About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 2018)
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
