In the basement of their flagship store in Manhattan’s Herald Square, Macy’s is running an experiment. One Below is a store focused on shoppers in their teens and twenties that the department store is using as a laboratory to figure out what the kids today like, and they plan to use what they learn there in their other stores across the country. Now they’re adding something new: a real-life Etsy store. [More]
Retail Services
Report: Amazon Planning A Subscription Streaming Music Service To Rival Spotify
By 1.28.16
The popularity of streaming music services like Spotify has others in the business scrambling to hit upon just the right formula for success. Amazon, for one, is reportedly working on a Spotify-killer that is entirely separate from Prime Music. [More]
Sure, Go Ahead And Try To Use That Expired Coupon
By 1.27.16
It’s frustrating when you clip or save a coupon, then forget to use it. What you may not realize, though, is that some stores and restaurants will allow you to use coupons after the expiration date. The policy may vary according to location or even the employee’s mood, but you don’t always have to let your couponing go to waste. [More]
New York City Bans Hoverboards On Buses, Trains
By 1.27.16
If you live in New York City and plan to ride the subway or hop on a city bus, you better leave your “hoverboard” at home. The state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Wednesday that it is banning the self-balancing scooters from public transportation over fire safety concerns. [More]
Amazon’s Stupid Shipping Gang Ensures That Your Tea Arrives Safely
By 1.27.16
Tea is a very important and delicious beverage. Amazon takes your tea very seriously. How seriously do they take it? The Everything Store’s stupid shipping gang took Indira’s tin of teabags and packed it carefully in a box that would fit at least a dozen more tins. [More]
Shoppers Still Think Whole Foods Is Too Expensive, Not Worth It
By 1.26.16
With more competitors in the market for healthy and organic foods, the grocery chain Whole Foods has had to lower its prices. The company is both planning a lower-priced offshoot chain and lowering prices in its current stores. According to a recent survey of their customers, that effort really isn’t paying off: customers still think that the chain is expensive and not worth the extra cost. [More]
Chase To Install Cardless ATMs That Offer A Variety Of Denominations
By 1.26.16
Bank customers weary of using ATMs for fear they’ve been compromised by ne’er-do-wells using skimmers to get their hands on card numbers have a new option. That is, if they bank with JPMorgan Chase, as the company is rolling out new cash machines that are not only cardless, but will let you take out money in a wider variety of denominations. [More]
If You Pass Out While Shoplifting, Medical Personnel Will Notice Your Hidden Stuff
By 1.26.16
It might seem like stuffing merchandise under your clothing and then passing out in a store is a solid method for shoplifting without being noticed, but this is not true. When a woman who passed out twice in a Utah Kmart store was taken to the hospital, medical personnel noticed that she had Kmart merchandise hidden under her clothes. [AP] [More]
In Spite Of Past Failure, Amazon Not Giving Up On Smartphones
By 1.26.16
Three months after it was revealed that Amazon took a $170 million loss during its last foray into the smartphone market, the e-tailer is reportedly readying plans for a second go-around, this time by partnering with other well-established mobile companies. [More]
Would You Use A Tide-Branded Laundry Pickup Service?
By 1.26.16
Back in 2000, Procter & Gamble tested something interesting: it was a laundry pickup and delivery service called Juvian. That didn’t really take off, but the growth of app-based laundry services has apparently made the company give the idea another try. This time, it’s being tested in one neighborhood in Chicago, and the service is called Tide Spin. [More]
Walmart, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé Offer 176 Truckloads Of Clean Water To Flint Schoolkids
By 1.26.16
You’ve no doubt heard about the concerns over lead-tainted water in the Michigan city of Flint. While the city and state have declared it a public-health emergency, some big businesses are stepping up with the promise of delivering millions of bottles of clean water to Flint schoolchildren through the rest of 2016. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Will Put You On Hold On Their Landline Now
By 1.25.16
The Raiders of the Lost Walmart are the brave retail explorers who comb the nation’s big-box stores for retail antiquities: items that have been left behind and forgotten on clearance shelves, out of date and comically overpriced. Today, the Raiders have turned in their field notes on three items: a charger for a long-ago media player, a device to torture people you’re on the phone with, and a trackball mouse that has waited a very long time for a markdown, a buyer, or both. [More]
Amazon Puts Mini E-Book Stores In Drugstores In Washington State
By 1.25.16
Back in November, Amazon did something unexpected: the company opened a real-life bookstore in its hometown of Seattle. The company also has a Kindle and Fire showroom at its new package pickup point at UC Berkeley. Amazon clearly wants to move into real-life retail, in some ways, and they have an intriguing new product spotted on drugstore shelves in Washington state. [More]
How Social Engineering Fooled Amazon Customer Service Reps Into Sharing A Customer’s Data
By 1.25.16
You generally expect that a company that has your personal information — like your address, recent orders, and billing information — is going to treat that data with some level of care. While you know their privacy policy might still allow some sharing for marketing reasons, you don’t expect their customer service agents to divulge it to anyone who happens to call up and pretend to be you. [More]
Walmart Comes To Town, Other Stores Close, Then Walmart Leaves
By 1.25.16
The Walmart Express experiment was a teeny proportion of the more than 5,000 stores that the retailer claims across the United States: fewer than 150 tiny Walmarts in small towns across the country. Walmart pulling the plug on its experiment has a very real and very terrible effect on the people who live in those small towns. In some places, it leaves them without any local grocery stores or pharmacies. [More]
15 Things We Learned About The Downfall Of Target Canada
By 1.22.16
Why did Target’s expansion into Canada fail so quickly? The company is based in Minnesota, which is dangerously close to being Canada. Yet Target Canada failed spectacularly. Why? Sure, they expanded too quickly, and had supply chain problems: we all know the answer. Yet what did that look like on the ground? [More]
It’s 50% Off Time At Most Of Those Walmarts That Are Shutting Down
By 1.22.16
Of the 150 or so Walmart and Walmart Express Stores fated for the chopping block, almost all of them are closing for good next Thursday (Jan. 28). After hearing from anecdotal accounts of big sales at some of these stores, Walmart HQ has confirmed to Consumerist that you can indeed get 50% off at these doomed locations. [More]
