Zazzle has emerged as one of these innovative methods. Launched in 2005, this online marketplace leverages cutting-edge technology that enables entrepreneurs to reach more customers in ways that were never possible before. With National Small Business Week in mind, I spoke with four of these small business owners to learn more about their products, what inspired them to go into retail and their advice for aspiring entrepreneurs like them.

Company Name

caseable co-founders Marvin Amberg and Klaus Wegener

caseable

Hometown/Place of Business

Berlin and Brooklyn

Years in Retail

4 – we kicked off in 2010

Product/Merchandise

Customizable, hand-crafted cases for tech devices, from smartphones to iPads, laptops to eReaders. 

What inspired you to go into retail?

It all started when my business partner Klaus and I were pitching a different product in South America, and tried to find a way to customize a laptop sleeve for a meeting. We searched and searched and couldn’t find anyone doing this. As we were very aware of the trend for mass customization we quickly realized we had found a niche. That’s where our inspiration started, and we soon saw great potential in personalized phone and tablet cases too.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring small business owners?

Good things take time. Don’t expect any overnight success. Far more important is to make sure you enjoy what you are doing and be good at it. Everything else will come by itself.

How would you describe your business’s role in your community?

We’re based in Berlin and Brooklyn – incredible and dynamic cities that are at the forefront of culture, art, and design. We try to make the most of working and living here by finding inspiration in street art and the lifestyle of the cities’ people. In the end, both cities are a huge part of our company and brand. They form our identity and define who we are.

Why Zazzle?

We have worked with Zazzle for about three years now. It has been a great relationship from the very beginning, and we are proud to work with the world’s leading platform for custom products. They are always a step ahead, especially when it comes to building the technology around the creation experience.

Company Name

Rickshaw Bagworks Founder and CEO Mark Dwight

Rickshaw Bagworks, Inc.

Hometown/Place of Business

San Francisco, CA

Years in Retail

6

Product/Merchandise

Custom messenger bags, backpacks, computer briefcases, tote bags and laptop/tablet sleeves.

What inspired you to go into retail?

We love the direct engagement with our customers at our factory store, and showing-off our sewing factory.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring small business owners?

Starting a business always takes more time, effort and money than you expect — so pursue your passion, and make sure you have more money set aside than you think you’ll need.

How would you describe your business’s role in your community?

We are one of the most vocal and active proponents of local manufacturing and local commerce.

Why Zazzle?

Zazzle shared of love of local manufacturing, and provided us with an additional means of customization for our products, and access to a new group of potential customers. It has been a great partnership.

Company Name

Daniel Cytrynowicz, Principal, Lamp-In-A-Box

Lamp-In-A-Box    

Hometown/Place of Business

Los Angeles, CA

Years in Retail

15 years

Product/Merchandise

(Relevant) lamps with high-res printed shades inside a very cool practical box. We also have new (patented) lamps named LAMPABLES, which will forever change the way people perceive lamps. Think of “the Swatch of lamps” or “shaving blades model.” We’re also launching a super cool iPhone app named LAMP-A-GRAM – already available in the iTunes Store.

What inspired you to go into retail?

I love manufacturing (no, they haven’t found a cure for that yet) and I wanted to be associated with a product I feel passionate about. Lamps (light) have a very cool vibe about it and no one is addressing the teenage and young adult lamp market or making lamps that are “democratic” (affordable) and relevant. Would you like to inherit your parent’s lamps?

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring small business owners?

Choose something you feel passionate about. You’re more likely to be successful and even if success eludes you for a while, the 8-12 hour days will be a lot easier to endure.

How would you describe your business’s role in your community?

We manufacture the shades in Los Angeles and even our packaging is made by a local company. We interact with several small businesses in the area – Los Angeles is the Mecca of resourcefulness and we also participate in some school projects from time to time.

Why Zazzle?

Zazzle is a GREAT fit for our lamps. Ultimately, everyone should have his or her own custom lamp to fit their crazy ideas and aesthetics. Zazzle accomplishes that to the nth degree. Also, everyone I deal with (with one exception) has been absolutely a pleasure to deal with. I would like to hang out with a couple Zazzle employees.

