Mortgage Shopping, Made Easier - Economic View

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Sunday, August 19, 2012

Mortgage Shopping, Made Easier - Economic View

By RICHARD H. THALER

MORTGAGE rates are very low, but some people who could qualify for cheap refinancing are procrastinating. That may be because shopping for a mortgage can make root canal surgery seem fun.

Choosing a home and mortgage is probably the largest financial decision that most Americans ever make. Yet perhaps because the loan process is so onerous and opaque, many take the first quote they are offered. In fact, research shows that people typically spend more time shopping for a car or vacation than for a mortgage, and I suspect that many families spend as much or more time picking out a microwave oven.

Shirking on mortgage shopping is a costly type of sloth. Other research, done for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, finds that most borrowers could save several thousand dollars by getting just one more quote.

Now is a propitious time for raising these issues because the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is undertaking a Congressionally mandated revision of some disclosure forms that are required by law. (Disclosure: Along with John G. Lynch Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado, I met with bureau staff members last month to discuss this proposal from a behavioral science perspective.)

The bureau’s goals should be to make mortgage shopping easier and more efficient, and to make the industry more transparent and competitive, all while reducing the kinds of bad loans that helped create the financial crisis.

One form is of particular importance. It’s the “loan estimate,” a paper copy of which must go to borrowers within three days of application for a loan.

The bureau’s research team did extensive testing to decide what data should be included on this new form. It proposed a three-page version containing more than 100 pieces of information, including the interest rate, charges for various services and whether features like prepayment penalties or balloon payments were part of the deal.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

Adobe Partners with hybris on Commerce for Web Experience Management

Adobe Partners with hybris on Commerce for Web Experience Management

For immediate release

Adobe Solution to Enable Optimized Shopping Experiences Across Multiple Online Channels

SALT LAKE CITY, Adobe Digital Marketing Summit — March 21, 2012 — Adobe Systems Incorporated(Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced it is partnering withhybris, a leading provider of multichannel commerce and communication software, to provide digital marketers comprehensive commerce capabilities as part of Adobe’s solution for powering online customer experiences. The integration of hybris technology with Adobe® Web Experience Management (WEM), part of the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, is designed to deliver marketers and retailers an enterprise-class offering to manage and optimize the online buying process, from brand engagement to immersive shopping experiences to checkout.

“The ability to rapidly create great online experiences and deliver them across multiple channels is a key competitive advantage for businesses today,” said Kevin Cochrane, vice president of Product Strategy and Solution Marketing, Adobe. “And the pressure to differentiate from competition through the buying experience is enormous. From navigating on a desktop, smartphone or tablet to sharing product experiences on social media, e-commerce today is increasingly interactive and content-rich. Adobe WEM will help marketers and retailers rise to the increasing expectations of consumers.”

As part of the integrated offering, Adobe WEM, and its core, newly available Adobe CQ 5.5 software (see separate release), will deliver capabilities for both the front-end shopping experience and back-office merchandising and marketing publishing processes. This includes storefront content delivery capabilities, search and navigational elements, as well as checkout pages, product detail and imagery powered by hybris commerce functionality. Additionally, hybris Product Content Management software will drive product information and options, in addition to order fulfillment. The Adobe solution will also have ready access to online analytics, via the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, to enable marketers to rapidly optimize content and maximize return on investment.

“Our partnership with Adobe will help close the gap between acquisition and checkout, providing our customers a platform to create consistent brand experiences across channels,” said Carsten Thoma, chief operating officer, hybris. “hybris’ modular design and use of industry standards enables customers to deploy solutions rapidly with a superior total cost of ownership.”

The ease-of-use of the integrated WEM solution will allow marketers to author and publish content, which lowers development costs, increases productivity and shrinks the time to go live. The feature-rich development environment will help IT be more agile, empowering them to rapidly develop and deploy new templates, designs and Web components to business users.

“Our digital strategy required building a robust brand platform engaging a large network of independent salons and professional hair stylists sitting seamlessly with international commerce,” said Stuart Spiegel, chief digital officer, ghd, a world leading professional hair styling brand. “We needed a solution that would scale to support our brand innovation requirements, present and future, and the combination of Adobe WEM and hybris provided that foundation. We are proud that key brand advocates, professional hair stylists and salons will now have unique tools to engage their clients.”

"Collaborating with ghd, we completed one of the early implementations of the combined Adobe WEM and hybris multi-channel commerce offering,” said Chris Andrasick, chief executive officer, Tacit Knowledge, a digital commerce consultancy. “A key differentiator was the pace with which ghd was up and running with a robust commerce site before peak period. The solution we've built will enable global expansion as needed."

