Amazon Lockers Coming to Staples

According to Reuters, Staples Inc, the largest U.S. office supply retailer, will be installing "Amazon Lockers" in its U.S. stores, a Staples spokeswoman said Monday.

The Amazon lockers will allow online shoppers to have packages sent to the office supply chain's stores. Amazon already has such storage units at grocery, convenience and drug stores, many of which stay open around the clock.

Amazon notifies customers of the delivery drop-off via email with a pickup code, which is entered on a touchscreen on the locker to retrieve the package. Shoppers have three days from delivery date to pick up the package.

Amazon pays "a small fee" (not disclosed) to the owners of the stores that house its lockers.

We have covered Amazon lockers before: 

Amazon UK and the Olympics

Amazon's Same-Day Delivery Strategy

Pitney Bowes As Int'l Shipper

Pitney Bowes is expanding its business services way beyond postage and postage meters to offer international shipping for online retailers selling to international customers.

According to Pitney Bowes vice president of global e-commerce, Craig Reed, “A lot of merchants are seeing growth in domestic e-commerce, but for many of them getting to the next big level of growth means they need to look at international markets, We ... want to be ... a household name in global e-commerce.”

Pitney Bowes’s shipping services provides a Website shipping calculator to let eTailers show international customers the full “landed” costs of items they are considering via a Web Services interface to PB’s databases of international tariffs and other information.  Combined with SKU data on each product in a retailer’s online product catalog, PB calculates the full delivery cost to a customer’s destination using technology acquired from the ClearPath technology unit of Canada Post Borderfree. (According to Internet Retailer, Canada Post sold the remaining assets of Borderfree, which provides international shipping services from Canada, in March to FiftyOne Global Ecommerce, a competitor to Pitney Bowes.)

Pitney guarantees the final delivery rate presented to consumers.

To process an order from a foreign customer, the merchant ships the carton to one of two Pitney Bowes shipping facilities near international airports in Cincinnati and Newark, NJ. PB then  aggregates all shipments and reloads them on international carriers: to Canada generally via tractor trailers, to other countries via commercial or cargo airlines. Finally, PB arranges for local deliveries in the destination country.

Pitney Bowes began this type of operation in 2004 to provide eBay e-marketplace sellers an international postage printing service. According to Internet Retailer, Pitney plans to build a stronger presence in serving eCommerce companies shipping between Europe and Asia-Pacific.

It would appear that Pitney Bowes harbors ambitions of becoming a competitor with the likes of DHL as an international express carrier. DHL has a very well done interactive International Capabilities world map. It's worth a look. Give it a whirl!

National Sales & Use Tax Could Be a Mess

Multichannel Merchant magazine published a good overview of the "mess" that “The Main Street Fairness Act”or other nationwide sales and use tax would create because so much of what any of the several Federal bills under consideration would impose is at odds with state-level sales and use tax methods and procedures. Much food for thought in this very good short piece.

Senate Investigating Data Brokers

The New York Times reports that Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., has launched an investigation into the businesses practices of data brokers, with the Senate Commerce Committee (which he chairs) sending notices (presumably requesting testimony) to nine of the major brokerage firms in the database marketing business: Acxiom, Experian, Equifax, Transunion, Epsilon, Reed Elsevier (Lexis-Nexis), Datalogix, Rapleaf and Spokeo.

The investigation will examine the practices of these brokerage firms and the impact they have on consumers. “Because consumers are now able to conduct nearly all of their daily business online, an unprecedented amount of personal, medical, and financial information about them can be mined, collected, and sold,” Rockefeller states in the letter to the brokers. “Because your industry has monetized consumer data, it is critical that we understand what information companies like yours are already collecting and selling.”

The Times reports that "Linda A. Woolley, the acting chief executive of the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group, called the senator’s investigation 'a baseless fishing expedition... I hope Senator Rockefeller understands what he’s tampering with.'"

I don't think that in and of itself the investigation is problematic. A little daylight here would be beneficial, in my opinion.

Traidcraft Goes Mobile With Maginus

Traidcraft, the UK’s leading fair trade company, has gone mobile to offer their customers on the move a better online experience. Traidcraft has identified mobile commerce as one of the most effective ways to take advantage of this year’s Christmas rush and encourage customers to return again when they are looking for a special gift in the future. The new mCommerce site has been designed, built and implemented by Maginus.

 Mobile User InterfaceTraidcraft commissioned Maginus for the project because they have many years’ experience within the broader multi-channel market and within eCommerce specifically. Maginus also provide Traidcraft’s current systems including the eCommerce site which is built on the Maginus eCommerce solution. Traidcraft had identified that they needed to streamline the customer journey via mobile and therefore needed a true mCommerce solution.