Company Name

May28th Founder & Creative Director Agni Tilla

May28th

Hometown/Place of Business:

Based in Toronto, but traveling around the world!

Years in Retail:

4 years (founded in February 2010)

Product/Merchandise:

Watches

What inspired you to go into retail?

The inspiration to go into retail was prompted by the support and encouragement given by our first customers. With their positive feedback and drive to keep doing this better, we kept creating new designs and have been growing the brand since then.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring small business owners?

Don’t be afraid to say no. There are many amazing opportunities out there but they’ve got to feel right when it happens. Always follow your instincts and you will be happier in the end.

How would you describe your business’s role in your community?

We at May28th put a lot of thought into our designs to always capture the spirit of life and positive attitudes by using fun and colorful patterns. And we do all this at an affordable price point. Our custom watches now help people capture memories and turn them into accessories. We’re excited and humbled to be part of someone’s life that way.

Why Zazzle?

Zazzle is one of the leading companies in the customization business with a great designer network as well. As the new kid on the customization block, we felt that we are able to grow and learn with Zazzle at a much faster pace. It has been a very rewarding partnership and we look forward to going further with them.

More men are tuned in to the latest fashion and trends. Since 2006, the share of male consumers who say that the newest trends and styles are important to them has nearly doubled. And the brands and labels of clothing are a more important factor for male shoppers than in years past.

Feelings About Fashion

Charts from the NRF Foundation’s Retail Insight Center. To access this data and more research please visit the Retail Insight Center.

As men heighten their interest in the latest style, they increase their spending as well. In 2012, about two-thirds (65 percent) of spending on men’s sportcoats and tailored jackets is attributed to male consumers – up from 61 percent of spending the year prior.

Menswear and online shopping is trending, and it’s no surprise that brands who build their business models off this trend are thriving. Take Indochino for example – the online menswear company uses a tailored (pun-intended) algorithm to ensure the perfect fit for custom suiting. They’ve been so successful that the brand has ventured into the brick-and-mortar space through Traveling Tailor pop-up shops in targeted metro areas.

It’s obvious that this Vancouver-based retailer is at the cutting edge of these trends. Take a behind-the-scenes look to see how Indochino’s approach to custom suits is driving a new era in men’s shopping.

Take Action

The fact is, patents touch nearly every aspect of retail operations. But patent trolls have built a business on suing retailers for things the troll didn’t invent and the retailer is using legitimately. Here are a few areas where patent trolls have taken Main Street businesses to court:

1)      Wi-Fi. One of the earliest cases involved small businesses who were sued for using patented Wi-Fi routers in their stores.

2)      Payments. BrandsMart Executive Vice President Lary Sinewitz testified before the House Judiciary Committee in November that his business was targeted for using technology that enables debit cards and gift cards to process information from the magnetic stripe on the back of the card.

3)      Smartphone apps. More than 40 online retailers were sued or threatened by a California company that claimed to hold a patent on the technology that enabled them to link to privacy policies posted on their website.

4)      Online shopping cart. A software company accused Newegg and a number of other retailers of infringement of patents on online shopping carts. Thankfully, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Newegg and the U.S. Supreme Court let the ruling stand.

5)      Scan-to-email. Appropriately named “scanner trolls,” a troll company filed claims demanding that small businesses pay $1,000 per worker who attached scanned documents to email. And these lawsuits haven’t gone away.

If you’re like most retailers, you’ve probably realized that your business uses these common technologies. Fortunately, Congress has shown a willingness to protect retailers and other businesses from vague, frivolous patent claims like these. But trolls and their supporters have been very active in this fight, arguing for measures that won’t effectively alleviate the problem

Retailers – and all innovators – need protection through a provision like a “customer stay” that would put a patent troll’s lawsuit against a business owner on hold if there is a pending suit against the manufacturer from whom the business owner got the technology. In order to stop patent trolls in their tracks, you have to contact your Senators today.

