Sutherland insights retail news flash oct 16, 2014 by Sutherland Global Services

RETAIL NEWS FLASH October 16, 2014

Table of Contents Sales & Marketing ................................................................................................................. 3 Expansion.............................................................................................................................. 9 Strategic Initiatives .............................................................................................................. 10 Ecommerce Operations ....................................................................................................... 15 Technology .......................................................................................................................... 23

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Sales & Marketing Flipkart apologizes to customers for mega sale glitches October 07, 2014 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-07/news/54735542_1_flipkart-productscustomers Flipkart declared on Monday it had created Indian e-commerce history by clocking $100 million (Rs 600 crore) in sales in just 10 hours of its much-heralded discount sale, but not before its hard-won reputation for customer service excellence suffered knocks amid technical glitches and recriminations from angry buyers disappointed with the pricing and availability of products. A day after its Big Billion Day sale, e-commerce giant Flipkart has sent a letter to its customers apologising for the glitches that the site encountered as it struggled to keep up with the heavy traffic.

7-Eleven to raise its store count by 25% October09, 2014 | http://www.philstar.com/business/2014/10/09/1377923/7-eleven-raise-its-store-count-25 Philippine Seven Corp., the exclusive local licensee of convenience store chain 7-Eleven, is set to stay ahead of competition as it plans to finish the year with 25 percent more stores than last year. In regulatory filing, Philseven said it expects to end 2014 with 1,250 stores, about a quarter more than the 1,009 stores in end-2013. To reach that level, the company has to open around 80 new stores in the remaining months of the year. As of end-September, there are 1,170 7-Eleven stores nationwide, leading the highlycompetitive convenience store market with a share of at least 60 percent. For this year, Philseven has more than doubled its capital expenditures to P2 billion. In January, the company opened its 1,000th convenience store located at the IT Building of the Greenfield District in Mandaluyong City. Philseven said its store count has been increasing at an average of 20 to 25 percent annually over the past few years, mainly because of its strong franchising network. The company said close to 70 percent of its current outlets are franchised. Philseven secured the right to operate 7-Eleven stores in the Philippines from Texas-based 7-Eleven Inc. in 1982. It opened its first store at the corner of EDSA and Kamias in Quezon City. Philseven is 56.59-percent owned by President Chain Store (Labuan) Holdings Ltd., a Malaysia-based investment holding firm. In the first half of the year, same-store sales of the convenience store chain climbed 14.5 percent to P9.77 billion from P8.54 billion a year ago while revenue from merchandise sales grew 14.4 percent to P7.98 billion from P6.98 billion.

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Amazon Expands Seller Holiday Deals Program Worldwide October 07, 2014 | http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-expands-seller-holiday-deals-program-worldwide2014-10-07 Amazon today announced that for the first time, top deals from sellers on Amazon will be featured on holiday deal pages worldwide. The holiday deals from sellers will now appear on the Amazon Today’s Deals page, Black Friday Store, Cyber Monday Store and many other high customer traffic site features. Participating sellers will be offering thousands of deals throughout the holiday season across most product categories. The seller holiday deals program, introduced for the first time last year, is now expanding to be available worldwide on local Amazon sites in the U.S., the EU, China, Japan, India and Canada. During the holiday season last year, selling on Amazon experienced record growth. On Cyber Monday alone, more than 13 million units were ordered worldwide from sellers on Amazon with businesses of all sizes, growing the total units ordered by over 50 percent year-over-year. In total for 2013, more than a billion units worldwide were ordered from sellers on Amazon. “It’s a huge benefit to customers during the holidays to have millions of small and mid-sized businesses from around the world selling on Amazon,” said Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace. “We have heard from customers that they value the breadth and depth of unique products only offered by sellers. This year customers will find thousands of limited-time holiday deals on high quality items and can browse hundreds of millions of other attractive offers at low prices across popular categories like consumer electronics, toys, clothing and many others. It’s now easier than ever for sellers on Amazon to reach customers in their local area or anywhere in the world.” “The sales spike from our deal earlier in the year was so fast, it was beyond our imagination. Customers rushed to the deal page and within minutes our inventory disappeared. For our upcoming holiday deals, we are preparing to have triple the inventory level available to meet high customer demand,” said Darwin Deng, President for Patozon, headquartered in the Shenzhen area of China. “Customers in the U.S. and internationally are watching the deals on Amazon. The visibility gives us a chance to show our product to potential customers located around world and was a valuable opportunity to build brand awareness and boost sales. And by using the Fulfillment by Amazon service, customers know they will get their purchases from us quickly.” “This year we are working with Amazon to offer a same-day delivery option in Manhattan and Brooklyn which will add another whole dimension to our holiday sales,” said Zalman Schochet, CEO for Seller1ON1, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. “When planning our sales strategy for the holiday season, Amazon takes the #1 spot. The sheer volume of sales we have seen on Amazon is unparalleled by any other sales channel. At the right price you can see major spikes in sales no matter how niche of a product - everything sells. As we have seen year-over-year, the growth of the Amazon customer base and especially Prime members is just unbelievable.” Sellers taking part in the holiday deals program will have the opportunity to feature their deals for popular holiday gifts on Amazon Today’s Deals, Black Friday Store, Cyber Monday Store and other holiday pages. Most categories will have numerous deals each day from various sellers throughout the holiday season. Sellers around the world during the holiday season will be taking advantage of the opportunity to scale their businesses, tap into Amazon’s highly-rated customer service and reach more customers

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efficiently through the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program. Sellers can store their products in Amazon fulfillment centers, and Amazon picks, packs, ships, and provides customer service for them. Sellers benefit from one of the most advanced fulfillment networks in the world, easily scaling their businesses to reach millions of customers. And not just any customers - Prime members. In the U.S., FBA items can be eligible for Free Two-Day Shipping with Amazon Prime. “Amazon is well-known as the shopping destination during the holidays and we know customers love Lightning Deals. The sales from the deals are always insane! We sell out most or all of our inventory,” said York Wu, CEO for Jackery, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. “Online shoppers are savvy, they know how to spot a great deal. We encountered some product shortage during the last holiday season due to awesome sales on Amazon. We forecasted and brought in a lot more inventory this year, well in advance of the holiday season, so we will be fully prepared. Jackery is a premium consumer electronics brand and we want customers to have a satisfying shopping experience. With the excellent Fulfillment by Amazon service, we can guarantee our customers ontime order deliveries throughout the holidays.” “We believe customers are driven to Amazon during the holidays because they know they will find the products they want to purchase. These customers are looking for value and selection,” said Brian Gonsalves, CEO for NetRush, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington. “One of the most valuable promotional tools Amazon has provided to NetRush is the Lightning Deal. This tool has been a great way to introduce premium products and brands to a very large customer audience. What generally takes up to three weeks to sell, can be sold in a matter of hours.”

