Best Buy, Future Shop, Walmart, and London Drug have all reported similar returns from customers. Clearly the Merchants (and consumers) have been victimized in a scam to return fake merchandise in for a profit. As many as 25 of these fraudulent devices have been sold in the Vancouver area and more victims have come forward since the break of this story on Monday.

Most of the victims have already been issued refunds however, some consumers report being persecuted at the time of return. Obviously there is always a chance that one of the perpetrators is posing as a legitimate customer. I like to think most sellers would give paying customers the benefit of the doubt even at the cost of a overlooking a few bad apples (no pun intended)

It sounds like it is safe to say, retailers will be inspecting these products more closely at the point of purchase in order to protect themselves and consumers. Still it leaves some asking; why hasn’t this been the policy all along? iPads are not inexpensive devices. Sellers should be checking for damage and also that everything is in order with the packaging from the factory.

Apple has agreed to cooperate in the investigation in any way possible but has not made any specific comments about the incidents. Consumers beware; scams like these are becoming more common in the fast-paced world we live in.

[Source: CTV News]

Small Society has worked with other big names in the past, such as Hilton and Amazon to develop iOS apps for their businesses.

This is the latest move by WalMart Labs in a series of acquisitions that include purchasing Grabble, a system that allows you to scan a QR code on a store receipt to load it into your mobile device. They have also acquired OneRiot, a social advertising company.

Walmart appears to be gathering pieces in an effort to built a Frankenstein’s monster that will sell things to you on your phone. Of course, when I am in WalMart, I can’t get phone signal and there is no WiFi unless there is also a McDonalds in the store. Heaven help you if you happen to be in Tire and Lube. Perhaps WalMart Labs’ next purchase should be a wireless router.

WalMart Labs basically came into being fully-formed when WalMart purchased the company Kosmix for $300 million in 2011. Kosmix was designed to help people make sense of loads of data, a Twitter stream for example, and figure out what it could tell them about their customers. The founders had already sold one company they had created, Junglee, to Amazon for $250 million in 1998.

WalMart’s interest in translating what is floating around on social media is understandable. Some things out there are admittedly vague:

View more daily infographic round-ups here.

Flying back in time…

How Google Killed the Longtail of Search:

Infographic by SEO Book

The Weight Of Walmart:

If you fall into this category of holiday humbuggery, Facebook can be a reliable assistant for your gift-buying as you have all of the hobbies and interests of your friends and family aggregated onto one website. Still, that requires actually browsing through your friends’ profiles and trying to make informed gift decisions based on the details that their profiles reveal. If that still sounds like too much work for you then you may want to consider enlisting a new tool to help ease your plight. Yesterday, Walmart announced the launch of a new Facebook app that seeks to make the onerous task of finding good Christmas gifts for your friends and family a little less burdensome this year. The app, Shopycat, aims to analyze the status updates, interests, likes, and shares of your Facebook friends in order to produce gift suggestions based on that information. The following video offers a brief demonstration of how Shopycat works:

Given that Walmart sells a nearly infinite assortment of items ranging from Batman comics to bananas to brassieres, they’re probably the most suitable retailer to implement such an innovative app – Walmart’s the consummate one-stop shopping center. And if Walmart doesn’t have the exactly appropriate gift for your friend, you’ll see suggestions for gifts from other retailers.

Perhaps the best part: this new app could be a great way for you to convincingly pretend that you’ve been paying attention to your friends’ Facebook feeds and profiles.

If you’re unfamiliar with OneRiot, it was an early entrant into the realtime search space, but inevitably folded that part of its business in favor of a social mobile ad network.

“OneRiot has developed some pretty nifty technology that analyzes social media signals from popular networks like Twitter and Facebook to deliver ads that are relevant to consumers’ interests,” writes Anand Rajaraman on the @WalmartLabs blog. “As our teams debated the finer points of Big Data, Fast Data, and machine learning technologies, it became clear to us that we could find no better colleagues than the guys at OneRiot.”

“Here at @WalmartLabs we’re doing some amazingly interesting and impactful work at the intersection of social, mobile, and retail,” says Rajaraman. “The technology at the core of what we do is the Social Genome, which enables us to connect millions of consumers with the best products based on their interests at any given moment. The OneRiot technology will enrich the Social Genome, and the OneRiot team adds to the already deep expertise we have around social data analysis.”

Tweets from OneRiot CEO Tobias Peggs:

The platform, currently runs on TweetBeat, Kosmix.com, and RightHealth. According to Kosmix co-founder Venky Harinarayan, these properties combined to serve over 17.5 million unique visitors worldwide.