It’s rare that a news article is so misleading that it needs more than a simple correction or a letter to the editor to make things right, but this is a case where I’d like to set the record straight.

The fact is that retailers are willing to spend whatever it takes to protect our customers and their card data. If customers don’t trust us with their data they won’t shop with us, so we have a vested interest in doing the right thing.

But in spending the $30 billion-plus it could take to replace every credit card reader in America, retailers have one overriding demand – let’s provide consumers with all of the security that’s available, not just a piece of it. That means cards not just with chips but PINs as well, end-to-end encryption of data and/or use of “tokens” that eliminate the need for retailers to store data at all, and other steps such as using smartphones to improve the security of transactions.

While there are many solutions to explore, the issue grabbing headlines at the moment is that banks want to issue new cards that would replace the easy-to-copy magnetic stripe currently used to hold data with an encrypted, embedded microchip that is next to impossible to counterfeit.

There’s no argument that chip cards are more secure than magnetic stripe cards. In fact, they are used in more than 80 countries around the world, and have reduced fraud in the United Kingdom alone by 75 percent, according to one study.

But the cards in those countries all have something in common that would not necessarily be the case here in the United States – the use of a chip is combined with mandatory use of a Personal Identification Number.

While the chip authenticates that the card is legitimate, the PIN replaces easy-to-forge signatures in authenticating that the person using the card is the legitimate cardholder. Unlike an illegible scrawl the means nothing, the PIN is a secret number known only to the cardholder and the bank and makes it impossible to use a fraudulent card even if a criminal manages to get around the security of the chip. If the chip protects the bank, the PIN protects the consumer.

The cards planned here would use the same Europay MasterCard Visa system used around the world. But instead of requiring a PIN to be used, PIN use would be left up to the banks issuing the cards. Despite an October 2015 target for the switchover, only one major bank – J.P. Morgan Chase – has announced plans for PIN cards here.

Why would the card industry not offer U.S. consumers the same security they offer consumers in the rest of the world?

According to papers recently unsealed from a 1997 lawsuit retailers brought against card company practices, Visa acknowledged at a 1990 meeting that PIN is safer than signatures. The papers show that Visa executives rated PIN as the “safest product” for both consumers and banks with “less fraud” and praised it as “consumer friendly” and easy to use. The same executives praised signature cards for their “proven profitability,” citing fees collected both from merchants and consumers.

In the fight between “safest product” and “proven profitability,” it might not be surprising which bankers would consider most important.

The irony is that using PINs rather than signatures would block a substantial amount of fraud even if banks stuck with magnetic stripes and chip cards were never issued. And more than twice as many merchants have PIN pads as have chip card readers (even though stores are installing chip equipment every day). Retailers aren’t saying they don’t want chip, but PIN is something that could have been done a generation ago. And given the pressure to do something quickly, it’s a goal that could be reached much more quickly than chip.

Many have asked whether retailers will meet the October 2015 deadline as if the date had been mutually agreed upon or was somehow officially sanctioned. In fact, it is a deadline imposed unilaterally by the card industry and, in any case, there’s no point in retailers installing new card equipment until banks have issued new cards. And if the banks don’t issue cards that provide sufficient security – meaning both chip and PIN – some retailers might consider whether there are more efficient ways to safeguard their customers.

Are retailers concerned about return on investment when it comes to replacing current card equipment with new equipment? We absolutely are. But the question isn’t whether to continue with the status quo. The ROI we’re looking for is the maximum protection that can be provided to our customers. To retailers, “safest product” is a far more valuable return than “proven profitability.”

As STORES’ March cover story explained, CIOs can summarize both their priorities and challenges in one word: agility. And in the inaugural issue of “Retail CIO Download,” retail’s leading CIOs were asked how they are embracing this kind of “speed-it-up” mentality while also sharpening their focus on the biggest priority of all – data security. Dave Finnegan, chief interactive and information officer at Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Tom Litchford, NRF vice president of retail technology, cover the key challenges and initiatives identified by retail technology leaders in “Retail CIO Download 2014 Agenda: Leadership and Agility.”