Future Group brands may be sold through Amazon, logistics may be shared October 03, 2014 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-03/news/54599870_1_future-supplychain-kishore-biyani-future-group Jeff Bezos and Kishore Biyani, two retail pioneers, could find common ground in India if their meeting in New Delhi on Thursday leads to a partnership in which Future Group’s private brands will be sold exclusively through Amazon with back-end logistics being shared. This comes as the antagonism of some bricks-and-mortar businesses for online retail fades with the realisation that cooperation may be a better strategy than competition. While Future Group has had exploratory talks with Flipkart and Myntra as well recently, its negotiations with Amazon are said to be at a more advanced stage. “Both companies also explored the possibility where the entire back-end and online initiatives of Future Group’s nearly three dozen own brands across apparel and electronics can be managed by the US online retail giant that could generate business worth Rs 3,000 crore,” said a person aware of the discussions. “The partnership can also create exclusive products or brands for India similar to how Amazon sells e-book reader Kindle globally,” added the person.Amazon and Future Group didn’t respond to queries emailed to them. Bezos, one of the world’s richest men with an estimated net worth of $30 billion, arrived in India on Sunday. In July, his company announced it would invest $2 billion in the company’s India operations that have exceeded gross merchandise sales of more than $1 billion within a year of the launch. Amazon’s main rivals in India are Bangalore-based Flipkart and Snapdeal, the latter a Delhi-based company that counts eBay, Azim Premji and Ratan Tata as investors.

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Together, they have sold goods worth more than $4 billion, with Flipkart alone estimated to have crossed $2 billion. And the battle could only intensify—according to a report by consulting firm Technopak, the $2.3 billion e-tailing market is expected to swell to $32 billion by 2020 and account for 3% of total Indian retail sector. An alliance between Amazon and Future Group could be mutually beneficial, said Ruchi Sally, director at boutique retail consultancy Elargir Solutions. “Future Group will get to leverage Amazon’s online strength especially for their own brands that aren’t mostly sold outside their department stores and few standalone outlets,” Sally said. “And Amazon will get to experience one of India’s biggest retailers and this learning can come handy while competing with homegrown rival Flipkart that has an advantage of knowing Indian brands more closely.” The only challenge will be how to differentiate between pricing or positioning of Future Group’s brands in their own stores and on Amazon’s website, Sally said. Amazon can also make use of Biyani’s logistics arm, Future Supply Chain, which provides services to large corporates in the F&B, and apparel space by leveraging readily available distribution centres, warehouses and fleet management across the country. Biyani, founder of India’s largest retail group, has been quite vocal on whether deep discounting strategy by online marketplace players makes business sense, suggesting that offering cheaper prices wouldn’t help them in the long run. “You must check if gross margins of such companies are positive or not. There is hope of survival for them when their gromargins are positive,” Biyani had told ET last week. Future Group operates more than 16 million square feet of retail space in the country and sells about 40 own brands in the apparel and electronics segment besides nearly two dozen brands in the consumer products space through chains such as Central, Planet Sports and Big Bazaar. Their own brands earn at least 15% higher margins on average compared with national brands sold by Future Group, a key trigger for Biyani turning bullish on private labels across categories. Its own apparel brands include John Miller, Indigo Nation, Rig and Scullers while in-house consumer brands include Tasty Treat and CareMate. Industry insiders also said the Indian retailer’s move reflects a bid to expand into new distribution channels such as e-commerce in the search for growth. Last month, Snapdeal.com agreed to create Croma’s Flagship Store on its ecommerce portal to sell electronics items including mobiles, tablets and laptops. The $3 billion Future Group, on its part, has opted for SAP’s Hybris OmniCommerce solutions and plans to invest nearly Rs 100 crore to beef up its e-commerce venture. It’s targeting about 20% of revenue from online sales over the next 18 months.

Amazon to open holiday pop-up stores October 14, 2014 | http://www.fierceretail.com/story/amazon-open-holiday-pop-stores/2014-10-14 Amazon will open retail stores in San Francisco and Sacramento as early as next week. One holiday pop-up store will be located in the Westfield San Francisco Centre in downtown San Francisco, reported GeekWire. The exact location of the Sacramento store has not yet been confirmed. “We’re excited to open new pop-up kiosks in San Francisco and Sacramento in time for the holidays so that customers can try out our new devices,” a spokeswoman told GeekWire. “The team is

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moving incredibly quickly–already this year we’ve launched Fire TV, Fire phone, new Fire tablets, new Kindle e-readers, and a bunch of new features and services. While customers can already see our products online and at retailers like Best Buy and Staples, we wanted to provide another option to try out our full line-up leading into the holidays.” Amazon had experimented with physical retail through automated vending machines for its Kindle ereaders and Kindle Fire tablets. The company has also tested the installation of lockers in other retailers’ stores. According to the source, there is no commitment to build any other pop-ups at this time. Last week, Amazon announced it would open a physical store in Manhattan. Unlike that store— which is rumored to serve as a pick-up location and mini-warehouse—the San Francisco and Sacramento stores will showcase Amazon brand products like the Kindle and Fire smartphone. The timing of the physical store opening is significant as Amazon and other retailers prepare for the busiest shopping season of the year. This fall, Amazon has launched several new initiatives for the holiday season, including the introduction of #AmazonWishList, which allows shoppers to add items directly to their Amazon Wish List without leaving their Twitter page.

