Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s New Retail Features, Local Mobile Ad Spend to Reach $6.5 Billion by 2019

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Facebook Woos Retailers and Shoppers Alike with New Features (Gigaom)
Facebook is testing new features that will improve users’ ability to make purchases without leaving the confines of its mobile app. Some of the features include a shopping section on businesses’ Facebook pages; “Carousel” ads that allow retailers to display multiple products in a user’s News Feed; and the addition of a dedicated shopping channel to the sidebar navigation in Facebook’s mobile apps.

Mobile Spend by Local Advertisers Forecast to Hit $6.5B by 2019 (MediaPost)
Last year, $900 million, around 21 percent of the total spend in mobile targeting local audiences, came from local advertisers. By 2019, total mobile spend by local advertisers will grow to $6.5 billion, or around 36 percent of the total spend in mobile targeting local audiences.

Patch’s St. John: People Crave an Understanding of What’s Happening Right Around Them (Street Fight)
“We have about just under 70 full-time salaried editors. Our goal is to add more as we grow. As we get revenue, we put it immediately into expanding, because we need to be national to really fully realize Patch’s potential,” said Warren St. John, the hyperlocal network’s editor-in-chief.

Security, Data Breaches Slow Down Mobile Payments Adoption (eMarketer)
Mobile payments are becoming more sophisticated, but even with this maturation, adoption is still minimal due to several barriers. Security is a key barrier, and a top concern among those working in tech.

Case Study: Reliability in New Scheduling Platform Helps Chicago Salon Maintain Buzz (Street Fight)
Online scheduling platforms are supposed to save merchants time by automating client bookings, cancellations, reminders, and even payment collection. But when merchants stop trusting their own scheduling platforms, and start verifying individual bookings for accuracy, the benefits of online-only systems go out the window. For a Chicago salon, switching things up helped maintain buzz and business.

Kohl’s Expands Same-Day Delivery to 9 Cities Ahead of Holiday Season (Business Insider)
Kohl’s will offer same-day delivery services in more U.S. cities, taking a page out of Macy’s book as department stores aim to make online shopping more appealing ahead of the holiday season. The company said it had tied up with Deliv, a startup that contracts drivers to pick up ordered items from stores and malls and deliver them to customers.

Yahoo Small Business Turns Over Local Listings Management to Yext (Search Engine Land)
Following in the footsteps of MapQuest last year, Yahoo Small Business is outsourcing local listings management to Yext, enabling local marketers to manage their listings on Yahoo or Yext’s partner network of sites, which Bing, Yelp, Facebook, and Foursquare.

When It Comes to Delivery, One Size Doesn’t Fit All (TechCrunch)
Daphne Carmeli: With the recent announcement of Amazon Flex and rumblings about Uber’s expansion, everyone is wondering who will win delivery. But suggesting that one company will dominate same-day service grossly simplifies a very complex reality. Different sectors have incompatible last-mile delivery needs and requirements. It would be virtually impossible for one company to be all things to all people.

Village Voice Sold to New Owner (Politico New York)
Voice Media Group announced it has sold its flagship title to a company controlled by investor Peter Barbey of the Reading Eagle Company, a family-owned business that says it has been publishing newspapers since 1796.

Instacart Now Powers Grocery Delivery for Allrecipes (VentureBeat)
On-demand grocery delivery startup Instacart is joining forces with Allrecipes. Through the partnership, Allrecipes will feature a button that lets its 40 million monthly readers automatically order ingredients for top recipes to be delivered in under an hour.

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