Retail IT News For VARs 2-16-15: NRF Predicts Increase In Sales
By Phillip Britt, contributing writer
In the news, the National Retail Federation (NRF)’s retail forecast for 2015 anticipates sale increasing by 4.1 percent over last year. A webinar schedule for Feb. 19 will explain the transmission of secure data in an EMV-enabled payment system, and an article warns of some of the pitfalls to avoid when implementing and EMV system. In other news, Apple filed a patent at the beginning of the month related to “techniques for monitoring device locations within buildings.”
NRF’s Predicts 4.1 Percent increase in Sales
The National Retail Federation has released its retail forecast for 2015 predicting that retail industry sales, not including restaurants, gas stations and automobile sales, would increase by 4.1 percent over last year. This increase is the largest yearly growth since 2011 when retail sales increased by 5.1 percent. Additionally, the NRF sees a growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to fall somewhere between 2.7 and 3.1 percent beyond last year, labor market growth to average 220,000 to 230,000 new jobs per month, and unemployment to fall to 5 percent by the end of the year.
Webinar Takes “Deeper Dive Into EMV”
Conexxus offers a free webinar “A Deeper Dive Into EMV” on Feb. 19 from noon to 1:20 p.m. EST. It will answer the questions “What goes on between the chip card and the payment terminal?” and “What is a cryptogram and how does it secure the transaction?” NACSonline reports it is the third in a series, following “The 411 of EMV” and “Security in Mobile Payments.”
Security Of EMV Transactions Depend On Proper Implementation
Banking Exchange cites Gartner analyst Avivah Litan, who points out pitfalls to avoid with EMV implementation. He predicts by the end of 2015, at least 5 percent of card issuers will experience fraud on EMV cards because of “improper implementation.” For example, merchants who use their own tokenization system and also accept EMV token payments will find they have multiple tokens for one card.
Apple Files Patent For Techniques To Monitor Device Locations Inside Buildings
Patently Apple reports a new Apple iBeacon indoor mapping patent filed at the beginning of the month. The article states, “Apple’s patent generally relates to techniques for monitoring device locations within buildings and enhancing user services with indoor traffic information. Finding your friends or kids in a mall, or a colleague at a crowed trade-show could be a new service that we could look forward to on our iDevices in the future.” The article provides background and details of the technology.
Retail, Grocery, And Hospitality IT Talking Points
Royal Caribbean’s CIO Bill Martin told Skift that his firm is planning to revamp and re-up the Wi-Fi offerings onboard their cruises. Martin said that the Wi-Fi has to be capable of streaming movies, updating Facebook statuses and everything in between for several hundred guests far away from land. Royal Caribbean also hopes to offer Wi-Fi at their ports of call, something Carnival is looking at as well.
According to TechCrunch, a new app called “HotelsByDay” has launched so customers can book hotel rooms during the day for less than the overnight rate. This option is ideal for those who need somewhere to work for a few hours, want to get ready for a meeting or a later flight or for millennial travel that does not require an overnight stay and is geared toward same-day booking. So far the app has paired with around 40 hotels located primarily in New York and Chicago while 60 more are partnered to join in the near future. New cities will be added as well such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston and Miami by March.
AppleInsider reports Apple’s next generation iPhone will include an upgraded Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The upgrade should reduce the number of reading errors.
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