Ebooks made up 20% of the U.S. consumer book industry in 2012, up from 15% in 2011
photo: Shutterstock
The U.S. consumer book publishing industry had a strong 2012, fueled in part by the growth of ebooks. Read more at paidContent »
Fab, now with 9 million members, gets festive with new Holiday Shops
photo: Fab
Design site Fab is getting festive with new holiday shops that help people find the right gift for the holidays. The new shops caps off a huge year of growth for Fab, which is now up to 9 million members. Read more »
Online men’s retailer Frank & Oak raises $5M, led by Lightbank
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 »
Birchbox, Warby Parker co-founders to speak at RoadMap
The co-founders of two companies changing the face of connected retail, Warby Parker and Birchbox, will join us at our upcoming RoadMap conference next month. They’ll talk about the forces changing the retail landscape and how they expect to connect with the consumer of the future. Read more »
With $14.5M, second-hand kids’ clothing site thredUP looks to new verticals
San Francisco-based thredUP, an online retailer of secondhand children’s clothing, has raised $14.5 million in Series C financing. The company plans to use the new funds to invest in infrastructure and expand into new verticals, including teens, maternity and adults. Read more »
Warby Parker raises $36.8M to expand fashion eyewear brand
photo: GigaOM
Warby Parker has apparently raised $36.8 million in a Series B round, according to a new SEC filing. The online eyewear seller has succeeded by building a strong brand based on hip styles, low prices, customer support and a mission to donate glasses to needy people. Read more »
Try-before-you-buy YBuy subscription services raises $1M from Eric Schmidt
YBuy, a Southern California company, has built a monthly subscription service around the try-before-you-buy model for gadgets, appliances and other products and it’s getting a big name backer in Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, whose TomorrowVentures is leading a $1 million Series A round. Read more »
Startup studio Science acquires ‘Klout for Pinterest’
Pinpuff, an India-based startup that measures influence on Pinterest, is Los Angeles-bound. Startup studio Science announced Tuesday that it is acquiring the young startup and moving its founder to its California office. Read more »
When do summer shoppers splurge online?
photo: Giorgio Montersino
Online retail sales may slump during the summer, but that doesn’t mean shoppers aren’t occasionally willing to drop the big bucks. New York-based data analytics startup SumAll shares several e-commerce trends for the dog days of summer. Read more »
HipSwap wants to be a Craigslist for the Pinterest set
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 »
Digital ‘stylebooks’ become designer-quality clothing with StyleSaint
photo: StyleSaint
The Internet has tapped the wisdom of the crowd, but new content-to-commerce startup StyleSaint is about to test its taste. Read more »
The cost of losing a customer’s trust
Preserving consumer trust gets a lot of lip service. But a new report from the World Economic Forum actually attempts to translate its value into dollars and cents. Read more »
Amid growing pains, Etsy raises $40 million
photo: Etsy
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 »
Online retail platform Goodsie aims to be one-stop shop for newby sellers
Goodsie, a New York City-based start-up that launched a year ago, allows small businesses to create simple and elegant online store fronts without knowing any code. Now, it’s vying for a bigger piece of the pie by adding some key tools for small businesses. Read more »
Amazon is stifling the e-commerce revolution
Amazon continues to defy gravity deep into its second decade. That’s terrible news for consumers and competitors says Michael Schreck of Zmags. E-commerce needs competition to innovate. But for that to happen, we need to ditch the old e-commerce model, and embrace discovery shopping. Read more »
At Warby Parker, the power of branding is easy to see
Warby Parker, the New York maker of hip glasses, had an amazing year in 2011 with its stylish designs, low prices, customer service and social mission. The success comes down to the work the company did in building a coherent brand that has resonated with consumers. Read more »
In the Fast Lane: tips from Russia’s hottest incubator
Russia is now Europe’s largest Internet market — but it’s still a daunting and confusing place for startups. But as the CEO of young, successful incubator Fast Lane Ventures, Marina Treshchova,may have a few answers on how to do Russia right. Read more »
Shoptime’s $50m heats up Russia’s e-commerce war
With Russia recently becoming Europe’s biggest internet market, retailers are fighting over who can dominate proceedings. Now flash sales site KupiVIP is pumping $50m into online shopping rival Shoptime to try and crack the nascent market. Read more »
