Shopping Centers Today -> May 2003
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NAPSTER TO THE RESCUE
Napster hurt the music retail and recording industries with its
free online file sharing before copyright-infringement litigation
drove it out of business. But a new, legal Napster is pledging to
do precisely the opposite and help the beleaguered CD trade, reports
the Associated Press. Roxio, which bought Napster’s name and
intellectual property, was at press time negotiating with the five
major music labels to provide content for its online subscription
service.
ONLINE FLATLINE
Remember when they were telling retailers to go online or die? Well,
women’s athletic apparel retailer Lucy.com went online and
died. Now it has abandoned its pure-play Web strategy and appears
to be having more success as a brick-and-mortar retailer. At press
time Lucy, as it is now called, had opened nine stores across the
United States and said it plans to open more.
FREE SHIPPING, COSTLY SCHLEPPING
Buy.com promises free shipping with no minimum purchase, but it
was hitting consumers with a $2.95 “handling fee,” reports
USA Today. The paper says that after it contacted Buy.com,
the online electronics retailer stopped collecting the fee and pledged
to refund anyone who had paid it. But such occurrences may become
more common, retail experts told the paper, because free shipping
is expensive and puts pressure on Internet retailers to find other
sources of revenue.
CONVENIENT KIOSKS
Kiosks in select 7-11 stores are allowing shoppers to cash checks,
send money and pay bills. Eventually, they will also let customers
shop online, buy car insurance and even get travel directions. The
touch-screen devices, which also accept cash, are designed primarily
for people without bank accounts. The convenience store chain is
testing the machines at 27 locations in the Richmond, Va., area,
and says it may roll them out in 3,500 stores by the end of the
year.
SADDAM SELLS
A documentary about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein jumped to No.
14 on Amazon.com’s sales charts shortly after the declaration
of war in March. The film,
Uncle Saddam, by French filmmaker
Joel Soler, has been shown at film festivals around the world.
Other top-selling items on the site at press time included a critical
book about former President Bill Clinton, called
Dereliction
of Duty, a Calphalon chef’s casserole with cover and
a video version of the film
The Sound of Music.
NICE TRY
Shoppers in Britain who tried to snap up £499.99
($787) handheld computers offered by Amazon.co.uk at the too-good-to-be-true
price of £23 found out that indeed it was too good to be true.
Amazon discovered the error when its Web site got jammed with
orders, reports Ireland’s
Sunday Tribune. This isn’t
the first British Web site pricing gaff. Electronics retailer
Argos offered TVs last year for £3. Retailers are not obliged
to honor such offers under British law.
UNSEALED
Britain’s online consumers, anxious to avoid being defrauded,
used to look for the Consumers’ Association seal of approval
on retail Web sites. But the consumer rights organization has
withdrawn the service, saying it was too expensive to operate,
reports Britain’s Daily Express. Since 1999 the
organization had processed more than 8,000 applications for
accreditation from online merchants, approving 2,700 of them
and resolving more than 2,000 disputes. The seals have disappeared.
