepting Bill Me Later? The Amazon and Bill Me Later "relationship is dying if not dead already," said Bruce Cundiff, director of payments research and consulting for Javelin Strategy and Research.Read more...

The European Union on Wednesday (Oct. 8 ) proposed E-Commerce rules for the 27 nations under its jurisdiction, but if accepted, these rules would likely be mirrored in Asia and North America.

Some of the rules, according to this International Herald-Tribune story, are that retailers must make product information available before a sale, guarantee delivery within a maximum of 30 days and allow a statutory 14-day ‘cooling-off’ period in which purchasers could change their minds and be entitled to full refunds within seven days if goods fail to arrive. And companies would be banned from delivering products different than those advertised.…

Google’s YouTube on Tuesday (Oct. 7) officially opened its click-to-buy program, allowing users to click on a song they like in the background of a video and instantly download it. Or perhaps click on a product seen in a video or on a poster in a video.

“Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features,” Google said in a blog announcement. “Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products—like songs, books and movies—related to the content they’re watching on the site.” This is a logical and interesting move, but it will take a very long time before even a few percent of YouTube videos will have anything to click on. Still, a journey of 1,000 Exabytes begins with a single click.…

As the Register in the U.K. so aptly phrased it, "The self-described patent reform advocates at Amazon.com don't seem to have broken their habit of putting legal hooks on just about anything they dream up." Read more...

It happened five or six years ago when printers, faxes and scanners started getting direct access to IP—so a worker in Chicago could scan a document in and have it print out in the company's Los Angeles and New York offices. These devices were getting smart (more CPU, RAM, hard disk) and connected. But few IT departments initially thought about the security such devices, and they became an ultra-easy way to sneak into the LAN and get access to something more valuable. Today, that identical scenario is starting to play out with kiosks.Read more...

By agreeing to pay $250 thousand for “assistive technology for blind consumers,” Apple has settled a lawsuit that accused the company of not making its iTunes site accessible to those with visual difficulties.

The deal with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and the National Federation of the Blind also promises that Apple will redesign its site to provide blind consumers “full access,” a statement from Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley said. According to the agreement, “Apple will make iTunes fully and equally accessible by December 31, 2008, and make the remainder of iTunes and the iTunes Store fully and equally accessible by June 30, 2009” for both Mac and Windows systems.…

Visa is running a mobile phone trial where consumers will be able to transfer money using their phones to any other Visa user. “The pilot, which is intended to begin by the end of 2008, is the first U.S.-based trial testing mobile money transfers between Visa accounts,” Visa said, but it has already been doing it in 13 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Visa also said it will be working with cell phone maker Nokia to create a contactless payment phone that will include discounts and other ads from retailers and that it will be working to create mobile payment services for Google’s Android platform. Not all observers are favorably impressed. …

The problem is that most IT functions in-store are behind-the-scenes. To put a finer point on it, argues Nikki Baird of Retail Systems Research, is that in-store IT is not usually creating things that are customer-facing. This matters because retailers like to prioritize IT projects based on traditional ROI spreadsheet metrics, which rarely apply to new ideas for customer interactions. Read more...

In addition, many Gen Y shoppers have never known—or believed they had—any privacy, so they are dramatically more willing to give up or sell personal data in exchange for something they see as having value. Their attention span is short, their multi-tasking skills are high and many find the idea of paying for software quaint and old-fashioned. They can prioritize how they pay (Paypal's popular) over how much they pay as well as how they want to interact with businesses--in as many ways as possible: text on their phones, IM on their laptops, posts for them on MySpace, video pitches on YouTube and avatars in SecondLife. Read more...

The story involves a Best Buy manager who supposedly couldn't honor a buy-online-pick-up-in-store order, so he simply called customer service, pretended to be the customer and canceled the order. To make this work, the authentication details would have to include something that a store manager couldn't find, such as a password. Read more...

StorefrontBacktalk needs some opinionated, brilliant retail IT execs who like to discuss kiosk strategies. Although these traits are not desired for a lively cocktail party, they are very much in a demand for a StorefrontBacktalk panel next month in New York City (Javits Center).

The CIO panel will discuss retail kiosk strategies: What works and what doesn’t. Any of you brave souls willing to volunteer to join us on the panel? If so, please reach out to eschuman@storefrontbacktalk.com. Thanks!…

The original report came from Gomez. And now Gomez is stepping back from its own report, according to report author Matt Poepsel, who serves as the Gomez Vice President of Performance Strategies. Read more...

Merged channel and E-Commerce issues will be the fighting words of the day at Retail Perspectives 2008 in Montreal on Monday (Sept. 22), where StorefrontBacktalk will be speaking and moderating discussions on those topics plus PCI, in-store strategies, supply chain and global tactics.

Panelists include IT execs from Build-A-Bear, Tesco and Reitmans, and confirmed audience participants include JC Penney, Jones Retail, Brookstone, Carters, Fortunoff and Casual Male. We would love to see you there.…

The program—which costs $7 for an individual order or $25 for a monthly subscription for unlimited orders—includes a "call button on the outside of the Grocery Express entry door to let their Personal Shopper know that they have arrived." Read more...