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Shopping Centers Today -> November 2001
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IS MYWEBGROCER BEHIND YOUR WEB GROCER?
While some grocery stores have struggled to establish successful
Web sites, with mixed success, several are letting others do the
grunt work for them. MyWebGrocer has constructed Web sites for several
chains, including Lowes Foods, D’Agostino Supermarkets, SuperValu,
Farm Fresh Markets and many others. Visitors to those sites would
never know it, but MyWebGrocer builds the site and, in some cases,
handles the transaction, taking a cut of each sale in return. Stores
do not have to invest in additional staff or storage rooms, but
simply check their computers a few times a day and have existing
employees fulfill the orders for customer pickup, Mark Spindler,
president of MyWebGrocer, told SCT. “They’re not
spending a great deal of their own money to build an infrastructure
and a new channel,” he said. “They can turn a profit in
a great hurry; I don’t think we have a grocer that doesn’t
make a profit on their first order.”
AMAZON.COM SNAGS ANOTHER RETAILER
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CREDIT CARD CHECKS OFTEN BOUNCE
Retailers who believe a telephone call to, and a green light from,
an authorization center — the outfits retailers call to verify
credit card numbers — protects them from fraud are risking
a rude surprise: They are not protected at all. That is the message
Tom Mahoney wants to get out to retailers through his Web site (www.merchant911.org),
after his wife’s herb supply site was scammed. Authorization
centers do not guarantee a card is valid, even if they approve a
transaction. Furthermore, they charge retailers a $40 “charge-back”
fee when a card is a dud, he said. “It’s profitable for
them [authorization centers] not to do their job,” Mahoney
told SCT.
BRICKS BUILD BETTER CLICKS
Mass retailers with strong offline operations are more effective
at driving shoppers online than pure plays, with Wal-Mart leading
the pack, according to a Nielsen/NetRatings survey. Wal-Mart.com
attracted more than 2 million separate visitors in a monthlong survey,
a 133% increase over the same period last year. J.C. Penney followed
closely, with 2 million visitors, while Kmart’s Bluelight.com
had 1.7 million visitors. Target.com had the highest growth with
1.6 million visitors, a 142% jump over last year. “Strong brand
recognition and a large established customer base has proven to
be a winning formula,” said Sean Kaldor, vice president of
analytical services at NetRatings, in a press release.
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IT’S A MALL WORLD AFTER ALL
Lastminute.com, the British Web site for anything from airline to
restaurant reservations, is finding it lonely in cyberspace and
is throwing in its lot with brick-and-mortar retailers: It is installing
kiosks in an Oxford Street department store, Heathrow Airport and
possibly malls. “Kiosks in shopping malls could be big,”
Allan Leighton, the company’s chairman, told British newspapers.
Other online entities also are seeking physical venues: E-Trade,
an online broker, has opened a 35,000-square-foot center on Manhattan’s
Madison Avenue, offering customers access to their accounts, seminars
and staff assistance, and plans more in Chicago, San Francisco,
Denver and Boston. This is in addition to the 21 E-Trade Zones it
is opening in SuperTarget stores around the country. “We are
aware that a lot of customers would like something physical, something
immediate,” Deborah Newman, an E-Trade spokeswoman, told SCT.
E-TAILERS HELPED, TOO
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