The most infuriating moment of the first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.
That moment was when Governor Romney, the Republican, in response to a question …
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Can Companies Like Walmart and Google Provide a Better Banking Experience Than Actual Banks?
It was a busy Monday for banking news, with one big company rolling out a new prepaid card and another behemoth launching a small business loan program. There’s just one thing that makes this a little bit weird: Neither of the …
Why Black Friday Will Be Subdued, and Cyber Monday Will Break Records
Black Friday has widely been called “the busiest shopping day of the year.” Often, this just isn’t true—the Saturday before Christmas usually yields the most holiday purchases. Quibbles aside, this year, Black Friday is being …
The One Big Asterisk in Retailer Price-Matching Guarantees
Toys R Us, Walmart, Best Buy, and other stores have recently announced their latest guarantees to match prices offered by competing retailers this holiday season. These guarantees sound terrific for consumers, and at first …
Free eBooks For Banned Book Week
This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, a censorship-awareness campaign backed by “the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types,” according to the American Library Association.
What’s in Store for Holiday Shopping 2012?
Where will you be shopping during the upcoming holidays? What, when, and how are you likely to check off the items on your shopping list? The predictions of retail analysts are in.
Maybe Future of Retail Won’t Be Shipped but Picked Up
Delivery or pickup? It’s a standard question when ordering a pizza or a Kung Pow Chicken dinner, and it’s becoming a standard question no matter if you’re ordering groceries or a new set of shelves. Even when shipping for online purchases is free—and this is increasingly the case, especially during the holiday shopping season—there …
Could ‘Showrooming’ Actually Be Good for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers?
Stores hate it when shoppers scope out merchandise in person, only to whip out a smartphone, shop around, and ultimately make the purchase elsewhere. Yet could this practice, known as “showrooming,” wind up helping retailers, …
Can Amazon Topple Netflix’s Streaming Empire?
When Netflix launched an instant streaming service for its movies and TV shows at the start of 2007, it was a minor perk for the company’s subscribers who were used to getting DVDs in the mail. Fast forward half a decade and …
Future of Retail: How Companies Can Employ Big Data to Create a Better Shopping Experience
You don’t have to be a management consultant to know that we are all besieged by information, but it’s the consultant’s job to come up with a snappy buzzword to describe the phenomenon, and they have settled upon the …
7 Surprising Things Lurking In Online ‘Terms of Service’ Agreements
UPDATE, DEC. 18: The popular photo-sharing platform Instagram faced harsh online criticism today from users who discovered that an upcoming change to the site’s Terms of Service will allow the company to sell users’ uploaded …
Will Customers Love or Hate ‘Personalized’ Grocery Prices?
The concept of “personalized” grocery store deals strikes some consumers as inherently unfair. How would you feel, after all, if you were charged more than the person in front of you at checkout for the same exact item? Few …
