retail

Sony BMG signs onto Amazon's DRM-free music store

It's a full hand of cards for Amazon: the Web's mega-retailer announced Thursday that it will be selling music from Sony BMG Music Entertainment in its Amazon MP3 store. This means that Amazon MP3, which only sells "naked" tracks without any digital rights management (DRM) protection, now has deals with all four major music labels. Because of the lack of copy protection, any song from Amazon MP3 can play on virtually any media-playing device, from PCs to music players to cell phones and PDAs.

The DRM-free songs from Sony BMG will be available for purchase on … Read more

Anarchist Shopdropping for Christmas

Oooh, look what I got for Christmas, an anarchist doll complete with Molotov cocktail!

No, it's a fake gift, the latest in a funny and subversive series of "shopdropping" by a group of artists. Shopdropping (instead of shoplifting) means placing fake products into real stores to confuse the store management and raise questions about consumerist society. Watch the video as the befuddled Walgreens manager tries to price the anarchist doll, complete with its convincing packaging.

The anarchist doll specifically is the work of Oakland, CA based artist Packard Jennings, who has also produced a line of PEZ … Read more

Game store employees explain Wii scalping business

On Thursday, Ars Technica reported that game retailer Slackers had been ordering Nintendo Wiis, claiming to have run out of stock when customers came into the stores, and subsequently selling the Wiis at a high markup on eBay.

After their original story ran, employees of the retail chain have written in to give Ars more detail about the alleged practice.

Read more at Ars Technica

Circuit City's holidays not so happy

Circuit City posted a steep quarterly loss on Friday and warned the operating losses will continue into the current quarter, which includes the bulk of the holiday shopping season, traditionally when retailers make most of their money.

"We are very dissatisfied with our third quarter results," Circuit City CEO Philip J. Schoonover said in a statement, adding that the company saw fewer sales of profitable items like accessories, services, and extended warranties.

"We believe that these issues are primarily self-induced and are within our control to improve," he said.

I can't say I was surprised … Read more

New uberannoyance: Automated salespeople

As if the regular kind weren't bothersome enough, companies are cropping up to create automated instant-messagers that pretend to be human customer service personnel. They have names like "Susan" and they're sometimes even assigned ages like "24." In particular, this new crop is designed to save sales lost in last-minute checkout abandonment.

Some automated chat features are genuinely helpful--for instance, IMing a help-desk chat bot with access to a Q&A database can save users a lot of time searching for information on an FAQ list.

The legality of the practice--a program misrepresenting … Read more

CompUSA clarifies details on store closings

As CompUSA begins shuttering the last of its stores, it's also tying up loose ends.

The retailer, which was bought by a private equity firm December 7 and will shut down, put up a customer help Web site Friday where it gives details on how warranties, gifts cards, and more will be handled.

The closing sale will last approximately eight weeks and all sales will be final. Any extended warranties purchased for products through CompUSA will be honored by a third-party provider, Assurant Solutions. Gift cards, rain checks, and rebates purchased prior to December 12 can be redeemed at … Read more

More European retailers for Dell

More and more, the question is, "Where can't you buy a Dell?"

On Thursday, the PC maker announced that its desktops and notebooks would be available through DSG International, one of Europe's largest electronics retailers. Though specific models have yet to be decided, the agreement will include selling mainly Dell XPS and Inspiron desktops and notebooks.

DSGi operates stores such as PC World, Currys, and Dixons.co.uk online in the United Kingdom, and Electro World, PC City, and Elkjop in 11 other European nations. Approximately 1,300 brick-and-mortar retail outlets in the U.K. and … Read more

Last-minute holiday SEO

There is still time to capture search traffic, even though the holiday season is half over. Here are some great tips that will give you a quick impact to encourage more shoppers to visit your site.

Add a few keyword-rich links to your home page: In P.J. Fusco's article " Holiday Shopping: Wrap it Up," she had talked about how you shouldn't "trash the current navigation structure, rather embellish it with a few additional links containing well-targeted, keyword-rich anchor text. Doing so helps create one- or two-click shortcuts that efficiently channel search-referred visitors to all … Read more

CompUSA closes shop

Forget Black Friday. For the best deals on gadgets and PCs this holiday season, look no further than your neighborhood CompUSA.

The embattled electronics retail chain was dealt its final blow Friday when it was sold to Specialty Equity, an affiliate of private equity firm Gordon Brothers Group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the immediate result is that Specialty Equity will close all 103 CompUSA stores in the United States, according to a press release issued late Friday.

Gordon Brothers will "initiate an orderly wind-down" of each of the stores, the company says. That's … Read more