Amazon to open first brick-and-mortar October 10, 2014 | http://www.fierceretail.com/story/amazon-open-first-brick-and-mortar/2014-10-10 Amazon announced that it would open its first physical store in New York. The idea is to test the inperson experience, a first for the 20-year-old e-commerce company, and to serve as a pickup and distribution center for customers. The store will open in time for the holidays and will be located on the same busy street as Macy’s flagship, West 34th Street, reported the Wall Street Journal. Across from the Empire State Building in Midtown, the warehouse will carry limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns, and exchanges and pickups of online orders. Primarily the location would be a place for customers to pick up orders made on the site and to serve as a distribution center for couriers. And although Amazon has built its business on fast shipping, it couldn’t compete with the immediacy of a physical store, until now. Many analysts believe that this move proves that even a well-established e-commerce company needs to have a physical presence in order to capture consumers. In fact, in a recent report, “On solid ground: brick-and-mortar is the foundation of omnichannel retailing,” analysts at A.T. Kearney reported that 90 percent of purchases still happen in stores and 95 percent of them, whether online or not, involve a physical store. “Even for those of us who discover, shop and buy online, two-thirds of us still go to a physical store to test and trial, return or do something else with our ‘online purchase.’ It’s called omni-channel, and amazon.com just pulled the plug on all those chicken-littles who have said the sky is falling on physical retail,” said Mike Moriarty, a partner in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney. “Online retail isn’t a sustainable model,” said Pete Coleman, executive VP and general manager, Point Inside, a company that helps unify digital and physical retail through mobile. “Amazon’s move to open up a physical brick-and-mortar store in NYC isn’t surprising, given that over 90 percent of all retail happens in actual stores. While Amazon claims the store’s purpose is for ‘marketing the

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Amazon brand,’ we know the real reason is that strategically, Amazon will have to get into physical retailing in order to keep growing once they exhaust the .com channel (which may be closer than we think). The future comes in bridging the online and physical worlds of retail, which we have seen yield tremendous results when done right.”

UPS expands access points to reduce delivery stops October 08, 2014 | http://www.fierceretail.com/story/ups-expands-access-points-reduce-delivery-stops/2014-10-08 UPS will expand its My Choice and Access Point networks, two services that provide online shoppers additional options for parcel pickup. The expansion will also require fewer delivery stops by drivers. My Choice, a customizable online and mobile service where consumers choose delivery preferences, will now be available to shoppers in 15 additional countries throughout North America and Europe. Customers using My Choice receive advance delivery notifications of the timing of each package and consumers have the ability to reroute packages to another address or reschedule deliveries. “UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network are a powerful duo that give e-tailers new solutions for personalizing their customer’s package delivery experience,” said Alan Gershenhorn, UPS executive VP and chief commercial officer. “UPS My Choice status alerts have industry-leading e-mail open rates and are extremely valuable for retailers that want to extend special customer offers or communications in addition to the shipment delivery notification and confirmation. We have more than 375 shippers in the U.S. utilizing this feature, including some of the most widely recognized names in retail.” The UPS Access Point, is now available in New York and Chicago and will expand to other metropolitan markets during 2015. Both services will be available in Poland, Italy, Canada and Mexico later this month. Access Points make it easy for consumers to retrieve packages in locations 10 minutes or less from the delivery address. The points are usually local businesses, primarily neighborhood convenience and grocery stores. UPS plans to add 4,400 new Access Point locations in January 2015. UPS is ramping up its delivery options before the busy holiday season hits. Last year UPS upgraded its route planning system to make package deliveries more efficient before the holidays. However, the upgrade was not enough and record-breaking shipping volume caused many holiday packages to not be delivered by Christmas Day

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Expansion Amazon Expands Operations in Costa Rica, creating more than 1000 New Jobs October 08, 2014 | http://www.itbusinessnet.com/article/Amazon-Expands-Operations-in-Costa-Rica-creating-morethan-1000-New-Jobs-announces-Costa-Rican-Investment-Promotion-Agency-3540685 Amazon Support Services in Costa Rica (NASDAQ: AMZN) today inaugurates its fourth service center and announces 1000 new jobs at its offices located in Calle Blancos and Lagunilla. The Earth’s most customer centric company offers seasonal jobs and permanent positions with open dress code, paid training, transportation, doctor on site, plus others. The new operation comes as part of the $19,000,000 accumulated investment by 2014 and spreads the company’s footprint to 28,522 m2 including the four service centers in the country. “The talent of the Costa Rican people keeps making the difference in the operations of high technology services and that is exactly what enables more opportunities for companies to continue investing in the country. This demonstrates we are highly competitive and that our country is one of the safest places to invest. We are grateful to Amazon for their trust in Costa Rica and hope that this great news will translate into high quality jobs for hundreds of Costa Ricans in the following months” stated Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera, President of the Republic, who attended the inauguration. “We are excited to expand our operations in the San Jose community, creating more than 1,000 fulltime jobs in the fields of technology, innovation and customer service,” said Scott Kubicki, Vice President, Worldwide Seller Support. “We appreciate national and local elected leaders who have supported Amazon’s arrival and expansion in Costa Rica and we look forward to bringing even more jobs and investments to the area.” Amazon currently employs over 2,100 people and has diversified its services with the recent incorporation of software development engineers to its Seller Support Center, located in the building inaugurated with the participation of the President of the Republic, Luis Guillermo Solis. “We are not only creating quality jobs for Costa Rican talent but also looking forward to developing leadership for the region and worldwide”, said Alejandro Filloy, General Manager of Amazon Costa Rica. “What we want is to strengthenthose extraordinary and varied skills to project their talent through Amazon’s presence around the globe while diversifying services due the specialization”. Amazon offers customer service positions, human resources and administrative jobs, as well as management posts. At this time, over 1000 new jobs are available for customer service associates with language skills in English, Portuguese and Italian. Amazon opened its first customer service center in Costa Rica in October 2008 and has continued to grow. Since that time, its associates have offered support to millions of customers and sellers in the United States, Spain,Mexico and Brazil. With the company’s expansion and the ongoing hiring of staff at its other sites, Amazon expects to employ more than 3,000 persons in Costa Rica by the end of 2014.

