Latest Retailer/IT News January 2007

Ikea Breaks Ground in Florida
Ikea is opening its first Florida store in the summer of 2007. Located in Sunrise, Florida, the 293,000-square-foot store will feature 10,000 exclusively designed items, three model homes, 50 room settings, a supervised children's play area and a 250-seat restaurant. Ikea currently operates more than 240 stores in 34 countries, including 28 in the U.S. Other U.S. stores are scheduled to open in New York, Utah, California, Florida, Oregon, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio.

Staples Promotes ID Security
Staples has enlisted the help of security expert Frank Abagnale to help prevent ID theft. Abagnale participated in a Webcast titled: "Risky Business: ID Theft and Data Protection." Staples also recently became a founding member of a coalition of leading companies, including Visa U.S.A, Microsoft, and AT&T, to combat ID theft and fraud. Abagnale also is featured in this month's issue of RIS News as a Differentiator (see page 12).

Steve Madden Customizes Shoes
Fashion shoe vendor and retailer Steve Madden is launching a feature on its Web site that will allow customers to create their own shoe look. More than 4,200 possible shoe combinations will be available using the Kompo e-Commerce solution. Customers can choose from high heels or flats, patent leather, suede or nubuck and several other color and style choices.

Speeding Payment in Taxis
MasterCard Worldwide and VeriFone Holdings are supplying MasterCard PayPass "Tap & Go" contactless payments in taxicabs. The contactless acceptance terminals are expected to roll out to all taxis licensed by the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA). Verifone extimates that MasterCard PayPass cuts approximately 45 seconds off the transaction time in taxis when compared to cash, and 15 seconds when compared to swiping a traditional payment card.

Industry News
AutoZone implements merchandise planning from SAS. The Marketmax application is expected to be in use in all 3,800 stores by March 2007...L'Occitane selects Coremetrics to provide insight into its customers' e-Commerce business and to convert site visitors to paying customers...Metro chooses Checkpoint Systems to launch a global shrink management and source protection program in Europe, Asia and Africa. The agreement includes a worldwide store installation of New Digital Radio Frequency (NDRF) technology and source tagging...Panera completes rollout of the NCR RealPOS solution in more than 100 locations nationwide. The application includes terminals and peripherals, as well as software from NCR RealPartner XPIENT Solutions...Hannaford Bros. and Dick/s Sporting Goods go live with RetailAction task management from Reflexis. The solution was implemented in 157 Hannaford stores and 268 Dick's Sporting Goods stores...Farmatodo rolls out Oracle retail price management and warehouse management to improve customer service and increase sales and performance across its 121 locations in Venezuela...Piggly Wiggly adds BRdata's Retail BOSS Host software at 67 stores...Charlotte Russe accelerates in-store execution and service with Portfolio POS (PPOS) software...Metro taps Reva Systems to facilitate an RFID test in Germany to help advance the use of RFID for case and pallet identification in Europe...Bass Pro Shops collaborates with PCMS and IBM to install new POS terminals, using IBM's Store Integration Framework and PCMS Vision BeanStore application...J. Jill improves order fulfillment with AL Systems DynaPack, which is expected to increase order accuracy and fulfillment rates...Levenger selects Mercent's hosted software to maximize online sales, profits and merchandising control. The Mercent solution offers targeted, channel-specific product assortments and accurate measurement of particular campaign results.