Wal-Mart

As you read this, you're likely in the middle of or wrapping up your busy back-to-school season, so your thoughts may not be on the upcoming holidays. But if last year is any indication, you should probably start thinking about it. Holiday 2012 figures to be another blockbuster shopping season for cross-channel retailers.

A recent EU General Court ruling has deemed the fees a merchant is forced to pay to its acquiring bank in a transaction unacceptably high due to the interchange fees and the fact that MasterCard has unfairly inflated the service fees paid by retailers for processing payments. As a result, both MasterCard and Visa are being investigated for possible antitrust violations. Already five of the largest U.K. retailers, including Next Retail and Wal-Mart's Asda, have filed lawsuits in London against MasterCard.

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, released a study on U.S. smartphone shopping behavior based on data from its comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0 service. The study found that four in every five smartphone users — 85.9 million in total — accessed retail content on their device in July. Amazon.com sites led as the top retailer with an audience of 49.6 million visitors, while multichannel retailers including Apple (17.7 million visitors), Wal-Mart (16.3 million visitors), Target (10 million visitors) and Best Buy (7.2 million visitors) also attracted significant mobile audiences.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is not liable for selling bullets to an underage customer who then used the ammunition to commit murder. The lawsuit was filed by the relatives of Robert Williams, who was shot and killed by his girlfriend's son in 2006. The son, Xavier Zurndell Moore, was 20 years old at the time, and shot Williams with ammunition purchased at a local Walmart store. Federal law requires that a person be 21 to buy pistol ammunition.

Your homepage sets the stage for the overall site experience. The goal of your homepage is to give the shopper a compass to direct them through the site and to the right products for them. Shoppers that click through a product recommendation on the homepage are 20 percent more likely to convert than shoppers that don't. Here are four tips for getting those coveted clicks on your homepage:

Last week came news that a bevy of big-name retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, are teaming up to create a company that will give consumers another way to make purchases: with their cellphones. The businesses said that the new company, Merchant Customer Exchange, is developing a mobile application for any smartphone that will integrate a variety of coupons, rebates and loyalty programs.

A bevy of big-name retailers including Wal-Mart, Best-Buy and Target are teaming up to create a company that will give consumers another way to make purchases: with their cellphones. The businesses said Wednesday that the new company, Merchant Customer Exchange, is developing a mobile application that will be available for nearly any smartphone. The app is expected to integrate a variety of coupons, rebates and loyalty programs.

Wal-Mart has received conditional approval from Beijing to acquire a majority stake in a Chinese e-commerce company. Wal-Mart will increase its stake in the Yihaodian holding company to approximately 51 percent, from a little more than 17 percent. Yihaodian has been in business for less than four years. It sells more than 180,000 products ranging from groceries to electronics to clothing. Wal-Mart is seeking more access to Chinese consumers, who are increasingly shopping online. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. 

U.S. authorities are considering launching a wide-ranging examination of the retail industry for violations of an anti-foreign bribery law after Wal-Mart and other retailers have come forth with their own potential offenses, people familiar with the matter said. Retailers have been reviewing their international operations in light of a bribery scandal at Wal-Mart's operations in Mexico that's the subject of investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In its struggle against surging online retailers such as Amazon.com, Wal-Mart has unleashed a weapon long shunned by Sam Walton: lobbying. On July 24, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a bill to let states collect sales tax from out-of-state merchants that sell to their residents. If passed, online retailers, which now mostly don't collect sales tax, will lose a price advantage that's helped them take business from brick-and-mortar stores.