Back in 1959, Sears started the Homart Development Company. What did Homart develop? Malls! It built and ran malls across the country, malls that were home to Sears stores. Today, Sears is no longer in the mall business, and in many towns, Sears has left the mall as well. That’s terrible news for other mall tenants and for the mall business as a whole. [More]
Retail Services
Woman Gives Birth In Walmart Parking Lot On Her Birthday With Help From Fellow Shoppers
By 5.12.14
There’s a happy birthday, and then there’s “It’s my birthday and I’m having a baby in a Walmart parking lot.” A pregnant North Dakota woman had a scary situation on her hands when she went into labor right before she got into her car after a shopping trip. [More]
Target Promotion: $2 Gift Card When You Buy 5 Or $5 When You Buy 2
By 5.12.14
It’s not that we want to make fun of Target and their shelf tags stuffed with fuzzy math. We can’t help it. If only Target would try applying some logic to the signs it posts in its stores, we would stop posting those signs here on the site. [More]
Banks Inside Walmart Stores Lead Nation In Raking In Fees From Customers
By 5.12.14
A number of different banks operate branches inside more than 1,000 Walmart stores in the U.S., and many of these banks market themselves to consumers who may not be targeted by larger institutions because of low income or lack of savings and credit. A new analysis of the institutions most frequently found at Walmart found that these banks are also the most reliant on charging fees to their customers. [More]
Does Amazon’s Inventory Commingling Help Fake Products Fly Under The Radar?
By 5.12.14
When you order a certain brand’s product on Amazon and end up with a fake version of the real thing, who’s to blame? Some companies say it’s Amazon’s fault for commingling its inventory at some warehouses in the name of expediency, mixing up products that come directly from them with third-party sellers who also use the e-commerce giant’s warehouse order-fulfillment services. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Are Preparing Your 2010 Tax Return
By 5.12.14
The Raiders of the Lost Walmart are a band of fearless retail archaeologists who comb the world’s retail stores for the most ancient and obsolete gadgets and software. (They do not necessarily have to be in a Walmart, though Walmart does have a lot of retail antiquities.) Here are two of their newest discoveries, fresh off the software press in 2008 and 2011. [More]
Time For Another Visit To Deodorant Aisle Of Target’s Reality Vortex
By 5.9.14
Erika was shopping at Target when she took a step in the wrong direction and ended up in an alternate reality. Or maybe entering a Target store is an alternate reality, where the Doritos are chilled and numbers have no meaning. [More]
Amazon Sends Snail Mail To Remind Prime Members They Have Instant Video Streaming
By 5.9.14
Who said nothing good comes in the mail? Amazon is using the oft-forgotten form of communication to remind Prime account members that they have access to instant video streaming. [More]
Amazon Snags Patent For Taking Photographs Of Stuff Against A White Background
By 5.9.14
You there, with the camera, the seamless white background and the subject you’re prepared to shoot — halt! Or at least stop to ponder the reality that Amazon has apparently been granted a patent for taking photos of stuff against a white background. [More]
How Does A Negative Amazon Review Result In Threats Of A Lawsuit?
By 5.8.14
UPDATE: While neither Medialink nor its lawyer have responded to our request for comment on this story, the company has posted a lengthy note on its Facebook page in which explains the motives behind the cease-and-desist letter and says that its Amazon seller account has been suspended. [More]
Apparently, It’s Very Difficult To Box Up Cat Toys
By 5.8.14
Reader James was not impressed last week when we posted a picture of a cat toy that Amazon shipped inside another cat toy…or, as us people without cats call them, a very large “cardboard box.” James assured us that he could top one cat toy in a mere oversized long, thin box: he received two cat toys in a box large enough to ship at least four cats.* [More]
Amazon Expands Sunday Delivery To 15 Cities Because We’re All Very Impatient
By 5.8.14
When ordering products online there’s a strong desire to have said merchandise delivered to your door immediately. But sometimes weekends – especially Sundays – get in the way. For residents of 17 cities, that will no longer pose a problem now that Amazon is expanding its Sunday deliveries. [More]
Amazon, Google, Reddit, Netflix, 4Chan, Dozens Others, Plead With FCC To Protect Net Neutrality
By 5.7.14
In perhaps the most motley crew (as opposed to Mötley Crüe) of tech and Internet companies ever assembled for a single cause, around 150 businesses representing everything from content and infrastructure to gaming, crowdfunding and 3-D printing have written the FCC to ask that it not completely screw up net neutrality. [More]
Another Amazon Prime Order, Another Delivery Fake-Out From Ontrac
By 5.7.14
“OnTrac has made Amazon Prime a very expensive joke in Los Angeles,” reader Matthew wrote to Consumerist. How much of a joke? “This has happened at least six times in as many months to my wife and me. Tried contacting OnTrac and couldn’t get through to a human being.” That’s not a very funny joke. Matthew and his wife are far from alone in their dissatisfaction with OnTrac, though. [More]
FedEx To Start Charging By Package Size
By 5.7.14
Currently, shipping companies like FedEx and UPS only take a package’s size into account when it passes certain dimensional thresholds, but it looks like FedEx will soon start using package size and weight to determine shipping rates for all packages. [More]
Walmart Shells 4 Ounces From A Pound Of Store-Brand Pistachios
By 5.7.14
Ernest likes to eat pistachios. He’s also a good consumer, checking unit prices and choosing the store brand of his favorite snack. When he picked up a bag at his local Walmart recently, he noticed that something was missing. About four ounces of pistachios, in fact. [More]
Sears CEO On Company’s Troubles: “Sometimes You Have To Go Backwards To Go Forwards”
By 5.6.14
The bad news for Sears? Stores will continue to close. But the good news, according to Chairman and CEO Eddie “Have You Read My Manifesto?” Lampert, is that just means Sears is living in the present, not the past. But “sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards.” Okay, now we’re confused… [More]
Herbalife To Re-Train Distributors Not To Say Products Cure Brain Tumors
By 5.6.14
When you go to a meeting to learn more about potentially joining a multi-level marketing organization, you expect to hear testimonials about how the product has changed lives. You should not expect to hear about how the company’s products have cured brain tumors and performed other impossible feats. At least, that’s what Herbalife says after undercover reporters from ABC News filmed Herbalife distributors doing just that. [More]
