| Glitch hinders search for bargains
Future Shop is one of Canada's most successful online retailers. Customers wait anxiously for its Boxing Day sale. But, just after the sale began last Monday night, the Futureshop.ca website had to be closed down for almost two hours. "This glitch certainly caused some grief for our customers," says Mike Chuback, vice-president of services and sales development. "The link between the website and the payment system was not there. Everything backed up and got worse, so we had to shut down the system and repair it." Customers who came early on Monday night found they could put items into their shopping carts. But they couldn't check out with their purchases. Frustrated buyers started hurling insults at Future Shop and consoling each other at the company's online forums, while getting progress reports on the attempted fix.
More Canadians using fingers, not feet, for Boxing Day bargains
Lineups for Boxing Day sales increased at the keyboard but not at the cash registers as retailers reported a rise in online traffic and restrained shopping madness in their stores across the country Wednesday. In-store Boxing Day sales were expected to decline this year partly as a result of strong pre-Christmas shopping and Canadians' increasing preference for point-and-click purchasing from their computers. The lineups for deals in some locations began in the waning hours of Christmas Day and retailers gleefully trumpeted the allure of their sales. Future Shop said at least two of their Vancouver outlets had lineups that began late Christmas Day and early Wednesday - Boxing Day - Best Buy said there were over 1,000 people waiting for the doors to open in some stores; and Wal-Mart Canada said consumer demand had forced it to keep its stores open 24 hours until Dec.
UPDATE: Fujitsu files patent infringement lawsuit against Tellabs
Separately, Tellabs said it received notice of the suit on Monday and is currently reviewing it. "We do believe the case is without merit and we will defend Tellabs vigorously," said Ariana Nikitas, a company spokeswoman, in an interview. Shares of Tellabs, a Naperville, Ill.-based telecommunications networking company, were up 6 cents at $6.49. Katherine Hunt kh/jw/kh/jw COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News. .
Taobao.com launches online shopping mall
Taobao.com, China's most popular auction site, will launch a new platform for eligible major domestic and overseas consumer product makers and retailers to sell directly to Chinese buyers.
The new system - to complement the existing public site - has been established to win customers from offline store chains such as Wal-Mart and B&Q.
The Taobao Shopping Mall, to be online in March, will charge retailers based on their transaction volume. The Website, which has beat eBay Inc in China for its free service, is trying to be profitable and pave the way for going public.
"We want to make it a source of quality products for buyers of good taste, like traditional department stores, with guaranteed quality, good compensation policies and more convenient payment methods," an official with Taobao said yesterday.
Fanatic planned to kidnap British Muslim serviceman and behead him ...
A plot to lure a British Muslim soldier to his death and behead him "like a pig" was outlined to a jury yesterday. The man behind the plot was Parviz Khan, 37, an unemployed teaching assistant from Birmingham, who wanted to post a film of the atrocity on the internet to "cause panic and fear within the armed forces and the wider public". Khan, who has already pleaded guilty at Leicester crown court to his role in the planned beheading, was said to be behind a terror cell and had been under surveillance by the security services. Nigel Rumfitt QC, prosecuting, said the plotters intended to produce a video showing the soldier's ID card to prove who he was. Khan was "enraged by the idea that Muslim soldiers were in the British army". He decided to kidnap a soldier on a night out, with the help of drug dealers from Birmingham.
Lessons our children learn too early
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