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Strategic Initiatives Costco enters China October 14, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/14/costco-enters-china Costco will initially sell products in four categories: food, nutrition/cosmetics, kids and home, and expand into more categories in the future. After a long wait, Chinese consumers finally can purchase Costco Wholesale Corp.’s products directly in China. Costco says it entered China this week by working with Alibaba Group’s imported goods online marketplace, Tmall Global. Costco operates bricks-and-mortar stores in Taiwan, but not in China. The warehouse club retailer is not the only retailer to enter China without bricks-and-mortar operations. Last month, British fashion company Topshop launched its China operations on Shangpin.com, a Chinese online fashion site. Costco, No. 14 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, says it will sell products in four categories: food, nutrition/cosmetics, kids and home. The company says it plans to expand into more categories in the future. Costco will initially sell products in four categories: food, nutrition/cosmetics, kids and home, and expand into more categories in the future. After a long wait, Chinese consumers finally can purchase Costco Wholesale Corp.’s products directly in China. Costco says it entered China this week by working with Alibaba Group’s imported goods online marketplace, Tmall Global. Costco operates bricks-and-mortar stores in Taiwan, but not in China. The warehouse club retailer is not the only retailer to enter China without bricks-and-mortar operations. Last month, British fashion company Topshop launched its China operations on Shangpin.com, a Chinese online fashion site. Costco, No. 14 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, says it will sell products in four categories: food, nutrition/cosmetics, kids and home. The company says it plans to expand into more categories in the future. At present, more than 5,000 international brands have opened stores on Tmall Global. Costco made quick work of entering China. Tmall says the U.S retailer only took several months to launch its online store after it contacted Tmall for the first time. “Chinese consumers have increasing demands for imported products and Costco is optimistic about the huge opportunity for market growth. In collaboration with Tmall Global, we can sell directly to Chinese consumers from our official company store,” Costco executive vice president, international, James Murphy says.

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Costco says it stocks some products in warehouses in six Chinese cities with pilot free trade zones, which allows Costco to ship some products in China after receiving the orders. This model enables Chinese consumers to buy imported products from foreign e-retailers with lower customs tax and save the time on shipping. “As our collaboration goes deeper, Tmall Global will help Costco enter other Alibaba e-commerce platforms, such as Taobao,” says Alibaba’s general manager of global B2C unit, Wu Qian. Tmall Global also plans to introduce many data mining and marketing tools to Costco on Alibaba’s platform in the future, Wu says. This is the latest international e-commerce move for the Issaquah, WA-based retailer. Costco debuted Costco.com.mx to shoppers in Mexico (Costco’s Mexico site ) last year. It also operates international sites for consumers in the United Kingdom and Canada.

JCPenney appoints former Home Depot leader Ellison as CEO October 13, 2014 JCPenney’s (NYSE:JCP) board of directors announced the appointment of Marvin Ellison, currently executive VP of Home Depot (NYSE:HD), as president and CEO-designee. Effective Nov. 1, Ellison will also join JCPenney’s board of directors. Ellison will succeed Myron (Mike) Ullman, III, the current CEO, on Aug. 1, 2015. At that time, Ullman will become executive chairman of the board for one year. Ullman returned to the helm of JCPenney to help the retailer as it struggled under the leadership of ex-CEO Ron Johnson. Johnson was fired in April of 2013. Since then, Ullman has attempted to revive the department store chain, but thus far, has been unsuccessful, as the retailer recently announced it would lower its same-store sales forecast for the third-quarter. Prior to his 12-year term at Home Depot, Ellison served for 15 years in various positions at Target. Ellison, 49, has 30 years of experience in the retail industry. He spent the last six years at Home Depot as executive VP of U.S. stores and has been the senior-most operations leader for Home Depot’s approximately 2,000 stores. Prior to that, he was president of the Northern Division, a role in which he had responsibility for the sales and operations of more than 700 stores in 21 states. Previously, he was senior VP of global logistics. “The Board has completed its search for the right CEO to lead the next stage of JCPenney’s growth. We are delighted to have found that person in Marvin Ellison, a highly accomplished retail executive with a history of delivering top and bottom line results at major American retailers,” said Thomas Engibous, chairman of JCPenney’s board of directors. “He brings to the role, among other assets, an extensive knowledge of store operations and supply chain management as well as a demonstrated ability to successfully run large retail organizations. In light of these attributes, we believe he is well equipped to return the company to profitable growth.” Ellison added that he is honored by the appointment and excited to help with the retailer’s comeback. “This Company has been an important part of the American retail landscape for over one hundred years. Today, it is moving in the right direction and there is an extraordinary passion to win at every level of the organization,” said Ellison. “As president and, ultimately, CEO, I will be focused on positioning the company to compete in a rapidly changing retail environment for the benefit of our customers, shareholders, suppliers and associates. I am confident that we have the customer proposition, the brand, and the talent to make JCPenney successful over the long term.”

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Wal-Mart adds in-store program to help customers compare insurance offerings October 06, 2014 http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wal-mart-adds-in-store-program-to-helpcustomers-compare-insurance-offerings/2014/10/05/605e8f88-4b25-11e4-891d713f052086a0_story.html Wal-Mart announced Monday that it will dive deeper into the health-care market, unveiling an initiative to allow customers to compare and enroll in health insurance plans in thousands of its stores. Wal-Mart is teaming with DirectHealth.com, an online insurance comparison site and independent health insurance agency, to set up counters in its stores where consumers can talk to licensed agents about plan options. “Our goal is to be the number one health-care provider in the industry,” said Labeed Diab, president of health and wellness for Wal-Mart U.S. “And the more we broaden our assortment, the more we broaden our offering, the more we educate the customer Wal-Mart is a great place to create a onestop shop.” Over the past several years, Wal-Mart has moved to expand its reach beyond retail into the healthcare sector, where Americans are spending an increasingly larger share of their dollars. Earlier this year, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company began opening primary-care centers at several of its locations. Hundreds of its stores include acute-care clinics that offer a basic menu of services, including flu shots and blood-pressure screenings. Wal-Mart made waves about eight years ago when it announced it would offergeneric versions of some prescription drugs for just $4. Some Wal-Mart competitors are by some measures outdoing the big-box retailer with their forays into health care: CVS, for example, has more than 800 retail clinics, according to consulting firm Merchant Medicine. Walgreens has about 400 of them, while Wal-Mart has about 100. Wal-Mart first began hosting agents from individual insurers in its stores in 2005. The newly announced offering expands on that, with the agents able to guide customers through thousands of plans from hundreds of carriers. Direct-Health.com agents will receive a commission if they enroll an in-store customer in a health plan. Diab said Wal-Mart hopes this one-on-one service will become a gateway for customers to come to their stores for all of their health-care needs. “You’re educating the consumer on a very, very complex part of the [health-care] space,” Diab said. “And when you do that, they want you to take care of their prescription needs, their over-thecounter needs, their optical needs, the clinics.” The program, known as Healthcare Begins Here, kicks off Oct. 10 and will run in stores through Dec. 7, closely tracking with the Medicare open-enrollment period and partially overlapping with the open enrollment period for federal health insurance exchanges. The company said it will monitor the success of the program and potentially bring it back next year.

