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	<title>Business &#38; MoneyCategory: Amazon &#124; Business &#38; Money &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Business &#38; MoneyCategory: Amazon &#124; Business &#38; Money &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Video: Sorry eBay &#8212; Turns Out Some Small Businesses Support the Marketplace Fairness Act</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/09/video-sorry-ebay-turns-out-some-small-businesses-support-the-marketplace-fairness-act/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/09/video-sorry-ebay-turns-out-some-small-businesses-support-the-marketplace-fairness-act/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 20:30:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics & Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tax Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War for the Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet sales tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[loophole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Main Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketplace Fairness Act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online sales tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sales tax]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79702</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Online giant eBay is leading the charge against legislation that would require sales tax to be collected on Internet sales. The mandate would be an unfair burden on small businesses, eBay says. And yet who are among the bill&#8217;s strongest supporters? Yep, small businesses. For years, online sellers have benefitted from what brick-and-mortar retailers call the &#8220;internet sales tax loophole.&#8221; For the most part, e-retailers are only required to charge customers sales tax if the vendor has a physical presence in the state where the purchase is being made. Consumers are supposed to pay the appropriate sales tax when they file their annual federal and state income taxes, but almost no one does. The situation gives e-commerce businesses an obvious pricing advantage over brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers with a physical presence in the state, which must always tack on sales tax. The Marketplace Fairness Act, which passed in the U.S. Senate and is now being considered in the House, would close this loophole. The legislation would allow states to require out-of-state vendors to collect sales taxes just like the physical stores at the customer&#8217;s location. (MORE: 5 Ways to Save Money Shopping Online, Regardless of New Internet Sales Tax Legislation) Amazon, the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer, has voiced support for online sales tax collection initiatives in recent years. The only big company that&#8217;s actively fighting the legislation today is eBay. Company CEO John Donahoe was quoted on NPR this week arguing that the law would hurt small businesses: If it&#8217;s allowed to play out things will still sell in eBay marketplace, but it will be larger and larger sellers that are doing the selling and the small guy will, over time, slowly be squeezed out. Currently, the Marketplace Fairness Act would exempt retailers with less than $1 million in annual revenues. Instead, eBay wants the exemption pushed to the $10 million revenue mark, which Donahoe pointed to as one of the criteria used in Obamacare to define a small business. &#8220;All we&#8217;re saying is an exemption at $10 million &#8211;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79702&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>E-commerce</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/e-commerce-companies-industries/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Bait and Switch: Beware Low-Price Guarantees</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/04/the-bait-and-switch-behind-low-price-guarantees/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/04/the-bait-and-switch-behind-low-price-guarantees/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 04 May 2013 14:00:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Best Buy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine print]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price matching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price matching guarantee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price-matching policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[showrooming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toys R Us]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=78968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Retailers love that price-matching guarantees attract shoppers. At the same time, they hate it when customers actually try to take advantage of these policies. Walmart has had a price-matching guarantee for years, and Target and Best Buy have recently introduced their own policies on a full-time basis — which even include matching prices with online competitors like Amazon. In some ways, it seems inevitable that stores would get on board with price matching. The rise of &#8220;showrooming&#8221; and increased transparency in the marketplace all but forces retailers to either match prices of competing stores and websites or risk losing sales to them. And yet, even as pricing is becoming more transparent, the price-matching policies employed by some retailers remain something of a mystery to shoppers. Bloomberg News recently rounded up many of the gripes consumers have regarding the price-matching policies of national retailers such as Walmart and Toys &#8220;R&#8221; Us. Mostly, the complaints center on how confusing and frustrating the policies can be, especially because the decisions inside stores to allow or shoot down price-match requests can seem arbitrary. “Shoppers can get confused,” Robin Sherk, a Kantar Retail analyst, told Bloomberg concerning Walmart locations. “They go to different stores and there are different policies — even in the same store, if you go to different cashiers.” (MORE: Does Kmart&#8217;s Hilarious New Ad Acknowledge That Kmart Stores Are Hopeless?) Part of the reason shoppers will find varying policies is that it&#8217;s “up to the local managers what matching they will do,” one pharmacist who has worked at several Walmarts explained. Another reason could be that the policies themselves are complicated enough to not only confound shoppers, but store employees as well. The fine print of Target&#8217;s &#8220;low-price promise&#8221; is nearly 1,000 words long and includes more than a dozen exclusions like &#8220;prices advertised only as a percent off or dollar off.&#8221; The Toys &#8220;R&#8221; Us Price Match Guarantee, which the National Advertising Division recently recommended be changed or discontinued because it was misleading, states that stores will match prices listed at toysrus.com<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=78968&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Does Kmart&#8217;s Hilarious New Ad Acknowledge That Kmart Stores Are Hopeless?