WSJ: GOOGLE WILL ADD BUY BUTTONS TO SEARCH RESULTS ON MOBILE

Original Story: engadget.com

Google's getting ready to face Amazon and eBay, according to The Wall Street Journal, and will be adding buy buttons directly to its search results. You'll see those buttons accompanying sponsored results under a "Shop on Google" heading -- they won't be used for non-sponsored links returned by the algorithm -- when you search for products on mobile devices. Upon clicking one, a separate product page will load where you can pick sizes, colors and ultimately complete your purchase. Any product you buy will still come straight from retailers, the WSJ says, so it doesn't sound like Google's stocking up warehouses with goods like Amazon does.

However, some major retailers are apparently worried that they'll get stuck with back-end order fulfillment with no real customer interaction. Since Google wants to remain in good terms with them (they are some of its largest advertisers, after all), it will give shoppers the choice to subscribe to their marketing programs. That typically means mailing lists and the like, so the company's giving them access to customers' info, most likely names and addresses.

In addition, Google promised them that the product landing pages will be heavily branded with their names and will link to more of their products. The company also won't take a cut from their sales and will only get paid for every person that clicks their links. Mountain View will reportedly offer several payment options, "including digital payment methods from other providers," but it (thankfully) won't be giving retailers access to payment details. If you input credit card info to make a purchase, the website will save it for future transactions, but it will remain with the company.

As for why the feature will only be available on mobile, well, Google has a plethora of reasons. The biggest one is most likely the fact that more people now perform searches on their phones than on computers. Search engine optimization allows businesses to maintain premium keyword positions in organic search results, so products are easily found by consumers. According to the WSJ, you might spot a buy button or two as soon as the coming weeks. We don't have a list of official partners yet, since Google hasn't officially announced anything, but Macy's might be one of the first retailers available.

Port strike may hit holiday sales

originally appeared in USA Today:

A strike has crippled two California shipping ports and if it continues, could leave some retailers with sparse shelves toward the end of the holiday shopping season.

About 450 clerical workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union went on strike a week ago at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. But the work stoppage quickly became more serious as an additional 10,000 port workers refused to cross the striking workers' picket lines.

Despite agreeing to federal mediation Tuesday, the Local 63 Office Clerical Unit says it plans to continue its strike. It has accused the ports' managing group, the Harbor Employers Association, of outsourcing jobs.

The strike has essentially shut down 10 of 14 terminals at the two ports, backing up cargo and delaying shipments.

The majority of our members have been impacted, cargo that's already arrived is just sitting at the port. Right now there isn't a whole lot they can do, according to the vice president of supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation.

The NRF, which has more than 9,000 members, is still working to assess the economic impact. The NRF notes in one of its letters to President Obama calling for an intervention that a 10-day West Coast ports lockout in 2002 cost the economy an estimated $1 billion a day.

According to the Port of Long Beach, the closed terminals have led to more than $3 billion worth of goods sitting on the docks of both affected ports, causing backups and delaying trucks and trains.

The executive director for the Port of Long Beach indicates all of the people in the supply chain, or most of them, have stopped working because of this, (they) have approximately 15 ocean vessels outside at anchor that are waiting for a resolution to this labor problem.

While most retailers already have the majority of their shipments for the holiday season, the work stoppage could affect merchandise coming in just before Christmas.

This time now is when retailers do the big last push to get products to store shelves according to the executive director, so some of that product is currently being delayed.

Retailers faced a similar situation in September, when threats of a strike by the International Longshoremen's Association along the East Coast had some acting on contingency plans and rerouting shipments to the West Coast to avoid backups during the holiday season.

Those workers returned to the docks but are still in negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance.

A Harbor Employers Association spokesman denies accusations that the organization is outsourcing jobs. The staffing issue is over whether to fill all jobs that become vacant with full-time workers.

The spokesman indicated that they say (when) three people have retired; we want their jobs replaced, he says. We want to make sure the people who occupy those chairs have work to do, as opposed to just occupying chairs. The bottom line is the cargo volumes are not what they used to be.

U.S. Retailers Likely to Close More Stores

Bloomberg

Retailers are likely to close more U.S. stores to cut costs in the months ahead after expanding during the recession, an analysis shows.

Click here for a Bloomberg Multimedia interactive visual analysis of retail store numbers.

Retailers Ramp Up Holiday Advertising

Wall Street Journal

Wal-Mart ramped up its holiday push with its "Christmas Wish" 

commercial, above, during the World Series.

Consumers will face an onslaught of elves and jolly snowmen in the coming weeks, as companies such as Target, Wal-Mart StoresKmart and Gap boost their holiday advertising spending beyond last year's levels.

