VIDEO: Ebay’s Ramadge Says Winning Trust is Key to Winning in Local

In the past, consumers bought either online or in brick-and-mortar stores, typically hurting physical stores and helping online marketplaces such as Amazon. That trend is changing, though as consumers are using both digital tools to help make purchasing decisions in-store, and browsing products on location and then buying online.

During a keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York City last week, David Ramadge, head of venture outreach at eBay, offered a fascinating look at the shift in the digital economy from global networks toward connected “village economies.”

“Software tends toward uniformity and scale; local tends toward disparate and discrete,”  Ramadge said. “The big challenge in working in the local space is understanding the shades of grey that make software reflect the real world,” he added.