Artificial Intelligence

Sears holdings has made a key acquisition to bolster its connected home effort and named a new executive to lead its home service division.

The retailer said it hired former Best Buy executive Sean Skelley as president of its Home Services division. Skelley spent 20 years at Best Buy but most recently served as senior VP of service solutions for Asurion, global provider of device protection and support services for smartphones, tablets, consumer electronics and appliances.

Physical credit cards may be going the way of DVDs and floppy disks.

According to new analysis from Bankrate.com cited by PayPal, 63% of millennials do not have a credit card. However, that does not mean they are abandoning credit-based purchases.

Millennials are now the fastest growing segment of PayPal Credit shoppers, rising to 33% of the total in 2015 up from 28% in 2013. Rather than shunning credit altogether, this influential group is turning to alternative credit services to help manage their finances.

It’s not quite a “dislike” button, but Facebook is expanding how users can respond to posts.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook is testing “Reactions,” a set of six emoji that expand upon the “Like” button, in Ireland and Spain.

Everyone knows fraud is costly, but it be more expensive than you think.

In addition to typical fraud costs, such as the loss of goods and chargeback fees, merchants that sell digital goods, such as MP3 files and streamed movies, each spend an average of $10.1 million every year on fraud-related costs.

Omnichannel retailing means a lot more than offering a consistent customer experience across channels.

According to a new report from IDC Retail Insights, “Omni-Channel Retail Execution Platforms for Now and the Future,” omnichannel retailing requires investing in technology that engages consumers in “customer-centric journeys.”

Retailers have always experienced a tension between investing to grow and investing to improve security. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen vulnerabilities arise when marketing and sales initiatives have trumped less sexy initiatives around security. In 2013, 61 million people had their personal data stolen from Target. One year later, 56 million credit and debit card numbers were exposed in Home Depot’s breach.

Chattanooga, Tenn. -- CBL & Associates Properties and DreamWorks Animation are ringing in the holiday with the ultimate Santa experience at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, Kansas City.

A new event for retailers and consumer package goods executives is taking shape called Shoptalk and the successful entrepreneurs behind its creation have big plans and funding to make it happen.

Online shopping platform Bigcommerce sets expectations high with its name. Hot on the heels of offering the “Buyable Pins” Pinterest shopping feature and Twitter “Buy Now” social commerce button to its merchants, Bigcommerce is launching partnerships to simplify shipping and fraud detection.

Starbucks Corp. is looking to someone with detailed knowledge of developing technology solutions as its new chief technology officer.

The coffee giant has named Gerri Martin-Flickinger, who previously served as senior VP and CIO of Adobe, as CTO effective Nov. 2.

In her new role, Martin-Flickinger will lead the global IT function and play a key role in shaping the technology agenda across the Starbucks business. Interestingly, in her previous life she played a key role in enabling Adobe’s transformation to a cloud-based business.