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/19/does-kmarts-hilarious-new-ad-acknowledge-that-kmart-stores-are-hopeless/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/19/does-kmarts-hilarious-new-ad-acknowledge-that-kmart-stores-are-hopeless/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:45:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kmart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[layaway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sears]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=78046</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In just over a week, Kmart&#8217;s 30-second &#8220;Ship My Pants&#8221; spot &#8212; go ahead, say it quickly &#8212; has received close to 13 million views online. The viral hit should give the struggling retailer some much-needed buzz. It might also call attention to why some shoppers stopped going to Kmart. Let&#8217;s be honest: Kmart isn’t cool. In the pantheon of big-box general merchandise retailers, Walmart is the 600-pound gorilla, inexorable in its pursuit of efficiency and cheap prices. Target is sort of the hip one. And Kmart, well, it&#8217;s just kind of there, right? If you associate the Kmart brand with anything these days, it&#8217;s a kind of Martha Stewart-flavored aspirational respectability, or perhaps layaway, or bankruptcy court. That’s why the retailer’s irreverent “Ship My Pants” ad, released last week, is so surprising. Not because of the faux-scatological content per se &#8212; though that did raise a few eyebrows &#8211; but because this somewhat edgy and definitely funny ad came from such a tired snooze of a retail brand. (MORE: How Far Can the Mighty Apple Fall?) The commercial highlights the store’s Ship to Home service, which Kmart launched a year ago, offering customers free delivery on any item they can’t find in stores. Andrew Stein, Kmart&#8217;s vice president and chief marketing officer, says the company wasn&#8217;t trying to make a viral ad. The goal was to just create a funny, compelling commercial that promoted the service. About a month ago, the “Ship My Pants” ad ran in a town hall meeting of Kmart employees. Stein says everyone loved it. “The outpouring of affection, the goodwill and the laughter that we got internally told us we really had something here,” he says. The video had been uploaded to Stein’s personal YouTube page, and the only way to view it was through the specific url, which was getting passed around from employee to employee following the town hall. The next morning, Stein discovered the video had been viewed 2,500 times on his page. Since then, it’s had about 13 million views on YouTube and has<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=78046&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/kmart.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Kmart</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Amazon Prime: Bigger, More Powerful, More Profitable than Anyone Imagined</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/18/amazon-prime-bigger-more-powerful-more-profitable-than-anyone-imagined/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/18/amazon-prime-bigger-more-powerful-more-profitable-than-anyone-imagined/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Prime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[College Students]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jeff Bezos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day delivery]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=74847</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Amazon’s competitors — a group that basically includes every retailer under the sun nowadays — have more reasons than ever to fear the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer. Membership in Amazon Prime, the service that includes unlimited free two-day shipping and tends to boost customer spending at Amazon dramatically, has doubled in less than two years. Analysts predict it&#8217;ll easily double again by 2017. Last week, a report from Morningstar and Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimated that there are now 10 million subscribers to Amazon Prime, which offers free streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows and, most important, free two-day shipping on most Amazon purchases. The service usually costs $79 annually, though it&#8217;s cheaper for college students ($39 annually, after six months free). It&#8217;s unclear exactly how many Prime subscribers there are at any given time (Amazon doesn&#8217;t make this info public), but it sure looks like membership soared. It&#8217;s been estimated that there were fewer than 7 million subscribers at the start of 2012 and about 4 million members in the fall of 2011. The numbers have likely been boosted by Amazon including free Prime trials with sales of the Kindle tablet, but even so, the increases are impressive — and are presumed to keep occurring with regularity. The Morningstar report predicted that there could be 25 million Prime members by 2017. (MORE: Is There a Future for Same-Day Delivery? How About Online Grocery Shopping?) Even more interesting than the growing Prime ranks is what Prime seems to do to subscribers. A 2010 Businessweek story stated that Amazon Prime broke even within three months of launching, not the two years predicted by its creators. That&#8217;s because customers spent as much as 150% more at Amazon after they became Prime members. Subscribers not only ordered more often, but after paying the $79 fee, they started buying things at Amazon that they probably wouldn&#8217;t have in the past. Since shipping was always speedy and free, members saved themselves a trip to the store for things like batteries and coffee beans.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=74847&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Amazon</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/amazon/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/amazon1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Amazon.com</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Online Shoppers: Meh, Same-Day Shipping Isn&#8217;t That Big a Deal</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/12/online-shoppers-meh-same-day-shipping-isnt-that-big-a-deal/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/12/online-shoppers-meh-same-day-shipping-isnt-that-big-a-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:28:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google Express Shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[millennials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day delivery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shutl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steve Jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=74097</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Same-day delivery is being pumped up as a major step for e-retail—the service that&#8217;ll boost online shopping sales into the next stratosphere. There&#8217;s one minor problem, though: Shoppers don&#8217;t seem to want it all that much. Last week, TechCrunch reported that Google is getting ready to launch a same-day shipping service called Google Shopping Express. The move will put Google into what&#8217;s quickly become a crowded field of services offering speedy and same-day delivery, including web titans Amazon and eBay, the world&#8217;s biggest retailer Walmart, and smaller upstarts such as a UK upstart called Shutl. Big money is being spent developing same-day delivery services, so the players involved obviously think that there is big money to be made down the line. But will that actually happen? According to a survey of shoppers conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the idea of same-day shipping doesn&#8217;t get consumers particularly excited. Shoppers are far more likely to buy online due to factors that have been boosting e-sales for years: cheap prices and free shipping. According to the press release announcing the survey results: Only 9 percent of the 1,500 U.S. consumers surveyed cited same-day delivery as a top factor that would improve their online shopping experience, while 74 percent cited free delivery and 50 percent cited lower prices. (MORE: Office Depot/OfficeMax Merger Another Nail in the Coffin of Traditional Retail) Same-day shipping will be merely &#8220;a niche service in the near future,&#8221; BCG partner Rob Souza said. Today&#8217;s wealthy urban millennials (household income of $150K+) are the group most likely to want the service—and be willing to pay $10 or so for it. Most other consumers, however, say they&#8217;d pay $6 tops for same-day delivery. That&#8217;s cheaper than what the service typically costs in test markets, and at that kind of price point it may be difficult if not impossible to be profitable. &#8220;Retailers may choose to offer it to build customer loyalty, enhance brand awareness, or keep up with the