If you happen to have a gift card for Quiksilver sitting around idle, don’t use it as a tiny surfboard for your fingers anymore: it’s time to redeem it. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week and is closing about 20% of its stores. However, the company received approval for a $175 million loan that will let it stay in business while it restructures. [More]
Retail Services
Etsy To Try Same-Day, Next-Day Delivery In New York City
By 9.11.15
With Amazon’s new “Handmade” platform trying to nose into territory that has long been the domain of Etsy, the online crafts and vintage marketplace is taking a page from Amazon’s playbook and trying its hand at same-day and next-day delivery. [More]
Walmart Asks More Suppliers To Pay For Space In Warehouses And On Shelves, And They Rebel
By 9.11.15
Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, has an unimaginable amount of power over the vendors who supply it with products. Some suppliers are speaking out, though, after the mega-retailer has asked 10,000 more suppliers to pay storage fees for keeping products in its distribution centers, in warehouses, and on store shelves. [More]
After Twenty Years, Target To Drop Cherokee Brand Clothes
By 9.11.15
The racks of clothing available at Target will look a bit different in two years, as the retailer announced this week that it won’t renew a decades-long contract with apparel retailer Cherokee. [More]
Kmart Expands Layaway Program, Hopes You’ll Trust Them This Year
By 9.10.15
Layaway is a very simple transaction: you pick out an item, a store puts it aside, and you make payments on it until you’ve paid it off and you can bring it home. It was a dying retail tradition when tightening credit markets and a massive recession led stores, notably discount retailers Kmart and Walmart, to bring it back. This year, Kmart wants customers who may no longer have a local store to use layaway plans to buy holiday gifts. [More]
Shoplifting Suspect Flees Walmart, Runs Across Highway, Causing Crashes
By 9.10.15
dIt’s understandable that someone suspected of shoplifting would want to flee the store, but someone caught in the act north of Seattle fled across an interstate highway and up an onramp, causing multiple crashes. Don’t be like this person. Be sure to bring along a motor vehicle when you shoplift. An even better idea: don’t shoplift. [More]
Sam’s Club Expands To Accept American Express Cards Starting Oct. 1
By 9.10.15
Back in February, American Express and Costco announced that they’re breaking up in 2016. That means AmEx, including the Costco co-branded cards, will be useless at the warehouse store. Now, seven months later, the credit card company reveals its entering into a relationship with Costco rival Sam’s Club, allowing shoppers at that warehouse store to use AmEx cards at the register for the first time. [More]
Raiders of the Lost Walmart Will Accessorize Your Ancient Digital Camera
By 9.9.15
How long does it take for something to become a true antique? For the bold explorers who form the Raiders of the Lost Walmart, any obsolete technology for sale at an inappropriate price is precious and in need of documentation. There are some electronic relics that are older and more precious than others, though, and reader/Raider Lathi recently excavated some digital camera accessories from the late Mavica era. [More]
Woman Allegedly Instructs Kid To Push Cart Of Stolen Merchandise Out Of Walmart
By 9.9.15
Over the years, we’ve reported on several incidents in which a parent or guardian has taken their child along on a shoplifting excursion: there was the Toys ‘R’ Us shoplifting spree, the women who left their baby in the store, and the mom who used her kid’s stroller as cover for a stolen sex toy. While we haven’t heard too many of these stories lately, it’s still happening: a Chicago woman reportedly had a child accompanying her take stolen goods out of a Walmart. [More]
Amazon Has Finally Sold All Of Its Fire Phones
By 9.9.15
Last year, Amazon endlessly teased us all with what was going to be either a new smartphone or some kind of exotic sex toy. Unfortunately for Amazon, it was the former, and the Fire Phone failed to catch on. That’s okay, though, because the last phones have been sold, and the engineers who made the device into a real-life phone are gone. Amazon can just pretend that none of this ever happened. [More]
Bath & Body Works Will Cleanse Worker Schedules Of On-Call Shifts
By 9.9.15
This summer, a number of popular mall store chains have decided to end the practice of on-call scheduling, a money-saving trick where employees are scheduled to work but told not to report, or are sent home early. Now the dense scent cloud known as Bath and Body Works will join its corporate cousin Victoria’s Secret in stopping the practice next month. [More]
Federal Judge Finds In Favor Of Tiffany In Costco Imitation Ring Case
By 9.8.15
After more than two and a half years of litigation, the dispute between Costco and Tiffany over what, exactly, “Tiffany” means in the context of diamond engagement rings is over. A federal judge found in favor of Tiffany, noting that Costco clearly had not acted in good faith when slapping the word “Tiffany” on their jewelry cases. [More]
Costco’s Online Photo Services Back Up After Breach, Customers’ Cards May Have Been Compromised
By 9.8.15
If you like viewing and ordering prints of your digital photos from the comfort of your own home and then traipsing to the local Costco to pick up your memories, then we’ve got good news: Costco has finally relaunched its online photo services website after taking the site down upon discovering a breach in July. But there’s also a bit of bad news: some customers’ credit card information may have been captured in the year-long hack. [More]
Macy’s Teams Up With Best Buy To Sell Electronics In Some Stores
By 9.8.15
Shoppers heading to Macy’s generally plan to update the items hanging in their closets, not the electronics littering their living rooms. But that could soon be changing, as the department store plans to house Best Buy outlets in several locations starting this fall. [More]
Netflix Won’t Offer Downloadable Content Anytime Soon Because Users Just Couldn’t Handle It
By 9.8.15
Any Netflix users who got their hopes up that maybe the streaming service would follow in Amazon’s footsteps and offer downloadable content that can be watched offline on a mobile device, well, your dreams probably won’t be coming true anytime soon: Neil Hunt, Netflix’s Chief Product Officer says it’s unlikely the company will go the route of offline viewing because adding another choice will just make the whole thing too complicated for users. [More]
Amazon Now Delivering Restaurant Food In Seattle
By 9.8.15
If having Amazon deliver your groceries or farmers market produce wasn’t enough, the e-commerce giant turned deliverer-of-all-things-edible now plans to bring consumers piping hot meals right to their dining room tables with its foray into the restaurant delivery service arena. [More]
Yet Another Shopper Finds Black Widow Spider In Grapes, This Time From Walmart
By 9.8.15
A Michigan woman’s scary run-in with a creepy, crawly spider serves as a great reminder of the importance of washing your fresh produce when you bring it home, because there could be a black widow spider just hanging out in that bunch of grapes, you know, just waiting for you. [More]
Longtime L.L. Bean President And Founder’s Grandson Dies At Age 80
By 9.4.15
The flagship L.L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine doesn’t close. It literally does not have locks on its doors. Yet it’s going to close next weekend during the funeral of the company’s former longtime president and the grandson of founder L.L. Bean himself, Leon Gorman, who died yesterday at age 80. [More]