Kmart began its holiday ad blitz 30 to 40 days in advance of when it started in 2008 and says it has increased what it will spend this holiday season, aiming to sway shoppers with the slogan "There's Smart and There's Kmart Smart."

"We are cautiously optimistic," says Mark Snyder, Kmart's chief marketing officer. "Last year the recession hit [the shopper] right between the eyes and she found herself scrambling. This is the year she said, 'I will do things differently,' so she is looking for deals early."

For the first two weeks of October, retailers reached 35% more viewers—their "ad weight" in industry parlance—on national cable and network television than they did in the same period a year ago, according to TNS Media Intelligence, an ad-tracking service owned by WPP.

"We are seeing increases across a large number of retail advertisers," says Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS. "Clearly they are trying to jump-start" their sales efforts.

Kmart, Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney have more their doubled their ad weight during the first two weeks of October from a year earlier, TNS says, while Home Depot and Lowe's are each up by almost 50%. J.C. Penney, Lowe's and Home Depot declined to comment on their ad spending.

Gap, which operates Old Navy and Banana Republic in addition to its namesake stores, says it will increase its marketing spending by $25 million in the third quarter and by $45 million in the fourth quarter. The namesake Gap brand is also returning to TV commercials, which it hadn't bought for two years.

The increased ad spending by retailers is a reversal. Even before last fall's economic turmoil struck, retailers had been cutting ad budgets. U.S. ad expenditures by retailers fell about 6% in 2008 to $17.2 billion, according to TNS.

But retailers are grabbing for slices of a pie that has shrunk. Holiday-season consumer spending this year is forecast to remain flat, according to both consulting firm Deloitte and research firm Retail Forward, although it's an improvement over the sales plunge in 2008. Deloitte expects holiday sales this year of $810 billion. In 2008, the research company says sales fell 2.4%, the first time sales have fallen since 1967.

Target declined to be specific about its spending plans. It said there is always a seasonal peak in its advertising and marketing during the holidays but that this year it will "exaggerate that trend."

Wal-Mart Stores, one of the few retailers that continued to increase marketing during the downturn, is also spending "significantly" more this holiday on advertising, according to a person familiar with the matter. Wal-Mart declined to comment.

The world's largest retailer by revenue put its holiday push into full gear during last week's broadcast of the World Series by airing a spot called "Christmas Wish." The commercial, crafted by Interpublic Group's Martin agency, featured U.S. servicemen in the desert, stunned as it begins to snow. The scene switches to a little boy visiting a department store Santa to ask him for a present for his dad.

Even companies that are keeping ad spending flat with last year say the consumer will see an uptick in ads nonetheless, because prices for ad time and space across all media have fallen significantly this year, giving them more bang for the buck. Wal-Mart has previously said that it has been benefiting from media price deflation.

Best Buy's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, says, "there are many low-cost advertising alternatives." Best Buy, whose ads begin Dec. 12, will use its blue-shirted store employees as Christmas carolers in TV ads. featuring such items as electronic chess games. But the electronics retailer's "Twelpforce"—a Twitter-based tech-support service—will also make use of 'tweets" and Facebook for marketing.

While each company will have a different marketing approach, they all have one thing in common: touting value. Consumers have gotten used to the deep discounts stores resorted to during the recession.

"Frugal is the new cool," says Bob Thacker, the senior vice president for advertising and marketing at OfficeMax. "Consumers may see as many Ebenezer Scrooges in ads this year as they see Santa Clauses."

OfficeMax's holiday push begins Tuesday with a plug for "Dazzling Deals" and includes the company's popular holiday gimmick "Elf Yourself," an online stunt that allows consumers to turn themselves or someone else into an animated elf that can then be sent to friends.

Sears is hawking "More Value, More Christmas" in its ads. One commercial, which begins airing this week, features Santa and his reindeer shopping in Sears and using the Sears Research Center to find the best prices on big-screen TVs.

Pushing value is "critical" this year, says Don Hamblen, Sears's chief marketing officer. "Consumers are doing their homework, now more than ever."

Retail Superstars

Book Review
From Business Week

In Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America, retail consultant George Whalin profiles successful independent retailers

Great location, fantastic selection, competitive prices. These are the oft-cited qualities that help one retailer prosper while another fails. But there are other, often larger forces that not only keep a store in business, but ensure that its customers return on a regular basis. In his new book, Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America, author George Whalin profiles 25 successful retailers and discusses why they've withstood the test of time, some for over a century.