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Wal-Mart will initially offer the program at 2,700 of its 4,311 U.S. stores. Marcus Osborne, Walmart’s vice president of health and wellness payer relations, said the company selected locations based on customer interest and demand. “We know where Medicare-eligible customers live today, and where there’s need for that, and where there are larger numbers of potential customers who could avail themselves of the public exchange,” Osborne said.

Re-defining real-time personalisation – What do retailers need to do to stay ahead? October 03, 2014 http://www.retailgazette.co.uk/articles/33010-redefining-realtime-personalisation-what-doretailers-need-to-do-to-stay-ahead The ability to target customers in real-time with personalised content, which enriches their experience with a brand, is rapidly becoming one of the top priorities that senior marketers – not just in the retail sector – are currently striving to achieve. But what do we really mean when we talk about real-time personalisation and how can brands realistically achieve it – even if they have the necessary data and insight required to meet the varying needs, requirements and desires of their segmented customer sets? Personalisation is now considered a standard staple in any successful marketing campaign. Any brand worth their salt is investing in more enhanced data capture methods, widening their channel portfolio and looking to send out more relevant communications to a more demanding customer set. Whilst this is fine, is it really enough? The short answer is no. With more brands using major events - from the birth of the Royal baby to last year’s Superbowl blackout - as a marketing opportunity, it’s now becoming more important to create rich and meaningful, personalised experiences in real-time from the moment a customer starts interacting with you. These experiences are defining the way customers think about brands and becoming more influential to their purchase decisions. If they have a great experience they’ll shout about it, if they don’t they are likely to be disengaged and flock to a competitor. If you give people an opportunity to change, it’s more than likely that they will take it. For instance, since the seven-day switching scheme for bank accounts launched six months ago over 600,000 people have opted to change banks – most likely because of a bad experience. Retailers therefore need to recognise the possibilities which enriched, real-time personalisation can and will have in shaping the way customers shop in the months and years ahead. For retailers, especially those whose business is built around an ecommerce platform, this is a potentially huge opportunity for growth. Personalised banners which are carefully created and pitched at each and every visitor from the moment they start browsing, immediately reward the customer for choosing to shop, and ultimately increase their propensity to buy. These can and should, where possible, extend to discount offers, offers on related products, alerts to “new in” products – for the fashion conscious customers – or simply be in direct response to customers’ current or previous shopping behaviour. If these are pitched at the right moment shoppers will instantly feel valued and without question, become more loyal as a result. This content is essential for tapping into those key “moments of truth” in the purchase lifecycle, where shoppers can easily get distracted by a Facebook notification, Snapchat ping or news alert from the BBC - irrespective of

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the device they are using at the time. He who screams loudest will ultimately win out. Retailers need to be wary of this and understand they have a finite amount of time to win over their customers regardless of whether they are new or repeat. For organisations like Hertz, the introduction of real-time offers has transformed the experience customers receive when renting a car. Customers can be sent details and even upgrade, on the move, from their mobile phone at the moment their flight touches down. Customer service staff are able to arbitrate between real-time offers to decide what offer is right for what customer, track how effective they are performing and adjust where necessary. This process ultimately enables businesses to balance multiple strategies and business objectives simultaneously at each touch point. Each business objective will likely encompass different message classes too, but this just enhances the personalised offer. At Hertz they can serve up tens of thousands of variants of offers instantly, meaning customers are always presented with a valuable proposition. If you can enrich a customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall experience youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll ultimately be able to drive new revenue.

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Ecommerce Operations E-commerce almost 7% higher in UK than in US October 07, 2014 http://www.fierceretail.com/story/e-commerce-almost-7-higher-uk-us/2014-10-07 It seems the U.K. is well advanced in the e-commerce space in comparison with U.S. shoppers. According to eMarketer estimates, e-commerce will account for 13 percent of all retail sales in the U.K. this year, while in the U.S., e-commerce will total about 6.5 percent. Of the overall population in the U.K., 73.1 percent will make a digital purchase this year, and 62.5 percent of the U.S. population will be digital buyers. Not to mention, U.K. consumers are well advanced in click and collect sales, which will be worth $5.47 billion in 2014.

Staples shuts down Canadian stores, shifts focus to online October 03, 2014 http://www.fierceretail.com/story/staples-shuts-down-canadian-stores-shifts-focus-online/201410-03 Staples Canada (NASDAQ:SPLS) announced Wednesday that it has closed 15 of its 331 stores in order to put more emphasis on the digital side of the business. The office supply chain announced back in March that it planned to shut down 225 stores throughout North America, accounting for 12 percent of its brick-and-mortar locations in the region. It’s all part of the company’s attempt to cut costs and achieve greater efficiency as it competes with the likes of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and the recently-merged Office Depot and OfficeMax (NASDAQ:ODP). Staples shuttered 96 stores in the first half of 2014, and intends to close another 40 by the end of the year. The retailer has also been busy relocating and downsizing stores to save $250 million this year, and aims to double that savings by the end of 2015. “Slow traffic in retail is impacting a lot of retailers,” Staples CEO Ronald Sargent said in August, arguing that the industry has too many stores in the United States. “That is driven by the shift to online as well as the decline of paper-based office supplies.” Sargent expects Staples’ brick-and-mortar strategy to be increasingly shaped by customer demand, as the shopping preferences continue to change for all retailers. Shoppers will steer the ship when it comes to telling the company how many stores they want, how big they should be, and what products and pricing they want available to them there. However, some experts feel that the officer supplier hasn’t adequately adjusted its in-store experience to keep up with consumer habits. “They need to reinvent the office product buying experience to be more about education and experiences and less about file cabinets and reams of paper,” Doug Stephens, a retail consultant,

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told Yahoo Finance. “If they don’t make this transition soon, I suspect we’ll see more closures in the months and years ahead.”