Download the report (NRF Members only)

This is the inaugural issue of the “Retail CIO Download” series. Provide a background of the study and explain how “2014 Agenda: Leadership and Agility” sets the tone for future issues.

Litchford: There’s a wealth of knowledge and experience at the table in NRF’s CIO Council. But we realized that, at times, the council would get bogged down reacting to current issues as opposed to leading the important conversations in retail technology. Instead of being reactionary to ideas like big data and security, we determined that as a group we needed to start thinking about how we can progress conversations from the beginning. The CIO Download series is our first of many conversations where we’ll be showcasing our council’s collective thought-leadership so our colleagues in the C-suite and industry partners better understand the issues and trends facing the retail industry.

Data security is a top priority for CIOs. How do this report and NRF’s newly-formed IT Security Council address this topic?

Litchford: This is the obvious elephant in the room for 2014, and every CIO on the council considers data security a top priority. From the report we know that significant investments will continue to be made in this area, and the discussion goes far beyond just addressing the payments ecosystem. With that, the CIO Council has established a new committee – the IT Security Council – to focus in three areas: Providing a forum for peer collaboration and information exchange; developing industry best practices for a risk management framework; and advising NRF on advocacy and policy issues regarding data security and protection.

Integrating brick-and-mortar and digital systems is another major focus right now for retailers. How are CIOs and their teams stepping up their game to meet the challenges of channel integration?  

Finnegan: We have realized as an industry that we over use words like “omnichannel” or “multichannel.” Simply put, its “retail” for today’s consumer. This is the new reality for shopping because customers use multiple touch points to interact with our brands. CIOs are helping to lead the way by implementing the right architecture, software and systems to make shopping as seamless as possible.

There are two additional keys to success. First, integrating business through internal communication and operational execution. And second, using mobile as the glue that brings together all these customer interactions from across all channels.

Build-A-Bear CIO Dave Finnegan

What new methods or tools are CIOs using to tackle analytics and business intelligence? 

Finnegan: CIOs are rethinking how we can rebuild traditional architecture through tools like ARTS’ data models to handle the tremendous amount of data we have now and will have in the future. We are also looking into how to use predictive analytics, or how to use data to forecast future demands and customer expectations. The role of data scientist is now emerging to fill the need for more predictive analytics. These are the opportunities CIOs will help to deliver value quickly and drive business results.

What’s driving the need for recruiting and retaining top talent? What does it say about the evolving role of the CIO – and the IT department as a whole – within the retail organization?

Finnegan: What is really impacting the need for better talent is the fact that technology is ubiquitous in all our companies. Today, technology is not only the infrastructure for running our business; it’s also how customers interact with our brands. We actively look for professionals with this frame of mind who have a strong knowledge of the technology field and business acumen.

What are your thoughts on this new type of CIO? How is the role evolving or emerging as more strategic to the business?

Finnegan: The role of the CIO has dramatically changed in the last five to 10 years due in large part to consumers’ expectations and connectedness. Retail IT executives now play a more integral role in shaping business strategy. Driven by the shared need to understand and serve the customer’s expectations, the walls that once separated IT from key internal partners such as marketing and merchandising are dissolving. Advocates for every channel are meeting more frequently with logistics to find better ways to accomplish customer fulfillment.

Here’s my recap – in 140 character bites from the Twitterverse.

On targeting Millennials:

The average millennial owns 7 devices. #IRCE #sxsw

— Sara Clarke (@seclarke) March 11, 2014

#millennials are forcing new sales and service models. need to be where they are at: online and face2face where they frequent. #irce #sxsw

— amanda grosgebauer (@ag_spotstrat) March 11, 2014

On consumers and the second screen experience:

"90% of people will recommend a brand after they've had a social interaction with that brand." @ranvir @getchute #OOHFuture #acsxsw #sxsw

— Laurie Keith (@lauriekeith) March 10, 2014

More than 84% of American tablet & smartphone owners use their devices while watching TV. #2ndScreen http://t.co/QgHRQaoD8p

