Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Whether or not its methods go too far, it's in good company in the mobile early-stage convenience versus security argument, with both PayPal—and its phone-less and card-less purchases at Home Depot—and Visa, which is pushing PIN-less EMV transactions while MasterCard is taking the more secure and less convenient pro-PIN EMV position.Read more...

It turns out there was at least one more copy of the problem picture—this time on Sears' ShopYourWay.com Web site.Read more...

"The bigger concern is internal keys, ones they couldn't survey. Without their data of 'weak keys,' we can't be sure we aren't using any," the retail exec said. "All owners of certificates do not know today if their keys are weak or not, and have no way of finding out just by examining them."Read more...

There may be a way to flip this problem into an advantage. What if chains viewed every store as a local distribution center? And used local talent to deliver not only to customers but on the same day? This approach enables the merged-channel retailer to extend that experience right back into the customer’s front yard and maybe through the front door.Read more...

If traditional retailers really want to win the war against their online counterparts, they need to shift the battlefield from price to convenience. And nothing says "convenience" like "drive-thru," right?Read more...

This means that if the Secret Service or FBI tells a chain to keep an incident secret or else risk disrupting an active investigation, a company that complies—and keeps word of the breach out of SEC filings—may be guilty of SEC fraud, pens Legal Columnist Mark Rasch. In this federal agency versus federal/state agency situation, the retailer victim may be victimized again.Read more...

Yes, customers really will pay attention to in-store electronic signs—especially if they’re not supposed to. In a Reuters news story this week, Kroger CFO Mike Schlotman said 2,200 of the grocery chain’s 3,600 stores have installed video screens to alert associates when more checkout lanes should be opened up. The screens, which display three numbered balls, are supposed to use a secret code to show how many checkstands should be open. But some shoppers have cracked the code, Schlotman said, and now complain to associates that, for example, there should be 11 lanes open because the screens say so.

But did anyone really think customers wouldn’t catch on? There’s a long tradition of retailers trying to slip secrets-in-plain-sight past customers on coupons, receipts or in-store displays. It never worked before, and with fanatical shoppers now constantly comparing notes on the Internet, a cracked code is practically guaranteed to become widely known very quickly. Then again, maybe treating this stuff like a treasure hunt can actually make customers feel like they have more control over their shopping. In that case, it’s fine for retailers to play the secrets game—so long as no one seriously thinks the “secret” can be kept.…

To be clear, the Massachusetts plaintiff is not going after any retailers—in fact, the plaintiff's lawyer says he'd hate to try winning a case like that against a retailer. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean some other lawyer won't chase the same theory, with results that could put a chain in court.Read more...

One of the historic problems with RFID has been its difficulty in being read on metal or near liquids. A creative research team at North Dakota State University announced last week (February 2) an approach to turn the metal of the product into a functional antenna. It doesn’t avoid the metal problem. But it is judo-like in turning the problem around. The big downside for retail, though, is that each of these passive tags will cost 50 cents to one dollar.

The tags are 2 to 2.5 millimeters each, but Research Engineer Cherish Bauer-Reich said her group thinks they can get it down to 1 millimeter. “The tags we’ve developed actually use the metal container as an antenna, rather than having to make and place another antenna on top of the container,” said Bauer-Reich. “Many types of tags have to be spaced away from metal, since it changes the electromagnetic fields around the tags and destroys their ability to communicate. These tags, however, use the metal container as the antenna to transmit information. Because of this unique property, these tags can be used to tag anything from coffee cans at a grocery store to barrels of oil or metal cargo containers, with minimal concern about losing or damaging the tag.” She added that their tag’s high-permeability materials divert current into the tag’s integrated circuit.…

The items that are on the shelf elsewhere or in the backroom? An employee goes to fetch them. Those that are not in-stock at that store? They'll be shipped to her home. This is where Venky Harinarayan, Wal-Mart's Senior VP for Global E-Commerce, head of @WalmartLabs and venture capitalist extraordinaire, sees the world's largest chain headed.Read more...

Nowhere is this more true than with retail IT talent, talent that is marketed by touting the various applications people have worked on and the specifics of problems they have solved, pens Legal Columnist Mark Rasch. In LinkedIn, all of those apps and problems/solutions are located right next to their employer's name.Read more...

But the number-two card brand also spoke of a near-term future where E-Commerce will be able to use the EMV chip to authenticate and process E-Commerce and M-Commerce transactions. However, will consumers pay more for laptops that can handle such security? And will tablets and smartphones—which can more easily and more cost-effectively handle such technologies—grow quickly enough to make desktop/laptop enhancements irrelevant?Read more...

The idea that an E-Commerce transaction is not a real transaction should be repugnant to any retailer in 2012. But those old prejudices that stores are where serious commerce happens are apparently acceptable.Read more...