competition,&#8221; Souza concluded in the BCG press release. &#8220;But it is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=74097&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Future of Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/future-of-retail/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Amazon Gets More Same-Day-Delivery Competition: Shutl Coming to 20 Cities</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/01/amazon-gets-more-same-day-delivery-competition-shutl-coming-to-20-cities/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/01/amazon-gets-more-same-day-delivery-competition-shutl-coming-to-20-cities/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:59:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day delivery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shutl]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=73382</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you want some stuff, but don&#8217;t want to leave the couch? A new same-day delivery service promises near-instant gratification for millions of online shoppers all over North America. This week, a UK-based company called Shutl announced that it will begin offering its same-day delivery services next month in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. Shoppers will be able to purchase goods online from three as-yet-unnamed major U.S. retailers, and delivery within 90 minutes of the order will cost around $10. After the initial rollout, Shutl has plans to expand to a total of 20 North American cities—those above, as well as Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, Montreal, and Toronto. Shutl, which was founded in London in 2009, currently operates in 60 cities in the UK, serving 75% of the population. The company claims that one-third of its orders are delivered within an hour. Customers will have the option of placing orders 24/7, and in situations when a retailer isn&#8217;t open for pickup at, say, 2:30 a.m., shoppers can specify a one-hour time window the following day when they&#8217;d like to accept delivery. Even so, what makes this upstart operation think it can compete with Amazon.com, which is the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer and has been increasing same-day delivery options over the years? (MORE: Is There a Future for Same-Day Delivery? How About Online Grocery Shopping?) Well, Shutl maintains that it can offer same-day delivery in a smarter, faster, more cost-effective way than Amazon or any other same-day shipping service. (It&#8217;s assumed that Amazon, eBay, and others testing same-day delivery are losing money with their services, at least for the time being.) Shutl keeps costs low because it doesn&#8217;t hire drivers or own trucks. It&#8217;s merely a software company that coordinates orders with local retailers and courier companies. Speaking to Wired, Shutl CEO Tom Allason explained that its model, which arranges pickups only for customers who live within 10 miles of a store accepting the order, has an<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=73382&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://business.time.com/2013/03/01/amazon-gets-more-same-day-delivery-competition-shutl-coming-to-20-cities/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>E-commerce</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/e-commerce-companies-industries/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Google Hits &#8216;Glass&#8217; Pedal as Apple Returns to Earth</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/02/26/google-hits-the-glass-pedal-as-apple-falls-to-earth/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/02/26/google-hits-the-glass-pedal-as-apple-falls-to-earth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:45:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Sam Gustin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Silicon Valley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street & Markets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War for the Web]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=72831</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.S. technology industry is one of the most dynamic in the world, particularly with respect to mobile and Internet-based computing, two areas that are evolving at breakneck speed. Things can happen very quickly in the tech space: one day you&#8217;re up, the next day you&#8217;re down. Take Apple and Google, two tech titans currently battling for dominance in the mobile-Internet wars. Over the past several months, Google shares have increased by nearly 20% — last week topping $800 — while Apple shares have fallen by more than 30%. Much of the movement happened in the past few months of 2012, as large investors, including hedge funds, pulled money out of Apple and, in some cases, poured it into Google, in order to maintain exposure to the large-capitalization technology sector, according to Colin Gillis, senior technology analyst and director of research at BGC Financial. &#8220;As Apple started selling off, Google started taking off,&#8221; Gillis says in a phone interview. &#8220;If you&#8217;re an investor and you want exposure to large-cap tech stocks, there aren&#8217;t that many places you can go.&#8221; The Apple sell-off is being driven in part by growing concerns about whether products like the iPhone and the iPad — devices that Apple is only incrementally improving — can continue to power revenue and profit growth, or whether Apple needs new, breakthrough products. After all, during his legendary career, Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs radically disrupted several markets with iconic products like the iPod and iTunes, and the iPhone and iPad, which set the standard for tech innovation. Current Apple CEO Tim Cook has yet to introduce a truly breakthrough new product of his own. (MORE: Is Apple Losing Its Shine After Steve Jobs?) &#8220;Tim Cook keeps alluding to the company&#8217;s great product pipeline, but there&#8217;s been an innovation vacuum for a couple of quarters,&#8221; says Gillis. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to say the story is over — let&#8217;s give it one more year — but we&#8217;re certainly in a period of incrementalism with Apple.&#8221; Scott Kessler, head of technology research at S&#38;P Capital IQ, also raised<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=72831&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Technology &amp; Media</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/rtr37qzx.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Google founder Sergey Brin poses for a portrait wearing Google Glass glasses before the Diane von Furstenberg  Spring/Summer 2013 collection show during New York Fashion Week</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">shgustin</media:title>