UPS tries to the ease the hassle of online deliveries October 08, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/08/ups-tries-ease-hassle-online-deliveries The company will expand its UPS Access Point network, already active in Europe. United Parcel Service of North America Inc. knew it had a problem when it came to delivering packages ordered online to consumers in densely populated areas. “We believe that in certain geographic situations, mostly ‘superurban’ situations, there are people who are for all intents and purposes locked out of the online shopping explosion,” Geoff Light, president of product development at UPS, says. “These are people who have very difficult times getting online shipments delivered to where they live. There aren’t any options like a doorman or a neighbor that they trust to have the package signed.” UPS announced today a new option for shoppers like these: picking up items at UPS and other stores that stay open outside of business hours. UPS said today it will expand its UPS Access Point network next year to include every one of its 4,400 The UPS Store locations nationwide. The company also announced it will be extend its UPS My Choice program that lets consumers schedule deliveries to an additional 15 countries in North America and Europe. While the Access Point service is new to the United States, it already operates extensively in Europe. Domestically, UPS began testing the Access Point service in New York and Chicago earlier this year. “I don’t think we appreciated how severe the problem (of traditional delivery) was,” Light says. Here’s how the Access Point service works: When a driver is unable to deliver a package, he leave instructions on the recipient’s doorstep instructing her where and when she can pick up the package. The free service is designed to make it easier and more secure for customers to ship packages as well as pick up deliveries that cannot be completed on the first attempt. A consumer must present photo identification when picking up a parcel. Access Point locations will consist of local businesses such as convenience and grocery stores, generally within a short drive of a recipient’s address, that are open outside of normal business hours to make it easy for customers to pick up their shipments. UPS pays those stores a fee for the labor and storage involved. The overall goal, Light says, is for the Access Point service to benefit the online retailer, the consumer, and the location hosting the access point itself. “The main value proposition for our Access Point partners is walk-in traffic,” Light says. “By becoming a UPS Access Point, there are going to be customers coming in the door today because that’s where their package is.” And the benefit to online retailers? “Fewer returns because customers get their packages faster,” Light says. “The second is they’ll get fewer calls asking, ‘Where’s my package?’ The last is they’re going to get increased orders For our

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shipping partners, we want them to sell more product. If their consumers are happier, they’ll sell more product.” For Chicago residents, the convenience factor goes one step further. The company is using the city to test self-service lockers that will allow customers to pick up their deliveries using asmartphone or a photo ID. Eventually, there will be nine locker banks citywide in areas that don’t have a designated Access Point nearby. Light says the lockers will work like ATMs, where customers scan their photo ID and get their product, rather than a traditional gym locker. “The ability for us to find a convenient staffed access point can be challenging,” Light explains. “That might be the exact location where we put a locker because a locker could be placed without necessarily putting it inside a business. We also have other venues like huge condo complexes. These are all locations where lockers are perfect.”

Overstock.com tests the combination of TV and mobile commerce October 08, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/08/overstockcom-tests-combination-tv-and-mobilecommerce The smartphone is the best option for consumers wanting to buy what they’re watching on TV, says Overstock’s marketing chief. Overstock.com Inc. is testing a combination of TV commerce and mobile commerce to get couch potatoes with smart TVs and armed with mobile devices, or just the TVs, to buy what they see on Overstock.com’s latest TV ad campaign, dubbed “Overstocktober.” Overstock.com, No. 30 in the recently published 2015 Internet Retailer Mobile 500, is using TV commerce technology and services provider Delivery Agent Inc. for the campaign. Delivery Agent first added Overstock.com to Delivery Agent’s ShopTV smart TV app, which features a variety of retailers and brands including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Fanatics Inc., Wayfair.com, Ticketmaster, Pepsi, Cuisinart and Schwinn. ShopTV appears on close to 20 million smart TVs and related devices, and expects that number to double next year. So any consumer with a smart TV with the ShopTV app now can shop Overstock.com through the app. But buying via the TV commercial requires a technology that Delivery Agent says is critical to the future of TV commerce: ACR, or automatic content recognition. Television networks, content producers and advertisers embed their programs and commercials with what amounts to an electronic fingerprint. Delivery Agent uses what it calls a proprietary data engine to identify these fingerprints that tell the smart TV what is being displayed, like an Overstock.com commercial. Automatic content recognition technology also can be used to enable a “handshake” that links a smart TV and a mobile device. When the Overstocktober commercials appear on a smart TV with ACR technology (about 50% of all smart TVs today, Delivery Agent says), an overlay appears, showing a special offer on a bed with three choices: Shop Collection, Exclusive Offer for Mobile and Exit. A consumer can use her remote control to click on Shop Collection and be taken to the ShopTV app to shop the advertised products, click on Exclusive Offer for Mobile to be texted a hyperlink to the special pages on the Overstock.com mobile commerce site or app, or click on Exit to dismiss the

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overlay. Consumers with existing ShopTV accounts will not have to enter their phone numbers to receive the text; other consumers can use their remotes to enter their mobile numbers. Also, the text links are deep links, meaning they can sense if a smartphone user has the Overstock.com mobile app on their device and instead of opening a mobile web page send that user to the page in the mobile app. The smartphone is the best option for shopping for a TV viewer: She already is familiar with how to shop on a smartphone and she doesn’t have to interrupt what she is watching, Saum Noursalehi, senior vice president of marketing at Overstock.com, tells Internet Retailer. 23% of U.S. Internet users browse the web or apps on their smartphones while watching TV and 19% do the same with their tablets, according to a June 2014 Harris Interactive poll. 26% shop online (via PC or mobile) while watching TV, the poll says. “The smartphone likely will be the preferred method for shopping,” Noursalehi says. “But we will be experimenting with various options with Delivery Agent, including opening a web browser on the TV screen and shopping there. But I think the phone is the best. It does not interfere with the TV experience, and so many people have become accustomed to using their mobile devices while watching television.” Noursalehi adds that the big benefit of TV commerce may not be the commerce itself but the engagement and transactional data retailers glean from TV shopping activity. TV advertising has always been a “black box” to marketers—difficult to target, measure and quantify, he says. “But with all the data generated by the smart TV and smartphone interactions, we will be able to much more intelligently know which channels, times of day and so forth perform best,” he says. “Being able to measure the click-through rates and transactions a TV campaign generates will enable us to turn around and be smarter about our ad purchase decisions. On the surface, TV commerce seems like another selling channel, but the bigger value is in the data we will get out of it.” For this test, Overstock.com is paying Delivery Agent a fee for each thousand impressions, the CPM model standard in online advertising, but the retailer may turn to an affiliate relationship in the future. The two companies will be testing different language on the TV overlay and can make changes to the campaign as it runs. Delivery Agent says it is finishing a study with Nielsen that shows consumer engagement levels with TV commerce to be very high.

Amazon feels the pricing heat from Walmart.com and Target.com October 03, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/03/amazon-feels-pricing-heat-walmartcom-andtargetcom A new report also notes that Macy’s is getting more aggressive in its online pricing. Though Amazon.com Inc. beats most other major retailers on product prices, its online prices in four categories are not as low as those of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.and Target Corp. a study released today shows.

