Data Management

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart is offering an online gift card exchange called CardCash.com that will offer consumers up to 97% of the face value of another retailer’s gift card in the form of a Wal-Mart e-gift card. The retailer has set up a site where customers can enter the card number, PIN and some basic personal information so it can verify card balance before making an offer.  

A federal judge has ruled that customers suing Target for last year’s data breach may move forward with their claims.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in St. Paul, Minn., dismissed claims by plaintiffs in certain states but largely denied Target's request to toss out the proposed class action lawsuit.

Magnuson rejected Target's argument that the consumers lacked standing to sue because they could not establish any injury.

Time and again in 2014 the vulnerability of retailers’ information systems became apparent with Staples the latest major chain forced to admit an inability to protect customers’ personal information.

Now Staples has released more information about its data breach in September.

Spokane, Wash. - Over half (57%) of retail respondents have an energy/building management system installed, according to an annual survey by energy and sustainability management  company Ecova.  

Atlanta – Payment technology provider First Data and secure payment acceptance technology vendor Verifone, are partnering to help retailers reduce exposure to large-scale consumer payment data breaches and expedite acceptance of EMV-enabled credit and debit cards in advance of the October 2015 liability shift for EMV-enabled payment card fraud.    

Kroger has gotten the ultimate green seal of approval from the EPA.

The federal government has announced that Kroger is the only grocery retailer to be granted elite Energy Star Certification status by the EPA.

"Kroger is committed to reducing our impact on the environment, and our Energy Star certified buildings have delivered energy and cost savings as well as reduce our carbon footprint," said Keith Oliver, Kroger's VP for facility engineering. "We are pleased to help our partners at the EPA celebrate 15 years of Energy Star certifications."

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Domino's Pizza has selected and implemented AMTdirect to manage its corporate real estate portfolio. The cloud platform has allowed Domino's to centralize real estate information and track revenue, sales and expenses across locations.   

Oakland, Calif. - Cost Plus World Market has renewed its use of the GT Nexus platform, providing real-time visibility into global inventory movement and performance information. Finance, sourcing and logistics departments are networked over a single cloud platform, connecting more than 1,000 suppliers and logistics providers to collaborate on production and delivery of goods.   

By Joe Majka, Verifone   President Obama’s BuySecure Initiative sets the U.S. Government on track to adopt chip and PIN payment security, parallels - and seeks to encourage - a commercial industry shift toward EMV card technology.    

Hangzhou, China – A security flaw in AliExpress, an online marketplace that allows international consumers to make purchases on the Alibaba e-commerce platform, reportedly could have exposed personal information of millions of users to hackers. According to CNBC, Israeli security AppSec Labs discovered the flaw, which would have allowed hackers to alter orders and also gain access to customer personal and financial data, not including credit card numbers.