The new site Jet was meant to be the e-commerce version of Costco, charging users a $50 annual fee (which they later dropped) in exchange for excellent discounts on a wide variety of merchandise. This is Jet’s first holiday season, and the good news is they have a lot of business. Unfortunately, that means that they can no longer guarantee delivery by Christmas. [More]
Retail Services
Rent The Runway’s ‘Exclusive’ Dresses Turn Up Much Cheaper In Retail Stores
By 12.22.15
Rent the Runway, a company that lets customers rent pricey outfits for special events, now rents out their own brands alongside designer clothes and accessories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with promoting those brands as if they’re from noted designers, assigning them made-up retail values. Even worse: some of those “exclusive” items can be found on department store websites, where you can buy them for less than it would cost to rent them. [More]
Retailers Struggling With In-Store Pickup This Holiday Season
By 12.21.15
Ordering an item online and picking it up at the local outlet of a chain retailer is a great advance in e-commerce, but it seems more convenient than it is. Even when everything is working smoothly, it doesn’t actually save shoppers any time. The service hasn’t been operating smoothly at many retailers this holiday season, though: is it doomed to end up in the trash bin of business ideas that seemed like a good idea at the time? [More]
Report: Target Is Considering Its Own Mobile Wallet App
By 12.18.15
It seems everywhere you turn these days, another company is offering a new way to pay with a smartphone: there’s Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, as well as Walmart’s newly announced mobile payment system, and now Target might be hopping on the bandwagon with its own mobile wallet. Any bets on whether it’ll be called “Target Pay”? [More]
JPMorgan Chase To Pay $367 Million For Secretly Steering Clients To Investments That Benefited Bank
By 12.18.15
When you pay a bank’s investment adviser to help you put your money in a smart place, you would hope that they would steer you to a product that best serves your interest. You’d also hope that if an investment product benefited the bank, this information would be clearly disclosed. But that’s not always the case, which is why JPMorgan Chase has to pay penalties totaling $367 million. [More]
Amazon Launches Mobile App Referral Program Offering Users $5 (In Coupons)
By 12.17.15
Amazon thinks the future of shopping is in your hands, literally. The company recently launched a referral program that offers users of its mobile shopping app a few bucks to pass on the handheld shopping bug to friends. [More]
39% Of All U.S. Money Spent At Online Stores Goes To Amazon
By 12.17.15
If you’ve placed an online order for a gift or for a self-gift this holiday season, it most likely came from Amazon. How likely is it? According to statistics released this week, 39.3% of all money spent by Americans shopping online is spent at Amazon, which is more than the next 20 biggest sellers in e-commerce combined. [More]
CPSC Intensifies Investigation Into Exploding “Hoverboards,” USPS Restricts Shipments
By 12.17.15
One of the holiday’s hottest gifts has gotten a bit too hot, literally. Following claims that so-called “hoverboard” scooters have caught fire while charging, retailers have pulled the popular devices to ensure they’re safe. In the meantime, the country’s top product safety regulator says his agency is working “non-stop” to find the root cause for the fire hazards linked to the self-balancing scooters. [More]
Snapfish Promises To Upgrade Some Christmas Card Orders, Customers Not Placated
By 12.16.15
In response to customers who are angry that they haven’t yet received their orders for photo Christmas cards and other time-sensitive items, photo-printing company Snapfish announced that they’ll be sending out some orders––specifically, photo cards printed on stationery paper–– with expedited shipping. Everyone else? You’ll have to wait in the customer service chat queue to be hung up on. [More]
More “Layaway Angels” Pay For $306K In Gifts At Four Walmart Stores
By 12.16.15
Just hours after “Santa B.,” a so-called layaway angel, shelled out $79,000 to pay for toys and other gifts at a Pennsylvania Walmart, another generous person was paying off $106,000 in balances on layaway orders at two Walmart stores just a state away in Ohio. [More]
Flaw In Target’s Wish List App Feature Can Expose Phone Numbers, Emails, Other Personal Info
By 12.16.15
There’s just something about the holiday season and Target that leaves customers’ personal information open for the taking. Two years after the retailer suffered a massive data breach affecting more than 100 million customers, another – albeit smaller – security flaw in the company’s mobile app has left the emails and phone numbers for some users vulnerable. [More]
Card Skimmers Found Inside Payment Terminals In California And Colorado Safeway Stores
By 12.16.15
Regular Consumerist readers are probably now used to checking gas pumps, kiosks, and ATMs for visible and obvious skimming devices. However, banks have discovered and Safeway has confirmed that credit card terminals in some of their stores in California and Colorado were compromised with hardware skimmers: devices embedded right in the card-processing machines that harvested their card data and PINs. [More]
Clothing Retailers Lost $185 Million In November Because The Weather Is Too Nice
By 12.15.15
As the weather continues to be great in much of the country, the situation is getting worse for retailers. Now we can put some numbers on that: a firm that combines research on weather and retail reports that clothing stores lost $185 million just in November of this year. [More]
‘Tis The Season: Secret ‘Santa B’ Pays For $79K In Layaway Gifts At Pennsylvania Walmart
By 12.15.15
Each year, so-called “layaway angels” visit retailers covering the remaining balances of orders that strangers had planned to pay for over time. This year is no different, as one generous person shelled out $79,000 to pay for toys and other gifts on layaway at a Pennsylvania Walmart. [More]
30 Online Retailers Agree To Stop Selling Toy Guns That Look Like The Real Thing To New York Residents
By 12.15.15
After an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a long list of online retailers that sold authentic-looking toy guns through Amazon.com have now agreed to stop peddling the toys to state residents. [More]
Target Temporarily Pulls Swagway “Hoverboards” Over Safety Concerns
By 12.15.15
Just days after Amazon handed a blow to “hoverboard” manufacturers, pulling the self-balancing scooters (that don’t actually hover) from its marketplace over safety concerns, another major retailer is following suit: Target took down listings for the scooters on Monday. [More]
Some “Hoverboards” Vanish From Amazon Amid Safety Concerns
By 12.14.15
Between injuries, explosions, lawsuits, and being banned by several airlines, one of the year’s hottest gadgets might not be much longer. Continuing the chain of bad news, Amazon reportedly pulled several “Hoverboard” scooters from its marketplace over the weekend because of safety concerns. [More]
Best Buy’s Geek Squad Deploys To Help Air Travelers For Free
By 12.14.15
Best Buy’s Geek Squad is setting up an outpost in an unexpected location. They’re deploying tech support teams to the airport nearest Best Buy headquarters, Minneapolis-St. Paul International, to help travelers with their electronics, provide a free charging station and computers for public user, give away gadget prizes, and of course to promote their brand to thousands of people of people who travel to, from, or through the airport. [More]
