Target - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Facebook launches reusable gift cards

  Facebook launched a new service today that allows users to give other members gift cards to stores and restaurants.

• Facebook lets users hit the stores with its new 'Card'

  Facebook users can now say "charge it," with a new physical gift card the social network is rolling out Thursday that people can use to make purchases in retail stores.

• MacroSolve adds Sears to companies sued for patent infringement

  MacroSolve, an Oklahoma company focused on enforcing its patents, has added Sears to a growing list of companies it has targeted with patent infringement lawsuits, it said Wednesday.

• Q&A: Black Friday watcher: Amazon's the one to beat; tablets will be hot sellers

  Black Friday deals for computers, tablets and other tech offerings started "leaking" out as early as October and now a week before the big post-Thanksgiving shopping day, most retailers' plans are known.

• Three easy ways to get better at the hard stuff

  The old adage that "the soft stuff is the hard stuff" certainly applies to CIOs. Consider the many new ways we work together today as companies adopt global shared services, enterprisewide architectures and systems, and entirely new business models that arrive in mergers and acquisitions or outsourcing arrangements. All this requires finely honed skills in transformation and transition.

• IBM buys e-commerce analytics vendor Demandtec for $440 million

  IBM is buying analytics vendor DemandTec for US$440 million in a bid to build out its line of e-commerce software, the companies announced Thursday. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

• Target's website woes getting fixed, CEO says

  Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel sought to assure analysts and investors that the retailer's epic website troubles are being addressed.

• Target.com's second site crash could become e-comm nightmare

  For the second time in six weeks, Target's Web site crashed Tuesday, and that is scary news for any major retailer heading into the holiday shopping season.

• Coles, Bunnings sales grow in Q1: Wesfarmers

  Sales from Wesfarmers' (ASX:WES) Coles and Bunnings divisions both grew over 8% in Q1, but the Target, Kmart and Officeworks chains did not fare as well

• Epsilon breach: When should almost public info be private?

  A press feeding frenzy followed the somewhat vague April Fools Day announcement by Epsilon Data Management that someone had hacked into its systems and stolen a bunch of email addresses. The addresses were of people who had "opted in" for email marketing by a bunch of major vendors such as Target and Red Roof Inns, and many of the vendors sent announcements of the breach to their customers (I got such an announcement from a vendor I had purchased a present from for my wife. The announcement did not say all that much, essentially it told me to "be careful".).

• How’s Business? More Retailers Say Wait Until the Quarter

  Among analysts and investors, debate has been growing about a retailer-reporting trend to stop publicizing monthly sales, and instead to offer results only quarterly. It's a trend some retailing experts see as robbing them of an important barometer in determining a business' fiscal well-being.

• Starbucks extends mobile payments to 7,500 stores

  Starbucks Wednesday began allowing iPhone, iPod Touch and BlackBerry mobile payments for its coffee at thousands of its stores.

• Best and worst iPhone retailer apps

  With the shopping season just around the corner, it's a good bet you'll buy at least a few gifts via your iPhone. But if you download retailer apps, be prepared for varied experiences in response time, availability and consistency, according to Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware.