State tax collectors are preparing to crack down on renegade internet merchants who don't collect sales taxes, and nearly 100 new state auditors, lawyers and other specialists are being hired to help over the next three years.
Shopping, even for major items like a wedding dress, is now something people do while strolling through the park - by smartphone or other device. In 2011, U.S. mobile commerce sales surged 91.4 percent. By 2015, analysts estimate total m-commerce sales will reach $31bn - a 363-percent increase from 2011.
Emcien Corp. has released a new version of EmcienPatterns, its application for analyzing customer buying patterns by retailers, distributors and consumer packaged goods manufacturers.
Mobile payment technologies are finally vaulting forward in the U.S. after years of slow advances. The biggest move ahead could occur in September, when Apple is widely expected to embrace a mobile payment scheme with its next-generation iPhone.
Grocery stores and other retail food sellers are losing as much as $15bn a year in unsold fruits and vegetables alone, with about half of the U.S. supply going uneaten, according to an analysis on food waste by the National Resources Defense Council.
Following tests that showed mobile POS successfully sped up the checkout process in its Rack stores, Nordstrom will roll out approximately 1,500 of the devices to its 110 Rack units by the end of Q3. This deployment is in addition to the mobile POS technology already in use in Nordstrom's 117 full-line stores.
Scott Webb, assistant professor of logistics at Georgia Southern University, shows how companies can avoid "cannibalizing" their existing product lines - and how they can strategically employ the practice as well.
