Google’s acquisition of Channel Intelligence could give it a big leg up in ecommerce. But Jason Lehmbeck, DataPop, says the search giant has its sights on the offline retailing world, too, Read more »
Interest may be weakening in consumer social media businesses. But social technologies are working their way deeper into enterprise computing, and social media is playing a bigger role across advertising and marketing sectors. Read more »
We’ve heard it before: So-and-so year will be the year of the mobile payments. A group of mobile industry experts, however, believes 2013 will be the real deal. Google and the carriers had their chance. Now it’s the banks’ turn. Read more »
Barnes & Noble and Microsoft welcome Pearson to the Nook Media table as the education publisher lays down $89.5 to help secure distribution. But Nook is already set to miss targets set during its recent spin-out. Read more at paidContent »
Many of the biggest stories in the connected consumer space occurred mostly offstage in 2012, from Apple’s new media services to policymakers in Washington. Overall, the past 12 months have laid important groundwork for significant advances in the connected consumer space. The year 2013 should be eventful. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Facebook’s Gifts platform will become available to all users in the United States beginning Tuesday, and in addition to content from iTunes, Starbucks, and a variety of retailers, a variety of wines will be available for purchase on the site as well. Read more »
Many publishers are beginning to realize the prospect of selling stuff to readers. Women’s magazine Grazia is the latest to try, by reorienting its iPad edition as a fashion and beauty salesroom. Read more at paidContent »
Consumers have better tools now to keep track of coveted items that go sale. A pair of New York City startups, Hukkster and Trunqit, are giving consumers sales alerts when saved items see a price drop. Read more »
Deals site for moms, babies and kids Zulily raised a whopping $85 million in a Series D round led by Andreessen Horowitz. While daily deals sites like Groupon are struggling, Zulily is growing and now has 10 million daily users. Read more »
Movies are now the content of pizza. At least, for Domino’s, which is trying to incentivise booming ecommerce orders with complementary digital films. But, compared with dedicated VOD services, this initiative is a sloppy giuseppe. Read more at paidContent »
Smartphones have a unique potential not just to support online shopping but also to enhance the physical store experience – but, to do so, they must think digitally and quickly, retailers tell GigaOM’s Mobilize conference. Read more »
Retailers are looking increasingly to social networks to bring in customers and ultimately drive more sales. But data from online marketing provider Monetate show that social still lags email and search in sales conversions and average purchase amounts. Read more »
As the market for music on discs shrinks, struggling retailer HMV will try blurring online and in-store to beef up plastic. But is the initiative just designed to defend a fast-diminishing old business? Read more at paidContent »
A court ruling says consumers are free re-sell downloaded software just like boxed software. What will it mean for video games, mobile apps and the future of cloud storage? Read more »
Monetate, which analyzed more than 100 million online shopping experiences, said that in the first quarter of 2012, tablet traffic to commerce sites hit 6.52 percent, overtaking smartphones (5.35 percent) for the first time. Tablets are already ideal shopping devices and they’re only growing in popularity. Read more »
Boku, one of the leaders in carrier billing, has finally signed a direct billing deal with Sprint, giving it direct integration with all four major U.S. operators. The broad coverage should make it more appealing to merchants and open up potential sales of non-digital goods. Read more »
Fab.com said iPad users represent 15 percent of its customer but make up 25 percent of revenue. And 40 percent of iPad users make their first purchase within 3 months. IPad app users are expected to bring in twice as much revenue as non iPad users. Read more »
Mobify is betting that companies want to optimize their websites for tablet use in the same way many have modified their sites for smartphones. The company is releasing a tablet optimization product that makes it easy for a site to convert to a more tablet-friendly design. Read more »
Chirpify, a Portland, Oregon, startup, is unveiling its Twitter commerce platform today, an all-in-one tool that taps PayPal and allows users to monetize their tweets. The company said it’s the first one to turn Twitter into a direct sales channel. Read more »
Design shopping site Fab.com is taking a big step toward becoming the Amazon of design with the introduction of five weekly specialty shops for categories like fashion, pets and food that will more than triple the number of products Fab offers at any given time. Read more »
While many artisans have made good money by selling through Etsy, CEO Chad Dickerson said the next step is to help them grow and expand in whatever way they want to. And that means rethinking what Etsy is and its value proposition for its merchants. Read more »
Mobify’s CEO Igor Faletski, whose company helps sites optimize for mobile, said almost all of Mobify’s work thus far has been to optimize for smartphones. But he said this year many sites are preparing to build specifically for tablets, taking advantage of their unique capabilities. Read more »
Online design store Fab.com is just seven months old, but it’s showing all kinds of momentum, racking up 1.65 million users and 750,000 items sold so far. Now, the company is making its first acquisition, buying up FashionStake, an online marketplace for independent fashion. 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 »
In addition to Cyber Monday being a lot more convenient than Black Friday, it turns out that shopping online can be a lot greener than shopping in stores. Read more »
One of the interesting shopping trends this year the emergence of mobile devices helping front-load more online holiday sales, as shoppers aren’t waiting for those two days to kick off their spending. It’s another way in which mobile is redefining holiday shopping. Read more »
The store of the future has yet to be imagined if Venky Harinarayan, SVP Walmart Global eCommerce and Head, @WalmartLabs, is correct. His organization is experimenting with integrating social, search and shopping experiences for both retailers and consumers. Read more »
PayPal has been down on near field communication for payments, saying it was avoiding NFC because it needs at least three to five years to get traction. But the company is softening its stance as it prepares to pitch retailers on its vision for in-store payments. Read more »
Aided by growth in its PayPal business and mobile commerce, EBay recorded a strong quarter with revenue up 32 percent and income up 14 percent. In the third quarter ending Sept. 31, eBay’s generated $3 billion in revenue while earnings hit $490.5 million. Read more »
Shopify, the online shopping platform, has helped power more than 15,000 e-commerce store fronts including shops for Angry Birds, the Beastie Boys, General Electric and Tesla Motors. Now, the Ottawa company is announcing it’s raised $15 million in a Series B round. Read more »
Design flash sales site Fab.com has been on a tear in its first three months, racking up 600,000 users in 12 weeks. Now the company is trying to kick-start the idea of online pop-up stores with a new series of limited-time retail shops inside of Fab.com. Read more »
Groupon has shown just how popular daily deals sites can be in the United States — but Latin American daily deals site Peixe Urbano is proving that an appetite for bargains knows no borders. Since its March 2010 launch, Peixe Urbano has attracted 11 million users. Read more »
Lot18, the membership-only daily deals website for high end wine, is set to expand into three new product categories: food, epicurean travel, and spirits. Lot18 will start rolling out the new verticals, starting with food, within the next several weeks, CEO Philip James tells me. Read more »
Interactive fashion website Polyvore has officially entered into inflection point territory. The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup, which is backed with $8.2 million in venture capital, has achieved profitable operations and is currently seeing record web traffic, co-founder Jess Lee told me in an interview this week. Read more »
If the first phase of e-commerce was the utilitarian hunt for staples, the next phase of e-commerce is about recreational shopping. So it needs to be a more fun and social experience which gives an edge to companies that encourage deeper social experiences. Read more »
By most estimates, 2010 will be a record year for online sales during the all-important months of November and December (collectively known as the holiday season.) And so far things on Black Friday are going smoothly without any glitches, a good sign for the sector. Read more »
Like many of us, I spend quite a lot of time on the web and come across a staggering number of interesting things. In Clearing The Cache I pull out some of my favorites and share them with you here. Congratulations to Garvin and the Serendipity […] Read more »
