Last week's blog about Amazon hijacking customers not only struck a chord with readers, but it amazingly dovetailed with news from JCPenney and Target that hit the headlines on the same day. JCPenney launched a bold multi-prong pricing strategy simultaneously with Target launching an initiative to combat "showrooming," a trend where shoppers visit stores to look at products and use digital tools to purchase them from online retailers. Here's how it all ties together. 

By the end of 2012 Amazon revenue will top $60 billion and it won’t stop there. In 2015, according to Morgan Stanley, it will top the $100 billion mark. Retailers know a great deal of Amazon’s revenue is coming from customers who visit their websites or stores before completing the purchase from Amazon. So, essentially, Amazon is hijacking your customers. Here’s what you can do to fight back.

Whenever you gather the smartest and most successful retail executives in one location you  pick up some nuggets of useful information that are so cool you can’t get them out of your head. I did a lot of listening to some brilliant people for four days and gathered the best of what I heard. Here are the good, the great and funniest statements I heard at NRF.

ARTS (Association for Retail Technology Standards) sets a high standard for white papers. Last year it released the comprehensive Mobile Retailing Blueprint. Today, it is releasing the Social Retailing Blueprint. I received an early copy of the 144-page report and pulled out 10 social retailing tactics to help retailers optimize their go-to-market strategies in the emerging field of social retailing.

The recent naming of the top and bottom 10 retail companies to work for has been a phenomenon among RIS readers and Web visitors, setting records for click-throughs and generating incredible readership interest. But does judging a company by how it treats employees, customers and the planet really mean it is a good or bad company? Or is this squishy logic? I think it most definitely matters, and here’s why.