The timing of the move raised eyebrows. Such shutdowns have historically been done overnight, perhaps starting at about 11 PM or midnight East Coast time, and during the weekend. Also raising eyebrows was why a planned software upgrade required the site to be taken down at all. Given the home repair nature of Home Depot, weekend downtime can be more costly than a Wednesday or Thursday.Read more...

Amazon may be sprinting to get a strategic advantage when E-Commerce sales taxes finally kick in, but it’s still in no hurry to pay up. Last week, in its annual 10-K report to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Amazon said Arizona has billed it for “approximately $53 million, including tax and interest, for uncollected tax for the periods March 1, 2006, through December 31, 2010.” The “transaction privilege tax” bill was dated November 2011; apparently, the state’s revenue department just realized those four Amazon distribution centers in Arizona belong to that company in Washington.

Yes, Amazon has to keep pretending its warehouses belong to a company completely separate from its online business. And the state has to do this little dance to start negotiations that will end up in an agreement that Amazon will start collecting Arizona sales tax on some future date or once a federal law kicks in. But wouldn’t it be nice if, for once, both sides could just skip the inevitable lawsuit, lobbying and legislation and go straight to the back-room deal? Arizona is already so late to this game it’ll be lucky just to get through one of those three Ls before Congress finally acts.…

All of this, pens Retail Columnist Todd Michaud, in an area—such as CRM—where the application of technology could directly impact a retailer's top and bottom lines.Read more...

That suggests the Dallas-based high-end retailer made a change in the wee hours—exactly when you'd expect—but then accidentally left test code in the homepage. The result: a Web site that probably worked fine for everyone in IT, just not for all customers.Read more...

Given that greater-than-99-percent of Visa retailers in the U.S. also accept MasterCard, chains must go along with whichever brand has the more strict requirements. Typically, that's been Visa, but not this time. On EMV-related PCI relaxations, however, the two brands opted to adopt identical policies.Read more...

Home Depot took its Web site offline on Wednesday (Feb. 1) to upgrade its version of IBM WebSphere from version 6 to 7. (Exactly why the planned outage began at noon on Wednesday seems a little mysterious, but Home Depot knows its traffic patterns better than we do.) However, in what was apparently an effort to give visitors something to read, the “Pardon Our Dust” default page included a link to Home Depot’s company blog, which even had a new post for do-it-yourselfers on Wednesday.

Only one problem: The new blog post had a link to where customers could buy that product on the site—which, naturally, took the customer to the only page working on the regular site, the “Pardon Our Dust” page. In fact, all the blog’s links went either to that page or to a grim-looking error page headed “Moved Permanently: The document has moved here”—and “here” turned out to be a link to the “Pardon Our Dust” page (from which they could, of course, click on “Blog” again). Enticing customers with products you can’t sell them—and then running them in circles? Sometimes the best thing to do really is to just close the store for the day.…

Interestingly enough, there's truth on both sides. But the dance of demo-and-explanation seems to never slow.Read more...

That means Amazon gets to build South Carolina distribution centers and enjoy a five-year holiday from having to collect sales tax—while Overstock.com, eBay and even Wal-Mart become the new big targets in the crosshairs of state tax collectors.Read more...

Other thieves have opted for grabbing EAS tag detachers, but the point is the same. Beyond protecting products, retailers need to reinforce protections around the devices that protect their products. How are keys and tag detachers handled when not in use? Is there an explicit policy about ignoring EAS alarms?Read more...

You've got to start accepting cloud computing as a method of scaling your computing platform up and down, pens Retail Columnist Todd Michaud. In short, you've got to rip out most of your information architecture and start over.Read more...

Paranoid? Not any more, pens Legal Columnist Mark Rasch. Recently, the U.S. Government took down the copyright pirate site "MegaUpload" and had its founder arrested and detained awaiting extradition.Read more...

eBay’s bid to become the link between big U.S. retailers and Australian customers is off to a less-than-sterling start. On January 18, eBay CEO John Donahoe bragged to an earnings call audience that Macy’s used eBay Australia to get a foothold Down Under without creating a brick-and-mortar presence. “Macy’s saw that the Australian dollar was very strong,” Donahoe said. “The Australian consumers are very open to import and they’re looking for brands. And Macy’s opened up a store in eBay Australia, and so they’re now reaching consumers in Australia on the eBay platform without having to have assets reside in the country.”

Well, sort of. Actually, Macys.com was already selling to Australian customers last summer, using third-party vendor FiftyOne to handle shipping, customs, currency issues and customer service. And the Macy’s eBay Australia store currently has no products; Macy’s spokesman Jim Sluzewski said the eBay store was tested only through the end of 2011 and Macy’s is now evaluating its results. So Macy’s wasn’t depending on eBay to reach Aussies, and the eBay store was already closed when Donahoe did his bragging. Other than that, he got it right—we hope.…