Target online price match unlikely to curb 'showrooming'

Target said today that it would match online pricing in all of its stores year-round -- a move deployed by many retailers this holiday season -- in a bid to stop Amazon's "showrooming" effect.

In a statement, Target said it will match pricing from Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com and Toysrus.com (including Babiesrus.com). In a nutshell, Target will match prices on items found cheaper elsewhere within seven days.

The move is likely to be followed by Best Buy and other retailers that deployed the price matching stunt over the holidays. However, it's unclear whether price matching really matters all that much.

Why? Target's sales for the holiday season weren't that great. For December, Target's same-store sales were flat. In fact, Target's same-store sales for December were disappointing -- relative to Wall Street estimates -- for the third consecutive year.

Jefferies analyst Daniel Binder said:

Target has disappointed three holiday seasons in a row, as it works to strike the appropriate balance between price and promotions in a world that is increasingly competitive and shifting toward e-commerce. We are concerned that Target is losing mind share with the consumer during important periods like holiday.

Meanwhile, Best Buy, another price-matching poster child, is likely to report sluggish holiday sales on Friday. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said in a research note:

While Best Buy matched online pricing through the holidays and ran multiple holiday promotions to drive traffic into stores, we saw only marginal improvement in conversion rates, and we expect holiday comps to be underwhelming at best.

What's going on? For starters, the lowest price may not be everything. But the biggest issue is that these price-matching deals require the buyer to do the homework to get a good deal. The onus is on you. From a branding perspective, we're generally conditioned to think Amazon is cheaper -- even if the company is collecting taxes in many states. Retail online price matching requires me to do extra work -- and probably visit a store twice.

For online price matching to really work information systems would be lined up across multiple sales channels and adjust pricing on the fly. It's telling that Target's physical store price matching also includes Target.com.

And then there's the Target fine print. According to Target's policy:

If you buy a qualifying item at a Target store then find the identical item for less in the following week's Target weekly ad or within seven days at Target.com, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com, ToysRUs.com, BabiesRUs.com or in a competitor's local printed ad, we'll match the price. Price match may be requested at Guest Services prior to your purchase with proof of current lower price or by bringing in your original Target store receipt and proof of the current lower price.

• The item must be the identical item, brand name, size, weight, color, quantity and model number.


• Limit of one competitor online price match per identical item, per guest.


• Price must be valid at the time the price match is requested.


• Retail price must be shown on the website or print ad. Online prices will be validated by a Target team member.


• Competitor online items must be in stock at the time a price match is requested.


• Competitor catalogs can be matched as long as the catalog displays a current date, retail price and meets all other competitor ad match qualifications.


• If item is not available in a Target store, a rain check will not be issued to match the online price or competitor's print ad.


• We reserve the right to verify a competitor's advertised price and the availability of the item.

Those policies are just too damn complicated and most folks won't bother. That reality is one reason retailers can go year-round with price matching because the move is mostly just good PR.

Simply put, showrooming will continue until you trust physical retailers will automatically match online prices without any work on your end. Getting a retail online price match today is another form of haggling to me. The systems need to make the price-matching process invisible.

Until online price matching becomes drop-dead simple, it's likely that shoppers will browse a physical store and continue to buy online. Trust on pricing takes time to build up. And more than a decade of shopping habits will take time to break.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Target's online price match likely useless vs. showrooming."

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Concordia capt. "painted worse than bin Laden"

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Costa Concordia disaster, in which 32 people were killed when the cruise ship ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio, the captain of the ship told an Italian newspaper that he "was painted worse than bin Laden."

82 Photos

Luxury cruise ship runs aground

Francesco Schettino said in an interview with the Turin newspaper La Stampa that he is tormented by the disaster.

"It is sincere pain from the bottom of my heart," he said.

The 950-foot-long Costa Concordia struck rocks and capsized on January 13 last year. Thirty-two people aboard were killed and hundreds injured in the panicked evacuation.

Prosecutors have accused Shettino of sailing the luxury liner too close to shore. He faces multiple charges of manslaughter and of abandoning ship during the evacuation of the 4,200 passengers and crew on board.