StyleOwner lets fashion bloggers be more than a pretty face
Fashion sites have become huge, but what if the people who spend hours curating fashion and style products online could make money from the experience as well? Enter StyleOwner, a new e-commerce platform that lets anyone in the United States create and run an online boutique. Read more »
Australian Galaxy Tab retailers call Apple’s “bluff,” ready for a fight
Apple may have won an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet from Samsung in Australia, but online retailers still aren’t getting the message. Despite threats of legal action, some retailers are saying Apple either needs to sue or stop complaining. Read more »
Mobile and the rise of the smart buyer
The emergence of the smartphone is changing consumer behavior in many ways. And this holiday season we are going to see smartphones play a bigger role in how we shop. Thanks to smart apps and smartphones, we are seeing the rise of the smart buyer. Read more »
Shopify raises $15M to expand online shopping platform
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 »
Fab.com tries online pop-up stores
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 »
Smoother iPad ordering, new stock status added to Apple’s online store
Apple has made a couple of minor changes to its online store Friday morning, which, though small, should make shopping for products through the web-based portal even more painless. The first is a new iPad-ordering process, and the other is a change in stock level indicators. Read more »
Eddy Cue promoted to Apple SVP, Internet Software and Services
Apple’s executive team is undergoing some changes, and one of those changes is a promotion for Eddy Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. Cue will continue to oversee Apple’s online stores and iCloud and take on the challenge of iAd, too. Read more »
Amazon kills affiliate program in California over sales tax battle
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was not bluffing. On Wednesday evening, Amazon followed through with its threat to terminate its associates program in California after Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will impose state sales taxes on online purchases made by California residents. Read more »
EBay acquires Magento, builds a commerce OS
EBay said it’s buying up the rest of e-commerce platform Magento in a bid to build a broader commerce operating system that spans online, mobile, social and local. EBay is looking to be the go-to resource for online and offline retailers, helping connect them to consumers. Read more »
Boticca Brings Etsy’s Model to High-End, Global Design
Boticca.com, an online marketplace connecting high-fashion,independent jewelry and accessories designers with fashonistas looking for hand-crafted Czech crystal collar necklaces and gold-foil-and-pearl jellyfish rings, has received $2.5 million in funding. The Series A round comes from both international and Silcon Valley investors. Read more »
Former eBay Exec Leaves to Start Shopping Startup
Randy Shoup, the architectural guru credited with scaling eBay, tweeted Monday evening that he has left the online auction giant to co-found a new consumer-focused e-commerce startup, Shopilly.com. He and another former eBay exec are keeping their plans under wraps for now. Read more »
Shopify Sees Opportunity in Kickstarting Start-ups
Most start-ups are worried about winning business plan competitions. Shopify, an e-commerce platform, is getting good at hosting them. The compay is kicking off its second Build a Business competition, taking the contest international while upping the prize money and giveaways to half a million dollars. Read more »
Boo Who? Europe’s Biggest Dot-com Casualty Is Back
Swedish entrepreneur Ernst Malmsten presided over the rise and fall of Boo.com, Europe’s most notorious dot-com failure. Now he’s ready to try his hand at online retail once again — but what has he learned from more than a decade in the wilderness? Read more »
E-Commerce Satisfaction Dips to Lowest Point in 6 Years
While Amazon and Netflix increasingly win over web consumers, a significant decline in online retail customer satisfaction dropped overall e-commerce satisfaction to its lowest point since 2004. That’s according to the latest figures from ForeSee Results’ annual e-commerce report on American Customer Satisfaction Index. Read more »
Is Amazon Losing Its Edge as a Media Retailer?
Amazon’s success as an online retailer is the stuff that entrepreneurial dreams are made of. In 15 years, Amazon has defined and continued to shape how we shop online – especially for media like books, movies and music. But something unexpected is happening as more media is consumed in the cloud and less on printed pages and plastic disks. Amazon isn’t being as successful here. Read more »