Adobe and hybris sales and marketing teams will jointly sell and promote the integrated solution to customers worldwide. The companiesplan to work with global agency and system integrator partners, such as Acquity Group, Deloitte, SapientNitro, and Tacit Knowledge, to provide implementation services.

“Through our long-term work with Adobe and hybris, we know the significant strengths both provide for online experiences,” said Matt Schmeltz, chief marketing officer, Acquity Group. “The combination will offer customers best-in-class, integrated Web experience management and multi-channel business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce capabilities unmatched in the marketplace today. The integrated solution will dramatically speed our ability to bring customers to market.”

Availability
Integrated e-commerce capability as part of Adobe WEM is available now in beta and is targeted for general availability in the second calendar quarter of 2012.

About the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite
The Adobe® Digital Marketing Suite offers an integrated and open platform for online business optimization, a strategy for using customer insight to drive innovation throughout the business and enhance marketing efficiency. The Suite consists of integrated applications to collect and unleash the power of customer insight to optimize customer acquisition, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, e-mail, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to make quick adjustments, automate certain customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which, ultimately, can positively impact the bottom line.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

U.S. Stores Learn the Ropes of Shipping to Foreign Shoppers

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

U.S. Stores Learn the Ropes of Shipping to Foreign Shoppers

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

Macy’s has long marketed itself as a shopping destination for visitors to the United States. It offers a savings card with a 10 percent discount for foreign shoppers, custom programs for tour groups and travel agents, and a tourism Web site that lists shopping events and recommended hotels near Macy’s flagship stores.

But only last year did Macys.com — which shoppers worldwide can look at — offer overseas shipping.

“We were getting international traffic,” said Kent Anderson, president of Macys.com. “It was coming whether we were offering them, frankly, any realistic way to interact with the site or not.”

Macy’s is one of several retailers trying to extend its international presence to its Web operations by shipping overseas. In the last year, Williams-Sonoma, J. Crew, Aéropostale, Crate and Barrel and Lane Bryant have added international shipping to their Web sites, while Ann Taylor and Neiman Marcus are working on it.

Some of the retailers are meeting existing or anticipated overseas demand, while others are testing the waters before opening stores in other countries. Either way, they are discovering that shipping beyond the United States is not a simple undertaking.

“Typically the guys we’re talking to start off thinking they can toss it in a box and give it to U.P.S. or FedEx and hope it gets there,” said Michael DeSimone, chief executive of FiftyOne, a technology company that helps retailers add international shipping capabilities.

But there are problems with ordering systems, customs and postal fees, he said.

For example, many retailers do not have software in their warehouse management systems that recognizes foreign postal codes, which — unlike those in the United States — do not always have five digits.

“It sounds like a really stupid reason not to sell internationally,” Mr. DeSimone said, “but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this was the biggest roadblock.”

The appeal to reaching customers in other countries is based largely on the popularity of mobile phone sales overseas. Forrester Research expects online retail sales in the Western Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America regions to increase 67 percent from 2011 to 2015, compared with 42 percent for the United States.

And traffic to American Web sites from international visitors is already high.

Younger Shoppers Using Technology

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Younger Shoppers Using Technology, Not Salespeople

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

When Nadia Karim goes shopping, she doesn’t wait around for salespeople. She saves items from apps and Web sites on her cellphone as a shopping list. And as she browses one store — recently trying on Sam Edelman flats at Nordstrom — she uses the phone to check out styles at competitors like Macy’s.

“In all honesty, because I shop so much, I feel sometimes I know the brands better than some of the associates,” said Ms. Karim, 26, an analyst at Intel in Phoenix.

For a generation of shoppers raised on Google and e-commerce, the answer to “Can I help you?” is increasingly a firm “no,” even at retailers like Nordstrom that have built their reputations around customer service.

But instead of getting defensive, some stores and brands are embracing the change by creating new personal touches that feature gadgets rather than a doting sales staff. Bobbi Brown has touch-screen televisions to demonstrate the perfect smoky eye, something that was once the exclusive domain of makeup artists. The basketball star LeBron James’s shoe store in Miami has 50 iPads to describe its merchandise. Macy’s is testing cosmetics stations where tablets offer reviews and tips. And at C. Wonder, shoppers use a touchpad to personalize the lighting and music in dressing rooms (there is also a button in case, olden-days style, they need to call for help).

The self-service theme, which started years ago with checkout at groceries, has progressed to the point where shoppers can navigate entire stores without once having to say, “Just looking, thanks.”

Companies are adding the technology now because it has gotten cheap enough to make it feasible and because Apple and other tablet and touch-screen makers are increasing their sales efforts. Stores also don’t want to risk losing those customers who are not content shopping from home but nonetheless prefer Pinterest recommendations, Zappos reviews and Fashism feedback to interacting with someone behind the counter.