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		<title>Best Buy Swears Shoppers Don&#8217;t Have to Bother Showrooming Anymore</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/02/20/best-buy-swears-shoppers-dont-have-to-bother-showrooming-anymore/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/02/20/best-buy-swears-shoppers-dont-have-to-bother-showrooming-anymore/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:00:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Best Buy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e-retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price guarantees]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[showrooming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=72414</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With the launch of a new price-matching guarantee, electronics giant Best Buy promises &#8220;the end of showrooming&#8221;—the increasingly popular practice in which shoppers scope out merchandise in a store and then buy it for less money online. Best Buy recently announced the following: Best Buy’s Low Price Guarantee hits online and in stores on March 3, signaling the end of “showrooming.” Best Buy will price match all local retail competitors and 19 major online competitors in all product categories and on nearly all in-stock products, whenever asked by a customer. Brick-and-mortar-based retailers like Best Buy have been losing out on sales for years thanks to the rise of showrooming. Consumers simply got into the habit of inspecting merchandise in person in stores, before whipping out their smartphones to shop around for a better price. After using the physical store as a mere showroom, shoppers would ultimately purchase the item online, often via Amazon, the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer. Some even believe showrooming is bringing about the end of the big box store business model as we know it. (MORE: Could Showrooming Actually Be Good for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers?) At first, physical retailers ignored showrooming, for the most part. They said that it didn&#8217;t matter much—that in-store customer service combined with shoppers&#8217; need for immediate gratification would win out. But then, without really admitting the power of showrooming, retailers started battling back. Target stopped selling Amazon&#8217;s Kindle, sending the message that Target would no longer play ball with a company that&#8217;s actively trying to steal away its customers. Many retailers introduced or increased the number of exclusive products it sold: If you&#8217;re the only retailer selling an item, after all, you don&#8217;t have to worry about a competitor undercutting you on price. Leading into the 2012 holiday shopping season, the showrooming squabbles reached a new intensity. Best Buy and Target both introduced the holiday season with unprecedented new price-matching guarantees that extended to online sellers such as Amazon for the first time ever. Earlier this year, Target made its price-matching policy permanent, and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=72414&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/bestbuy_gty.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">BEST BUY</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Is There a Future for Same-Day Delivery? How About Online Grocery Shopping?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/29/is-there-a-future-for-same-day-delivery-how-about-online-grocery-shopping/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/29/is-there-a-future-for-same-day-delivery-how-about-online-grocery-shopping/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brick-and-mortar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[groceries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grocery delivery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online grocery shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pickup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day delivery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[store pickup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wal-Mart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=68969</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the time being, brick-and-mortar retailers don&#8217;t seem to have to worry too much about two of the most hyped, potentially &#8220;game changing&#8221; options in e-commerce. You&#8217;ve probably heard that Amazon may take over the world—at least the retail world, that is. Just last week, Amazon boasted year-over-year sales growth of 30% for the fourth quarter, boosting the company&#8217;s stock price to a 52-week high. It&#8217;s become standard practice for Amazon&#8217;s sales to increase at double the overall rate of e-retail spending in the fourth quarter, and the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer did just that again in 2012. You may have also heard that Amazon could &#8220;kill local retail&#8221; by offering same-day shipping on orders ranging from diapers to Blu-ray players to groceries for the week. Same-day shipping from Amazon is already an option in many U.S. cities, and the company&#8217;s online grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, has been available in select locations since 2007. Do such convenient, near instant-gratification services from Amazon and other retailers represent the future of e-commerce? Or have we underestimated how difficult and costly such services are for retailers, while also overestimating the degree to which consumers will embrace them? (MORE: A 4% Surcharge for Using a Credit Card? Legal, But Not Likely) The future of online grocery shopping is far from certain. The Seattle Times recently reported that Amazon seems poised to expand its grocery-delivery services around the country, and yet there are major hurdles holding the concept back: Analysts say Amazon has yet to crack the code on how to deliver mass-market groceries at prices that enable it to both compete for customers and turn a profit. What’s more, they say, Amazon must convince customers to put aside their misgivings about buying perishable food sight unseen. “If you order a loaf of French bread online, you don’t get to give it that little squeeze before throwing it into your shopping cart,” said Melissa Abbott, senior director of culinary insights at the market-research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue. There are also concerns that food may be damaged<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=68969&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>E-commerce</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/e-commerce-companies-industries/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Target Introduces Six New Brands … That You Can&#8217;t Buy in Stores</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/23/target-introduces-six-new-brands-that-you-cant-buy-in-stores/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/23/target-introduces-six-new-brands-that-you-cant-buy-in-stores/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blu Dot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Missoni]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Neiman Marcus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TOO by Blu Dot]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=67663</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Cheap chic retailer Target is renowned for brand collaborations good (the Missoni craze) and bad (the Neiman Marcus collection that no one wanted). Target&#8217;s new brand partnerships may be the most intriguing of all. Just don&#8217;t go looking for them in actual Target stores. Last week, Target announced the debut of six new online-only brands, sold exclusively at Target.com. The brands include a women&#8217;s apparel outfit (Labworks), baby clothing (Zutano Blue), bedding (Room 365), home décor (TOO by Blu Dot), and others focused on stylish, affordable products that are desired in the typical American household. In other words, they all seem to be in Target&#8217;s wheelhouse, so to speak. Blu Dot, a home furnishing goods company created in 1997, is known for smart, minimalist goods that price-wise fall somewhere between IKEA and high-end imports. A Blu Dot coffee table retails for around $500. Not too many Target shoppers would pay $500 for a coffee table, however. That&#8217;s why Blu Dot purposefully created a new TOO by Blu Dot brand specifically for Target. In an interview published at Target&#8217;s blog, Blu Dot co-founder John Christakos explained: We design from the inside out, so it’s not just an aesthetic design exercise. Affordability was such an important aspect to this process, and it’s a real challenge to make a quality coffee table that retails at $149! In the very beginning, you have to think about efficiency in production, packaging, shipping and assembly. It’s a multivariable problem-solving design process, which is the type of design we dig the most. (MORE: It&#8217;s Peak Season for Shopping Because You&#8217;re Depressed) In a release, Target divisional merchandise manager Theresa Schmidt said that the retailer was of course &#8220;excited about these new brands,&#8221; especially because they will help differentiate Target&#8217;s site from other e-retail options. “We know our guests are increasingly connected and are shopping online more, so we wanted to offer guests something new, unique and unexpected.” But why online only? Why can&#8217;t shoppers also find these new brands in actual Target stores, which remain by far the core<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=67663&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>E-commerce</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/e-commerce-companies-industries/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/24006341.