Street Fight Daily: Uber Will Return Your Online Purchases, Samsung Preps for Mobile Payment Launch

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

How Uber Is Fixing Online Shopping’s Most Annoying Problem (Refinery29)
Uber has announced Returns, a feature that will pick up any items you’ve ordered from any store and get them returned for you, whether that involves a FedEx pitstop or a regular post office run. The service is available solely in NYC through the end of September.

Samsung Pay to Launch September 28 in U.S. But Will Businesses Accept It? (Recode)
Samsung execs have boasted that Samsung Pay will work at many more stores than Apple Pay and Google’s forthcoming Android Pay, since it includes a technology that works with both old and new checkout systems. But success hinges on whether business owners can be convinced that a customer is securely able to pay with their phone in a store that has an old checkout system.

Openings and New Hires at 4Info, Matchcraft, Foursquare, and Yieldbot (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Triangle Business Journal gets a new president, Verve Mobile staffs up, and the Daily Voice hires a new publisher.

Stores Suffer From a Shift of Behavior in Buyers (New York Times)
Analysts say a shift is afoot in the mind of the American consumer, spurred by the popularity of a growing body of studies that appear to show that experiences, not objects, bring the most happiness. The Internet is bursting with the “Buy Experiences, Not Things” type of stories that could give retailing executives nightmares.

Global Mobile Ad Revenue Up 64%; Mobile Display Ads Top Search First Time Ever (Marketing Land)
The IAB reports total global mobile ad revenue in 2014 reached $31.9 billion, an impressive 64.8 percent jump over 2013. For the first time ever, mobile display ad earnings topped search, representing nearly half of the total mobile ad revenue in 2014.

Salesforce Turns Customer Support Forums Into Shops With a New Buy Button (The Next Web)
Salesforce’s Community Cloud platform allows businesses to build websites that customers and the company can interact on. Companies using the platform can now add a Buy button to customer support sites and forums as a way to entice a sale on the spot instead of redirecting someone. For example, if you were looking up how to fix your coffee machine, you might see a suggestion to buy a new one directly on the forum instead.

Group Commerce Startup Massdrop Raises $40M (TechCrunch)
Massdrop, which focuses on “community-driven commerce,” has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Through Massdrop, people with specific interests can to connect with other enthusiasts to have discussions, make purchases with group discounts, and even help design new products.

Digital Nearly Doubles Share of Retail Manufacturer Marketing Pie (eMarketer)
Traditional forms of retail marketing, including consumer promotions, traditional advertising, and trade promotions, are all losing share of retail manufacturer marketing budgets. But between 2012 and 2014, digital increased from 7.1 percent to 12.5 percent of marketing budgets.

How Logistics Gave Alibaba’s Mobile Commerce Results a Boost (PYMNTS.com)
Despite a disappointing quarter performance, Alibaba is proving to be a case study in creative approaches to online-to-offline experiences, cross-border logistics, mobile payments, and grocery delivery. Here’s a look at what makes it all tick.

LBMA Podcast: Forbes Partners With Tinder, Proxbook’s Thomas Walle Jensen (Street Fight)
On the show: Peaceful walking by Walkonomics; Blind French hikers trek 80km without a guide; AwareCar helps you avoid parking tickets; Embarcadero Technologies launches BeaconFence.

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