Italian media have referred to Schettino as "Captain Coward,"

He complained to the paper that the press' characterization of him and his actions "ridicules not just 30 years of my work, my experience in the whole world, but also the image of our country, which has been exposed to the criticism, often unjust, of the entire planet."

The Costa Concordia cruise ship is seen on its side near the Italian island of Giglio, January 7, 2013.

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FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

Schettino - who told the paper that he did not intentionally abandon ship, but slipped and fell into a lifeboat when the Concordia listed to its side - says he may have made a mistake by sailing too close to land, but he was not given exact information, and should not be the only one to get the blame.

In fact, eight others (including the ship's first officer and four other crew members, and three members of a crisis unit set up by the cruise ship's owner) also face possible criminal charges following the Italian prosecutors' investigation, which concluded last month.

Play Video

Costa Concordia: Salvaging a shipwreck

Last Thursday at a Naples courtroom, Schettino brought a case against Costa Cruises, the ship's operator, for wrongful dismissal.

Efforts by salvage crews to right the ship are underway.

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Jodi Arias: Who Is the Admitted Killer?

Jodi Arias is a woman that many can't keep their eyes off of--a soft-spoken, small-framed 32-year-old who last year won a jailhouse Christmas caroling contest. But she is also an admitted killer who is now on trial in Arizona for the 2008 murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Sitting in a Maricopa County court, Arias, whose trial resumes today, cries every time prosecutors describe what she admits she did -- stab her one-time boyfriend Travis Alexander 27 times, slit his throat and shoot him in the head.

Arias grew up in the small city of Yreka, Calif. She dropped out of high school, but received her GED while in jail a few years ago. She was an aspiring photographer; her MySpace page includes several albums of pictures, one of which was called "In loving memory of Travis Alexander."

FULL COVERAGE: Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Woman Facing Death Penalty Called Jealous by Prosecutors Watch Video

Ariz. Woman Faces Death Penalty in Boyfriend's Slaying Watch Video

"Jodi wanted nothing but to please Travis," defense attorney Jennifer Wilmot said in her opening statements, but added that there was another reality – that Arias was Alexander's "dirty little secret."

Arias' attorneys want the jury to believe she killed Alexander in June of 2008 in self defense, that he abused her, and she feared for her life when she attacked him in the shower of his Mesa, Ariz., home.

Alexander's family and friends say Arias was a stalker who killed him in cold blood. They say the 30-year-old was a successful businessman who overcame all the odds. His parents were drug addicts, and he grew up occasionally homeless until he converted to Mormonism and turned his life around.

Jodi Arias Trial: A Timeline of Events in the Arizona Murder Case

"He actually had everything going for him," said Dave Hall, one of Alexander's friends. "A beautiful home, a beautiful car, a great income."

Alexander kept a blog, and in a haunting last entry, just two weeks before his murder, he wrote about trying to find a wife.

"This type of dating to me is like a very long job interview," he wrote. "Desperately trying to find out if my date has an axe murderer penned up inside of her."

Alexander did date a killer. It's now up to the jury to decide if she killed in self defense.

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Tunisia frees man held over attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia has freed, for lack of evidence, a Tunisian man who had been suspected of involvement in an Islamist militant attack in Libya last year in which the U.S. ambassador was killed, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Ali Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the violence in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other American officials were killed.

"The judge decided to free Harzi and he is free now," lawyer Anouar Awled Ali told Reuters. "The release came in response to our request to free him for lack of evidence and after he underwent the hearing with American investigators as a witness in the case."

A Tunisian justice ministry spokesman confirmed the release of Harzi but declined to elaborate.

A month ago, Harzi refused to be interviewed by visiting U.S. FBI investigators over the September 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

The Daily Beast reported that shortly after the attacks began, Harzi posted an update on an unspecified social media site about the fighting.

