New York SBDC Research Network

by Ben Luthi From NAV If you’ve ever applied for a business credit card, you probably noticed that the application asked for a Social Security number, even if you have an employer identification number. This is primarily because most business credit cards require a personal guarantee. In other words, if your business can’t repay the debt you incur on the card, you’ll be responsible as the guarantor to pay it with your personal assets. As such, even small business credit cards for bad and fair credit require a credit check, because the card issuer needs to know how likely you are to repay the debt if your business can’t. In general, there’s only one type of business credit card that you can get without a personal credit check, and that’s a corporate credit card.

By yext From eMarketing Image by John Hain from Pixabay A significant number of retailers in North America are now working with influencers as part of their marketing strategy. According to polling by Retail TouchPoints for referral marketing platform Extole, 31% of retailers said they have worked with brand advocates to become influencers, 30% used microinfluencers and 28% used paid celebrity influencers. “Influencer marketing is important for businesses around the world, particularly those in retail, fashion, beauty and entertainment,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of our recent report, "Global Influencer Marketing 2019." “Many consumers, particularly young people, get product recommendations from the influencers they follow. Retailers that collaborate with an influencer can bring new shoppers into stores and create buzz around their offerings.” But influencer marketing can be more complex for retailers that sell a wide variety of

By Anna Wells From ThomasNet According to NBC News, a Japanese startup called Vaak is using artificial intelligence software to help retailers ferret out shoplifters before they leave the store … and perhaps even before they grab the goods. The “Vaakeye” technology is designed to work with a standard surveillance system to help identify behaviors that may constitute “suspicious activity.” Vaak CEO Ryo Tanaka told NBC that this could include facial expressions, gestures, and movements — even clothing choices. If someone sets off an internal alert, the idea is for the store to dispatch personnel for a quick check-in. And while Vaak says its tech reduced shoplifting incidents by 77% in tests, the idea of using technology to solve the problem is not without controversy. Sven Dietrich, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NBC that these kinds of deep learning algorithms are only as good as the data used to train them and “might be extracting a certain bias.”

From the US Census Bureau A repository of information describing database attributes. The dictionary contains an identification section to describe record codes, geographic area codes, area characteristics, and special area codes, plus endnotes and a table (matrix) section. Disclosure In accordance with federal law governing census reports (Title 13 of the United States Code), no data are published that would disclose the operations of an individual establishment or business. In cases where the data must be withheld, the following symbol appears in place of the data: D : Withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual companies; data are included in higher level totals Employment Ranges Used when the sales and other data must be withheld due to disclosure, but a range for the employment data can be shown. The following symbols are valid: a : 0 to 19 employees b : 20 to 99 employees c : 100 to 249 employees e : 250 to 499 employees f : 500 to 999 employees g : 1,000

By Lucy Koch From eMarketer Most US consumers expect to get a tax refund this year, and they plan to stick their windfall in the piggy bank. A February 2019 survey from the National Retail Federation (NRF) showed that nearly two in three US adults said that they expected a tax refund this year, and half of those respondents said they planned to save it. That was in line with trends the NRF has seen since 2012, when plans to save became more common than paying down debt. Consumers’ reasons for saving varied—40.4% of respondents to the Valassis survey said that they planned to put their refund toward an emergency fund, while others were saving for bigger-ticket purchases like home improvements or furnishings (19.1%), vacations or experiences (15.2%) or a car purchase or auto-related expense (8.7%).

From Avalara Understanding where your company has nexus is an integral part of your sales tax compliance strategy because nexus dictates where your business is required to collect and remit tax. There are a lot of business activities that can cause your business to have nexus, but one is getting a lot of attention from states right now because it was at the forefront of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) case South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. Sales tax nexus is the connection between a seller and a state that requires the seller to collect and remit tax on sales made in that state. Historically, nexus was based on physical presence. After the Wayfair decision, nexus can now also be established based on economic activity. If you have sales tax nexus in California and Texas, for example, you must collect and remit sales tax in California and Texas. Unfortunately, you can’t just figure out where you have nexus today and forget about it — you must closely monitor nexus on an

Article by Lucy Koch From eMarketer Earlier this month, Philadelphia passed a bill rendering cashless stores like Amazon Go and Sweetgreen illegal and banning future establishments from completely abandoning cash. By July 2019, most retailers in the city will be required to offer consumers a cash payment option... “The number of completely cashless businesses are few and far between, and research has shown that cash is still a preferred payment method for many shoppers in the US,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Cindy Liu. An October 2018 survey from Pew Research Center showed that 70% of US adults used cash last year for at least some of their purchases during a typical week. Separately, 60% of US internet users polled by Cardtronics said that cash was the most available payment method for everyone, and another 90% viewed cash as essential to those without checking or savings accounts.