Paul Oliver, Head of Supporter Development at Traidcraft said, "Our mCommerce strategy was the natural next step for our multi-channel offering with which we would like to engage with existing customers through their smartphone and we are also looking to increase our customer acquisition via the new mCommerce site."

He continued, "The Maginus consultants were very helpful and knowledgeable allowing us to quickly clarify what we wanted from the new site. It was also important to us that the new mCommerce site was easy to manage and didn’t add to our overheads. The new site is in effect an extension of our eCommerce site, sharing the same product and pricing information so we only ever have to update data in one place."


Mobile Product Listing
One of the key aspects to the mCommerce site is that it shares the shopping basket with the current online shop, allowing customers to shop on the move, log out, and then complete the transaction from their computer at home.

Mark Thornton, eCommerce director at Maginus commented, “The mobile solution will support Traidcraft’s Digital Marketing strategy whilst also servicing the customer that prefers to browse on their phone or ipad.

"Our relationship with Traidcraft has been very successful over the years and once again we have been able to deliver this project within a very tight timescale of just 6 weeks and within budget, providing them with an excellent means of tapping into the Christmas shopping rush which will soon start."

This product will also tap into the multi-channel back office system also provided by Maginus to ensure that customer records & reporting are consistent across channels.

Traidcraft will soon be launching a campaign that will promote the service to their current supporters as well as a group of potential shoppers that could be converted into regular supporters.

Traidcraft, the UK’s leading fair trade company, has gone mobile to offer their customers on the move a better online experience. Traidcraft has identified mobile commerce as one of the most effective ways to take advantage of this year’s Christmas rush and encourage customers to return again when they are looking for a special gift in the future.

The new mCommerce site has been designed, built and implemented by Maginus. Traidcraft commissioned Maginus for the project because they have many years’ experience within the broader multi-channel market and within eCommerce specifically. Maginus also provide Traidcraft’s current systems including the eCommerce site.

RollerWarehouse Migrates to GoECart

The following is courtesy of GoECart:

The Challenge
RollerWarehouse launched its first online store in 2000 and has since used a myriad of systems, from smaller “shopping carts” to large systems that required pricey in-house infrastructure and IT staff to manage.

Most recently, the company used three systems to run its multi-channel retail operation: ASPDotNetStorefront, a traditional Order Management System, and FedEx Ship Manager Software. Each of these systems required separate licensing, were difficult to use, poorly integrated and required routine upgrades and maintenance. What RollerWarehouse needed was a single integrated solution that would keep up with rising customer expectations and support customer service excellence across all channels—without breaking the bank.

The Solution
GoECart 360 Ecommerce Suite, which provided:

• a more user-friendly “Custom Skate Builder” product configurator 
• a superior online shopping experience integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and a blog 
• real-time inventory visibility from purchasing to the customer-facing storefront
• ease-of-use, with in-house IT infrastructure 
• strong security features
• PCI compliance 
• improved team productivity and back office efficiency

The Results
eCommerce conversion rates are up 21% and Average Order Value is up 8% in Sept. 2012 from the year before. That speaks for itself!

Managing Nationwide Sales Taxes

In an article entitled "Online Sales Tax Will Create Ecommerce Chaos" in Multichannel Merchant (Oct. 8 online), Steve DelBianco, Executive Director of NetChoice, warns that pending federal legislation that would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales tax on all sales nationwide is "a nightmare coming your way."

We've written about this before, and cited  the 1992 Supreme Court decision, Quill Corp. vs. North Dakota, which said states are not allowed to require out-of-state companies to collect sales taxes unless that company has a physical presence, such as a store or warehouse, in the state.

All this is well known in the industry, and the pending legislation is meant to supercede this case.

To simplify sales tax collection, DelBianco urges:

1. a single tax rate per state for remote sales
2. a single set of definitions for state tax liabilities
3. a common sales tax return for all state
4. software for rates, filing, and payment
5. and compensation for tax collection.

The first three are excellent suggestions. The fourth has been available for more than 20 years, with new players coming along all the time. And Number 5 is baffling to me: compensation for the cost of doing business? What am I missing here? Where is the logic in that?

Anyway, for systems to manage sales and use tax collection in the direct commerce environment, see:

Vertex: the Big Fish in this pond, pricey but full-featured

Avalara: whose Avatax system suite has been gaining a lot of ground in the last few years
CCH: whose CorpSystem Sales Tax solution is a SaaS-based application
GovOneSoultions: Taxware

All provide filing services for every jurisdiction in the U.S., with full support for tax rates at the municipal, county, and state levels (or local equivalents), tax holidays, and so on.