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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2004
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| Designer jewelry Bachelors who know nothing about jewelry can now hide their embarrassment by designing and buying engagement rings over the Internet, thanks to Build-a-Ring, a new service offered by JC Penney.com. Customers can select from more than 150,000 variations of diamonds and settings, with prices ranging from $250 to more than $100,000. The site, www.jcpenney.com/buildaring, offers diamond information and ring-fit guides. And if she doesn’t like it — the ring or the prospect of marriage — there’s a 60-day full refund policy. |
| Love thy customer Grocery e-tailer Vons.com left customers in no doubt about how it feels about them a few weeks ago when it resumed deliveries after a long grocery workers’ strike. Online customers received roses with each delivery, and executives handed out chocolates and bouquets in person to those who were among the first to order March 15, following a five-month suspension of service. |
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McMusic For those who like music with their hamburger and coffee, McDonald’s and Starbucks are set to offer their customers music downloads. McDonald’s has signed a deal with Sony Corp. to promote its new music downloading service, according to media reports, and Starbucks is selling music compilations at a cafe in Santa Monica, Calif., with plans to expand the service to other stores. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart opened its online music store in March, and Microsoft says it will do the same in the fall. Virgin, a brand long associated with music, says it will launch a music downloading service too. No word yet on whether Virgin will serve coffee and hamburgers as well. |
Customers wary of sending their credit card information over the ether or through telephone lines now have another option at some retail sites: a system called Bill Me Later, developed by a company called 14 Commerce. Instead of giving their credit card numbers, shoppers type in their birth date and the last four digits of their social security number. If a credit check comes up clean, 14 Commerce pays the retailer and bills the customer. Like credit card companies, the firm makes its money by billing the retailer per transaction and charging customers interest on stretched-out payments. So far about 30 merchants have signed up, including KBtoys.com and 1-800-Flowers.com. |
| Fess-up time Nineteen states made it a little easier for shoppers to pay sales taxes on Web purchases over the past year. These states provide a line on income tax forms requiring people to say how much they owe. New York officials even helped out those who may have lost their receipts, by providing a chart enabling them to calculate their taxes based on income. Last year New York collected $57 million in Internet taxes, up from $10 million the year before, a spike attributed to some high-profile prosecutions of corporate tax cheats. |
| Call that mainstream? The Pew Internet & American Life Project is touting online shopping as “mainstream,” now that two-thirds of Internet users are online shoppers too. Half of those from households with incomes of $50,000 or less have e-shopped, and 54 percent of the online population with a high school diploma have done so. Of course, this isn’t quite as mainstream as malls. Roughly 100 percent of high school students have visited shopping centers well before graduating. |
| Hammer for the bride Confirmation that gift registries are no longer solely the domain of bridal couples came with the unrolling of The Home Depot’s improved online wish-list service, available through Homedepot.com. Registrants can pick from 9,000 products, which are shipped directly to the recipient. |
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Shopping Centers Today
 | Current Issue March 2010 |