Data Dive: Amazon Marches On, Target Pushes Payments And Card Counterfeiters Are Thwarted

To say that the last full week of the news cycle has been a full one would be grossly understating the situation at hand. And that’s just talking about the real facts. Once one starts trying to suss out all the actual from alternative facts that went up on the board last week, well, things get pretty confusing pretty fast.

Luckily, while the boundaries of reality in American politics and international relations seem to be up for negotiation at the moment, in the more stable and sane world of commerce and payments, the facts are much less fluid.

But compelling nonetheless — particularly last week. Amazon continued its continual march to be the internet’s official destination for … well, pretty much everything. Target decided that it wanted to have a payments platform like all the other cool kids. And chip cards keep eating away at counterfeit fraud — news that might be somewhat more joy-inducing were it not also the case that data breaches hit their all-time high in 2016 as well.

So, ready to hit the data surf?

Amazon Keeps On Hitting The Accelerator

While others seem to still be getting their footing in 2017, Amazon is off and running with a double shot of news last week.

It seems next on its vertical hit list will be paid search. According to reports out early last week, Amazon is gearing up to launch a paid search platform in an effort to make money off the traffic to its eCommerce site. The move is also expected to further solidify its relationship with brands.

“There’s an expectation from people who visit Amazon [that] they’re going to find anything they want. If you have the confidence that we’re going to meet that expectation, you might just come to Amazon to start that search,” noted Seth Dallaire, VP of global ad sales at Amazon Media Group, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference in New York last week.

Amazon is also looking to find ways to monetize search for items it doesn’t sell, like automobiles.

“We don’t sell cars, but we know customers have an expectation that they’ll be able to consider a car or read about customer experiences on Amazon,” Dallaire said.

But should you fear that Amazon is losing interest in all those things it does sell, fear not and cry no more, last week’s other big news was that Amazon will be adding Dash Buttons to both its website and mobile app.

The digital Dash Buttons will work much like their physical counterparts, allowing Prime customers to order reoccurring staples, like laundry detergent, diapers and razors, with one click.

By adding them to the website and mobile app, Amazon is upping the convenience factor for shoppers.

The announcement came as Amazon was taking something of a victory lap for another successful holiday season. By the numbers, more than 1 billion items were shipped around the world with Prime and Fulfillment by Amazon, with more people around the globe trying Amazon Prime this year compared to any of the years past.

However, Amazon was not the only big player in retail announcing its intention to try new things.

Target Gets To The Payments Party

It wasn’t the most shocking news of the week — given the volume of payments platforms that have appeared over the last two years — but Target certainly managed to snag the ecosystem’s attention with the announcement that it, too, will be joining the mobile pay race.

No word yet as to whether the service will be called Target Pay. (It totally will be).

Other than knowledge of its forthcoming existence, the details of the new platform remain mostly shadowed.

According to Chief Information and Digital Officer Michael McNamara, Target hasn’t decided if the payment feature will be part of its main Target app, the Cartwheel coupon app or if Target will include it on both apps.

McNamara also noted that it is logical for the retailer to give shoppers a way to pay and access digital coupons all in one step. He noted the service would only be for shoppers who have a Target REDcard credit or debit card in the beginning (somewhat similar to Kohl’s Pay). With the card, shoppers get 5 percent off all their purchases and free shipping for online orders.

Target is clearly in the process of trying to shake things up some, as the retailer reported last week that transaction growth was flat year over year, hurt by sales in the electronics and entertainment categories, which saw high single-digit declines. But, at the same time that transaction growth was flat, online transactions increased more than 30 percent.

Also somewhat notable, Apple Pay (and other mobile competitors) will be nowhere to be seen in Target stores — though it is an in-app payments method. Target would apparently rather go their own way.

And finally, some goodish news to end on.

Counterfeit Fraud Continues To Fall

Visa had some sunny news about EMV this week. Counterfeit fraud has dropped by 52 percent at merchants that are using chip-enabled cards.

According to Visa, during 2016, the number of Visa chip cards issued in the U.S. increased 92 percent to 408.1 million, while the number of merchants who rolled out chip-enabled terminals more than doubled, up to 1.81 million by the end of 2016. As of now, 39 percent of all merchant locations have the terminals, handling 49 percent of the payment volume. Visa noted that 82 percent of the merchants that rolled out chip card terminals are small and medium-sized businesses.

“U.S. chip transactions have proven more secure for merchants, issuers and consumers, and we expect to see fraud continue to decline as more merchants install chip-enabled terminals and issuers deliver more chip cards to consumers,” Visa said in a blog post.

And while that is certainly very good news — we, being who we are — have to note that it comes with a grain of salt. Other data out last week indicated that U.S. data breaches hit an all-time high in 2016. The number of breaches tracked reached 1,093, a 40 percent increase from the year earlier.

So, good news: fewer cloned cards.

Bad news: The type of people who are into stealing credit cards for fun and profit? They haven’t so much quite the game as found a new way to keep right on playing.

Until next week…