It said Harzi was on his way to Syria when he was detained in Turkey at the behest of U.S. authorities, and that he was affiliated with a militant group in North Africa.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Spain fast rail line speeds up Europe links

BARCELONA: Spain launched a new high-speed rail line from Barcelona on Tuesday that officials said will speed up passenger connections to France and boost the economy.

Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the president of the Catalonia region Artur Mas rode in the inaugural trip on the new line linking Barcelona with Girona and Figueres near the French border.

The new stretch of line is relatively short at 131 kilometres (80 miles) but is part of a broader project to link together the French and Spanish high-speed tracks across the border.

That link-up, which the Spanish government says will be completed in April, would take passengers between Barcelona and major French cities without changing trains, further cutting journey times.

Rajoy called it "one of the most ambitious and significant works ever planned in our country, a strategic route aimed at becoming a new axis of prosperity for Catalonia, the rest of Spain and all of Europe," he told a news conference in Girona.

The new 3.7-billion euro (US$4.8 billion) stretch of line will shave an hour off the journey between Barcelona and Paris as well as boosting the domestic economy, the Spanish government said.

Passengers will now be able to travel from Paris to Barcelona in six and a half hours and Paris to Madrid in about 10 hours. For the moment this will still involve changing trains at Figueres, near the border.

The new section of line took the total length of Spain's active high-speed lines to 3,000 kilometres, the second longest such network in the world after China's, the Spanish government said.

-AFP/fl

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Lowe's corrals home management under Iris

Lowe's Iris Smart Kit

(Credit:
Lowe's)

LAS VEGAS--Lowe's might not be the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking about cutting-edge home tech, but the company has quietly moved into the field with a series of simple, do-it-yourself kits called Iris.

Pulling together technology from an huge range of vendors, including Verizon, Sylvania, Schlage, First Alert, GE Jasco, and Radio Thermostat of America, Lowe's is offering three Iris kits as well as a new senior monitoring pack called Iris Care.

Iris Care lets you monitor a person's habits and routines remotely. When it detects something abnormal, such as a door opening in the middle of the night, it can text you. It includes an emergency pendant, which can call, e-mail, or text when activated. It can also monitor the ambient temperature at the person's house.

Lowe's Iris Care Senior Pendant.

(Credit:
Lowe's)

Lowe's recommends that Iris Care be used in conjunction with one of the Iris kits that includes motion sensors and apps for remote monitoring. Iris also offers a secure Web site for checking up on it from a PC or
Mac. The Senior Pendant will cost $29.99, and the notification services it utilizes cost $14.98 per month.

The new Iris Smart Kit is a premium-level do-it-yourself kit that combines Lowe's two other Iris kits, Comfort and Control and Safe and Secure. While those retail for $179, the Smart Kit will set you back $299. It includes an Iris Hub, motion sensor, smart plug, keypad, range extender, smart thermostat, and two window, door and cabinet sensors.

The kits will work with a new line of "connected" home products that Lowe's is releasing throughout the year, including stand-alone, standard-socket LED lightbubls from Sylvania. These bulbs contain a chip inside that connects it to the Iris system without having to use a smart plug. No price has been announced for the bulb, although its public availability is expected the first quarter of 2013.

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Schools across U.S. bolstering police presence

LOS ANGELES Students returning to school in Los Angeles following winter break will find an increased police presence, following last month's mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut in which 26 people, including 20 young children, were killed.

CBS Station KCBS reports that The LAPD, the sheriff's department and other law enforcement agencies will add random daily patrols to more than 600 elementary and middle school campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, with officers expected to visit schools as many as three times a day. They will meet with principals, teachers and other school staff, and even parents.

Local law enforcement will add charter and private schools to their watches, if requested.

LAUSD officials said high schools have already increased their security measures.

Last month Police Chief Charlie Beck told KCBS correspondent Kara Finnstrom that he wanted to implement a program in which officers would check in on schools at least once a day. "I don't want anyone to think they can walk into a school in Los Angeles and be immune from the police, 'cause you won't be," Beck said.

Beck emphasized that the increased patrols are a precautionary measure.

The remark was made days before NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre told a Washington, D.C., press briefing of the gun advocacy organization's proposal to have armed police stationed at every school in America.