— DanDawes (@DanDawes) March 11, 2014

#2ndscreen "Gotta hit targeting, reach, and frequency AND reporting, then you can nail monetization and ad buys" @gconsig #sxsw

— Mass Relevance (@massrelevance) March 8, 2014

On customer experience:

Brand strategy = customer experience strategy. You can't market your way out of a mediocre customer experience. Redefine your focus. #yodel

— Nikki Rappaport (@nikkirap) March 11, 2014

"Digital & physical retail need to be on the same team"… Entirely true. It's the key to 'holistic' retail success. #digistore #SXSW

— Alex Blaney (@hitono) March 9, 2014

On social:

personal shopping recommendations via Instragram trends, this is the year to buy on Instagram @whatupwilly #retailtech

— Kim Geralds (@kimgeralds) March 9, 2014

Both Lowe's and GE say Vine & Instagram work informs their TV and ad strategies. #mpomma

— S. Schierholz (@schierholz) March 7, 2014

On leveraging new tech:

Future of wearable tech and brands – Wearable device recognises you have run 10 miles. Auto delivers gatorade to your door #DoBrands #Sxswi

— Karen Fewell (@DigitalBlonde) March 7, 2014

On digital advertising:

New line of hair care brand has an digital billboard at a train station, reacts to train arriving. #OOHFuture http://t.co/beXwhOU7NF

— Robert Freeman (@robertfreeman2) March 10, 2014

People process visual content online 60,000 times faster than text. #OOHFuture #SXSW14

— dan pankraz (@danpankraz) March 11, 2014

Right place, right time, right person, right message, that is the future of successful, effective omnichannel marketing. #OOHFuture

— Pam Krengel (@pkrengel) March 10, 2014

On innovation (in lab form or otherwise):

Now your iPhone can produce smells … and the first scent they picked was bacon. #scentee #SXSW http://t.co/kfupS2fmZR

— Rohit Bhargava (@rohitbhargava) March 10, 2014

Leaving #SXSW & reminded of how innovative retailers already are. Thank you @BestBuy & @BenefitBeauty. http://t.co/YYOHgr8Sob

— Sarah Neale Rand (@SarahNRand) March 10, 2014

New Allsaints CEO instilled 100-day sprints for projects. Agility needs to be important to those at the top. #retailtech #SXSW

— esther s. kim (@e5thelove) March 9, 2014

Which topics did I miss? Tweet me at @mcaselittle or add your takeaways in the comments. Until next year, South by!

To get to the bottom of these data thefts perpetrated against some of the largest retailers in the country and affecting millions of consumers, the committee invited precisely — you guessed it — zero retailers to learn about the problem and get their side of the story. As you would expect, the hearing was rife with falsehoods, inaccuracies and half-truths.

We thought we’d highlight four of the best (worst) “whoppers” from this hearing and set the record straight.

Whopper #1: Retailers are not properly incentivized to protect their data: this is why “assigning liability” for these data breaches is important.

Truth: Retailers pay a very large price for data breaches and are very well incented by the market to protect their customers and protect their brand reputation.

Retailers have a vested interest in protecting consumers’ financial information – customers won’t shop in a store they don’t trust. Retailers MUST—and do—comply with the PCI Standard, designed by financial institutions, to protect sensitive information first, before they are even able to process payments in the first place. “Assigning liability” is not the issue, the fundamental problem is that the current card number system is too easily monetized by thieves. Thieves wouldn’t be so quick to steal card data online if it were nearly impossible to convert into credit cards and make fraudulent purchases. Requiring a PIN will quickly render this kind of card data theft fruitless.

Whopper #2: Retailers are in the best position to discover and disclose breaches, but they are reluctant to do so as it could adversely impact sales, stock price or reputation.

Truth: In fact, financial institutions are the ones who typically spot breaches, as their fraud detection systems usually trace back suspicious activity to the source from their fraud-prone cards.

