In a move that will cause me to forever give the toy aisle the side-eye, a Florida man is accused of getting it on with a stuffed animal at Walmart and then putting it back on the shelf after he’d had his way with it. [More]
Retail Services
Florida Man Accused Of Humping A Stuffed Animal At Walmart, Putting It Back On The Shelf
By 10.15.14
Layaway Customer At Closing Ohio Kmart Told To Pay Up Before Store Closes
By 10.15.14
Kmart started its Christmas-themed advertising back at the beginning of September, with an ad promoting its layaway program. Only after the holiday layaway season kicked off, Kmart announced a fresh round of store closings. This included two stores in Ohio, which have told customers that they have to pay off their layaway accounts by November 1st. UPDATE: The deadline may indeed not be November 1st. [More]
Walmart Launches Digital Video Service So Customers Who Still Buy Blu-rays, DVDs Will Redeem Digital Copies
By 10.15.14
Walmart appears to be going Hollywood. No, the company isn’t going to be the focus of a movie. Instead the mega-retailer and its digital entertainment service, VUDU, have launched a new service putting digital copies of movies at customers’ fingertips – or rather on their smartphones and tablets. [More]
Converse Suing 31 Companies For Allegedly Selling Knock-Off Chuck Taylor Sneakers
By 10.15.14
You’ve seen them on hipsters, your mom, that girl who lived down the hall from you freshman year, maybe you wear them — the point is, Converse’s Chuck Taylor All-Stars, or Chucks, as they’re known by fans, are worn by a whole lot of different kinds of people. Though once the shoe of choice for mainly greasers, nonconformists and athletes, nowadays the sneaker look is appealing to a wide range of people. It’s that popularity that has other companies churning out knock-offs, claims Nike’s Converse in a new lawsuit against 31 companies for allegedly copying the style. [More]
Amazon Opening Real-Life Stores In San Francisco, Sacramento
By 10.14.14
Amazon hasn’t officially confirmed that it is going to open a real-life store in New York City, though “people familiar with the plans” told the Wall Street Journal about the company’s planned , and there’s definitely something about to open in the space across the street from the Empire State Building. However, the company has confirmed that it’s opening two seasonal pop-up shops in San Francisco and Sacramento, California. [More]
Sears Apologizes For Selling Swastika Rings In Online Marketplace
By 10.14.14
After a third-party listing for a men’s “Thai silver Swastika ring” popped up on Sears’ online Marketplace, the company has pulled the “punk rock style” jewelry and has been busy apologizing to upset customers for selling it in the first place. [More]
Kmart Announces Credit And Debit Card Breach That Began In September
By 10.10.14
Remember how this morning, we explained why it is inevitable that if you shop anywhere, your payment data or personal information will be part of a hack? On Friday evening, Kmart dropped the news that they have also been hacked, with malware installed in their in-store payment system. They have not yet announced how many customers have been affected. [More]
Do You Ever Shop Anywhere? Congratulations: Your Data Will Be Hacked
By 10.10.14
By the numbers alone, basically everyone in the country has been the victim of at least one data breach in the past year, if not more. 106 million Americans had their card data stolen from Target and Home Depot alone, to say nothing of the data breaches at Jimmy John’s, Dairy Queen, P.F. Chang’s, UPS, Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, ACME, Shaw’s, Sally Beauty Supply, Goodwill, some Marriott hotels, Neiman Marcus, and Michael’s craft stores. And that isn’t even considering other breaches that were too small to make national headlines, or that simply haven’t been discovered yet. [More]
What Not To Buy At Costco
By 10.9.14
When you stroll into Costco, leaning with swagger on your huge cart and confidently flashing your membership card at the entrance, there’s an atmosphere in the air of “I’m going to spend a lot of money today, but things will be so much cheaper than shopping elsewhere.” For some items (huge pack of super-thick steaks, we’re looking at you), that’s true, but no store is the best place to buy everything and some Costco items aren’t always going to save you any money. [More]
Report: Fidelity Investments Likely Victim Of Same Hackers Responsible For JPMorgan Breach
By 10.9.14
Just a week after JPMorgan Chase said that 76 million households and 7 million businesses were affected by a late August data breach, another large mutual fund company admits it was likely targeted by the same hackers. But unlike JPMorgan, Fidelity Investments says there’s no indication any customer data was stolen. [More]
Wells Fargo Employee E-mails CEO & 200K Co-Workers Asking For Raises For All
By 10.9.14
How many times has someone asked for a raise only to have their boss say, “If I give you a raise, then everybody is going to ask for one”? One Wells Fargo worker pre-empted that part of the conversation when he e-mailed just about everyone in the company asking for raises for all. [More]
Outlet Stores May Not Be What You Think They Are
By 10.8.14
Old-school outlet shopping involved visiting clothing factory towns and digging through bins of slightly irregular underpants in a rough store space that was sometimes just off the factory floor. Today, outlet stores are nicely designed stores in special malls and in regular malls alike, thousands of miles away from where the clothes are made. [More]
Amazon Fighting FTC On In-App Purchases By Kids
By 10.7.14
While its competitors in mobile apps Apple and Google have reached settlements with the Federal Trade Commission, Amazon has decided that it will not roll over. No, the tech company is going to fight the FTC’s lawsuit against it rather than settle, and filed a brief last week making the case that this is all the darn parents’ fault. Sort of. [More]
Jeff Bezos Wedding His Companies With Preinstalled Washington Post App On New Kindle Fire
By 10.7.14
Back when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought himself the Washington Post, many wondered how/if he’d connect his online retail company with the newspaper (and of course, web site, since this is 2014), or just keep them both in his property pen. It seems he’s ready to introduce these two as a couple, by joining them together in Amazon’s next Kindle Fire tablets. [More]
Walmart Taking Away Insurance For 30,000 Workers
By 10.7.14
The nation’s largest retailer and private employer has announced that it will discontinue offering health insurance to many part-time employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, along with increasing the premiums by up to 20% for many workers who continue to receive benefits. [More]
Ohio’s Worst Walmart Employee Steals Cash From Customer, Food From Deli In Same Day
By 10.6.14
If you’re a bad enough person to steal from a customer, it’s probably not much of a stretch to think you’d steal from your employer too. But to be caught doing both in the same day takes a special kind of stupid. [More]
Suppliers Are Concerned That Sears Can’t Pay Its Bills
By 10.6.14
The holiday season is crucial for American retailers, and Sears is trying to make sure that they actually have some merchandise on the shelves in case any customers wander in on their way to another store from the vast, empty parking lot. Filling those shelves will be harder: there are reports that suppliers have less confidence in Sears’ ability to pay its bills than they used to. [More]
Americans Will Spend $34 Billion On Consumer Electronics This Holiday Season
By 10.3.14
What consumer items do you have your eye on this year? The Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group for exactly what you think it is, says that our most-coveted gifts this holiday season are consumer electronics. Well, that doesn’t surprise anyone, but the CEA projects that we will spend $33.76 billion on electronics this year. [More]