“Quite a few of us at Kosmix have backgrounds in ecommerce, having worked at companies such as Amazon.com and eBay,” said Harinarayan. Kosmix was founded by the founders of Junglee, which was acquired by Amazon 13 years ago.

“As we worked on the Social Genome platform, it became apparent to us that this platform could transform ecommerce by providing an unprecedented level of understanding about customers and products, going well beyond purchase data. The Social Genome enables us to take search, personalization and recommendations to the next level.”

Hence, why Walmart was interested.

“We are expanding our capabilities in today’s rapidly growing social commerce environment,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright, Walmart’s vice chairman. “Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers’ day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores. We are excited to have the Kosmix team join us to accelerate the development of our social and mobile commerce offerings.”

The team will be joining as part of Walmart’s new @WalmartLabs team – a new social unit.

“The world of social media is exploding and for millions of consumers their social connections matter hugely in their daily lives,” said Kosmix co-founder Anand Rajaraman.

Earlier this month, word came out indicating that Walmart may also be getting into an e-grocery service, which would include delivery. This would compete directly with Amazon Fresh, a similar service from the e-commerce giant.

Clearly Walmart is making big moves in the online world.

Financial terms of Kosmix acquisition were not revealed, but it is expected to close in the first half of the year.

The free shipping offer includes all electronics, select video games, toys, home appliances, furniture, jewelry, and baby items.

"Customers are doing all they can to save money this holiday, so we’re excited to offer free shipping to home, with no minimum purchase requirement as an early Christmas present to them," said Steve Nave, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart.com.

"This limited-time free shipping to home offer on nearly 60,000 select items, including all electronics, is just one of the ways Walmart.com is helping families save money so they can bring home more for less this holiday season."

Eligible items are shipped for free via standard shipping and delivered to customers’ doors within 3-5 business days after the order is processed. Return shipping is also free, or customers can return online orders to a local Walmart store.

Walmart’s fans can look at the possible deals Walmart has come up with, and if any one deal gets a certain amount of likes (pre-set by Walmart), the deal will become a reality at Walmart.com while supplies last. 

"We’re putting you in charge of lower prices," the company says in the heading on the app page. "If enough people Like this deal, we’ll make it happen."

Right now, they’re displaying an Element 42" Plasma TV with Wall Mount with an 18% off discount price of $398. The deal required 5,000 likes to take effect, and the goal has already been met, as Walmart says, "Congratuations! There were enough Likes to make this deal happen. Come back later this week to purchase this deal."

Walmart already has close to 2 million Facebook fans, so there is a pretty good chance that any deal they post will get enough likes to become real. That is unless they set the goal ridiculously high, but I doubt they will do this, because they want people to buy this stuff. 

The tactic is not only going to be good for driving sales of select items, but it should help Walmart continue to boost its Facebook fan number as more people catch wind of this, which should happen fairly quickly, given that the strategy takes advantage of Facebook, which is obviously social by nature. People will see others’ likes through their news feeds. 

As Chad Catacchio at The Next Web says, more brands will likely start doing this exact same thing. The good news is that you don’t have to be a big brand to utilize this kind of strategy. A smaller brand might want to keep the like number goal a little bit lower, but there’s no reason why a business of any size can’t try this. It could be a good way to increase sales as well as fans. It’s also a good way to keep fans engaged with your brand, and the more fans you get, the more news feeds you’ll get into. 

Just keep in mind the goals for your strategy and know your limits. Make sure these clear to customers when applicable. 

Of course you can promote this on and off of Facebook.

Gift cards worth $10, $25, and $50 should become available at Best Buy stores this week, while Walmart will sell cards worth $5, $10, $25, and $50.  And although only U.S. stores will carry the cards and Facebook Credits won’t gain any new uses, this definitely counts as a win for Facebook.

Alexei Oreskovic reported, "Facebook began selling Facebook Credit gift cards at Target stores earlier this year, but landing on WalMart and Best Buy shelves should vastly expand the availability of its fledgling currency – at the end of 2009, WalMart had more than 3,600 stores in the United States."

Plus, this isn’t a simple matter of brand presence and mindshare.  Oreskovic noted, "[W]ith Facebook taking a 30 percent cut of the revenue that application-makers book on transactions involving Facebook credits, the more people that are using Credits, the better for Facebook."

Unfortunately, the specifics of whatever deals Facebook made with Best Buy and Walmart remain unknown, so it’s difficult to say what (if any) price Facebook was willing to pay to get more people using its virtual currency.