Evan Schuman

As the young RFID retail market moves through its experimental stages to eventual full deployment, many retailers “are finding problems and frustrations” because they are trying to emulate cutting-edge market leader Wal-Mart. “There is no cookie-cutter approach to RFID,” said ABI research analyst and report author Sara Shah. “RFID manufacturers—many of them relatively new companies—dont […]

RFID is designed to make supply chains more efficient and sophisticated, but the torrent of new product data created by radio-frequency identification systems is overwhelming without the right business intelligence software to analyze it. However, no business intelligence software companies are offering to do that, according to a new report from Forrester Research. Its conceivable […]

One of the most frustrating parts of clothes shopping is that manufacturer size numbers are inconsistent, making the purchase of an outfit that fits a gamble, at best. A Philadelphia startup is trying to use technology to both get a more precise measure of consumers and to match it against a detailed database on what […]

The biggest news this month in retail has been the battle between $9 billion SAP and $3 billion Oracle to take over retail software vendor Retek, which had barely $174 million in revenue last year and less than $7.7 million of profit. But that’s pretty good compared with the prior year, when it lost a […]

With causes ranging from new, low-priced vendors to needing more lanes open simultaneously, IHL Consulting Group is reporting that prices for typical point-of-sale base units in North America have been plummeting since 2002. At the same time, the number of POS systems sold increased by about 12 percent, said Lee Holman, one of the reports […]

As far as the retail customers of Retek are concerned, the current battle between Oracle and SAP for control of the Minneapolis retail technology firm would be better won by Oracle, according to an analyst report published Wednesday by the Aberdeen Group. “Retek users could breathe a sigh of relief if SAP decides to fold,” […]

When eWEEK.com recently reported some of the problems that Cingular has been having selling and supporting data after its merger with AT&T Wireless, some Cingular officials said it was not the typical experience of its data-buying customers. Although that may be true, e-mail and postings from eWEEK.com readers certainly suggests that the experiences we had […]

On paper, it certainly must have looked like a “cant lose” situation. Two major industry events happened and they both pointed to an obvious move: Cingular should be aggressively pushing data. Just about one year ago, Cingular announced that it would be buying AT&T Wireless for $41 billion, creating the nations largest cell phone operation. […]

Years ago, I was talking with the CEO of a major privately held consumer products company. He casually mentioned that he would never again work for a publicly held company. Asked why, he said, “For the life of me, I cant think why I would want to publicly air all of our mistakes if I […]

Credit card companies, through consumer promotions and lower fees for retailers, have been whittling away at the last few cash-friendly refuges. And as though George Washington needed even more disrespect to be heaped upon his picture on the one-dollar-bill, contactless payment systems are now helping to take the green out of greenbacks. Contactless payment systems […]

In the middle of Albuquerque, N.M., sits a 170,000-square-foot chunk of land that is slated to be the site for a new kind of retail store: one where customers can buy a weeks worth of groceries without ever having to set foot outside their car. On paper—and, thus far, thats the only place this grocery […]

In the early Web days, all that an e-commerce site developer/programmer needed to worry about were operating system version and browser. Worst-case scenario: They could create different full versions of their sites for Mac or Unix, Netscape or IE. With just about a dozen or so versions of the site and programming to detect which […]