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Target Corp. Reported A 4 percent increase in second-quarter profits</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Honoring the Enemy? Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Give Top Award to Amazon&#8217;s Jeff Bezos</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/16/honoring-the-enemy-brick-and-mortar-retailers-give-top-award-to-amazons-jeff-bezos/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/16/honoring-the-enemy-brick-and-mortar-retailers-give-top-award-to-amazons-jeff-bezos/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill Simon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brick-and-mortar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jeff Bezos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Macy's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Retail Federation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NRF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wal-Mart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=66910</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Awkward! The National Retail Federation, which is dominated by traditional brick-and-mortar-based stores, just gave its top award to the guy who has been undermining their businesses for years. By the holiday shopping season of 2011, it was clear that Amazon.com could not remotely still be considered a plucky upstart in the retail world. The introduction of an &#8220;evil&#8221; PriceCheck app promotion—in which Amazon openly attempted to steal business away from competitors—demonstrated that the world&#8217;s largest online retailer was not just a player, but arguably the industry&#8217;s leading aggressor. Since then, traditional retailers have found it necessary to fight back against Amazon, by refusing to sell the Amazon Kindle, for instance, and by matching Amazon&#8217;s prices on identical merchandise. Here&#8217;s some insight as to how Amazon is perceived (hated?) within the world of retail, courtesy of the Seattle Times: &#8220;There&#8217;s always an industry bad guy, and right now it&#8217;s Amazon,&#8221; said Mary Ann Odegaard, a marketing professor who directs the retail management program at the University of Washington&#8217;s Bothell campus. &#8220;They&#8217;re taking sales other companies want, and they&#8217;re competing on a different basis.&#8221; (MORE: Amazon&#8217;s Low Prices Get Targeted: Target&#8217;s Online Price-Matching Policy Becomes Permanent) Amazon&#8217;s low prices have cut into the profits of brick-and-mortar competitors. It is almost singlehandedly responsible for the rise of &#8220;showrooming,&#8221; in which shoppers scope out goods in physical stores before ultimately purchasing them online for less. As the Seattle Times story put it, &#8220;no company has done more in the past decade to disrupt the traditional retail establishment than Amazon.&#8221; And yet, the traditional retail establishment just handed Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos its highest award. In December, the National Retail Federation announced Bezos would be given the Gold Medal Award, essentially naming Amazon as the top retailer of 2012. &#8220;The Gold Medal is the most coveted award in retail, given to an individual who has served the industry with distinction and achieved a national reputation for excellence,&#8221; the NRF explained. &#8220;The recipient has also displayed creative genius and inspirational leadership and has won the respect<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=66910&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Amazon</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/amazon/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/amazon1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Amazon.com</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/f8de938518e7b986d552694ed99aa54d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>&#8216;Hot&#8217; New Gadgets Anybody? No Thanks, We&#8217;re Good</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/hot-new-gadgets-anybody-no-thanks-were-good/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/hot-new-gadgets-anybody-no-thanks-were-good/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:02:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Telecom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[3-D TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CES]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Consumer Electronics Show]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HAPI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HAPIfork]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HDTV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smartphones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TVs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ultra-HD]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=66337</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas promises to unveil all sorts of gadgets that&#8217;ll not only make our lives better—but that we simply won&#8217;t be able to live without. Instead, what we get is stuff like the $99 &#8220;smart&#8221; fork. Said utensil—the HAPIfork, also available in spoon format—is one of the most-discussed new products at this year&#8217;s show. As the Associated Press explained, the fork is equipped with a motion sensor and measures the frequency that the utensil is lifted from plate to mouth. If the user is shoveling in the food too rapidly, the fork vibrates and a light blinks as a warning to slow the munching down. Data collected by the utensils can also be uploaded to a smartphone or computer so that the user can track and analyze his eating habits. Yet, the AP noted some limitations: The fork has no clue about the nutritional content of your food or how big your forkfuls are. It can&#8217;t tell if you&#8217;re shoveling lard or stabbing peas individually. In which case, the utensils may actually steer users into getting as much food each time the fork is lifted to the mouth. Might as well make the most of it before that forks starts pulsating embarrassingly! (MORE: Diminishing Returns: The Cold Hard Truth for CES Smartphones) Like so much of today&#8217;s tech, this gadget purports to make consumers&#8216; lives easier. Does it even come close? In some cases, it&#8217;s just plain dumb to infuse &#8220;smart&#8221; technology into everyday products. One expert said as much to the Los Angeles Times in a story about the CES: The irony, though, is that as products become packed with more features and can connect to one another and to the Internet, they often become more confusing to consumers, said Scott Steinberg, an innovation consultant at TechSavvy and longtime CES attendee. &#8220;Just because we can add these features doesn&#8217;t mean we should, because many consumers are confused by the poor user experience provided,&#8221; he said. People are used to passively interacting with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=66337&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Technology &amp; Media</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Amazon Gives Free Digital Album to Anyone Who Buys the CD</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/amazon-gives-free-digital-album-to-anyone-who-buys-the-cd/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/amazon-gives-free-digital-album-to-anyone-who-buys-the-cd/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:54:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jeff John Roberts</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=66532</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=66532&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Amazon</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/amazon/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/111348906.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/111348906.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/111348906.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Amazon</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">70_paidcontent-square</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Auto-Rip image</media:title>
