Given the documented ability of mobile apps, search, and social networking to lift sales, it makes forehead-smacking sense for retailers to shift their focus away from sales lost to showrooming into harnessing the shopper’s in-store wireless experience for themselves and their brands. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For online media companies, social platforms like Facebook and Twitter bring many opportunities as well as risks. An intelligent and proactive social media strategy can expand a brand’s reach. But the more heavily a media company relies upon a social media platform the more it relinquishes control over the customer experience. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
How does a large e-commerce site appeal to a wide variety of shoppers online — and then get them used to the idea of shopping with social? Zappos is working to figure out the answer to social commerce. Read more »
One Kings Lane, the San Francisco-based home decor site, on Tuesday announced that it had raised a $50 million Series D round, bringing its total amount raised to $117 million. The new funding will go technology, marketing and merchandising, the company said. Read more »
Y Combinator-backed Leaky on Wednesday said it had raised $670,000 in seed funding and opened its site to users across the country. The company initially launched in 2011 but had to rethink its approach after cease-and-desist letters from insurance companies caused it to shut down. 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 »
Style and social commerce platform Polyvore on Tuesday announced that it had launched a free mobile app for the iPhone that enables users to assemble and share personal style collections, as well as browse and purchase items. 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 »
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 »
New York-based discovery commerce startup Birchbox on Thursday launched a special edition home-themed box, featuring home accessories, gourmet foods and other lifestyle and entertainment products. Last year around the holidays, it similarly launched a one-time box targeting men and later made it a monthly product. Read more »
Apple has integrated its assistant with the Apple Store app. Users can ask for details about Apple products and the results will be brought up on screen via the app. It shows us Apple is thinking about using Siri to better connect users with its products. Read more »
At GigaOM’s Roadmap conference Monday, Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp and Warby Parker co-founder Dave Gilboa each talked about why their companies hadn’t yet released mobile apps and what they have in store. Read more »
Pickie, a recent graduate of TechStars New York, announced Monday that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from a range of investors, including DFJ Gotham, Betaworks and Liberty City Ventures. The startup uses social data regarding products to generate personalized iPad-based magazines for shopping. Read more »
Etsy, the marketplace for handmade goods, is rolling out a new mobile app in time for the holiday season. One in four visits to the site comes from a mobile app and mobile visits are twice as likely to convert to purchases, Etsy said. 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 »
Fab says it has “reimagined” its mobile apps, updating its app for the iPad and optimizing it for the iPhone 5. One-third of Fab’s sales come from mobile but it’s looking to when mobile shopping contributes half of its revenue. Read more »
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 »
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 »
As New York’s Birchbox looks to build a global presence with the recent purchase of Paris-based JolieBox, it is announcing a limited partnership with goop, the London-based lifestyle site launched by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Read more »
Social gifting startup Treater is moving to mobile with the Thursday launch of iPhone and Android apps. While it competes with Facebook Gifts and other startups, the company says it wants to encourage informal, impromptu giving, not necessarily gifts for formal occasions. Read more »
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 »
About a year after launching, social marketplace Copious is expanding to appeal to men. In addition to launching new men’s clothing categories, it is also adding new verticals for photography, home decor and design. Read more »
Social networking giant Facebook is rolling out a new gift-giving service that enables users to exchange physical gifts entirely through its platform. The new feature is based on technology Facebook acquired when it purchased the startup Karma in May. Read more »
Zaarly, a peer-to-peer marketplace, has opened its new Storefronts feature in New York, giving creative local residents a chance to boost growing their businesses and professionalize their hobbies. The new feature launched in San Francisco earlier this month and is expanding to other U.S. cities. Read more »
Sumall, a New York data analytics startup targeting small and medium sized online stores, mined its data to determine how time on site translates into revenue, which it says can be a helpful indicator in e-commerce. 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 »
In its first acquisition, New York-based beauty discovery startup Birchbox has acquired JolieBox, a Paris-based subscription beauty company. With the purchase, Birchbox expands its footprint to France, the United Kingdom and Spain. Read more »
New York-based social product design startup Quirky is launching its first product vertical around Apple and is partnering with design shopping site Fab to bring a line of community-created iPhone 5 accessories to market. Read more »
Online shopping giant eBay today announced that it has acquired New York startup Svpply, which curates products from across the Web. eBay said the acquisition will build on its recent purchase of recommendation engine Hunch to further personalize online shopping experiences. Read more »
BigCommerce, an e-commerce platform that powers the online stores for 30,000 small- to medium-sized businesses worldwide, is on Wednesday announcing that it has raised $20 million Series B funding from General Catalyst and Floodgate. Read more »
Pinterest, Fancy and plenty of other websites help shoppers find deals and inspiration for clothing they can buy online, but some early startups are developing mobile apps that encourage shoppers to make their fashion purchases in stores. Read more »
Miss Nev (as in “never miss a package”), the winning hack of Dwolla and Etsy’s eCommerce Hack Day in New York, plans to launch a platform that lets local businesses receive packages for customers in exchange for purchases or payment. Read more »
Design shopping site Fab on Thursday released an updated version of its mobile app, which enhances social sharing, and it added Facebook connect to allow members to sign in with their Facebook credentials. The company said social and mobile are driving a lot of traffic. Read more »
With the goal of becoming nothing less than the world’s next big design brand, commerce site Fab Wednesday announced that it had raised $105 million. Read more »
As if we needed more evidence that brick and mortar stores are at a crossroads, a study out Tuesday from Paris-based consulting firm CapGemini found that more than half of shoppers globally said they think more physical stores will become merely showrooms by 2020. Read more »
New York-based social commerce site Fancy said Monday that it will roll out a program to compensate users for their curation and sharing. Each time a friend buys a product shared by a user, the user will get 2 percent of the transaction value. Read more »
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 »
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 »
Martha Stewart-style crafts and cooking projects generate a ton of “likes” and “pins” online, but social discovery and commerce site The Fancy and peer-to-peer marketplace Zaarly think they can also generate some cash. Read more »
Nearly every day, it seems like yet another social commerce site springs up. But as more sites crowd the space, it becomes increasingly difficult for consumers to separate the junk from the gems. That’s where Pickie comes in. Read more »
