News

Today, nearly half of the world’s payment cards are EMV-enabled, meaning that the cards are embedded with special computer chips that help reduce counterfeit card fraud. The cards also protect retailers and consumers against losses caused by this fraud. The prevalence of EMV cards will only continue to increase with the upcoming liability shift in the U.S. in October, when merchants that are not EMV-compliant will be held liable for financial losses incurred from counterfeit card fraud.

If ever a retailer’s product assortment cried out for an omnichannel approach it would be the fast-growing Batteries Plus Bulbs chain where customers are drawn by an offering of 50,000 unique items.

The chain of 650 stores, with 50 more units in the works this year, recently introduced a new Web site with the goal of tightly integrating its digital and expanding physical presence.

Los Angeles - Although summer vacations have just begun for many schoolchildren, parents already have back-to-school shopping on their minds.

According to the new Consumer Pulse survey of parents with kids in grades K-12 and college from Rubicon Project, 56% of respondents said they plan to spend more money per child than they did last year to prepare the students for the upcoming school year.

Kenosha, Wis. – Some things are traditionally assumed not to mix – oil and water, cats and dogs, finance and IT. While the CFO has been taking a more active role in high-level IT decision-making in recent years, vertical apparel retailer Jockey International Inc. mixes money with technology more than most of its competitors.

The Wall Street Journal reports that privately held Jockey recently hired Dain Bussewitz, former VP of finance at Abercrombie & Fitch, to assume the combined role of CIO and CFO.

Framingham, Mass. – There are a lot of things parents look for when doing back-to-school shopping, but as Randy Newman once sang, it’s money that matters.

A new online survey of parents of children ages 8-18, commissioned by Staples and conducted by Harris Poll, finds that price is the top consideration for 86% of these parents when buying school supplies.   

Highlights of Staples 2015’ Back-to-School Parents Survey include:

In pursuit of the holy grail of maximizing supply chain efficiency, solutions provider Orchestro is taking on the $252 billion challenge with the latest version of its Tango product platform.

Orchestro is a leading demand analytics and data management company and Tango is the name of the collection of software solutions consumer packaged goods companies use to solve some of their biggest supply chain challenges. Technically speaking, Tango is what supply chain executives and IT types call a SaaS-based demand signal management platform.

Office Depot is gearing up for a successful back to school season with a new lineup of essentials for students of all ages.

A unique traffic generating and sales diversification promotion that doesn’t involved dogs and cats will take place at Petco stores nationwide on July 18.

The operator of more than 1,400 locations plans to host a two hour Reptile Rally on Saturday July 18 where the objective is to expose customers to the world of reptiles, create interest in ownership and the wide range of products that are available.