Jason here, op (and CEO of Sift Science). It wasn't quite clear in the article - in the example of the stolen television, there is a key difference between Best Buy and bestbuy.com. In the latter, the merchant takes the hit on fraud (e.g. $1000 will be subtracted from the bank account of bestbuy.com), whereas in the former, the merchant is off the hook for fraud. This is one of the key differences between Card Present (offline) and Card Not Present (online) transactions.
I've contacted the reporter to try and clear this up.
Edited this comment - misread your comment. Correct, thank-you for the feedback!
Edit #2 - when you say offline/online, I'm assuming you mean in terms of an online store, versus a physical retail store.
I took it as if the transaction was done in realtime to the backend FI system, or if it were verified offline at a terminal. In EMV terminals at a physical merchant location, transactions can be either online or offline ;)
I've contacted the reporter to try and clear this up.