In addition to the new rounds, school district officials are evaluating current safety measures, and police officers have undergone additional training. "As a refresher course to use, we have all gone through some additional training to work on those crisis-related issues, tactics should, God forbid, something were to come our way, we will be best prepared," Officer Sara Faden said.

Other schools around the country have increased security measures following the Newtown shooting.

CBS Station KYW reports that the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Merion, Pa., will see increased police presence at their schools for at least the remainder of the school year. The school district has given the police department key cards which will allow them access to any school in the district, to be randomly patrolled on a daily basis.

CBS Station WJZ reports police in Queen Anne's County, Md., will step up their patrols at area schools.

Police in several communities in Rhode Island are also increasing patrols at schools, according to CBS Affiliate WPRI. In an email to parents, the principal of Waterman Elementary School in Cranston, R.I., said, "A uniformed officer will visit Waterman daily to familiarize himself/herself with school, students, staff, and administration."

Last week in Marlboro, N.J., armed police officers were stationed at all eight of the town's K-8 schools.

Teachers and administrators in Harrold, Texas, carry concealed handguns and receive special training, as part of what Harrold Independent School District Superintendent David Thweatt told CBS News was a "guardian plan," created after the assault at Virginia Tech.

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Hagel Nomination Stirs Bipartisan Opposition

Two weeks before his inauguration, and with more "fiscal cliffs" on the horizon, President Obama is embracing a showdown with Congress over his pick to lead the Pentagon in his second term.

Obama will nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense at a formal White House announcement later today, administration officials said.

The president will name counterterrorism advisor John Brennan as the new CIA director to replace David Petraeus, rounding out an overhaul of his national security team.

Obama tapped Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts last month to become the next Secretary of State.

Hagel is in many ways an ideal pick for Obama, giving nod to bipartisanship while appointing someone with a demonstrated commitment to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and to retooling and economizing the Pentagon bureaucracy for the future.

But the nomination of Hagel to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is also politically charged, expected to trigger a brutal confirmation fight in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of critics has already lined up against the pick.

"This is an in your face nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN on Sunday. "I don't know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon -- little, if any, so I think it's an incredibly controversial choice."

Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video

The criticism stems from Hagel's controversial past statements on foreign policy, including a 2008 reference to Israel's U.S. supporters as "the Jewish lobby" and public encouragement of negotiations between the United States, Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian group the State Department classifies as terrorists.

"Hagel has consistently been against economic sanctions to try to change the behavior of the Islamist regime, the radical regime in Tehran, which is the only way to do it, short of war," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said last month.

The Nebraska Republican has also drawn fire for his outspoken opposition to the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq and the subsequent troop "surge" ordered by then-President George W. Bush in 2007, which has been credited with helping bring the war to a close.

On the left, gay rights groups have protested Hagel for comments he made in 1998 disparaging then-President Bill Clinton's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel as "openly, aggressively gay." Hagel has since apologized for the remark as "insensitive."

Top Senate Democrats tell ABC News there is no guarantee Hagel will win confirmation and that, as of right now, there are enough Democratic Senators with serious concerns about Hagel to put him below 50 votes.

But that could change, with many top lawmakers publicly vowing to withhold final judgment until Hagel has an opportunity to answer his critics during confirmation hearings. No senator has yet publicly vowed to filibuster the Hagel nomination.

Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran and businessman who served in the senate from 1997 to 2009. After having sat on that chamber's Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, he has in recent years gathered praise from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board as well as the policy board of current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

"Chuck Hagel is a tremendous patriot and statesman, served incredibly in Vietnam, served this country as a United States senator. He hasn't had a chance to speak for himself. And so why all the prejudging?" said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., on "This Week."

"In America, you give everybody a chance to speak for themselves and then we'll decide," she said.

The top Senate Republican echoed that sentiment. "I'm going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck's views square with the job he would be nominated to do," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.

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Five accused of rape in India appear in court for charges

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of the rape and murder of an Indian student appeared in court on Monday to hear charges against them after two of them offered evidence possibly in return for a lighter sentence in the case that has provoked widespread anger.

