Keeping Current
Apple Intros Interactive Smart-Home Displays In 31 Stores
Customers at 31 U.S. Apple stores (and 15 more overseas) can now experience what it’s like to turn on lights, lower shades and control...
Keeping Current
Keeping Current
Apple Engineers In ‘Panic’ Mode Over iPhone 8: Report
The 10th anniversary iPhone is due out this fall, but software engineers at Apple are reportedly panicking over problems with the new model’s wireless...
Keeping Current
Best Buy Offers ‘Smart’ Solution For Elder Care
Best Buy has added an elder-care remote monitoring option to its menu of complimentary in-home consultations and paid Geek Squad installations. The new service...
Keeping Current
Retailers Mount Counter Campaigns Against Amazon Prime Day
Electronics and appliance retailers including Best Buy, Office Depot, Newegg, Sears and JCPenney are holding special sales of their own today in order to...
Keeping Current
Independent RadioShack Dealers Doing Alright
With their idiosyncratic assortments and alternative supply channels, franchised RadioShack dealers are remaining above the corporate fray. “While the list of Radio Shack corporate...
Keeping Current
Memo To Bezos: Beware The Home Shopping Networks
Following last week’s move by Liberty Interactive, a combined HSN and QVC could prove to be a formidable threat to Amazon — and all retailers. “These...
Keeping Current
Behold The First Battery-Free Cellphone
Researchers have developed a prototype that seemingly draws energy from thin air. “Imagine not having to charge your phone because it harvests light and...
Keeping Current
Qualcomm Asks U.S. To Ban iPhone Imports
Apple countersued Qualcomm earlier this year, contending that the chipmaker is “charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with.” “Chipmaker Qualcomm is...
Keeping Current
Retail Apocalypse Is Fake News!
Sure there’s been a slew of retail bankruptcies and store closings this year, but what’s not been reported are the number of new stores...
Keeping Current
RadioShack Closes Last Hometown Store; Creditors Sue Sprint
RadioShack closed its last remaining store in its headquarters town of Fort Worth, Texas over the holiday weekend, as the once 7,000-plus-showroom chain reduces...
Keeping Current
Here’s How One Retailer Has Overcome Amazon
Dixons Carphone, Europe’s largest CE and appliance specialty chain and former Best Buy mobile partner, has outlived its brick-and-mortar competitors by learning how to...
Keeping Current
Walmart Vs. Amazon, Round 2
In its escalating open war against Amazon, Walmart has thrown down the gauntlet for the second time this month. After laying down the law...
Keeping Current
Sony Music Goes Back To Vinyl Records
Turntables saw 16 percent growth in dollar sales and 23 percent growth in unit sales vs. last year. “Sony Music, one of the big...
Keeping Current
Staples To Be Sold To Sycamore Partners, Reports Say
The number-one office supply chain may be taken private as early as next week, if multiple media reports of a pending $6 billion leveraged...
Keeping Current
Samsung May Start Building Appliances In South Carolina
Samsung is reportedly eyeing an old Caterpillar plant in Newberry, S.C., as the site of its first U.S. factory. The company is supposedly prepared...
Keeping Current
Best Buy Positioned To Win In Smart Home
Retail analyst Peter Keith of Piper Jaffray says Best Buy is a good investment, given its early advantages in smart home. The chain has...
Keeping Current
Is It The End Times For Retail?
Store closings have already tripled year-over-year to some 5,300 doors, putting 2017 on track for the worst year for retail since the Great Recession....
Keeping Current
T-Mobile, Sprint Finalizing Merger Plan: Report
T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telecom is reportedly finalizing a plan to absorb Sprint. The all-stock deal would keep TMO in charge after the coupling, to...
Keeping Current
Walmart To Vendors: Hey, You, Get Off Of Amazon’s Cloud
Although it may seem as if the gloves have truly come off, the fact remains that Walmart isn’t the only retailer that requires its...
Keeping Current
Silicon Valley CEOs Gather Again At White House To Brainstorm Better Government Through Tech
A who’s who of tech-industry CEOs including Tim Cook (Apple), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Satya Nadella (Microsoft) are spending the day at the White...
Keeping Current
T-Mobile To Start Lighting Up Its New Low-Frequency Spectrum This Summer
T-Mobile is eager to unleash the $8 billion in new 600 MHz spectrum it bought at FCC auction in April. So much so that...
