Costco Goes To The Movies | Westfield Malls Sold For $16B | Retailers Face Delivery Deadline Blues

Returns without receipts, store credits and gift cards are nice customer services, but they can be all too easy to abuse. Many individuals who suffer from addiction are stealing items, returning them for gift cards and then reselling those gift cards to support their drug habits. As retailers and law enforcement wise up to the issue, they are introducing stricter standards and policies to curb this trend. But with retailers losing between $9 billion and $15 billion a year in return fraud, they recognize that more needs to be done. Read More...

For retailers, increasing conversions in the Amazon age doesn’t just mean making it easy to check out — it also means adapting prices in real time across multiple virtual storefronts in response to supply and demand. In the latest Payments Powering Platforms™ Tracker, a WePay collaboration, Ed Sturrock, CEO of eCommerce platform AmeriCommerce, tells PYMNTS how some of the biggest retailers are using real-time pricing to increase sales — and in real time, too. Find that, the latest payments platform trends and rankings of 87 industry players, all inside the Tracker. Read More...

Mastercard senior vice president of consumer insights and “Duchess of Doom” Sarah Quinlan is unusually upbeat about the 2017 holiday season. All shopping channels have shown stronger-than-expected performances, and consumers have rediscovered their lost love of buying stuff at the store. But, Quinlan notes, the smart money is still keeping an eye on the experiential shoppers — as they still tend to drive the holiday season’s biggest trends. Read More...