The bMighty Blog -- Retail

Is Microsoft About to Change How Search Gets Done?

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:43 AM ET | May 22, 2008

Microsoft has offered to pay consumers who use its Livesearch engine to find and buy stuff. For smaller businesses, the important question is this: Is this going to change how search gets done?

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Business & E-Business | Internet/Web | Retail | Sales/Marketing

If The Onion Rips Your Business, You're Toast

Posted by Fredric Paul 06:33 PM ET | May 16, 2008

These days, it seems like the humorists are smarter than the analysts. Beyond The Daily Show's nightly truth-telling, The Onion has a unique ability to continually cut to the heart of the matter. Even, sometimes, when it comes to business issues.

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Business & E-Business | Internet/Web | Retail

XP Service Pack Delay: What Else Is New?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 01:26 PM ET | Apr 30, 2008

Microsoft's on-again/off-again extension of support for XP may or may not be on-again, but the latest delay of the latest long-awaited XP Service Pack delay may strike some of us as the last straw.

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Business & E-Business | Retail | Security | Windows

Grocery Data Breach Offers Important Endpoint Lessons

Posted by Keith Ferrell 08:22 AM ET | Apr 2, 2008

The data breach that struck 300 or so of grocery retailer Hannaford Bros.' stores and snatched over 4 million credit and debit card numbers carries some important lessons in how not to secure your network -- and your customers' private information.

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Business & E-Business | IT | Retail | Security

The $54M Lawsuit -- Or How Not To Treat Your Customers

Posted by Naomi Grossman 12:11 PM ET | Feb 13, 2008

Best Buy lost a customer's laptop, gave the customer the run around, wouldn't fess up, and then, finally made a paltry settlement offer ostensibly in the hope that she would go away. She did -- and then came back with a $54 million lawsuit. That's one way to make them think twice about their customer service.

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Business & E-Business | Retail | Sales/Marketing

Free Identity Theft Webinar Tomorrow

Posted by Keith Ferrell 01:39 PM ET | Jan 29, 2008

This week's release of a new report on Identity Theft (and strategies for avoiding and combating it) will be accompanied by an online Identity Theft Webinar tomorrow, Thursday, January 31, at 2 pm EST.

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E-Business Lessons From The New England Patriots

Posted by Keith Ferrell 09:55 AM ET | Jan 25, 2008

No, not the usual "Every business needs a quarterback callings its plays" sort of football=business yada yada. Plenty of those around already -- but there are also plenty of good e-business lessons the Patriots can teach The team is as ready for varying and intense Web traffic patterns as the players are for opposition shifts and shimmies.

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650,000 More Customer Records Lost: It's The Physical Security, Too, Stupid

Posted by Keith Ferrell 08:04 AM ET | Jan 18, 2008

A data tape containing 650,000 J.C. Penney and other retailers' customer records including Social Security numbers, has been missing since last October, but notification of all affected customers has yet to be completed. Lots of lessons in this one.

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Why The CONSUMER Electronics Show Matters To BUSINESS

Posted by Fredric Paul 08:00 PM ET | Jan 7, 2008

Look past the explosion of noise, lights, hype, 150" TVs, and silly gadgets coming out of Las Vegas's CES this week and you might catch a glimpse of what's next for business technology.

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Credit Card Security: 'Tis The Season To Be Compliant

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:00 PM ET | Dec 6, 2007

When it comes to customers' credit card information, how much should small and midsize businesses be worrying about compliance this holiday season? The same as every other season -- a lot.

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Business Security Lessons From 60 Minutes

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:36 PM ET | Nov 25, 2007

Nice piece on information security on this week's 60 Minutes, with Lesley Stahl being walked through venues from wireless network vulnerabilities to stolen credit card number auctions.

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Shallow Victory for the Federal Government

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 06:44 AM ET | Oct 25, 2007

Whether you realize it or not, John Zuccarini, a notorious scam artist, represents a threat to your online business. His cyberspace businesses illustrate the problems that the government must overcome to make it a safe haven for reputable enterprises.

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Laptop Security: Mind The Gap

Posted by Keith Ferrell 04:52 PM ET | Oct 1, 2007

More big retailer cyber security lessons for small to midsize businesses: This time a security gap hit The Gap.

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No Excuse: Security Lessons From T.J. MAXX Data Breach

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:25 PM ET | Sep 28, 2007

Maybe the company should change its name to T.J. LAX -- lax security practices let the hacked retailer's data breach go from bad to worse to bad beyond belief while nobody did anything to remedy the situation.

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The E-commerce Challenge: Delivering the Goods

Posted by Naomi Grossman 08:00 AM ET | Sep 13, 2007

Anyone who has ever bought anything online sitting in their pajamas in bed will agree with Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at Miami-based Retail Systems Research when she identifies the main reason why people buy online: convenience.

But Rosenblum notes that this very reason means that small and midsize businesses trying to make it online need to "execute" really well if they want to survive in an incredibly competitive marketplace.

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There's Still Room On The Web For Small E-Tailers

Posted by Fredric Paul 08:48 PM ET | Aug 26, 2007

It may seem that the giant online retailers have the search engines all locked up and that there's no way smaller companies can get noticed on the Web.

But a new study suggests that most of the top 100 e-tailers still don't quite get search engine optimization (SEO), and their failings leave room for other players to gain market attention.

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Online Pseudonyms Don't Block Merger

Posted by Fredric Paul 09:27 PM ET | Aug 23, 2007

It seems that pretending to be someone else online to bash the competition isn't that big a deal after all.

When it came out last month that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey used a pseudonym to post disparaging comments on financial forums about Wild Oats Markets -- even as he was trying to acquire the company -– some folks in the blogosphere got pretty steamed.

But it turns out that kind of thing doesn't even ruffle the robes of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

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Business & E-Business | HR | Retail

MAXXED-Out

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:29 AM ET | Aug 15, 2007

There are important small to mid-size business lessons in the big biz security breach at TJ MAXX. Chief among them: no matter how costly a security breach looks at first, it's going to get worse.

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Business & E-Business | Finance/Accounting | Operations | Retail | Security

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