Consumer Electronics

The competition for retailers selling online just got a lot more intense with a new price-match policy from Target just ahead of the prime holiday shopping season.

Beginning Oct. 1, Target will price-match the websites of 29 major retailers in stores and for purchases from their website.

As chip-based EMV cards become the payment norm for retailers, Visa continues to assert that PINs and even signatures are unnecessary security measures in a rapidly evolving payments landscape.

In a conference call, Visa executives explained why the company is taking the view that not only is PIN verification not a major concern, but neither is obtaining the customer’s signature.

Hot on the heels of Google’s official launch of Android Pay, Samsung is officially entering the U.S. mobile payment market. Samsung Pay, which launched in South Korea in August, is now available for use by U.S. consumers.

Samsung Pay functionality is built into the hardware of Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge mobile devices. Samsung says Samsung Pay is the first and only mobile payment service that works with both near field communication (NFC) and card readers with magnetic secure transmission (MST) technologies, which means it is already compatible with most POS terminals.

The growth aspirations of Conn’s were revealed in the span of a few days recently when, with a new CEO at the helm, it entered the Georgia market and increased its presence in Colorado.

Woodbridge, N.J. -- Levin Management announced that T.J.Maxx has joined St. Georges Crossing in Woodbridge, New Jersey. The 23,000 sq. ft. free-standing T.J.Maxx store will anchor the fully leased, 340,000 sq. ft. shopping center.

St. Georges Crossing is located at the intersection of Routes 1 & 9 and 35. The center includes a mix of retail, restaurant and service tenants: ShopRite, P.C. Richard & Son, PetSmart and Pier 1 Imports, Golf Galaxy, AutoZone, Bertucci’s and Wine Country.

American Dream has added more fire power to its retail lineup.

The Triple Five Group of Companies, the developer of the long-delayed retail and entertainment mega-center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Monday announced the names of 10 new retail tenants who will be setting up shop there. These include: Aritzia, Banana Republic, Gap, Lululemon, Mac, Microsoft, Pink, Uniqlo, Victoria's Secret and Zara.

As of Oct. 1, retailers who do not comply with the Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV) security standard that relies on embedded chips in payment cards face a shift in card fraud liability. Many EMV issues have not yet been resolved. Here are three big ones:

Swipe left out
Retailers have been warned repeatedly that if they do not implement EMV-compliant POS terminals, they will bear liability for any fraud resulting from an EMV card transaction.

IBM aims to increase the solutions and services it offers the retail industry with two new centers. On Sept. 24, IBM opened a new global headquarters for IBM Commerce and new hub for its Watson artificial intelligence platform in San Francisco.

In addition, IBM is partnering with The Fung Group on a new large-scale laboratory for rapid experimentation with omnichannel retail technologies, which opened in Shanghai, China on Sept. 24.