Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Instead of IP addresses, they need to think about e-mail segmentation. Instead of database clusters, they need live content marketing. Instead of disaster recovery, they need to wake up focused on integrated marketing across all digital channels. It’s as much science and math as configuring a new router, and that has many marketers nervous. And it should. But as these marketers find their way into this new world of math and science (digital relevancy), they need to be careful to not cross the fine line between being relevant and being just plain creepy.Read more...

Walmart (NYSE:WMT) has announced that it is expanding—to chainwide—an experiment to let associates more easily see work opportunities in other departments at their store, as a way to supplement their pay. "For example, a bakery or deli associate can now request to work an available shift in electronics or the lawn and garden area and vice versa," the Walmart statement said, adding that "this program is showing value beyond filling available shifts. It's providing associates the opportunity to help build their careers by learning about different departments, which helps strengthen our stores and benefit associates and our customers."Read more...

"NFC was revolutionary 10 years ago but I think it just might have passed its sell-by date," Lyndon Lee (Tesco Enterprise Consultant Architect) told attendees at a mobile payments conference in London this week, according to a report in NFC World. "Is mobile NFC at the right place, at the right time? I don't see any real movement or activity. NFC usability is not really revolutionary and, for the general public, is it really that cool? I think the next generation won't think it's cool enough for them and they won't use it. Mobile NFC is unappealing."Read more...

Although the current version of the system has serious technical limitations, the potential is probably greater for facial recognition than any other technology. Unlike PIN, cardswipes or any other form of biometrics, facial recognition has the promise to do far more than verify identity, including guessing at emotional state, gender, age and other attributes. Selling suntan lotion? How about the ability to identify shoppers with deep tans? Want to be able to tailor suggestions made to first-time shoppers based on gender or age? With a thermal scan comes the ability to pitch hot cocoa to shoppers whose skin is especially cold or ice-cold lemonade to those whose skin is especially hot. (It could factor in the outside temperature so that it doesn't confuse someone who has been working in the sun with someone who is just running a fever. And if that shopper does have a fever, how about 50 cents off Tylenol?)Read more...

One key element of the bill that won't relieve the tax pinch but should simplify the implementation: A state can't start requiring collection of the taxes until it provides free software that nails down all the complexities of that state's sales tax structure, including automatic calculation of what rates are owed on which products for any location in the state.Read more...

When this approach would make sense depends on the nature of the transaction. If the purchase involves the seller sending a physical product to the recipient, the recipient has little choice but to reveal name and street address. But for digital purposes, it could work well. And it might even work with physical shipments, assuming the recipient uses a post office box or some similar alternative.Read more...

The FTC consent decree involves shoppers who lease computer equipment and other devices equipped with GPS tracking or other tracking software, pens legal columnist Mark Rasch. If a consumer fails to make a scheduled payment, or if they default on the terms of the contract, the leasing company would activate the software, which could do things like turn on the cameras on the computer, capture keystrokes on the computer, or use either Internet protocol or GPS tracking to determine the exact location of the computer. In this way, the retailer would be able to engage in a form of "electronic repossession" of the device, either shut it down completely, or sending someone in to actually physically retrieve the device. Read more...

For years, the coffee chain has pushed a promotion called Pick Of The Week, where it gave free copies of various pieces of digital media (songs, apps, games, etc.) to shoppers who went in-store and grabbed a card with a code on it. As of April 9, Starbucks has changed the program, no longer requiring the card to get the digital goodies. All it requires is downloading the app. "The intent is really to build a relationship. You don't need to go into our stores," said Linda Mills, a Starbucks senior manager for global brand public relations. "This is about educating about our product offerings and just engaging with our customers."Read more...

Johnson had already reversed many of his decisions that were the most unpopular with shoppers—including his elimination of sales, discount pricing (including "mark up to mark down") and coupons. And then there's Johnson's beloved shops-within-the-store concept—which isn't likely to be reversed, mainly because it was originally the brainchild of a former Sephora executive with a familiar name: Mike Ullman.Read more...

One of the results of StorefrontBacktalk‘s being acquired back in December is that we are going to be expanding into coverage that goes beyond Retail IT into other areas of retail. The first example of this launched last week and is a daily newsletter and site called FierceRetail.

The site applies the same kind of perspective, analysis and bad jokes that StorefrontBacktalk has always delivered, but we can now explore issues way beyond IT. Consider our coverage of an unorthodox Apple patent, the reasoning behind the Sears Portrait shutdown, why Target’s Manatee mishap is a lot worse than it looked, Samsung’s real retail strategy, why Best Buy and Target’s Geek Squad alliance was doomed and stats showing Visa having all-but-cornered the debit market. It’s all free, of course. If you’d like to sign up, our latest thoughts will be in your Inbox early each morning.…

When setting policies and when talking with shoppers after a breach, communicating the message that the retailer is the only victim may prove to be self-fulfilling, as you'll quite likely be an imminent victim of lost revenue and thrown-away loyalty. When a crime has been committed, attitude and empathy go a long way — and they are among the hardest things for many chains to deliver.Read more...

