Evan Schuman

Consumers spent more than $137 billion in retail self-checkout in 2006, with increased self-checkout use in do-it-yourself stores, supercenters and warehouse clubs mostly responsible, according to an IHL study released Sept. 6. Thats 24 percent more than was checked out by consumers in 2005, IHL said. The study also reported that consumer resistance to the […]

As a group, humans are a tough audience. Cruelly and quixotically, the more difficult and massive the task, the quicker we are to point out the shortcomings rather than praise the accomplishments. In retail technology today, there are few efforts more monumental and difficult than attempts to regulate credit card security. The Payment Card Industry […]

John Charleson runs the IT department for a Toronto grocery chain called the Longo Brothers Fruit Market and his people have been using online sales to add more efficiency into the sales cycle. By having both online and offline feed off of the same inventory, grocery items with a limited shelf-life have a much better […]

In mid-September, London will launch its first large-scale contactless payment trial, with some 2,000 retailers slated to participate. Although Europe has more aggressively embraced various wireless technologies than the United States, it has sharply lagged the United States—and certainly parts of Asia—in contactless payment. “As in many major cities across Europe, millions of people across […]

The love-hate relationship that is the American retailer, bank and credit card marriage is nothing but complex. There are few partners that ignite such wrath and venom within retailers than their credit card partners and their—well, lets just say “generous”—interchange fees. On the flip side, the banks and credit card companies seeing themselves as having […]

For more than a year, Visa has ominously warned large retailers that it would enforce a strict Sept. 30 deadline for many of the nations largest retailers to either be certified that they comply with industry credit card security requirements or face fines and expulsion from discounted credit card fee programs. But as the deadline […]

With all the numbers that TJX Companies issued in its Aug. 14 earnings statement, the one that has generated the most attention was an estimated $168 million hit associated with the data breach announced in January, which saw consumer information from an estimated 46 million debit and credit cards walk out the door. The numbers […]

In an effort to out-service and out-specialize Wal-Mart, grocery chains are looking to spend more than $9 billion over the next year, according to a new report from the IHL Consulting Group. The grocery segment is consolidating through a series of closings and mergers, but the report says this may prove difficult for IT departments, […]

E-tailers looking to expand their footprint in Europe are finding a vibrant, growing market—$133 billion in sales last year, with annual 25 percent growth for each of the next five years, according to a report from eMarketer. But those merchants will also find a Europe that is changing, with vastly different country personalities and preferences, […]

E-commerce spending in the United States for this years second quarter jumped 19 percent, to $47.5 billion, compared with last years identical quarter, according to a statement released this week from ComScore. If you take travel out of that equation—in what ComScore considers the pure e-tail segment—the quarterly figure grew 23 percent to $27.2 billion. […]

Ingrian Networks on July 31 introduced a 60-day program for compliance that puts together PCI consulting and software “in order to bring customers into compliance in 60 days or less.” Yes, Virginia, there is a devil. In this case, the devil is in the details (as well as in an executive office at Ingrian). In […]

When the worlds largest retailer struggles with a database issue, the numbers can be a bit daunting. Wal-Marts data warehouse, for example, is larger than four petabytes. Thats more than 4,096TB, give or take a few million bits. The chain has more than 6,000 stores, with some having almost a half-million SKUs each. You think […]