What does it mean to have a social shopping experience? The definitions run the gamut, depending on the type of shopping experience you’re looking for. But Wanelo is pioneering an interesting model to look at. Read more »
Wanelo has grown in popularity recently, especially among young female shoppers, but how the company can move beyond that core audience remains to be seen. Read more »
Fancy, a social discovery and shopping site that competes with Pinterest, has raised $26.4 million according to a new filing with American Express vice chairman Ed Gillespie joining the board of Thing Daemon, the company behind Fancy. Read more »
Social shopping startup Fancy is getting into subscription commerce with a new monthly box of items curated by its community of two million members. Despite the glut of subscription commerce companies, Fancy says members requested the new box. 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 »
What do you do when Google and Sean Parker kill your idea? Change direction. That’s what Ali Ahmed and his videochat startup Lutebox have done, switching from the idea of helping people chat about premium videos to focusing on social shopping. 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 »
Fab announced a collection of updates intended to make it easier for users to socialize and discover content on the site, and said it was dropping Google+ for Pinterest. Read more »
TheFind, a shopping search site with a trove of product data, is going after Pinterest with the launch of Glimpse, a new Facebook shopping discovery app that curates shopping pages for users based on their likes, as well the stuff their friends like. Read more »
While Facebook commerce has been a dud, 8thBridge believes there is a future in f-Commerce, though it means rethinking the role Facebook plays in it. The company unveiled a new new social commerce platform on Tuesday, that doesn’t rely on steering shoppers to Facebook stores. Read more »
Fab.com, which began as Fabulis, a gay social networking site, has managed to find success by pushing a funky curated catalog of unique design products and trying to be as social as it can. The startup is now revamping a core feature called its inspiration wall. Read more »
The more I see of American Express, the more I think it stands a chance to be a major player to watch in the local deals market. If AmEx can execute, it could show many of the deal companies how commerce, loyalty and offers are done. Read more »
Google has snapped up The Dealmap, an aggregator of nearby shopping deals, in an acquisition that furthers its Google Offers ambitions. The purchase, whose price was not disclosed, shows that Google is proceeding even without its unsuccessful $6 billion bid for Groupon last year. Read more »
Next Jump spent 15 years in stealth mode before it emerged as a power player in the employee discount and rewards business. It is now taking its experience and assets to step up as a potential powerhouse in the local deals market. Read more »
American Express is showing it has designs on being a big player in the daily deal market. The company is introducing a new social platform called Link, Like, Love, that will bring American Express deals to Facebook users through their social graph. Read more »
The service provider responsible for Groupon’s daily e-mail deals, suffered a server outage this weekend that looks to have had a staggering effect on Groupon sales in several cities. This seems to play up Groupon’s overall dependence on emails as the primary method of subscriber interaction. Read more »
Gamification startup Badgeville expects to book $10 million in sales for 2011, its first year in business, according to CEO Kris Duggan. He claims that being the new kid on the gamification block is an asset. “We’ve built this over last year with modern approaches.” Read more »
ChoozOn, a start-up co-founded by a trio of former Yahoo executives, is launching a social network built around shopping and personalized deals that works hard to bring brands and consumers together. It will face tough odds going up against Groupon, Facebook, Google and others. Read more »
This week was dominated by the deal that didn’t happen. While the rumored $6 billion acquisition of Groupon by Google hasn’t been consummated, it seemed to spur action among local e-commerce rivals and prompted a lot of thought about the future of local social shopping. Read more »
Groupon is growing faster than virtually any other tech-related company in history, including Google and Facebook, and is expected to close the year with revenue of more than $500 million. What then, are the lessons retailers and other companies can learn from the such incredible ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Originally intended to get shoppers out in full-force to start the holiday shopping season, Black Friday has become a holiday unto itself, where bargain hunters shake off their turkey hangovers to wake up before dawn and chase amazing deals. But as is the case with most ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Black Friday has become a holiday unto itself, where bargain hunters shake off their turkey hangovers to wake up before dawn and chase amazing deals. But as is the case with many activities these days, technology is rapidly changing the way people shop. Read more »
