Evan Schuman

Two key e-commerce leaders—Wal-Mart and Macys—found themselves shut out of the online portion of the holiday sales rush for much of Friday, as their sites slowed to a crawl starting at about 4 a.m. EST. This was especially troubling as it happened on the so-called Black Friday, where major retailers hope to see their financial […]

An interesting report was published Nov. 14 by CyberSource, in the form of its annual e-commerce fraud report. Beyond touting some $3 billion in fraud in the United States this year—a 7 percent increase compared with 2005—the report talked about 1.4 percent of retail revenue lost to fraud this year, a slight decrease from the […]

Recent RFID trials are showing mixed results for RFID, with London-based retail leader Marks & Spencer declaring its 42-store test a success and preparing to add 80 more test stores in 2007 while Cardinal Health said RFID has “real promise” but a “great deal of additional work needs to be undertaken” before its practical. The […]

When the $2.5 billion Jack in the Box fast-food chain started looking at contactless payment this year, it became clear that a faster transaction time wouldnt be the only benefit to accepting RFID-enabled credit cards. Embracing the technology would also add to the 2,000-restaurant chains “coolness” factor, an especially important point given that the demographic […]

A recent report that raised serious scientific questions about how secure the new contactless credit cards are could ultimately depress online sales, as consumers might doubt overall credit card security protections, according to retail analysts. The chief author of the report, Kevin Fu, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, said it was […]

Retailers for years have argued that their online and offline operations should be seen as one. A recent survey suggests customers are viewing them as one and that some retailers may regret it. The survey by Gomez, an Internet performance tracking company, shows that many consumers who have a bad online experience are avoiding the […]

Accusations that RFID-based contactless credit cards can be easily read by thieves are nothing new, but this time a group of scientists at the University of Massachusetts has gone quite far to try to prove it. The group—calling itself the RFID Consortium for Security and Privacy—is a group of computer scientists from the University of […]

IBMs recent lawsuit against Amazon for infringing an 18-year-old patent has little to do with attacking the underpinnings of e-commerce, nor does IBM truly believe that Amazon ripped off its ideas. Its just the same schoolyard tactics that have been around for centuries. Think about the classic advice given to the new boy in school. […]

IBM is suing Amazon.com, accusing the bookseller turned Web megastore of knowingly using IBMs techniques for selling things online. Initially at issue was an IBM request for hundreds of millions of dollars in license fees, but the federal court could expose Amazon to even stiffer penalties. Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith said Amazon has not yet […]

The latest batch of test results from Keynote Systems released Oct. 17 provides supporting evidence for those who argue that e-commerce sites must be simplified, reliable and fast even if that means being less gorgeous than other sites. Consider the clothing retailer that came out as No. 1 in Keynotes rankings both for speed and […]

A report due out Oct. 17 from the IHL Consulting Group sees grocers aggressively moving to upgrade to self-checkout systems, even before they replace or upgrade the aging point-of-sale systems they are based on. But another retail technology report—released Oct. 16 by the Aberdeen Group—has a very different self-checkout take, calling retail self-checkout “an absolute […]

One of retails most important IT executives—Circuit City CIO Mike Jones—has left the $11.6 billion chain, with the chief IT job going to his VP of business applications. Jones had a creative and visionary perspective for the chain and a company statement left unclear the circumstances of his departure, although the phrase “to pursue other […]