Shopular, a location-aware mobile app, is officially launching Friday to serve up relevant in-store deals while consumers are shopping. To start, the app will only alert shoppers once it senses that they’re at a shopping mall, but the company plans to expand to more locations. Read more »
Media companies are looking for new revenues through selling things. Meanwhile, more commerce sites are starting to publish. Is it easier for content to transform into commerce — or vice versa? Read more »
Fab, the NY-based design-centric shopping site, on Wednesday announced that it had partnered with deals site LivingSocial for the holidays. As part of the partnership, Fab products will be featured in LIvingSocial’s gift guide, which reaches 24 million people. Read more »
Facebook is going big with its Gifts product for the holidays, announcing a bunch of partners including Baby Gap, Dean & Deluca, Fab, Pandora and Mondavi Winery. The Gifts feature, which is now available to tens of millions of U.S. users, is rolling out over time. Read more »
While Braintree has gained attention more recently for powering payments for Uber, Airbnb and Fab, it’s been pursuing a larger vision of fueling online and mobile commerce around the world. And now it’s got some serious funding to go after that goal, thanks to a new […] Read more »
Frank & Oak, a Montreal-based digital-only men’s fashion brand, has raised $5 million in a Series A round of funding led by Lightbank. Since launching in February, the company said it has attracted 200,000 members and is growing at a rapid clip. Read more »
eBay has redesigned its core shopping experience with a new Pinterest-style home page, better product pages, search functionality and faster payments. The idea is to make the eBay experience more personalized for consumers. Read more »
New York-based social commerce platform Fancy is rolling out a new option that lets users organize group gifts. The startup also announced a new partnership with American Express that it says could mark the beginning of an extended relationship. Read more »
Stripe, which launched its service less than ten months ago, is now valued at hundreds of millions of dollars after a new funding round of $20 million. The company has built a big following with its simple payment platform that lets developers easily add payment services. Read more »
Thanks to a redesign rolling out Thursday, HipSwap, an online marketplace for local goods, is now like a Craigslist re-imagined for Fab and Pinterest fans. Read more »
PayPal’s years of experience in online payments is one of its biggest assets as it chases mobile and in-store transactions. But the by product of all that experience — mounds of data — could be an even bigger weapon. PayPal’s chief scientist Mok Oh explains the possibilities. Read more »
The day before thousands of Etsy members plan to protest the online marketplace over its definition of handmade, the NY-based startup announced that it had raised $40 million in Series F funding, bringing its total funding to about $91 million. Read more »
Media issues like advertising and discovery along with commerce dominated the activity in social and real-time Web technologies during the first quarter. Google raised some hackles, Facebook responded to demands from traditional advertisers, and Yahoo got a new chief executive. Read more in the full report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
American Express is partnering with Twitter and letting its members link a merchant coupon to their card by tweeting out a hashtag from a retailer. When a member goes to use the card that’s been synced to their Twitter account, their discount is automatically redeemed. Read more »
Although some believe the death of brick-and-mortar retail is inevitable, Mark Sigal, CPO of Unicorn Labs, thinks we all have a vested interest in seeing the industry reboot itself for the modern age. He outlines three paths for physical retail stores to avoid extinction here. Read more »
Fancy, a self-expression social site, is launching a new demand-driven commerce model today that will let vendors and retailers sign up to be a seller on any item fancied on the site. They will be able to conduct the transaction right on Fancy. Read more »
Exclusive: Ingk Labs, an IP accelerator in New York City, has purchased payment platform ORCA Inc. and will use it to power a new PayPal competitor called Payz. Ingk Labs is ramping its efforts to rescue and accelerate IP and put it to work in start-ups. Read more »
Tim Cook has made his first major appointment at Apple — by handing over control of the company’s retail stores to a British businessman who has built his reputation largely through pile-em-high tactics and aggressive expansion. Read more »
The Pew Internet and American Life Project shed light on one of the biggest challenges for retailers: more than half of U.S. adult cell phone owners used their mobile phone during the recent holiday season to get in-store help for their purchases. Read more »
Home Depot announced it has acquired online home services marketplace Redbeacon. Combined with Home Depot’s recent partnership with PayPal on its new in-store payment system, it’s another reminder that brick-and-mortar retailers are having to look to Silicon Valley for ways to get innovative. Read more »
It’s been a long time coming, but the worlds of fashion and technology have finally begun to combine in a serious way. A new crop of companies is using the web to make the process more data-driven and social than ever before. Read more »
EBay’s mobile business is growing so fast, it doesn’t even know how to predict what to expect months into the future. It’s now predicting it will do $8 billion in gross merchandise value and PayPal will do $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012. Read more »
PayPal is taking a big step forward with its in-store payment system by partnering with AJB Software Designs, which helps connect the point of sale terminals at many top retailers to payment processors and financial institutions. AJB is in use by 20 percent of top retailers. Read more »
PayPal president Scott Thompson’s departure for Yahoo highlights the changing face of eBay, which increasingly looks at PayPal as its crown jewel. And who better to safeguard that than eBay CEO John Donohoe, who has announced he will take over PayPal as interim president. Read more »
The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of disappointment ran through your head because you waited until the very very last minute to buy gifts. Here are some options for gifts that while thoughtful, don’t require you to meet shipping deadlines. Read more »
One of the biggest draws of the Galaxy Nexus is the 4.65-inch high-definition screen; literally a pocketable 720p HDTV display. But some video services still stream standard definition video. Here’s how to get HD video from Netflix on the Nexus and what it looks like. Read more »
Facebook’s new Deals offering may or may not become a “Groupon killer,” but the social network has two major weapons in its arsenal that others do not: One is the power of the site’s social graph, and the other is the integration of Facebook Credits. Read more »
Apple launched a revamped online store on Wednesday, giving it a refreshed look and just the polish it deserves. Product categorization is greatly improved, making it much easier to visually make connections between products and accessories. More emphasis is being put on new and top selling […] Read more »
