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Shopping Centers Today -> July 2004
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MESSAGE TO FRAUDSTERS: BEEP, BEEP, BEEP …
A new device under development by Santa Monica, Calif.–based Beepcard takes aim at credit card fraud. The technology permits a card to work only if its owner speaks a password into a tiny embedded microphone. A voice-recognition system emits a series of beeps indicating approval by the issuing company, either over a retailer’s telephone or through a Web shopper’s computer.
ONLINE GROCERY
Online grocery shopping continues to grow across the United States. Shoppers
will buy $2.4 billion worth of food over the Internet this year, amounting to
0.4 percent of the total $570 billion grocery market, Jupiter Research analyst
Patti Freeman Evans told The Associated Press. By 2008, Evans estimates, online
food sales will constitute about 1 percent of the anticipated $641 billion total
grocery market. New York City’s Freshdirect.com says it now has 100,000
active customers, four times more than a year ago. Peapod, which handles Internet
sales for such chains as Giant Food and Stop & Shop, says it serves 150,000
consumers and expects to be delivering to 14 million households by 2006.
SELL BY CELL
It’s neither clicks nor bricks, but something in between: Burdines-Macy’s
recently tested a free service at three of its Florida stores whereby customers
can call up personal shoppers and have them transmit pictures of merchandise
over video phones. “It’s walking the line between the Internet and
the in-store experience,” Elaine Karnisky, director of the retailer’s
bridal and gift registry department, told The Miami Herald. “It’s
personal, but it’s still saving people time.” The test ran through
Father’s Day. No word yet on whether the company will roll out a permanent
program, Karnisky told SCT.
MINNESOTA MEGAMALL.COM
Mall of America isn’t the only Minnesota megamall with hundreds of tenants.
The Minnesota Retail Merchants Association has launched an “online mall”
— www.shopminnesota.com — to raise the profiles of that state’s
small and large tenants alike.
INTO THE BLACK
Online retailers finally turned a profit last year, says a survey of 150 e-tailers conducted by Forrester Research for Shop.org. The retailers showed a collective 21 percent profit, the report says. This year online retail sales are expected to grow 27 percent, to $144 billion. Still, that’ll amount to only 6.6 percent of total retail sales.
NICE CREAM?
Who says you can’t sell ice cream over the Web? The Web site of upscale
Vosges Haut-Chocolat, www.vosgeschocolate.com, offers such delights as Naga
— a sorbet with a coconut, white chocolate and curry flavoring —
Red Fire, which promises to be as hot as it is cold, Wattleseed flavor and other
varieties. What next will we see delivered via the Internet? Mister Softee in
a cone?
AND IN AISLE 23 - WEB SITE SERVICES
Sam’s Club is offering Web site design and maintenance services to small
businesses, similar to a program offered by Costco, starting at a cost of $5
a month. The service enables clients to sell over the Internet.
Shopping Centers Today
 | Current Issue December 2008 |