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The report from Wells Fargo Securities LLC and online price-tracking firm 360pi found that some of Amazon’s rivals are becoming more aggressive with their online pricing. The report stems from a year-long analysis of the daily prices for some 100 SKUs offered by Amazon (No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide) and nine of its retail chain rivals: Wal-Mart (4), Sears Holdings Corp. (5), Macy’s Inc. (8), Best Buy Co. Inc. (15), The Home Depot Inc. (16), Target (18), Kohl’s Corp. (23), Lowe’s Cos. Inc. (36), and RadioShack Corp. (317). The report focuses on four main product categories: clothing and shoes; electronics; housewares; and health and cosmetics. The report finds that Amazon “largely remains the retail price leader for like-to-like items, but WalMart and Target have lower online prices than Amazon” in those four categories, with the price differences widening as the two chains become more aggressive. For instance, the report notes that Wal-Mart, described as the “standout surprise,” has online prices approximately 10% lower than does Amazon as of August 2014, a significant improvement from 1% lower six months ago. Target’s online prices, meanwhile, come in at about 5% lower than Amazon’s and have remained at that approximate level for the past year. Macy’s stands as another retailer noted for its recent aggressiveness on prices. A year ago the department store chain’s apparel prices hovered around 17% higher than Amazon’s prices. That gap has since narrowed to just 1% higher. There was one important caveat to the pricing report: It does not take into account sales tax or shipping costs. The retail chains must charge sales tax to any online consumer who lives in a state where the retailer has stores, and that would cover most of the population. While Amazon doesn’t operate any bricks-and-mortar stores, it has grown its network of distribution centers aggressively, and Amazon now charges sales tax in states that represent about two-thirds of the U.S. population. In terms of shipping, Amazon says more than 20 million households belong to its Amazon Prime program that offers free 2-day shipping for $99 per year, which means millions of shoppers don’t pay for shipping when they buy at Amazon.com. More specifically, the Wells Fargo and 360pi report also finds: •

In electronics, a category in which Amazon competes with Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and Wal-Mart, both Target and Wal-Mart have become “more competitive” with Amazon’s prices. In the most recent period analyzed—June through August 2014—Wal-Mart’s prices on electronics were 3.3% lower than Amazon’s. Target’s prices were 8.7% lower. Best Buy remains about 1% higher than Amazon while RadioShack has become “less competitive,” with its prices in the most recent period 20% higher.

•

For clothes and shoes—here, it’s Amazon versus Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart— Target’s prices on average during the six months are 6% lower than Amazon’s. Wal-Mart’s prices were 6% to 8% lower, the report states. That said, Amazon has become more competitive recently, which the report says is because of back-to-school promotions. Kohl’s, meanwhile, has apparel and shoe prices at least 23% higher than Amazon’s during the past year, while Sears— which about a year ago has prices 2.5% lower than Amazon’s—charged 15.7% more, on average, for clothes and shoes than did Amazon in June through August.

•

In the health and cosmetics category—where the reigning e-commerce queen takes on Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart—the department stores charge higher prices than does Amazon. For instance, Macy’s prices from June through August were about 50% higher, while Kohl’s prices were about 24% higher. That Kohl’s figure represents a decline from earlier periods over the last year, a trend the report credits to the chain improving focus on the product

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category and trying to become more competitive. Again, Target and Wal-Mart come out as the most aggressive on pricing, with Target’s prices about 2% lower than Amazon’s, and Wal-Mart’s about 11% lower during the most recent reporting period. In fact, Wal-Mart’s price advantage in this category continues to drop, from 2.9% lower about a year ago. •

In housewares—here, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart try to dislodge Amazon—the general trend, the report says, “is that retailers are getting more competitive with Amazon,” with the exception of Lowe’s. Target and Wal-Mart once again are striving for their gold stars, with their prices 5% to 10% lower than Amazon, and that gap has grown “meaningfully larger” over the last six months. Lowe’s, meanwhile, managed to keep pace with Amazon on prices during the first six months of the report tracking period but has since gone 8% higher on average on like-for-like items.

Canadian eBay sellers are a global lot October 02, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/02/canadian-ebay-sellers-are-global-lot An eBay report says 83% of new online businesses on eBay Canada sell internationally within the first year. Sellers on the eBay Inc. marketplace in Canada ship to an average of 19 countries, according to a report from the marketplace operator. The study focuses on small businesses that take in at least C$10,000 ($8,969) annually. EBay’s report, “Commerce 3.0: How Technology is Empowering Canadian Entrepreneurs to Grow Globally” is based on sales, transaction and other data from 2008 to 2013. EBay finds that 99.5% of Canadian businesses using eBay Marketplaces export their products. That compares with about 10% of all Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses, according to Industry Canada, a government agency that promotes Canadian companies. The report says that the largest 3.3% of companies analyzed by eBay—described as “technologyenabled small businesses”—accounted for 36% of exports. The report also found: •

83% of new online businesses sell to two or more markets within the first year of operation.

•

Only 5% of the e-retailers analyzed for the report export exclusively to the United States.

•

The e-retailers analyzed by eBay for the report increased their web sales 14% in 2013 compared with 2008.

EBay earlier this year launched a program that enables consumers in Chile, Mexico and Colombia to pay $49 annually to cover shipping fees for all the goods they purchase from eBay sellers in the United States. EBay isn’t the only major U.S.-based e-commerce player trying to gain more global sales. Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, announced plans last week to build a fulfillment center in a free-trade zone in Shanghai, hoping sell more items from its global sites to Chinese consumers at lower prices and to deliver goods more quickly. The e-retailer also plans to

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letChinese consumers shop on Amazon.com in their own language, although the e-retailer has not said when it will add translation into Chinese to its U.S. e-commerce site.