The ruling dealt with the narrow area of recreated music, once the original producer has stopped selling the initial song. But the court's decision is likely to be applied to many kinds of resale efforts, at least in terms of copyright restrictions. In other words, pay once and sell many may have some new retail hurdles.Read more...

But let's turn it around: If a customer isn't a pure-play showroomer who really just wants to see whether that gadget looks cheesy or that blouse is the right color before buying on Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), what kind of in-store technology can help associates do a better job of helping customers find what they want—and convince customers that here and now is the right time and place to buy it?Read more...

QR codes have always been deceptively easy to use, for anyone other than shoppers. Business Insider recently some of the worst QR code deployments it could find and it’s worth a look.

But the retail examples were particularly interesting, such as Subway putting them on employee shirts, which is a place that employees report no one even tries to scan. But our favorite, depicted here, is a sign on how to use QR codes. And to give the lesson? Yep, the shopper has to scan a QR code. …

Wait—isn't losing control of CRM data the biggest reason chains aren't wild about digital wallets in the first place? Wasn't everyone worried that Google might somehow share transaction data with a chain's competitors? Apparently, that fear was well-founded—just misplaced. It turns out the people who will do anything to grab CRM data are the card brands and issuers.Read more...

Given that its program would deliver expensive value in the form of free food and drink at its stores, the first priority of the rollout was to try and discourage fraud. And that involved some creative packaging and identification mechanisms. And a choice to exclude mobile from the launch.Read more...

At KFC, the mobile percentage is expected to be much higher. That's because people typically want pizza delivered to their home or office, whereas a bucket of wings is picked up—after having been ordered from someone driving or walking near the store. (KFC in the U.K. does not deliver.) Pizzas also take longer to cook—compared with preparing already-cooked chicken parts—making the "order and have it waiting for you" model ineffective for KFC. Instead, KFC UK will soon add a geolocation function (likely to be launched in May), so the app knows when the customer is truly right by the restaurant and can ask the customer if the order can be prepared.Read more...

That is already the law outside the United States and Canada, writes Legal Columnist Mark Rasch, and it may already be the law in those two holdout countries. It's a matter of interpretation.Read more...

Today’s frightening question: What happens when your payment processor gets into a legal fight and suddenly can’t process your transactions? This is likely to happen periodically with mobile payments, as patent violations and state revenue rules start to play out. As if to prove that point, Illinois is ordering Square to halt any payments processed within its borders, something that is not likely

to sit well with Illinois Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) fans—nor Starbucks itself, nor any other Illinois Square merchant.

The Illinois cease-and-desist order involves the ghastly accusation that Square has not obtained the proper state license, something that is complicated by the fact that Square is arguing it doesn’t qualify for that particular license. Square has been fighting this battle in other states, too, with varying results. This is just something to remember when mobile processors are pitching their extreme savings. When entering new, uncharted financial waters, the costs get lower as the risks get higher. This won’t likely be an issue in about two or three years. But for now, having one or two back-up processors is probably not a horrible idea.…

"Over time, Facebook users in our dataset exhibited increasingly privacy-seeking behavior, progressively decreasing the amount of personal data shared publicly with unconnected profiles in the same network," the CMU report said. The implications for retailers are stark, suggesting that many of the privacy strategy underpinnings on both retail and e-tail may be flawed. The report also found that those same consumers started sharing more information during that period, but only with people they assumed to be in a private group. And that sharing was expanded "both in terms of scope and amount of personal data." For retailers trying to extrapolate insights from this report to apply to chain CRM and mobile programs, these two conclusions are frustrating.Read more...

That good sign? As badly broken as its system may be, Isis is trying to fix what's actually broken.Read more...

That patent discusses using what Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) calls "gravity-based link assist" to guide a cursor to where the system thinks the shopper wants it to go. And to do so more quickly than some systems can. Although the patent specifies that this approach can be used in laptops, tablets and a wide range of other devices, its initial focus is on ebooks. That is because of a very specific technical issue: ebooks often have much slower refresh rates, so slow that shoppers can be confused about whether they have successfully clicked a link.Read more...

And if you go online to search for a better price? The results are "rigged." If you are showrooming at a Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), see a 60-inch LCD for $950 and scan the barcode for an Internet search for a lower price, Best Buy could pay Google (or others) not to deliver lower prices—either to the world or to certain profiled individuals.Read more...

The 1,100-store chain is also a few months away from going live with a new financial system from Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL, to be followed before the end of the year by merchandising, planning and allocation systems, all of which will replace legacy systems. That's presuming the board's patience with CEO Ron Johnson holds out—unlike most big chains, JCPenney's E-Commerce site isn't doing any better than in-store, and the chain lost $552 million during the last three months.Read more...

"Candidly, it's getting so hard to know what's a store sale and what's a mobile sale and what's Internet. It's getting harder to figure out the lines between them," Macy's CFO Karen Hoguet told analysts on Tuesday. When asked for some E-Commerce projections, she said: "I really can't give you that number. I mean, I don't know it. But clearly, the growth is continuing very aggressively. But sometimes, it's being bought on a mobile device sitting in a store. So I'm not sure how to define that."Read more...