Evan Schuman

Sometimes, pushing the technology envelope is simply not worth it. The thought leaders tend to get criticized for the flaws of the new approach and, if it does take hold, they rarely get the credit years later for having taken the chance. In the retail space, there are clearly a handful of technology pioneer chance-takers […]

Larry Buresh, the CIO of the 1,138-store CSK auto-parts chain, said he knew that his current store technology was out-of-date and not especially competitive, but he also knew that the short-term productivity cost—not to mention the actual dollars and time investment—of a major, enterprisewide upgrade was not practical. Bureshs answer? Replace all of the hardware, […]

Contactless payments—whether theyre made using a fob dangling from a keychain at a gas station, an RFID chip embedded in a cell phone or a new contactless credit/debit card—have now moved from the experimental to the real-world stage. This is primarily thanks to a pair of crucial developments announced in June by Chase Manhattan of […]

It has been said that a university’s role is not necessarily to preach the right answers, but to teach students how to ask the right questions. To the extent that’s true, a recent University of Pennsylvania report seems to be properly performing its role. The report itself was hard to ignore; it reported that 64 […]

A Pennsylvania payment vendor is preparing conversion equipment to create contactless vending machines, aimed as much at addressing the finite supply of coins and facilitating price increases as shortening lines. The vendor, USA Technologies, said it has had contactless vending machine technology ready for some time, but waited to introduce it until the market seemed […]

Global retail IT spending among midmarket companies is expected to sharply increase in the next few years, from about $22 billion last year to almost $31 billion by 2009, an almost 41 percent increase, according to a new report from technology analysis firm AMI Partners. AMI Partners Inc. defined the midmarket retailer as one with […]

With American retailers preparing to replace their aging point-of-sale units at record rates, a retail POS vendor called VeriFone wants to flood checkout lanes with Linux-based full-motion video, 65,356-color displays and digital stereo sound. The new unit—dubbed the MX870—is designed to deliver animated ads and demos in a loud, attention-demanding manner, which is not hard […]

When JP Morgan Chase—the nations largest issuer of credit cards—announced last week that it was incorporating contactless payment capabilities in all upcoming credit cards, it was a huge legitimizing moment for contactless. It generated lots of consumer buzz for the feature that Chase calls “Blink” and it is most likely the first RFID-enabled payment device […]

The CIO of the $3 billion Wawa convenience food chain was frustrated that various business units saw business data in different formats—and, consequently, were basing decisions on different numbers. So, he sought bids to consolidate all retail software systems and present a more unified view for the 13,000-employee chain with stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, […]

Microsoft Corp. formally unveiled Microsoft Point of Sale on Wednesday, marking the Redmond, Wash., companys official entrance into the low-end POS market with a product designed for small retailers and especially those with only one store. Although there are many niche products in the low-end POS market, Microsoft Corp. is competing with only two: Intuit […]

Barb Seitzs craft business is doing well, but the owner of Barbs Custom Sewing needs to sells many of her products on the road, often at trade shows. Todays wireless POS (point-of-sale) technology allows her to process orders in the field, but she has received an unexpected bonus: lower transaction fees because she rarely if […]

There are tons of practical definitions of how using technology in retail is strategic versus tactical. One definition were fond of is quite practical: Using technology to truly help your customer is strategic, in that it will make those customers more likely to repeatedly come back and spread favorable word-of-mouth endorsements. Using technology to address […]