Amazon.com

Amazon Faces Class-Action Lawsuit Over Eclipse Glasses
September 5, 2017 at 12:54 pm

Amazon.com has been hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit by a couple who claims defective eclipse glasses purchased through the online retailer damaged their eyes. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in South Carolina on Tuesday evening, Corey Payne and his fiancée, Kayla Harris, said they purchased a three-pack of eclipse glasses on Amazon in early…

Alibaba to Open its First Brick-and-Mortar Mall
September 5, 2017 at 12:31 pm

Alibaba, the operator of China’s largest online sales platform, is reportedly building its own mall as it seeks to enrich the real-world shopping experience with technology and convenience. The five-story shopping center — which the company is calling “More Mall” — is located at Alibaba’s headquarters in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. The mall was built…

Amazon's Impact on Brick-and-Mortar Sales
August 31, 2017 at 10:42 am

The struggles of brick-and-mortar retailers in 2017 have been well-documented. Iconic brands such as J.C. Penney, Macy's and Sears have all announced store closures this year, and other mall-based retailers such as The Limited, Wet Seal, and American Apparel have gone out of business. Why? A common reason cited is less in-store traffic, the result…

Amazon's Warehouse Workers Get Same Parental Leave Benefits as Corporate Staff
August 21, 2017 at 1:28 pm

Amazon.com's relatively low-paid warehouse workers get the same parental leave benefits as the company’s highly paid software developers and executives — a rarity for U.S. hourly workers. Amazon’s move to revamp its parental leave benefits, which began in 2015, coincided with a wider wave of perk enhancements among booming U.S. technology companies concerned about retaining talented…

Wal-Mart Files Patent for a Floating Warehouse
August 21, 2017 at 1:11 pm

Wal-Mart has opened a new front in its battle with Amazon.com. The world’s largest retailer has applied for a U.S. patent for a floating warehouse that could make deliveries via drones, which would bring products from the aircraft down to customers’ homes. The blimp-style machine would fly at heights between 500 feet and 1,000 feet (as much…

Trump Again Goes After Amazon on Taxes
August 18, 2017 at 11:23 am

President Trump renewed his attack on Amazon.com Wednesday, tweeting that the e-commerce giant is "doing great damage to tax-paying retailers" and removing jobs in cities. Trump's blistering tweet was issued hours after The Washington Post — the newspaper owned by Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos — ran an editorial with the headline, "Mr. Trump gives comfort to racists." Total…

Amazon Forcing Retailers to Speed Up Their Deliveries
August 15, 2017 at 9:57 am

In Total Retail's recent survey and subsequent report, The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader, nearly 90 percent of retail executives said they “strongly" or “somewhat" agree that Amazon.com has changed consumers’ expectations for order delivery. Specifically, consumers’ expectations for delivery of their online purchases have changed…

Consumers’ Delivery Expectations Have Changed Thanks to Amazon
August 8, 2017 at 11:59 am

Nearly 90 percent of respondents in a recent Total Retail and IBM survey said they “strongly" or “somewhat" agree that Amazon.com has changed consumers’ expectations for order delivery (see the chart below). The report, The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader, analyzes the impact Amazon’s growing…

Retailers Invest in Reviews, Shipping Upgrades to Better Compete With Amazon
August 3, 2017 at 12:09 pm

As retailers know, much of Amazon’s success can be credited to its many innovations, from supply chain to customer experience to merchandising and more. To keep pace with the e-commerce leader and its many technology innovations, retailers have started to implement new technology capabilities of their own. In the chart below, taken from Total Retail's…

Amazon Hosts Job Fair, Expects to Hire 50,000
August 2, 2017 at 11:17 am

Amazon.com is hosting a job fair today in an attempt to fill 50,000 warehouse positions by hiring people on the spot in some of the U.S. cities that host its largest operation hubs. The retailer announced last weekend that it would host job fairs in places like Baltimore and Buffalo, New York for full-time and part-time jobs…