Street Fight Daily: Small-Scale Shipping Firms Are Having a Moment, Jet.com Struggles
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Growth of E-commerce Pushes Funds Into Small-Fry Shipping Firms (Reuters)
Mutual fund managers are turning to small-scale shipping companies as a backdoor way into the growing $334 billion e-commerce market, saying that they’re attracted to e-commerce suppliers not only because of the growth of Amazon and smaller scale businesses like the eBay and Etsy stores of the world, but because of the decline of the U.S. Postal Service.
Jet.com Runs Into Turbulence With Retailers (Wall Street Journal)
Dozens of large retailers have moved to disassociate themselves from new discount website Jet.com. The retailers discovered that Jet had placed links to their sites without permission, promising its own members cash back for making purchases after clicking the links. (Subscription required.)
Street Culture: Flexibility Helps WeddingWire as It Scales Up (Street Fight)
At WeddingWire, an online marketplace serving the wedding and events industry, an expanding employee base is providing new opportunities to fine-tune company policies.
Not Just an App: The Front End of the Trillion-Dollar, Full-Stack Revolution (TechCrunch)
Today’s dominant apps can best be compared to websites of the last tech revolution in the late ’90s. The best of them, like Amazon, started as simple websites, but today invent drones, build robots, and invest billions of dollars in all kinds of innovation and research to transform retail, logistics, and even computing.
Raise Roundup: Radius, Shopkeep,and Stripe Rake in Big New Rounds (Street Fight)
Every two weeks we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. In this edition, new investments include big votes of confidence for Twilio, Yozio, and Little.
On-Demand Food Company Sprig Wants to Turn Its Delivery Drivers Into ‘Fine Dining Waiters’ (Business Insider)
Sprig’s delivery workforce is being reclassified from independent contractors to employees. By giving the “servers,” as they’re called, employee status, Sprig says it can offer training and have more control over the experience of their meals.
Retailers Use Robots, Smart Rooms to Jolt Brick-and-Mortar Sales (Bloomberg)
As the competition for physical stores from Web giants like Amazon continues to climb unabated, companies are infusing the so-called Internet of Things into their operations. Retailers are using robotics and other technologies to replenish store and warehouse inventory and to improve the customer experience, which is a driver for sales.
Yext Puts Geo-Marketing On the Map (Yahoo Finance)
Yext, a geo-marketing startup worth over $500 million, built its business as the “next Yellow Pages” for an online and mobile world. Its next product will allow businesses to capitalize on beacon technology, reaching customers who are in physical stores through their mobile devices.
Leave Reviews on Google Maps for Better Advice on Where to Go Next (Gizmodo)
The last time you visited a restaurant, hotel, bar, or kids’ fun park, did you bother to leave a review on Google Maps? Doing so is about more than just giving other visitors an idea of what to expect — it also lets Google give you more customized recommendations of where to visit next.
Shotput Wants To Be The AWS For Logistics (TechCrunch)
The 18-month-old startup Shotput provides an end-to-end product delivery and fulfillment suite to customers. Started as a response to frustration the cofounders experienced with warehousing inefficiencies, the company aims to provide lightweight, scalable logistics solutions.
LBMA Podcast: Beacons, WeChat, and Proximity Messaging with NOD (Street Fight)
On the show: Visor lets you see what’s happening around the globe; Michigan University opens up MCity to test driverless cars; Beacons + WeChat test from Chow Tai Fook brings in $16M; Hipcamp’s landsharing services. Member news from Canadian Tire, Placed, and Wendy’s.
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