Keeping Current
Tim Cook: Apple Cooking Up Self-Driving Cars
Apple CEO Tim Cook has finally shed some light on his company’s secret car project, and it’s all about creating autonomous autos. “We sort...
Keeping Current
Recession Fading, But Discount Fervor Continues
Retailers resorted to deep discounting to spur sales during the depths of the recession. But even with the economy now in recovery mode, shoppers...
Keeping Current
Why The Sirius Investment In Pandora Is A Win-Win
Beyond throwing Pandora a life preserver, the deal has potential benefits for Sirius XM — which is heavily reliant upon the vehicle market —...
Keeping Current
Best Buy To Test Product Rental Program
In an effort to stem returns, Best Buy, through a partnership with San Francisco startup Lumoid, will allow customers to try-before-they-buy beginning later this...
Keeping Current
Apple Sharing Its Secret iPhone Fix With Other Retailers
For several years Apple has had a proprietary machine that helps its retail repair teams replace cracked iPhone screens without losing touch functionality. Now,...
Keeping Current
More Store Closings Afoot For Sears
Sears, which has already closed 347 stores since last year, is about to add another 72 Sears and Kmart locations to the list. “Sears...
Keeping Current
Amazon Aiming For Walmart’s Heart
Perhaps in response to recent online inroads by Walmart, Amazon is on the counterattack, offering discounted Prime membership rates to lower-income consumers, the discounter’s...
Keeping Current
Google Home Outages Reported
A large number of Google Home users around the world are reporting problems connecting to the company’s wireless speakers. Google has acknowledged the issue...
Keeping Current
Amazon May Give Smartphones Another Try
Sources say Amazon is ready to put its Fire phone fiasco behind it and launch a new entry-level model, perhaps for emerging markets, under...
Keeping Current
The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling! Wait, It’s Just Amazon
In this op-ed piece from the L.A. Times, author Amy Koss breathlessly (and we think incorrectly) predicts the end of brick-and-mortar retail at the...
Keeping Current
Lowe’s Making AR/VR Shopping Mainstream
Lowe’s Innovations Labs chief Kyle Nel shares the latest marketing developments in AR and VR at the No. 2 home improvement chain. “While retailers around...
Keeping Current
Welcome To The Messy Future of TV And Communications
The landscape of America’s TV and communications providers is becoming a jumbled mess as cable companies prepare to sell mobile services, carriers carry TV,...
Keeping Current
Will Walmart’s E-tail Acquisitions Buy It Happiness?
Beginning with its $3.3 billion buyout of Jet.com, which also brought it visionary founder Marc Lore, Walmart has been on an e-tail acquisition tear,...
Keeping Current
At RadioShack Fire Sales, Everything — And We Mean Everything — Must Go!
As RadioShack continues shutting stores following its second bankruptcy in as many years, apparently everything just short of the kitchen sink is up for...
Keeping Current
How Best Buy Drives Traffic
Fitch Ratings exec David Silverman says in-store pick-ups of online purchases are boosting Best Buy’s foot traffic. The option, implemented relatively recently, accounts for...
Keeping Current
Former Walmart Chief Bill Simon Defends Import Tax
Retail executives have been almost unanimous in their opposition to President Trump’s proposed 20 percent border adjustment tax, or BAT. Almost, except for former...
Keeping Current
Amazon Opening NYC Bookstore Tomorrow
For a company that once belittled brick-and-mortar as overhead, Amazon has certainly taken on plenty of it, with dozens of U.S. distribution centers and...
Keeping Current
Sears Buys Itself Some Breathing Room
Sears Holdings has managed to ease more than $1 billion in looming debt repayments and pension obligations by refinancing a maturing loan and annuitizing...
Keeping Current
Sears Holdings Quietly Closing 30 More Stores
Without any formal announcement, Sears has added 30 more Kmart and Sears locations to its store closure list, bringing the planned total to 180...
Keeping Current
Maybe This Is Why Retail Is Hurting
Nearly eight years into an economic recovery, nearly half of Americans say they don’t have enough cash to cover a $400 emergency; 23 percent...
Keeping Current
Sears CEO Eddie Lampert Puts Vendors On Notice
With this week’s lawsuit against a Craftsman tool supplier, Lampert is sending a warning to manufacturers that might consider cutting Sears off. “If only...