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		<title>Could 2013 Be the Year That Customer Service Gets Better?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/could-2013-be-the-year-that-customer-service-gets-better/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/could-2013-be-the-year-that-customer-service-gets-better/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:09:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Management & Leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Management Strategies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Telecom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Automated Service]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[call centers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer service]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer service agents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zappos]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=66364</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s nothing particularly new about the horrendous state of customer service. What is new is that maybe, just maybe, businesses will take steps to make customers happier this year. Ask anyone for a story about bad customer service, and chances are you&#8217;ll get not one but a top 10 list of gripes. Confusing automated phone messages and long waits to speak to a live person have been commonplace for years, and it seems like everyone has a tale about encountering a particularly unhelpful or nasty service representative when a human being actually does get on the line. Naturally, consumers aren&#8217;t pleased with the modern-day customer experience. A survey from 2010 indicated that 70% of consumers who had a problem with a product or service reported experiencing rage. A 2011 Consumer Reports study showed that 71% of customers were &#8220;tremendously annoyed&#8221; when they couldn&#8217;t reach a live customer service agent over the phone. (MORE: Amazon&#8217;s Low Prices Are Targeted: Target&#8217;s Online Price Matching Policy Becomes Permanent) To anyone who has been on the phone recently with their bank or cable company trying to get a problem fixed, none of this is likely to come as a surprise. What may seem surprising, however, is that business executives are only recently demonstrating some awareness that it may be a bad idea to expect customers to simply hand over their money and then never be heard from again. In a blog post listing predictions for businesses in 2013, the consulting firm Forrester states that it expects a renewed focus on improving the customer experience in the days ahead. Here&#8217;s why: The idea that happy customers are more likely to remain loyal, try new products and services, and spread good news about their experiences has started to catch on. Over the past several months, we’ve seen a rise in the number of companies pondering the connection between enjoyment and metrics like satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS). After reading such a passage, the average consumer—someone who didn&#8217;t go to business school, never uses words like &#8220;metrics,&#8221;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=66364&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Management &amp; Leadership</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/management-leadership/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Amazon&#8217;s Low Prices Are Targeted: Target&#8217;s Online Price-Matching Policy Becomes Permanent</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/08/amazon-low-prices-targeted-targets-online-price-matching-policy-becomes-permanent/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/08/amazon-low-prices-targeted-targets-online-price-matching-policy-becomes-permanent/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:45:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Best Buy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brick-and-mortar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e-retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price matching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[showrooming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=66163</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Target is going on the offensive against showrooming: the cheap-chic retailer will now match the prices of identical items offered by competitors — even online competitors — year round. On Tuesday, Target announced it was extending a price-matching policy introduced for the holidays to the full calendar year. The policy promises that Target stores will match prices for identical items listed at several large online competitors, including walmart.com, toysrus.com and, of course, the world&#8217;s largest e-retailer, Amazon.com. The offer also extends to prices displayed at Target&#8217;s own website. To get a price matched, customers must visit a Target store&#8217;s guest-services department with proof of purchase (a receipt) as well as a printed ad or Web link showing a cheaper price for the same item. Showing the price on your smart phone should do the trick. Target will match prices if a lower one pops up within seven days of the original purchase. “Guests can confidently shop at Target every day for the best value in retail,” Gregg Steinhafel, Target chairman, president and CEO, announced in a press release. “We know that our guests often compare prices online. With our new price-match policy and the additional 5% savings guests receive when they use their REDcard, Target provides an unbeatable value.” (MORE: By Matching Online Prices, Are Best Buy and Target Doing Exactly What Amazon Wants?) That&#8217;s right: in a way, Target is not only matching prices, but undercutting them for many customers, since shoppers using a Target credit card get an extra 5% off all purchases made in Target stores. The unprecedented move demonstrates Target is taking the lead in the brick-and-mortar war to counter the effects of showrooming, the practice by which consumers scope out merchandise in person before ultimately purchasing online for less money. According to one recent survey, nearly half of shoppers were engaging in showrooming during the 2012 holiday season. Best Buy was the first major retailer to announce it would match online prices during the holidays, and the electronics giant is continuing to match Web pricing through Jan. 31, but<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=66163&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Online Shopping: More Popular (Yet Less Satisfying) Than Ever</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/01/03/online-shopping-more-popular-yet-less-satisfying-than-ever/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/01/03/online-shopping-more-popular-yet-less-satisfying-than-ever/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple Store]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer service]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Delia Ephron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FingerHut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ForeSee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gifts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gilt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[holiday shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J Crew]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jcpenney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=65416</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Based on the sales figures, consumers are increasingly content to turn to the web to get their holiday shopping done. Judging by survey data and heaping anecdotal evidence, however, we&#8217;re increasingly dissatisfied with online shopping in general. By most accounts, it was a terrific holiday season for e-commerce. Online sales on Cyber Monday increased by 17% over last year, and e-retail sales shot up even more sharply on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Overall, e-commerce purchases were up around 15% for the season, and, according to comScore, at least 12 days during the season surpassed the $1 billion mark for online sales. What&#8217;s more, December 25 may have come and gone, but we&#8217;re still in the thick of the holiday shopping season, thanks to post-Christmas and post-New Year&#8217;s sales—and especially thanks to the increased popularity of gift cards. “Between gift cards and the lure of more discounts, the holiday season now goes into the middle of January at minimum,” Paula Rosenblum, managing partner of Retail Systems Research, told InternetRetailer.com. “The consumer is looking for a deal and retailers have inventory to get rid of. It makes for an active period.” (MORE: For Online Shoppers, It&#8217;s the Most Wonderful Frustrating Time of the Year) Yet as more consumers turn to online shopping before and after the holidays, more critics are voicing their dissatisfaction with e-retail. The biggest argument in favor of online shopping is that it eliminates the hassle of having to go to a store, but still, online shopping is hardly without hassles. Perhaps the most public critique of online shopping appeared in a New York Times op-ed just before Christmas. In it, the author and screenwriter Delia Ephron wrote of her experience purchasing and shipping holiday gifts from J. Crew. The piece&#8217;s title – &#8220;The Hell of Online Shopping&#8221; – reveals that the experience didn&#8217;t go so well. Among the problems: Purchased items were shipped to the wrong people; presents that were supposed to be gift-wrapped never were; cards alerting the recipients where the goods came from were buried deep<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=65416&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/97768048-e13494529803381.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mouse pointer hitting shopping cart icon</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Truly Last-Minute Holiday Shopping Options for Deal Hunters – Or the Merely Desperate</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2012/12/24/truly-last-minute-holiday-shopping-options-for-deal-hunters-or-the-merely-desperate/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2012/12/24/truly-last-minute-holiday-shopping-options-for-deal-hunters-or-the-merely-desperate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2012 10:45:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Odd Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bacon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital gift cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e-gift cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gift cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[holiday shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IOU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile gift cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[monthly club]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sears]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ship-to-store]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[store pickup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toys R Us]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=64998</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Don&#8217;t feel down that it&#8217;s December 24 and you still have shopping to do. There are plenty of quick and easy options to consider—and you may even be rewarded for waiting so long. Besides, you&#8217;re hardly alone if you&#8217;re shopping at the last minute. Some 17 million Americans will hit the malls on December 24, per a Consumer Reports poll. And, as luck would have it, the procrastinating grasshoppers out there may wind up getting better bargains than the diligent ants who wrapped up their holiday shopping weeks ago (and who have probably been bragging about it). According to the most recent data from the retail-sales tracking company ShopperTrak, it hasn&#8217;t been a particularly strong season for retailers. Due to unexpectedly mediocre numbers in November and December, ShopperTrak now forecasts retail holiday sales to grow by 2.5% year over year in 2012, down from the 3.3% increase it originally predicted. Due to lagging sales and retailer fears that they could be left with too much inventory, experts expect 70% of Black Friday prices to be back in stores during the last-minute shopping rush. &#8220;Some of the prices are even lower than the door-buster deals on Black Friday,&#8221; Mike Fridgen, CEO of the price-predicting site Decide.com, told NBC News. &#8220;So these are exceptional deals.&#8221; (MORE: Beware Panic Shopping! How to Make a Last-Minute Gift Count) &#8220;I&#8217;d be surprised if anything isn&#8217;t on sale,&#8221; one Macy&#8217;s executive said to the Detroit News, which offered this other insight on the likelihood of huge last-minute markdowns as well: &#8220;The size of the discounts is more aggressive when you feel the consumer is more cautious. And most retailers believe the consumers are more cautious this year. So they&#8217;re trying to incentivize more,&#8221; said Tom Lounibos, the CEO of SOASTA, a Web and mobile performance and analytics company in Mountain View, Calif. The discounting on electronics and clothing is expected to be especially aggressive, though prices should be as good or better during the post-Christmas sales. For that matter, the bargain-tracking site dealnews expects that, like<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=64998&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Smart Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/saving-spending/smart-spending/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>For Most Consumers, Plenty of Holiday Shopping Left to Do</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2012/12/14/for-most-consumers-plenty-of-holiday-shopping-left-to-do/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2012/12/14/for-most-consumers-plenty-of-holiday-shopping-left-to-do/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Best Buy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gifts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[holiday shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[last-minute]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[showrooming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart.com]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=64027</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s an annual tradition: One day around mid-December, with clock ticking, it dawns on a large subset of consumers that they haven&#8217;t even started trying to complete their holiday shopping lists yet. For retailers, the scramble for procrastinating shopper dollars begins now. On the one hand, it appears as if a larger-than-usual portion of consumers have already completed their holiday shopping. As of last week, 14% of shoppers were done, compared to 9% at the same time last year. By now, the proportion of annoyingly organized shoppers who have finished up all of their gift gathering is up to around 18%, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. That same poll indicates, however, that there&#8217;s a larger percentage (28%) of people who haven&#8217;t even started their holiday shopping, and a