Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart, needs to lose less money. Their current plan includes closing underperforming stores, renting out vacant space, and borrowing money from its manifesto-writing CEO. These are all very sensible things to do, but will they be enough to save Sears? [More]
Retail Services
Will Pet Stores Stop Selling Puppies Entirely?
By 10.22.14
Where do you get puppies? The answer isn’t just about the mechanics of canine pregnancy. In the United States today, when your household wants to acquire a dog, where do you get it from? Most people would probably start at a pet store, but due to changes in stores’ own policies and government intervention, falling in love with a doggie in the window is becoming a thing of the past. [More]
Bank Of America Apologizes After Some Customers Using Apple Pay Report Double Charges
By 10.22.14
If you’re a Bank of America customer who’s used Apple Pay, you might want to check your statement right about now and make sure you don’t have duplicate charges. Some BofA customers are reporting trouble with double charges, prompting the bank to apologize to those affected. [More]
Target Baiting Holiday Shoppers With Free Shipping On All Items This Season
By 10.22.14
There’s nary a bit of frost on the ground and yet it’s time for retailers to start gearing up for the holidays. Getting off to a running start today is Target, announcing that starting today it’ll offer free holiday shipping on everything it sells online for the first time. [More]
Citibank Raises Fees For Accounts, But Plans To Offer Free Credit Reports To Some Customers
By 10.21.14
Citibank is poised to become the second financial institution to provide customers with free credit scores each month. But that’s only if customers stick with the company after its latest fee hike. [More]
Hating Lines Isn’t A Good Enough Excuse To Shoplift $300 In Liquor, Other Goods From Walmart
By 10.21.14
Long lines are a pain, but they’re part of the deal when you shop at major retail stores. If you don’t like to wait you can always fulfill your grocery list during off-hours, but you can’t just walk out the door without paying. [More]
At Hallmark, Get Halloween Ornaments For Your Halloween Tree
By 10.21.14
Here at Consumerist, we pretend to hate holiday mashups while secretly loving them. Still, we have to admit that we were a little confused when we saw that Hallmark now has Halloween ornaments. Yes, it’s a long-established fact that the gift chain puts its Christmas ornament collection out in July, but we thought they were just that. Christmas tree ornaments. Not so. [More]
Sears Inventory Clerk Accused Of Stealing $2.6 Million In Merchandise
By 10.21.14
If Sears wants to lose slightly less money in the last quarter of 2014, maybe the company needs to check its employees’ metaphorical pockets. For example, there was the employee in a New Jersey distribution center who was recently arrested and accused of stealing merchandise worth $2.3 million, with a retail value of $3.7 million, and selling or bartering the merchandise to people in multiple states. [More]
Citi’s “Secure Message Center” Run By Idiot Robots Who Don’t Care They Sent E-Mail To Wrong Person
By 10.20.14
If you’re a customer of any of the big banks, you’ve likely gotten a few messages in an online inbox that is only available via the bank’s website. You probably ignore most of these because they’re either about site downtime or upsells for add-on products you’ll never buy, but you probably assume that — unlike your gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or AOL account — this inbox doesn’t include messages that are intended for someone else. Wrong. [More]
Outerwear Companies Consider Maybe Sourcing Down From Humanely-Treated Birds
By 10.20.14
A surprising number of people (more than zero) don’t realize that down, a cozy insulation material used in clothes and bedding, comes from an animal. It does: down consists of the fine, cozy feathers closest to the skin of ducks and geese. The down that we use today mostly comes from birds raised for food in Eastern Europe and in China. How can companies balance eco-conscious customers and the supply chain of feathers? [More]
After Taking Away Some Employees’ Insurance, Walmart Care Clinics To Offer $40 Doctor Visits
By 10.20.14
Less than two weeks after the nation’s larger retailer and private employer decided it would discontinue health insurance for many part-time employees, the company announced its new health care centers would provide doctor visits for around $40, or as low as $4 for Walmart employees and their families. [More]
Fitbit Puts Allergen Warning Labels On Wearables
By 10.20.14
You may remember the Fitbit Force, a fitness-tracking wristband that went on the market at the end of 2013, then was eventually recalled after Consumerist brought rashes caused by the devices to the world’s attention. We’ve heard reports that the Force’s less intelligent cousin, the Flex, also caused skin irritation in some wearers. Know who else heard that? The Consumer Product Safety Commission. Fortunately for Fitbit, they’re only getting a warning. Label. [More]
Kmart Clarifies Layaway Rules For Closing Stores, No One Tells Kmart Employees
By 10.17.14
Earlier this week, we shared with you the complaint of some Kmart customers in Ohio who placed items on layaway before learning that the store they had visited was about to close. This affected their payoff date and payments, but a Sears Holdings representative contacted media outlets sharing this story and explained that this is not Kmart’s policy. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell people who work at this Kmart. [More]
Amazon Fresh Reaches East Coast But Only For Select Group Of Brooklynites
By 10.17.14
Residents of New York City jealous of their West Coast counterparts for receiving sometimes-fresh grocery deliveries from Amazon should pine no more. The e-tailer began deliveries of Amazon Fresh in a very concentrated area of the Big Apple today. [More]
Homer Laughlin Still Makes Your Grandmother’s Fiestaware In West Virginia
By 10.16.14
Homer Laughlin was a real person who started a pottery company in Ohio in 1873. The factory moved to West Virginia about twenty years later, but has stayed in the same town since, now employing about 1,000 people to make a line of dishware that you may recognize: Fiesta. [More]
The Costco Effect: Science Says We Choose Less Variety When Buying In Bulk
By 10.16.14
When you go to a convenience store to grab a few cold drinks and some snacks, you’re probably going to make different shopping choices than you would at the supermarket or warehouse store. And a new study claims that we tend to go for more variety when we’re not buying in bulk — even if the bulk packages offer variety. [More]
Walmart CEO Promises To Eventually Raise Wages For Lowest-Paid Workers
By 10.16.14
As proponents of higher pay for Walmart workers prepare for a day of protests against the retailer, its CEO is making the vague pledge that the company will eventually no longer have employees making only the national minimum wage. [More]
Amazon UK Finds Use For Newspaper Distributors: Delivering Packages
By 10.15.14
Who visits every neighborhood on a daily basis? There’s the postal service, of course, but another group of drivers or distributors on foot come by early in the morning, making their deliveries while most people sleep. Most cities still have a daily newspaper, so why not take advantage of that to bring online orders to residential neighborhoods? That’s what Amazon wants to do in the United Kingdom. [More]
