Amazon and Kohl’s made news last week when Kohl’s announced it would accept Amazon returns in its stores. In between headlines bemoaning Kohl’s fate for letting the proverbial fox in the henhouse, Kohl’s stock price closed last Friday at more than $45 a share for the first time all year. Karen Webster asks whether this move portends a whole new take on what it means to be an omnichannel retailer, and just how far Amazon and Kohl's, together, might push the omnichannel envelope.Which, based on new research on retailer readiness and consumer satisfaction with the merchants they shop, Webster says, could be pretty far.  Read More...

Is the app marketplace dying a slow death? Consumers have certainly gotten past the novelty phase, with more than half of U.S. smartphone users downloading a grand total of zero new apps each month. So, does that mean consumers are moving on, or simply that they are expecting more from apps and their developers? If it’s the latter, what will it take to hold their attention? More visibility from the Apple App Store? Better malware defenses from Google Play? A whole new approach, allowing developers to skip the overhead costs and consumers to pay with cryptocurrency? Developers are testing all these methods.  Read More...

Facebook adds 33 stories of San Francisco office space and a 4,000-mile trans-Atlantic cable to its assets. Plus, the social media giant gets smarter about ads and M, the Messenger bot, driving its monetization strategy forward. Finally, see which class action lawsuit CEO Mark Zuckerberg dodged at the last minute — all in this week's Facebook tracker.  Read More...