much, much larger group (58%) who said they&#8217;re not even halfway done with their lists. New data from the National Retail Federation paints a slightly different picture. According to its most recent survey, the average consumer has gotten 56.5% of his or her holiday shopping out of the way by now (up from 46.5% at this time last year), though only 11% of shoppers report being completely done with their lists. In any event, there&#8217;s nothing new about procrastination during the holiday shopping season. Last year, one survey revealed that 25% of consumers still hadn&#8217;t bought a single present by the time the weekend before Christmas rolled around. The fact that it&#8217;s so easy to buy gifts at the last-minute—thanks to expedited shipping and even same-day shipping for online purchases, and also due to the unstoppable popularity of gift cards—only makes procrastination easier, even sensible. (MORE: 10 Cool Holiday Gifts You Can Make with a 3-D Printer) After all, there are still several days left in which consumers can shop online and get free shipping on orders that&#8217;ll arrive by Christmas. In a PriceGrabber survey conducted at the end of November, 59% of consumers said they planned on taking advantage of Free Shipping Day, an annual event (taking place Monday, December<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=64027&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://business.time.com/2012/12/14/for-most-consumers-plenty-of-holiday-shopping-left-to-do/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/biz-shopping-1214.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: A general view of the exterior of the Cartier store wrapped with red ribbon in New York City, Dec. 12, 2012.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>Same-Day Delivery: Losing Money Is O.K. if You&#8217;re Winning Over Customers</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2012/12/04/same-day-delivery-losing-money-is-ok-if-youre-winning-over-customers/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2012/12/04/same-day-delivery-losing-money-is-ok-if-youre-winning-over-customers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Tuttle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smart Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBay Now]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day delivery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[San Francisco]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=62940</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For consumers who live in the cities where same-day-delivery services from Amazon, eBay, Walmart and others are currently being tested, there&#8217;s good reason to let someone else run your shopping errands. For the time being, these services are focused on attracting customers, not making profits via purchases and delivery fees, which might only amount to $5 or less. As a result, once the cost of mileage and parking is factored in, it&#8217;s perhaps cheaper to order goods online with same-day delivery than to go out and retrieve them yourself. For many people, ordering anything from printer ink to a frying pan and having it delivered the same day certainly represents a better use of time than running to the store. Because retailers and online marketplaces see huge potential in same-day delivery, competition is fierce to win over consumers and get them in the habit of utilizing their same-day service specifically. Amazon has offered same-day delivery in limited markets for several years now. Obviously, the possibility of comprehensive, affordable same-day delivery would eliminate the need for many shoppers to make a quick run to, say, the local Walmart — which is why Walmart announced same-day-delivery services in October. (MORE: For Online Shoppers, It&#8217;s the Most Wonderful Frustrating Time of the Year) What&#8217;s holding same-day delivery back is that it&#8217;s an expensive service to operate. The cost of drivers, gas and parking adds up quickly. And because speed is of the essence and the flow of online purchases with same-day delivery hasn&#8217;t reached critical mass, it&#8217;s difficult to process orders efficiently, so that, for example, drivers could drop off four deliveries rather than just one over an hour. What&#8217;s more, while same-day-delivery fees seem reasonable — $10 or under, usually — they&#8217;re pricey compared with the option that online shoppers have come to embrace: totally free shipping. Delivery with free shipping might take two days or perhaps a week, but hey, free&#8217;s free. And a free-shipping option is nearly universally expected by today&#8217;s shoppers. In such a setting, eBay is taking an especially<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=62940&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Future of Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/future-of-retail/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">bradtuttle</media:title>
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		<title>How U.S. Firms like Google and Amazon Minimize Their European Taxes</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2012/12/04/how-u-s-firms-like-google-and-amazon-minimize-their-european-taxes/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2012/12/04/how-u-s-firms-like-google-and-amazon-minimize-their-european-taxes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:20:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Gumbel</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starbucks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=63092</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Britain is a huge market for Amazon, the U.S. online retailing giant, accounting for as much as 25% of its total sales outside the U.S. — more than $5 billion annually. The company also employs about 15,000 staffers in the U.K. But it paid less than $3 million in tax to the British Inland Revenue last year. How so? Because Amazon’s main European operations are incorporated in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a speck on the European map that, like Britain, is a member of the European Union but that for years has done a roaring business by offering foreign companies extremely low tax rates. By being based there, Amazon reports only about $330 million in revenue in the U.K. — compared with almost $12 billion in Luxembourg, where its taxes came to just $10.7 million. That’s a rate of just 0.009%. Amazon can do this because its U.K. arm is registered as a service company for the Luxembourg holding company Amazon EU SARL. (MORE: U.K. Slams &#8216;Immoral&#8217; Tax Practices of Multinational Companies) That type of complex corporate structure — used by many multinationals operating in Europe, including Google and Starbucks — is legal. It simply takes advantage of sharp differences in corporate tax rates and incentives in Europe to optimize tax payments and in the process boost profits. The European Union is a single market, which means that companies can incorporate anywhere and sell their goods and services across the continent, but because there is no harmonized taxation system, it’s a playground for smart accountants and tax specialists who know how to exploit the differences. Google bases its European operations in low-tax Ireland and remits some of its profits to a company in Bermuda as payments for intellectual property. Starbucks is based in the Netherlands and pays a Swiss company for its coffee. (MORE: The $7 Cup of Starbucks: A Logical Extension of the Coffee Chain&#8217;s Long-Term Strategy) Now comes the political backlash. The Public Accounts Committee of the British Parliament on Monday released a report that called this type of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=63092&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/economy-policy/taxes-economy-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/google_1204.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">petergumbeltime</media:title>
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