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EES BUSINESS
Jeff Gill | Business reporter
770-718-3408 | jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia
Friday, November 23, 2018
A shopping miracle?
Photos by DAVID J. PHILLIP I Associated Press
Walmart associate Shanay Bishop, left, checks out customer Carolyn Sarpy on the sales floor Nov. 9 as part of the “Check Out
With Me” program at a Walmart Supercenter in Houston.
Stores try to cut down on long lines this holiday season
Walmart associates stock a frozen meat section Nov. 9 at a Walmart Supercenter in
Houston.
BY JOSEPH PISANI
AND ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Retailers will once
again offer big deals and early hours to
lure shoppers into their stores for the
start of the holiday season. But they’ll
also try to get shoppers out of their
stores faster than ever by minimizing
the thing they hate most: long lines.
Walmart, Target and other large
retailers are sending workers through
out their stores to check out customers
with mobile devices. And at Macy’s,
shoppers can scan and pay for items on
their own smartphones.
Retailers hope the changes will make
in-store shopping less of a hassle. Long
lines can irritate shoppers, who may
leave the store empty handed and spend
their money elsewhere, or go online.
“I’m all about quick and convenient,”
says Carolyn Sarpy, who paid for a toy
basketball hoop on a mobile device
issued to a worker at a Walmart store
in Houston. Sarpy says she “will turn
around and walk out” of a store if she
sees long lines.
Walmart says workers will stand in
the busiest sections of stores, ready to
swipe customer credit cards when they
are ready to pay. To make them easier
to find, workers wear yellow sashes that
say, “Check out with me.”
The world’s largest retailer first
tested the service in the spring at more
than 350 stores in its lawn and garden
centers. It fared well, Walmart says,
and expanded the program for the holi
day season.
Retailers are trying to catch up to
technology giants. Apple, for example,
has let those buying iPhones, laptops
and other gadgets in its stores to pay on
mobile devices issued to workers. And
Amazon has been rolling out cashier
less convenience stores in San Fran
cisco, Chicago and Seattle.
Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor
at the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania, says shoppers know
the technology is out there for faster
shopping. “That makes them even more
impatient,” she says.
The true test of their success will be
whether retailers can handle the big
crowds who are expected to turn out for
Black Friday weekend. The day after
Thanksgiving is expected to be the busi
est shopping day this year, according to
retail analytics company ShopperTrak.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving also
ranks in the top 10.
“The biggest pain point on Black
Friday is standing in line,” says Jason
Goldberg, senior vice president of com
merce and content practice at consult
ing group SapientRazorfish.
J.C. Penney, which has been offering
mobile checkout for years, says it sent
an additional 6,000 mobile devices to
stores this year so workers can check
shoppers out quicker, like when lines
get long on Black Friday. Other stores
are testing it for the first time: Kohl’s
says iPad-wielding workers will roam
160 of its more than 1,100 stores.
Macy’s, which announced its pro
gram in May, says customers need to
use its mobile app to scan price tags
and pay. After that, they have to go to a
mobile checkout express line and show
the app to a worker, who then removes
security tags from clothing.
Target’s mobile checkout program,
which is being rolled out to all its 1,800
stores, is similar to Walmart’s. Target
says that at its electronics area, where
there are usually two cash registers,
four workers will be sent with handheld
devices to help ring up customers buy
ing TVs, video games and other devices.
“This is about servicing the guest
however they want and as quickly as
they want,” says John Mulligan, Tar
get’s chief operating officer.
Retailers add mobile checkout to woo holiday shoppers
TARGET CORP. I Tribune News Service
Retailers are using mobile checkout devices, such as this one at
Target, to make shopping at stores more convenient this holiday
season.
BY JAMES F. PELTZ
Los Angeles Times
Major retailers are arming
to do battle with internet mega
merchants during this crucial
holiday shopping season using
a key new strategy: Be less
annoying.
Forced to adapt to the steady
incursion of online spending,
brick-and-mortars are imple
menting features to draw more
shoppers and gain market
share as the buying reaches
full force this Thanksgiving
weekend.
Heavy price-cutting alone no
longer, well, cuts it when con
sumers know they can avoid
the holiday crowds by shopping
online. So some retailers are
addressing a few of the most
bothersome aspects of hitting
the malls, such as standing in
long lines and lugging home
heavy packages.
Retailers including Target
Corp., Walmart Inc. and Macy’s
have introduced “skip-the-line”
technology, where employees
help shoppers pay and check
out from anywhere in the store.
Many have expanded two-
day free shipping for online
orders on their own websites
and are pushing the use of
pickup services in which shop
pers order online and retrieve
their goods at the stores _ and,
the chains hope, shop for extra
items once they’re inside.
Walmart rolled out a mobile
app that shows shoppers where
products are in its stores, so the
items can be found without ask
ing an employee for help.
“They’re all trying to stream
line that experience and make
it as close to the online one-
click experience as they can,”
said Deb Gabor, chief execu
tive of Sol Marketing, a brand
strategy consultant.
The long shopping weekend
kicks off Thanksgiving Day,
when many stores once again
are opening their doors for hol
iday shoppers. That’s followed
by Black Friday, one of the bus
iest shopping days of the year,
and it ends with Cyber Monday,
when the emphasis turns to
online shopping as Americans
return to work and school.
An estimated 164 million
people plan to shop in stores
and online during the five-day
period, roughly the same num
ber as last year, according to a
survey by the National Retail
Federation trade group and
Prosper Insights & Analytics.