In many cases, the reports of fraudulent card activity provide the first signs (even to the financial institutions) of a sophisticated breach. Even when hacked companies discover they have been breached, they may not immediately disclose it for fear of compromising an undercover “sting” or making the breach worse. A total of 46 states and the District of Columbia legally require retailers to notify customers of data breaches and retailers comply with all laws.

Whopper #3: Financial institutions’ systems are better protected than retailers’ systems, and financial institutions have to adhere to much higher standards.

Truth: Financial institutions are the ones who suffer more breaches than retailers.

Data breaches at retailers account for only 24 percent of incidents, while 37 percent happen at financial institutions, according to the most recent report from Verizon. And that’s true even though there are many more retailers than financial institutions. Retailers spend billions to protect data. Different types of data receive different levels of protection. Payment card data is subject to the PCI-DSS standard in addition to the retailers’ own requirements.

Whopper #4: Retailers unnecessarily store credit card information which creates more opportunities for thieves to steal data.

Truth: In 2007, it was NRF that argued to the card companies that merchants shouldn’t be forced to keep data. However, the card companies insist that merchants retain data, or else they would be required to accept chargebacks and absorb the fraud. The rules established by the payment card industry encourage retailers to keep card data.

Stripe and swipe was a great technology in the 1980s, the decade the cassette tape Walkman and the Apple Macintosh computer came out.

But in a day when thieves half a world away can hack into a computer system to steal card data rather than breaking into a bank to steal cash, “stripe and swipe” is about as high-tech as an 8-track tape.

That’s why NRF and the retail industry have been pushing cards that encrypt data on an embedded micro-chip and protect consumers by using a secret Personal Identification Number (PIN) rather than relying on the illegible scrawl most people pass off as a signature. You wouldn’t want to rely on a signature to get cash out of an ATM, so why rely on a signature when you use a credit or debit card?

This week, NRF boiled down the advantages of new PIN and Chip technology over old-fashioned stripe-and-swipe with a new infographic.

The easy-to-understand infographic shows two scenarios:

• When a physical card is stolen, a thief can use a magnetic stripe card simply by signing the cardholder’s name, while they are blocked from using a PIN and Chip card because they don’t know the PIN.
• When card numbers are stolen, a thief can easily create a counterfeit magnetic stripe card and sign for the transaction, but a chip card is almost impossible to duplicate and the PIN would block its use even if it could be duplicated.

“PIN and Chip prevents credit card fraud … and protects you,” the infographic reads. “The safest cards deploy both PIN and Chip technology.”

The infographic and NRF’s Myths and Facts on card security were sent to Capitol Hill today. Both will be used as NRF continues to educate policymakers and the public on the retail industry’s efforts to protect consumers against criminals trying to steal their card data.

For more, go to www.nrf.com/datasecurity.

Consumers don’t think about shopping and say, “I want an omnichannel experience.” But their expectation is that shopping will be seamless between stores and devices. So if omnichannel is an industry-created term, what does it mean?

Kohl’s SVP of E-commerce Mike Molitor (left) talks supply chain processes and standards for omnichannel fulfillment with Hudson Bay’s Dan C. Smith, Macy’s Peter Longo and GS1′s Bob Carpenter.

At Retail’s BIG Show, executives from Macy’s, Kohl’s, Hudson Bay and GS1 tried to answer that question. While retailers might have their own approaches to achieving a seamless experience, each agreed that the answer relies on efficient and accurate logistics. And technology is the key to allowing retailers, suppliers and distribution networks – the full scope of the retail supply chain – to be on the same page.

As Kohl’s Senior Vice President of E-commerce Mike Molitor explained, there is no single omnichannel manual. “It’s been a little bit of a ‘wild wild west,’ ” he said. “The process of revamping product information system relies on important pieces of information from suppliers.” But retailers are setting their own standards and requirements, such as RFID, which could put stress on suppliers. One-off solutions can get in the way of an environment that approaches and resolves supply chain issues universally, Molitor emphasized.

