Amazon continued expanding its services to consumers Tuesday with the launch of a new self-service tool allowing customers to host their own giveaways. [More]
Retail Services
February Food And Supplement Recall Roundup: Curse Of The Contaminated Cumin
By 2.10.15
In this month’s Recall Roundup for food and supplements, some cumin became contaminated with peanut protein, then spread its potentially deadly payload everywhere from ethnic markets to the hot bar at Whole Foods. Pet food marketed for raw feeding of dogs and cats contains bacteria that can harm humans and pets alike. Oh, and there was some more undeclared knockoff Viagra masquerading as a “bee pollen” dietary supplement. [More]
How To Amaze Your Valentine Without Screwing Over Your Local Florist
By 2.9.15
Shopping online is simple: you see a picture of the thing that you want to buy, click on it, type in your credit card, and then that thing arrives on your doorstep or the doorstep of your gift recipient. This simplicity falls apart when it comes to ordering flowers online, which leads to plenty of disappointment. Here’s how to avoid that. [More]
99 Cents Only Stores Actually Charge 99.99 Cents For All Items
By 2.9.15
Fractions of a penny aren’t a significant amount of money, so we don’t really pay attention to them. That might be what the dollar store chain 99 Cents Only is counting on. They don’t exactly hide that everything in their stores costs 99.99¢ rather than 99¢, putting that information on customer receipts and even on shelf tags. Does that make the store’s name misleading, or is it okay to round down? [More]
Former Home Depot Worker Gets 30 Years For Planting Pipe Bomb In Store
By 2.9.15
If you want more money from your employer, we don’t recommend threatening to blow up multiple stores, let alone actually planting a bomb to show that you mean business. Not only are your odds of success small, it could also result in a 30-year jail sentence. [More]
Taking Upskirt Photos Of Teen Girls In Target Is Legal In Oregon, Says Court
By 2.6.15
There are many reasons that you should never skulk around Target, or any other store, trying to sneak upskirt photos of female shoppers, let alone teenage girls; it’s vulgar, invasive, and inarguably immoral; not to mention the fact that every instinct tells you that it must be illegal. But according to an Oregon court, it doesn’t run afoul of state laws. [More]
Target Workers Caught On Camera… Helping Teen Job Interviewee Tie His Tie
By 2.6.15
Most of the time when we hear about a retail employee being photographed doing something other than their jobs, it’s bad news, if not downright creepy. But here’s a pleasant change of pace. [More]
Couple Allegedly Steals 57 Blocks Of Cheese From Walmart, Because Who Doesn’t Want Cheese
By 2.6.15
From past experience, we know shoplifters enjoy perusing the meat department at Walmart and occasionally stuffing some items down their pants or sitting on top of them on their motorized scooter. But what’s the next best thing to take from the big box store? If you’re a couple from Tennessee, then the answer is cheese… 57 blocks of it. [More]
How Dollar-Store Shoppers Saved Single-Serve Velveeta
By 2.5.15
It’s a matter for some debate whether the continued existence of single-serving packages of Velveeta is good or bad in general for humanity. America narrowly avoided last year’s threatened Velveeta shortage, and its manufacturer Kraft considered taking the smallest packages of their processed cheese product off the market. Then they looked more closely at their sales numbers and noticed something interesting. [More]
Target Canada Liquidation Sales Offer Crappy Deals Unless You’re A Competing Pharmacy
By 2.5.15
For some reason, customers lined up outside of Target’s Canadian stores in the very cold hours before the sun rose this morning, anticipating fantastic deals at the liquidation sale. These shoppers were disappointed. While a few people scored deals on TVs and other big items, other consumers complained about the low discounts. [More]
Walmart Manager Says He Was Fired After Stopping Alleged Shoplifter
By 2.5.15
For several years now, Consumerist has reported on variety of stories where a former Walmart employee says they were fired either stopping a shoplifter or defending themselves in an altercation with customers. The latest such incident involves the manager of an Alabama Walmart who claims he was dismissed after stopping an alleged repeat offender from shoplifting again. [More]
Target Will Open More Urban Mini-Stores Than Big Boxes This Year
By 2.4.15
The hot trend in big-box stores is now small-box stores. First, tiny Walmarts proliferated across the country, and now Target is joining the mini urban store boom by expanding its TargetExpress brand into more markets. Target has announced fifteen planned store openings for the coming year, and nine of them are the tiny-format TargetExpress. [More]
Oklahoma Moms Stage Walmart Nurse-In After Store Tells Breastfeeding Customer To Cover Up
By 2.4.15
No matter how many stories we write reminding people that every state has a law allowing nursing moms to breastfeed in public, some manager at a store will still screw things up and ask a mother to leave the store or cover up. The latest incident involves a Walmart in Oklahoma, where several woman recently staged a nurse-in to drive their point home. [More]
Amazon Has Already Opened Its First Offline Store, Sort Of
By 2.4.15
Yesterday’s exciting retail news was that Amazon may take part in the bidding for some of the stores that formed the desiccated husk of RadioShack, vastly expanding its offline retail network of…zero permanent stores. Yet that’s not true: the fuss over the possible stores overshadowed the actual store that Amazon opened earlier this year, which is on the campus of Purdue University in Indiana. [More]
UPS Hates Coming To Your House, To Begin Tacking On Surcharges For Residential Delivery
By 2.3.15
Last week, in advance of its quarterly earnings report, UPS admitted that it over-spent on holiday shipping in 2014 and that it wouldn’t make that mistake again. Today, with those quarterly earnings announced, the company announced how it’s going to make back some of its money — by tacking on surcharges for residential deliveries. [More]
Report: Amazon Wants To Buy Some RadioShack Stores, Too
By 2.3.15
RadioShack built its brand by creating a vast nationwide network of stores across the country: they still have 4,300 of them, which has been a significant burden for the company as it has struggled to stay relevant and make money. As the Shack prepares to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, those stores are a tempting asset for other retailers looking to expand their retail footprints, like mobile carrier Sprint…and now Amazon. [More]
NY Asks Stores To Halt Herbal Supplements After Tests Show Advertised Herbs Not Present
By 2.3.15
When you buy an herbal supplement that says “echinacea” or “ginko boloba” on the label, you may expect that it contains some additional ingredients beyond the advertised herbs, but you should be confident that those herbs are present. However, DNA tests commissioned by the New York state Attorney General found evidence that many herbal products may not contain what they advertise. [More]
Amazon Reportedly Dumping ‘Doctor Who’ & Other BBC Shows From Prime Instant Video On Feb. 15
By 2.2.15
Just a few weeks after Netflix subscribers were forced to deal with the potential reality of losing access to some of their favorite BBC shows (a move that Netflix reversed later, sparing titles like Doctor Who and Luther, after all that worry), Amazon Prime customers will be seeing certain titles from across the pond disappear starting Feb. 15. [More]
