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EXPECTATIONS FOR EASTER SHOPPING: Retailers are expecting American consumers to spend nearly $16 billion this year on Easter holiday-related purchases, according to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights and Analytics. Although spending per person is expected to be slightly less than last year (as fewer consumers said they plan on celebrating the holiday), e-commerce will play a larger role than it has in years past. Online Easter shoppers said they plan to spend an average of $225 on the holiday, which is 64% more than Easter shoppers overall. (National Retail Federation)
WHO BENEFITS FROM EASTER SPENDING: Food, clothing, and hobby retailers will all benefit from Easter spending this year. Here's how consumers plan to spend their money for the holiday, according to a recent survey:
- Food - $58.11
- Clothing - $39.49
- Gifts - $37.85
- Candy - $27.65
- Decorations - $19.35
- Flowers - $17.87
- Greeting Cards - $9.60
- Other items - $15.71
Retailers in these categories should expect a larger volume of orders than they normally process. (Shop.org)
Luxury flash sales site One Kings Lane is losing its CEO Doug Mack. After four years with the company, Mack will now be joining online sports retailer Fanatics as its new chief executive. One Kings Lane's interim CEO will be Dinesh Lathi, who has been CFO and COO. (TechCrunch)
THE HEARTBLEED BUG: A major flaw in the popular OpenSSL software library, which many Internet companies use to encrypt sensitive data, could be leave online shoppers vulnerable to credit cart theft. "Potentially everything is at risk," said Paul Hill, a senior consultant at web security firm System Experts. After learning about the bug, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and other major online retailers began testing their systems to find out whether they are at risk. (Internet Retailer)
THREE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT HEARTBLEED: Here are the top three things to know about the bug:
What kind of data can Heartbleed expose?
Essentially, any data stored on or received through a website's servers, including account passwords, credit card and transaction data, and personal information.
How does it work?
Using the "heartbeat" communication link that keeps a secure connection active, attackers can trick a server into responding with a block of data-containing system memory. The attack can be repeated until desired information, including the server's encryption key, is obtained.
Is my website vulnerable?
You can test your site's current vulnerability by entering the domain name into this tool. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine if a server has been attacked in the past using Heartbleed, but only websites that use a security protocol called OpenSSL would have been affected. (Krebs on Security, Heartbleed.com, Keith Griffith for BI Intelligence)
WELCOME, E-COMMERCE INSIDERS: This is our new newsletter covering all things e-commerce. Please email csmith@businessinsider.com with news and tips. Click here to sign up for E-Commerce Insider today, and receive it every morning in your inbox.
High fashion online retailer Moda Operandi has lost another top executive. Chief Marketing Officer Ashley Bryan will assume the same role at jewelry retail Ippolita. (Fashionista)
ALIBABA GETS SERIOUS ABOUT MOBILE PAYMENT SECURITY. Alibaba owned payments service AliPay is investing $6.5 million to create a fund aimed at research payment security, according to Alizila. The fund will focus on investing in companies that specialize in mobile security. AliPay's mobile wallet app AliPay wallet has over 100 million users. In recent news, AliPay's mobile payments business was threatened by the People's Bank Of China's decision to halt the use of QR codes for transacting payments citing security concerns with the method of payments. (Alizila)
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