To be considered for the book, stores had to be profitable, have been in business for at least 25 years, and distinguish themselves in some way from their competitors. Whalin, a retail consultant, has visited hundreds of retailers across the nation for the past 20 years. He found that the best stores often employ similar practices.

Customer Engagement

To start, the stores engage their customers. By walking the aisles and talking to shoppers, the management team gets a sense of what the customer wants. This gives it an edge when ordering inventory, and making the store a place where shoppers want to return.

Whalin points to Gallery Furniture in Houston, Tex. as an "extreme example." The furniture store displays only merchandise that is stocked in its warehouse. So when you buy something, it's delivered to you the same day. And although the selection is limited, the guarantee of timely service creates a loyal customer.

Operating an independent retail store during a recession is tough, regardless of its customer engagement and loyalty formulas. One of Whalin's superstars, golf supplier In Celebration of Golf in Scottsdale, Ariz., recently closed its doors to focus exclusively on its golf course management business.

When Recession Hits

Some of the same things that make indies competitive in good times can turn against them when things are bad, according to Whalin and other industry experts. The level of in-store service that customers expect from a local independent compared with chains is expensive to provide, especially with niche stores that demand a high level of expertise among its staff. Those retailers need to sell at a premium price to subsidize that service.

During a recession, penny-pinching customers may eschew that premium for cheaper goods, says Bryan Eshelman, managing director of Alix Partners, a business advisory firm based in Detroit, Mich. He recommends that independent stores look beyond their customer service to keep shoppers in the store. "In normal times, it makes a lot of sense that if you know the product well, you'll maintain business," he says. "But it's a risky proposition to assume that will always work." He suggests cutting costs that customers don't see—such as by reducing hours of operation and payroll.

Whalin highlights Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Mich., as a retailer that's avoided a plunge in sales despite the recession. He says the company, which sells only Christmas merchandise, attracts nearly two million customers yearly—and not just during the holiday season. Whalin attributes the turn-out to the flamboyant displays throughout the store. The rationale behind the decor is that even if shoppers aren't ready to do their Christmas shopping, they still have a reason to go to the store. Bronner's also sells window dressings to other companies throughout the year to keep cash coming in.

Whalin says the key to Bronner's success lies in its willingness to stay true to its core offering. He points to Toys 'R' Us, which recently introduced a food and household items section in some of its stores, as an example of a company that is losing touch with its main draw. "If it's appropriate to branch out, it can be a great thing," he says. "But companies that do things completely different than their main business endanger themselves."

Flip through this slide show for profiles of Whalin's indie superstars.

Retailers Have Blue Christmas

As posted by: Wall Street Journal

For Britain's retailers, it looks like Christmas is a bust.

There were 8.7% fewer shoppers on the final weekend before Christmas than last year, according to Experian, a credit-tracking company. While the figure doesn't include people who shopped online, it suggests the last-minute shopping surge retailers wished for didn't happen.

Shoppers crowd a Woolworths in Scotland earlier this month, but it isn't enough: Jan. 5 will see the closing of the chain's last outlet.

Analysts are concerned retailers are backed up with unsold goods, which has prompted them to slash prices. That will likely lead to disappointing financial results in January and February, a fear that sent retailers' share prices falling Monday. Most U.K. retailers are offering discounts of 20% to 50%.

Shares in Marks & Spencer, one of Britain's most prominent department-store chains, fell 2.2% Monday to 220.75 pence ($3.29) Debenhams, which sells clothes and electrical appliances, fell 7.6% to 24.50 pence. Home Retail Group, which owns Argos stores, fell 13% to 204 pence. Home Retail was the biggest decliner in the benchmark FTSE 100 index, which fell 0.9% Monday.

Two big U.K. retailers already have declared bankruptcy this year. MFI, a furniture chain, stopped trading Friday. The last of Woolworths's 807 stores will close for good Jan. 5, accountants Deloitte said Monday.

An additional 10 to 15 retail chains likely will collapse in the U.K. in January, said Nick Hood, a partner at restructuring firm Begbies Traynor. The most at-risk businesses include those that sell nonessential items such as televisions and office equipment, Mr. Hood said.

One company looking vulnerable is DSG International, one of Britain's largest sellers of electrical goods and computers. Struggling with competition from the Internet, DSG recently stopped paying dividends to preserve cash. Its shares have fallen 91% over the past year to 16.75 pence. Some analysts say DSG might have to sell part of its operations in Western Europe to raise cash. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment.

But one department-store chain is using the economic gloom to make shoppers smile. "No more 'same dress' disasters," says a newspaper ad for Harvey Nichols, a chain of seven stores selling expensive clothing, cosmetics and home wares. "The recession has never looked so good."