The five men, along with a teenager, are accused of raping the 23-year-old physiotherapy student after she boarded their bus on the way home from a movie in New Delhi on December 16. She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

The attack on the student has ignited protests against the government and anger towards the police for their perceived failure to protect women. It has also provoked a rare national debate about rising violence against women.

A police guard said the men had their faces covered when they entered the courtroom, which had been closed to the public minutes earlier.

The five had already been charged with murder, rape and abduction along with other offences and the magistrate gave them copies of the charges, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.

The court has yet to assign them defense lawyers or legal aid, said public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan. Most lawyers are unwilling to defend them because of the brutality of the crime.

Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail, and walking through a metal detector into the South Delhi court, across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before boarding the bus with a male friend on December 16.

Following shouting and angry scenes in the packed court, the magistrate, Namrita Aggarwal, closed the hearing to the media and the public. The court was cleared and police were posted at its doors before the accused were brought in.

"Keeping in view the sensitivity of this case that has risen, the proceedings including the inquiry and trial are to be held in camera," Aggarwal said, before ordering people not connected with the case out of the courtroom.

Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. She did not say when the case would go to trial in a separate, fast-track court, set up after the attack on the woman.

Two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, moved an application on Saturday requesting they be made "approvers", or informers, against the other accused, Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura, prosecutor Mohan said.

Mohan said he was seeking the death sentence given the "heinous" crime.

"The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty," he said, echoing public sentiment and calls from the victim's family.

Most members of the bar association in Saket district, where the case is being heard, have vowed not to represent the accused.

GROUNDS FOR APPEAL?

But on Monday, lawyers Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand stood up to offer representation to the men. They were heckled by other lawyers who said the accused did not deserve representation.

"We are living in a modern society. We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right to represent his or her case to defend themselves," Lal Sharma said.

The court asked Anand to get the approval of the accused to represent them. If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange their own lawyers, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.

Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the five have no lawyers.

Legal experts say their lack of representation could give grounds for appeal should they be found guilty. Similar cases have resulted in acquittals years after convictions.

Last week, chief justice Altamas Kabir inaugurated six fast-track courts to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.

But some legal experts have warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.

The sixth member of the gang that lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.

The government is aiming to lower the age teenagers can be tried as an adult, given widespread public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.

The victim, who died on December 29 in hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for treatment, was identified by a British newspaper on the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.

Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them from the media glare in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.

But her father repeated on Monday his wish that she be identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.

"We don't want to hide her identity, there is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.

He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that those responsible be hanged.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Asia's biggest toy fair sees high-tech gadgets

SINGAPORE: Hong Kong is starting the year with a bit of fun as it hosts Asia's biggest toy fair. The four-day exhibition also signals new trends in the industry as traditional toys seemed to have taken on a high-tech edge.

All the latest toys on display are from more than 1,900 exhibitors from around the world at the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair.

And, the annual event attracts tens of thousands of professional buyers looking to place major orders for the year.

One such toy with a high-tech twist is the battle tank which can be controlled by an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch through a bluetooth connection and it costs US$180 a pop.

President of Hong Kong-based Toyeast Ltd Steve Ng said: "Our tank uses the interactive bluetooth technology to communicate. It allows up to 10 people to play in one game together at the same time. And they have an interactive battling signal."

At US$25, a toy gun is a little lighter on the pocket, and it takes the humble toy gun to a new level. Using "augmented reality" technology, players can battle virtual aliens superimposed on real-life surroundings, with the help of a smartphone app.

Co-founder & CEO of AR Attack Kevin Mak said: "The idea started with our traditional toys, water guns. And we see water guns or the traditional toys as becoming oversupplied without too much creativity. And we thought we want to start something really exciting with the regular toys."

Exhibitors are feeling upbeat about the year ahead, after experiencing a slump in demand last year from major export markets in the West.

Some are expecting sales growth of as much as 20 per cent, as signs point to demand in the US perking up.

- CNA/ck

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