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Shopping Centers Today -> April 2001
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Macerich’s bid to help hearts
The Macerich Co., whose motto is “making good things happen,” made good things happen to the American Heart Association (AHA) last month with an online auction.The company’s marketing directors solicited donations from retailers across the country to put on the site (www.ebidsfromtheheart.com), obtaining a 2001 VW Beetle, a pair of autographed shoes from Bette Midler, travel packages and nearly 1,000 other items, with all proceeds going to the AHA. “There’s a very, very strong possibility that we’ll do this again,” Susan Valentine, SCMD, senior vice president of marketing for Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich, told SCT.
1-Late-hundred Flowers.com
A surfeit of love ground several Web sites to a
halt this past Valentine’s Day, including Hallmark.com and
AmericanGreetings.com. And 1-800-Flowers.com reported it received
a record number of visits to its Web site during the Valentine’s
Day period — more than 5 million, up 50% over last year. But
some customers claimed they were jilted by the Web site. A Houston
Press columnist said her brother was put on hold for 45 minutes
when trying to find out what happened to the flowers he’d sent
her, and one SCT editor had a similar experience. During
the 50 minutes 1-800-Flowers.com had him on hold, a recorded message
informed him, in true Franz Kafka style, that he could only use
his eight-digit confirmation number to confirm an order the day
after flowers have been delivered. Finally a customer service staffer
came on, but declined to tell the editor which Manhattan flower
shop was supposed to deliver the blooms. When pressed to contact
the store, the staffer reported it had closed for the day. “If
you can’t deliver flowers on Valentine’s Day, you shouldn’t
be in the flowers business,” the editor observed. Countered
Ken Young, a company spokesman: “I would say that more than
99.9% of orders were delivered.” But he added that he didn’t
have an official figure on the number of orders that went unrequited.
Electronic outlets
E-tailers need to off-load surplus merchandise, too. Amazon has launched an online outlet store with a range of merchandise, from cameras to kitchenware and books and garden products, at discounts of up to 90%.
Get later, pay now
Customers buying merchandise from in-store kiosks at Staples can now pay over-the-counter, an option that few retailers so far are offering. Staples’ kiosks offer 45,000 items, compared with the average 7,500 available in stores, and the payment option concerns about online credit-card security.
E-tail or else
Even as e-tailers drop like flies, e-commerce is becoming essential to the survival of mainstream retailers, according to consultants Ernst & Young. In a report titled “Global Online Retailing,” the firm said “…online retailing is no longer an option: It is a business requirement.” Consumers are buying a broadening array of merchandise online, including clothing, and they could be buying a quarter of their music, books and consumer electronics online in the next few years, the report said.
Real charges
No
customers complained, and there was certainly no question of goods
being sold under false pretenses: The Web site’s name, www.fakegifts.com,
made it quite clear it was selling replicas. But that wasn’t
enough to save the site’s owners, Mark Dipadova and Theresa
Gayle Ford, who were charged recently by the U.S. Customs Service
with selling counterfeit luxury goods.
Attention surfers
BlueLight.com, which is 59% owned by Kmart Corp., is dangling a new incentive in front of shoppers: Unlimited Internet access for a month to anyone buying a product, regardless of how little the item costs. “You could buy a $2.99 Martha Stewart hand towel and get a month of free Internet access,” BlueLight spokesman Dave Karraker told SCT. “No other ISP is rewarding its customers with merchandise.”
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