All Things Retail

Amazon Terminates Affiliates in a Bid to Intimidate State Lawmakers

smitchell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:00:00 -0600

Amazon is treating its Colorado sales affiliates as "human shields," to use the words of one Denver Post columnist, in what has become a aggressive campaign to overturn a new Colorado law and scare other states away from extending sales taxes to large online retailers.

Internet Sales Tax Fairness - Colorado

smitchell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:22:25 -0600

In February 2010, Colorado passed a law that requires remote retailers (internet and catalog companies) that do not collect state sales taxes to notify Colorado customers that they owe the tax on their purchases at the time of the sale, send customers an annual statement detailing all of their purchases and the amount of tax owed, and report this information to the state.

Putting Wal-Mart's Green Moves in Context

smitchell — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:18:58 -0600

What journalists and even environmentalists so often fail to do in reporting on Wal-Mart's sustainability announcements is to provide some context.

Context is everything. Consider Wal-Mart's latest announcement: It will push some of the factories that supply its stores to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. That's a good thing in and of itself, but what happens when we measure it against Wal-Mart's overall impact on the production of goods?

Banks and Small Business Lending

smitchell — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:58:23 -0600

This article was originally published on Huffington Post as part of a partnership with their Move Your Money campaign.

Banking consolidation was constricting the flow of loans to small businesses long before the recession. So it's no surprise that the money taxpayers have spent over the last sixteen months shoring up big banks has done nothing to free up credit for small businesses.

To do that, we need to focus on expanding the capacity of small banks to lend to local businesses that have, as a result of the recession and through no fault of their own, become riskier investments. A key issue is whether the Senate will quickly reauthorize a critical loan-guarantee program.

Why Does Congress want me to Shun my Local Bookstore and Shop Online Instead?

smitchell — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:05:27 -0600

By exempting internet retailers like Amazon.com from collecting sales taxes, lawmakers provide a substantial financial incentive for people to bypass local businesses and shop online instead.

Over the years, there have been four primary arguments made in favor of this inequitable policy. None of them stand up.

Holiday Sales Increase at Independent Businesses, National Survey Finds

smitchell — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:49:49 -0600

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (Jan. 14, 2010) - More holiday shoppers deliberately sought out locally owned businesses this year, according to a national survey of more than 1,800 independent businesses.

The survey found that holiday sales for independent retailers were up an average of 2.2%. That contrasts with the Commerce Department figures released today, which show that overall retail sales were down 0.3% in December and up 1.8% in November.

The survey also found that independent retailers in cities with active "Buy Local" or "Think Local First" campaigns reported stronger holiday sales than those in cities without such campaigns.

A New Deal for Local Economies

smitchell — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:05:24 -0600

In this lecture, delivered at the Bristol Schumacher Conference in Great Britain, Stacy Mitchell proposes a set of new rules — policies that would foster local self-reliance and refashion the economy for long-term viability.

Scattered here and there, the seeds of a new economy are taking root. Locally grown food has soared in popularity. Farmers markets are multiplying. Support for independent retailers is on the rise. But despite these promising shifts, local businesses are likely to remain on the economic margins without fundamental changes in public policy.

Independent Retailers Would Like to Source More Goods Locally, Survey Finds

newrulesstaff — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:10:50 -0600

A survey of over 100 independent retailers in New England has found that almost all would like to source more of their inventory from local and regional producers, but there are barriers to doing so, including, most notably, a lack of an easy and efficient way for retailers to identify New England companies manufacturing the kinds of goods they carry.

GAO Report Confirms Need for Regulation of Credit Card Processing Fees

smitchell — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:44:59 -0600

Credit card processing is not only highly concentrated - MasterCard, Visa, and American Express control 93 percent of the market - but competition among the card processors tends to raise, not lower, the fees they charge merchants, according to a new report from the U.S. General Accounting Office. The report's findings point to the need for regulation to protect independent businesses from excessive card processing fees. The GAO examines several policy approaches, including a cap on rates.

Voters Reject Massive Big-Box Complex in Mendocino County, California

smitchell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:29:13 -0600

Despite being outspent 12-to-1, a grassroots group campaigning against a plan to build a massive big-box complex in Mendocino County, California, won a decisive victory when voters rejected the project by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

Developers Diversified Realty, one of the largest big-box developers in the country, spent $1.2 million trying to persuade the county's 24,000 voters to green-light an 80-acre project slated to include up to 800,000 square feet of big-box stores just north of the town of Ukiah.

Opponents of the project, organized as Save Our Local Economy, raised just $92,000, but ran a smart, creative campaign that, over the course of several months, involved more than 400 volunteers.