Think combating fraud is not of paramount concern to online merchants? The topic was front and centre at the Merchant Risk Council's annual conference held in early March. Online merchants gathered there were eager to get a deeper level of understanding of how better to combat fraud - fraudulent chargebacks chief among their worries. 20 Mar 2008
The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has given the Northern Cape goat farming industry a R15 million financial injection to transform herders into commercial farmers. 20 Mar 2008
A recent BurstMedia survey of more than 13,000 web users 18 years and older found that online content providers are not meeting the needs of all age segments. A majority of Internet users 45 years and older believe online content is focused on younger age segments. 20 Mar 2008
Statistics SA, the official statistical body of South Africa, is expanding its SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform (EIP) initiatives across the entire organisation following the successful implementation and migration to SAS 9 from SAS 8 last year. 20 Mar 2008
Craig Leathwhite has been appointed managing director of the South African operation of General Mills, the world's sixth-largest food company – but he's not giving up his bike! 20 Mar 2008
Cashbuild is reaping the rewards of staying away from risky credit offerings and selling to lower-income South Africans who are unaffected by rising interest rates. 20 Mar 2008
The retail sector is in trouble, with consumer confidence at its lowest in years and consumers facing higher living costs on almost every front. 19 Mar 2008
In a bid to cut out the middleman and drive its own Web traffic, eBay said Monday, 17 March, it would launch a partner network that will replace affiliate relationships the auction site has long relied on to get users to its site. 19 Mar 2008
Virtual printer technology is driving an electronic invoicing rebirth within many industries. It's a new, innovative approach to on-boarding vendors. Vendors simply download the virtual printer off the Web. This takes about 30 minutes. Unlike electronic data interchange, there is no upfront cost or IT resource requirement. 19 Mar 2008
The economically active commuter market living in Etwatwa/Daveyton, situated on Johannesburg's East Rand, sometimes travel as far as Sandton or Cresta to spend their disposable income at their favourite shopping centre, even though many of these residents have to travel by taxi to get there. 19 Mar 2008
The agro-processing industry in the country received a major boost with the announcement of an R1.5 billion bio-fuels processing plant, making it the largest soybean processing facility in Africa. 19 Mar 2008
In 2006, the Chief Marketing Officer Council found over 26% of executives pointed to a lack of data and systems integration that prevented their organisation from achieving the optimal level of customer insight and intimacy. The current CMO Council's 2008 Marketing Outlook study still finds that only two of the top five solution investments for the year are CRM tools and customer analytics. 19 Mar 2008
After a successful partnership three years in the making, leading cosmetic brand, Clinique has renewed its contract for another year with in-mall advertisers Primall Media. 19 Mar 2008
German group Metro is set for a big shake-up after its plans to sell its Kaufhof department stores and restructure the Real supermarket chain. 19 Mar 2008
Controlled approach governs plans to open eight to 10 new stores between January and June this year. 18 Mar 2008
Chivas Brothers, the Scotch whisky business of Pernod Ricard, is to increase its operations facilities in Speyside by expanding Glenlivet Distillery and re-opening Braeval Distillery. These expansion plans come in the wake of a global increase in demand for the company's Scotch whisky brands. 18 Mar 2008
With Easter time just a few sleeps away, Cadbury has a new Easter range for you. 18 Mar 2008
Consumers sent the video game hardware and software industry a US$1.33 billion valentine for the month of February, a 34% increase over sales during the same time period in 2007, according to figures released by the NPD Group, an independent market research firm. 18 Mar 2008
One of the great things about the Internet is the way people post reviews on just about anything you're considering trying, whether it's a movie, a new restaurant or the local florist. 18 Mar 2008
Over the last two weeks, I attended a huge HP lab event, watched Apple launch the iPhone SDK brilliantly, and saw one of the strongest consumer laptop lines launched by Acer. All three vendors are growing in the 30% range in the PC market; Acer just passed Dell for the no.2 spot in the notebook market; and all three vendors have smartphone efforts in their infancy. 18 Mar 2008