Amazon to hire 1,000 UK distribution staff to meet demand October 13, 2014 http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/amazon-to-hire-1-000-uk-distribution-staff-to-meetdemand Amazon is on a recruiting drive. The e-tail giant is looking for 1,000 more permanent staff for its UK distribution centres. It already employs 6,000 people at its UK warehouses and customer service centres. These extra staff will join Amazon’s ‘fulfilment’ centres in Doncaster, Dunfermline, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay in the next few months. Last week, it announced plans to open its first retail store in New York. “Over the past two years, we have added well in excess of 2,000 new employees to our workforce and we are delighted to be able to add a further 1,000 to that number over the coming months,” John Tagawa, director of UK operations at Amazon, told the Guardian. “As we see greater demand, we are able to rapidly grow our talented team across the UK.” The Amazon store in New York is likely to act as a test bed. If it’s successful, we could see Amazon outlets hit the UK high street. Which would be ironic, seeing as it’s played such a big part in decimating it in recent years. The store will open across the street from the Empire State Building. It could also act as a pick-up point for online orders, if you need something urgently. Which would surely come in handy around Christmas time. Amazon recently launched its Fire Phone in the UK, though it’s only offered through O2 at present. It has received mixed reviews, and the price was recently slashed in the US following news that it had sold only 35,000 units. Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/amazon-to-hire-1-000-uk-distribution-staff-tomeet-demand#qYvGeuPrAc9ijXh6.99

Biyani’s Future Group, Amazon India enter into strategic partnership to sell goods online October 13, 2014 http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/corporate/biyanis-future-group-amazon-india-enter-into-strategicpartnership-to-sell-goods-online-104472.html According to an exclusive Economic Times report, Future group will start with 45 apparel brands and gradually begin selling in-house brands across various categories on the online marketplace while Amazon will handle delivery of orders and customer service for these products.

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Amazon and Future Group will also reportedly develop new products across categories to be sold at retail stores jointly owned by them. And given Biyani’s objection to sellers on e-retailers pricing their wares below traditional shops, don’t expect the prices on Amazon to be very different from those in the stores. “We are exploring several synergies in data sharing, co-branding, cross-promotion and distribution network sharing through the partnership,” Biyani told the newspaper. An earlier report had said that the Future Group had attempted to forge similar tie-ups with Flipkart and Myntra in the past but had fallen through. Biyani was a vocal opponent of the flash sales by online companies, accusing them of selling them lower than cost price of products and was dismissive of e-retailers saying that they only provided “technology for getting orders”. The Future Group’s electronics store, Ezone, already has an online presence and adopts a hybrid approach to sales involving both online as well as traditional brick and mortar stores. The group has also been speaking about ramping up its presence online. Biyani had earlier said that the group would initially take its fashion products online followed by FMCG and other products. The retailer had also said that they would go live with an omni channel strategy after Diwali, where existing physical stores start selling products online, to sell products in tandem with e-commerce.

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Technology Kmart is the latest retailer to report a breach of its store payment systems October 13, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/13/kmart-reports-breach-its-store-payment-systems Customer payment card data probably was exposed during the attack, which began in early September, Kmart says. Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart discount chain said it will provide customers with free credit monitoring as it investigates a computer-hacker breach detected last week. The retailer’s information-technology team identified the breach on Oct. 9 and is working with a security firm to assess the incursion, which happened in early September, Kmart said in an Oct. 10 filing. Customer payment-card information was probably exposed by the attack. “According to the security experts Kmart has been working with, the Kmart store payment data systems were infected with a form of malware that was undetectable by current anti-virus systems,” the company said in the filing. “Kmart was able to quickly remove the malware. However, Kmart believes certain debit and credit card numbers have been compromised.” Customer payment card data probably was exposed during the attack, which began in early September, Kmart says. Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart discount chain said it will provide customers with free credit monitoring as it investigates a computer-hacker breach detected last week. The retailer’s information-technology team identified the breach on Oct. 9 and is working with a security firm to assess the incursion, which happened in early September, Kmart said in an Oct. 10 filing. Customer payment-card information was probably exposed by the attack. “According to the security experts Kmart has been working with, the Kmart store payment data systems were infected with a form of malware that was undetectable by current anti-virus systems,” the company said in the filing. “Kmart was able to quickly remove the malware. However, Kmart believes certain debit and credit card numbers have been compromised.”

North American e-retailers lag in using card-based fraud prevention tools October 09, 2014 http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/10/09/north-american-e-retailers-lag-using-fraudprevention-tools Services such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode combat fraud by requiring shoppers to authenticate themselves when making a purchase online. Requiring shoppers to authenticate themselves when making a purchase online—via card-based fraud prevention tools such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode—is one way retailers

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can fight back against online fraud. But only 57% of merchants use or support those programs, according to a new report by Cardinal Commerce. The report, based on a survey of 443 worldwide merchants, acquirers and payment solution providers, card associations, issuers and fraud and e-commerce service providers, found that North American retailers—which dominate the sample set—brought down the percentage of retailers using consumer authentication; only 43% of North American merchants use consumer authentication, far less than those in the European Union (61%), Asia-Pacific (61%), South America (55%), Eastern Europe (56%), Middle East (64%) and Africa (62%). The report also found consumer authentication is more common among retailers selling expensive goods or services. For example, 53% of jewelry e-retailers use consumer authentication, as do 50% of computer and electronics merchants. On the other side of the spectrum, only 33% of books, music and video retailers use the technology, as do 31% of those who sell toys. Verified by Visa and MasterCard Secure Code dominate the consumer authentication space. 83% of merchants that deploy shopper-authentication services use Verified by Visa and 75% use MasterCard SecureCode. The programs are used to authenticate transactions using Visa and MasterCards respectively. The next most-used program offered by card brands is American Express SafeKey, which is used by 11% of retailers. Outside of these programs, the two most common techniques used by retailers are e-mail and device verification, which are used by 28% and 23%, respectively.

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When the Overstocktober commercials appear on a smart TV with ACR technology (about 50% of all smart TVs today, Delivery Agent says), an overlay appears, showing a special offer on a bed with three choices: Shop Collection, Exclusive Offer for Mobile and Exit. A consumer can use her remote control to click on Shop Collection and be taken to the ShopTV app to shop the advertised products, click on Exclusive Offer for Mobile to be texted a hyperlink to the special pages on the Overstock.com mobile commerce site or app, or click on Exit to dismiss the overlay. Consumers with existing ShopTV accounts will not have to enter their phone numbers to receive the text; other consumers can use their remotes to enter their mobile numbers. Also, the text links are deep links, meaning they can sense if a smartphone user has the Overstock.com mobile app on their device and instead of opening a mobile web page send that user to the page in the mobile app. The smartphone is the best option for shopping for a TV viewer: She already is familiar with how to shop on a smartphone and she doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to interrupt what she is watching, Saum Noursalehi, senior vice president of marketing at Overstock.com, tells Internet Retailer.

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