About 116 million people,
or 71 percent, plan to shop
on Black Friday alone when
heavy price discounts and pro
motions are widespread. There
are many theories about how
the annual shopping frenzy got
its nickname; one is because
it’s when retailers supposedly
finally turn a profit, or “go into
the black,” for the full year.
Yet Mastercard is predicting
the Sunday before Christmas,
Dec. 23, might be as busy as
Black Friday this season. Also,
the span between Thanksgiving
and Christmas this year, at 32
days, is the longest possible and
squeezes in a fifth weekend.
The result: For all of Novem
ber and December, retail sales
will reach $1,002 trillion, a 5.8
percent increase from last
year and the first time they’ll
cross the $l-trillion mark, the
research firm EMarketer
estimates.
Even brick-and-mortar sales
will rise 4.4 percent to $878.4
billion, and physical stores
still account for 87.7 percent of
total holiday sales, EMarketer
said. But the stores’ share of the
retail market keeps declining;
it was 91.7 percent in 2014.
Fortnite gambling
concerns Esports
integrity chief
BY JAKE SEINER
Associated Press
The commissioner of the Esports Integrity
Coalition says skill-based betting on battle royale
games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Bat
tleground could be vulnerable to cheating.
Esports gambling website Unikrn announced
plans last month to bring legal skill-based betting
to the U.S., allowing players to wager on them
selves. Users would link their game to the Unikrn
platform, and Unikrn will generate odds for the
player based on his or her profile within the game.
ESIC Commissioner Ian Smith says such wager
ing is likely to be popular, but he’s concerned the
industry is not prepared to govern it. In particular,
he’s skeptical operators like Unikrn have the abil
ity to ensure the skill ratings of the bettor match
the abilities of the person manning the controls.
For instance, what would stop a player from
placing a Fortnite bet using his or her account,
then handing the controller over to a more tal
ented friend? Or, what would prevent talented
players from hustling the system by nuking their
game profile before placing a series of big bets?
“I’m not certain that the tools exist yet that
would properly identify the person playing the
game is the same person who normally ran that
account,” Smith told The Associated Press.
Unikrn, a betting partner of the ESIC, believes
its Connekt platform can prevent such fraudulent
betting.
“We have thousands of players playing thou
sands of matches which we use to understand
the competitive ecosystem of a game and the
players themselves,” Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood
said. “We pride ourselves on giving users the best
experience, which we can only do with a personal
knowledge of how they enjoy gaming. That same
personal knowledge is key to ensuring integrity in
all wagering elements of our platform.”
The risk that cheating may go unnoticed is
higher in battle royales than in other competitive
video games. Battle royales are last-man-standing
clashes between many competitors — Fortnite
and PUBG host up to 100 players per game — and
have more volatile outcomes than multiplayer
games like League of Legends or Overwatch.
Publishers and operators can use algorithms to
flag unusual performances in games like League
of Legends because those games are complex and
luck is not a factor.
“Just like we’re able to flag suspicious activ
ity from an esportsbook customer, we get a
deep understanding of our players by the data in
their games,” Unikrn chief product officer Karl
Flores said in a statement to the AP. “Basic ele
ments, such as checking for suspicious IP address
changes, and more complex game information
are together used to build player models and cre
ate gamer fingerprints.”
BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS
Nissan board fires
Ghosn as chairman
following arrest
TOKYO — Nissan has fired Carlos Ghosn
as chairman in a dramatic end to the power
ful executive’s nearly two decade reign at the
Japanese automaker. The company says its
own investigation detected serious misconduct,
including under-reporting of Ghosh’s income
and misuse of company assets. Nissan Motor Co.
said its board of directors met for several hours
Thursday and voted unanimously to dismiss
Ghosn. Prosecutors say he is suspected of under
reporting $44.6 million in income from 2011 to
2015.
Dolce&Gabbana goods pulled
in China over alleged insults
BEIJING — Dolce&Gabbana goods have dis
appeared from Chinese e-commerce sites as the
fallout grows over insulting remarks about China
on Instagram that the company blamed on hack
ers. Searches for Dolce&Gabbana turned up no
items Thursday on major online retailers such as
Alibaba’s Tmall and JD.com. Analyst Shaun Rein
of China Market Research Group said he expects
the luxury goods company to have a tough time
in China over the next six to 12 months.
Stocks slip in Europe, Asia
as US closed for holiday
SINGAPORE — Global stock markets have
mostly fallen as concerns about economic
growth continue to weigh on sentiment and trad
ing is thinned by the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
European indexes closed down after a mixed
day in Asia. Wall Street trading is closed Thurs
day and will reopen for only a half day Friday.
The price of oil is stable after being volatile this
week.
Venezuela seeks to extradite
former official indicted by US
CARACAS — Venezuela is seeking the extradi
tion of a former national treasurer days after U.S.
prosecutors say he pleaded guilty to accepting
over $1 billion in bribes. Venezuela’s chief pros
ecutor Tarek William Saab announced Thurs
day a case against Alejandro Andrade, who was
treasurer under the late President Hugo Chavez.
Andrade currently lives in Wellington, Florida,
an exclusive enclave known for its horses.
Greece’s creditors approve
major debt relief package
ATHENS, Greece — A eurozone bailout fund
has approved the implementation of a major
debt relief plan for Greece that it says would
provide the crisis-scarred country significant
savings over several decades. The measures
include interest rate improvements and repay
ment deferrals that were initially agreed upon
in June.
Associated Press