retail

Friday Poll: What could Best Buy do to survive?

The brightly lit aisles of Best Buy have a certain pallor to them these days. Geek Squad employees have been axed. More than 50 stores are closing. The consumer-electronics retailer is treading water in a sea full of hungry online competitors.

Will Best Buy go the way of dearly departed Circuit City? Sales are slumping and profit is shrinking into losses. Consumers are avoiding the mazelike store layouts and shopping around for deals online. Apple Stores are popping up everywhere and Microsoft is expanding its brick-and-mortar presence.… Read more

Restaurant offers cell phone bribe

A meal isn't a meal without a cell phone.

You need to photograph the food and get it onto your Twitter feed, before any of the other diners does the same. It isn't called A Twitter "feed" for nothing, you know.

You need to be able to Google "the collected works of Al Green," just in case there's a dispute about who wrote "Let's Stay Together."

And you need it to go on Wine Spectator's site to check just how many points this haughty little Grenache Noir might have earned for its reticence.

Then along comes some upstart restaurant in, of all places, Los Angeles to try and take your iPhone away from you. Worse, this place is prepared to bribe you.… Read more

Apple admits to screwing up retail staffing levels, report says

Apple's VP of retail told store leadership teams that the company "messed up" when it implemented a new way to schedule staff for its retail stores, indirectly spurring layoff rumors, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The executive, John Browett, told store management to let employees know that corporate had made a mistake with the new system, which cut hours for some employees and left some Apple retail stores understaffed, two unnamed sources told the Journal.

The changes caused panic among employees, leading to news reports of layoffs.

Browett, who took over the position in April, also … Read more

Apple retail stores reportedly price-matching iPhones

Apple will match the price of an iPhone from another authorized retailer if you buy it in an Apple store, according to a new report.

Citing an anonymous source, MacRumors this morning says it's now a quiet policy at Apple's stores to price-match with a handful of third-party authorized sellers and carrier partners so that users can buy a new phone in an Apple store versus going elsewhere to get the same deal.

Per a purportedly leaked photo of the new policy, that amounts to a savings of $49.01 on the 8GB iPhone 4, as well as … Read more

Microsoft pop-up stores coming this holiday season

Microsoft officials said earlier this summer that they planned to open a number of temporary "pop-up" holiday stores this year. At the time, they didn't specify where these stores would be.

Braintree, Mass. Chicago (downtown) Cleveland, Ohio Manhattan, N.Y. Miami, Fla. Natick, Mass. Portland, Ore. San Antonio, Texas San Francisco St. Louis, Mo. Vancouver, B.C.

Microsoft Stores sell Windows PCs, Windows Phones, Microsoft and third-party software, games, peripherals and more. Microsoft also is going to sell its recently announced Surface PC/tablets through its Microsoft Stores in the U.S. and through select online Microsoft … Read more

Apple Store employee rescues woman from alleged kidnapper

It must have been quite a surreal scene.

A woman in Louisville, Ky., claims that last Saturday she arranged a date with a man, who arrived at her door and pointed a gun at her leg.

He then allegedly forced her to drive around to several stores, in order to buy cell phones in her own name, with her own money.

According to WDRB News, one of those stores was an Apple Store in Oxmoor Mall.

Somehow -- it's unclear how -- her puported kidnapper, named as Victor A. Sarver Jr., 32, was sufficiently negligent to allow the unnamed … Read more

Tesco trials virtual grocery store at U.K. airport

U.K. supermarket chain Tesco has begun testing out a new kind of grocery shopping -- going all-virtual in Gatwick airport.

The BBC reports that Tesco has been pondering a familiar problem -- you go on holiday, kids in tow, but the practicalities of the return home are still on your mind. Will there be food in the house when you get back, and if not, can you face a trip to the supermarket?

In response, Tesco has decided to install a "virtual grocery store" in the departure lounge of London's Gatwick airport. … Read more

AT&T to redesign stores around iPad-based checkout --report

Some major changes are afoot in AT&T stores across the U.S., a new report claims.

AT&T is currently readying plans to dump its in-store computer systems and counters and rely solely on Apple products to handle transactions, Apple blog 9to5 Mac is reporting, citing discussions with AT&T spokespeople.

The blog claims that current AT&T stores are hampered by "outdated computers" that aren't efficiently running the company's in-store software, OPUS. And by using counters in stores, salespeople are forced to sit behind the desk rather than roam the … Read more

Senate to debate whether online retailers must collect sales tax

The Senate could soon decide whether consumers will have to shell out taxes on more of their online purchases.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is scheduled to hold a hearing today to examine the current policy that exempts many online retailers from collecting sales tax. The present ruling is based on a 1992 Supreme Court decision, which found that businesses without a physical presence in a state are not required to collect state sales tax.

But up for debate this afternoon is the Marketplace Fairness Act (PDF), which would reverse the Supreme Court decision. Senators … Read more