In a global supply chain, communication and community between retailers and suppliers are paramount. To achieve synchronicity, Macy’s President of Logistics and Operations Peter Longo suggested that the relationship could be transformed with this idea: that the end goal should be for merchandise to land in a customer’s home rather than on store shelves. Longo said loyalty can be lost quickly if products aren’t where a consumer wants them, when they want them and how they want them. In a world where more retailers are leveraging buy online/pickup-in-store, inaccuracies could mean irreparable customer relationships.

There is a laundry list of supply chain to-dos for retailers. While there will always be demands to improve the customer experience, “there is a bigger need to get everyone on the same page internally,” Hudson Bay Trading Company CIO Dan Smith said. Perhaps “omnichannel” can be viewed in a way that Longo put it: the complete integration of promotion, packaging, merchandising and pricing to create a unified experience, in-store and online. Certainly easier said than done.

Myth: Retailers aren’t working to protect card data.

Fact: Maintaining the trust and respect of customers is retailers’ highest priority, and they have a vested interest in protecting consumers’ financial information – customers won’t shop in a store they don’t trust. Retailers have spent billions of dollars to protect card data using sophisticated computer systems with the latest in encryption, firewalls and other high-tech security measures. Retailers recognize that cyber theft can only be stopped with a united, multi-industry effort – banks, card networks and payment processors all have a role to play – and want to be part of that solution.

Retailers care about this issue because we are committed to combating this criminal threat to our customers and the industry.

Myth: Most cyber attacks and data thefts occur at retailers.

Fact: Data breaches at retailers account for 24 percent of incidents, while 37 percent happen at financial institutions, according to the most recent report from Verizon. And that’s true even though there are many more retailers than financial institutions. Other businesses ranging from manufacturing to transportation have also been hit. And government agencies as varied as the U.S. Army and the IRS see more than 60 data breaches per day.

Myth: Retailers don’t want to switch to PIN and Chip cards.

Fact: Retailers have been calling for PIN and Chip for years. Retailers want to move to move to modern cards that replace signatures with a secret personal identification number and which encrypt card data on an embedded computer micro-chip instead of storing it on a magnetic stripe. Cards like these are widely used in Europe and about 80 countries around the world, and a U.K. study found they have reduced fraud by 70 percent. A number of retailers have already installed the card readers and other equipment necessary for these new cards. But banks have been slow to issue them in the United States, instead proposing cards that would have a chip but still use a fraud-prone, easy-to-forge signature rather than a secure PIN to authenticate the transaction. That’s no match for 21^st Century criminals.

Myth: Retailers don’t want to pay for the costs of PIN and Chip.

Fact: Retailers are willing to pay a fair share of the cost of conversion. But they want a system that will actually reduce fraud and protect everyone – consumers, retailers and banks alike. They don’t want to spend billions of dollars on a chip and signature system like that proposed by the banks that only addresses part of the problem when better systems are available. And since credit cards are a product that belongs to the banks, banks should share in the cost of equipment and software needed to accommodate their product.

Myth: PIN and Chip is the only thing retailers are doing to improve security.

Fact: Retailers don’t see even the best forms of PIN and Chip as a complete solution. Retailers are taking a “defense in depth” approach and are exploring additional security layers such as point-to-point encryption of data along with emerging technology such as mobile payments made using smartphones. Retailers have also sought to reduce the amount of data that card companies require them to retain: NRF asked in 2007 that retailers be allowed to keep only an approval code for each transaction, with banks retaining all card data that could be used to commit fraud. The card industry has yet to make the change.

Myth: Retailers don’t notify customers fast enough when card information is stolen.

Fact: A total of 46 states and the District of Columbia legally require retailers to notify customers of data breaches. But retailers work closely with law enforcement when customer data is stolen, and authorities often ask that they temporarily delay disclosure in order to avoid tipping off criminals that the incident has been detected and is under investigation.

Myth: Visa and MasterCard’s “EMV” cards would make data secure.

Fact: EMV – short for “Europay, MasterCard and Visa” – is only one brand of card system that uses a chip. And while the version used in Europe provides both a PIN and chip, the version currently proposed for the United States would not require a PIN, still allowing an easy-to-forge signature to be used. Retailers believe a PIN is essential to protecting card data.