The Democratization of Local Commerce and the Future of Physical Exchange
While the analyst community obsesses over the share of spending that physical stores are losing to ecommerce, they overlook the vast transformation in the stores themselves. There’s a deeper shift underway in the way we sell and consume products locally that could have a substantially larger impact on the wider economy…
Street Fight Daily: Google Kills The Carousel, Facebook’s Local Ambitions
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google Debuts New Look For Hotel Booking Ads As The Carousel Disappears (Search Engine Land)… Facebook’s New Privacy Rules Clear the Way for Payments Push and Location-Based Ads (Recode)… Can Tech Companies Solve Their Temporary Labor Problem? (Pacific Standard)…
StockUp Presents the Latest Take on the Local Inventory Dilemma
The three month-old startup has spent a year in stealth building a community around an app that allows users to scan barcodes and add product and pricing information manually to its database. Andy Ellwood, a former Gowalla and Waze executive who joined as chief revenue officer in January, says the company now has information about over half a million products in its database…
The Clever Solution Behind Path’s Place Messaging Service
In late September, the company added a feature to its messaging app called Places that allows users to text local businesses with questions, and, often within minutes, receive an answer. The experience is simple and habitual for both merchant and consumer, yet the infrastructure inside is a patchwork blend of technology and people that demonstrates a remarkable empathy for the realities of the market today…
In Building Local Marketplaces, a Choice of Chicken or Egg
The success of Uber and Airbnb have spawned a deluge of startups that have replicated the on-demand marketplace model across a range of verticals. But developing marketplaces locally requires a deft approach to scale that balances a network’s need for liquidity with a startup’s desire for growth…
Investors Bet on Rethinking Old Categories — Not Creating New Ones
During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Tuesday, Tige Savage, managing partner at Revolution Ventures, and Dave Ambrose, managing director at Steadfast Venture Capital joined Guardian’s east coast tech editor Dominic Rushe to discuss the growing opportunities — and future challenges — in rethinking traditionally local businesses…
Groupon’s Local Business Bounces Back — But Is It Too Little Too Late?
Groupon beat market expectations in the third quarter, stabilizing a troubled international segment and accelerating the company’s core North American local business after three quarters of decline. But the company’s quickly growing ecommerce business continues to overshadow the small gains of the local segment…
At GrubHub, a Delicate Balance Between Search and Commerce
Next Tuesday, Grubhub’s president Jonathan Zabusky will join us for a fireside chat at Street Fight Summit in New York. We caught up with Zabusky, who served as chief executive at Seamless prior to the merger, to talk about the state of the company and the evolving local commerce opportunity…
With Nomi Deal, Brickstream Kicks Off Consolidation in Store Analytics
Brickstream, an in-store analytics firm, has snapped up the New York-based Nomi, an indoor marketing startup founded by a handful of Salesforce alums, in an all-equity deal. The entire 37-person Nomi team will join Brickstream including CEO Marc Ferrentino who will now serve as chief marketing officer for the Atlanta, Ga.-based company…
Wix Buys Its Way Into Online Ordering
Wix, the Isreali-based website builder, has quietly pushed into the wider small business technology market since going public last year. Now the company has acquired OpenRest, a small Israeli-American startup that provides restaurants with the ability to accept orders through a website or mobile app…
In Frozen Yogurt Wars, A Battle for Digital Domination
In a new regular series, a deep-dive analysis of local presence pits Yogurtland against rival Pinkberry, finding that Yogurtland outperformed its smaller counterpart across Google, Facebook, Foursquare and a number of other local search sites. The study shows that Pinkberry has done slightly better on social media, but still struggles among some of the more fundamental elements of local search and discovery…
In New App Marketplace, Signs of the Square’s Future
The company launched its Square App Marketplace yesterday to allow third-parties to develop applications that integrate directly into its point-of-sale product. The move marks an important step in Square’s evolution as it shifts focus from consumer-facing payments to an arguably much larger business software market…
Paid Placement Helps GrubHub Pad Its Bottom Line
Grubhub posted better-than-expected earnings Thursday sending shares up slightly in early trading. The online ordering company, which hit the public markets earlier this year, saw revenue and profit inch up slightly in a seasonally less active third quarter due in part to the adoption of a new auction-based commision model…
With Carrier Data, Vistar Media Finds Foothold in Mobile Ad Fray
Vistar, a digital out-of-home startup, wants to use carrier data to map consumer behavior in the real world. Through a partnership with AirSage, Vistar has developed a system which it says can allow marketers to analyze where nearly 110 million of consumers live, work and shop in an anonymized and privacy-sensitive way…
Wooing Restuarants, Retail Software Startup LightSpeed Buys POSIOS
Point-of-sale startup Lightspeed said Wednesday it has purchased a belgian competitor, POSIOS, to help the firm enter the food service vertical and expand internationally. The deal underscores the potential for consolidation within a small business software segment that has seen an intense influx of capital and redrawing of product lines…
Street Fight Daily: Uber Wars Thin Out, Jack Dorsey Denies Rumors
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Why A Taxi App With $100 Million In Funding Failed In The U.S. (Fortune)… Jack Dorsey On The Report That Square Is In Talks To Sell To PayPal — ‘FALSE’ (Business Insider)… Amazon and Rise of Mobile Challenge Google’s Search Position, Says Chairman (GigaOm)…
Why Brand Names Matter Less and Less on Main Street
The “brand era” that gave rise to some of the tentpoles of the American economy may soon come to an end. The web, now reachable wherever and whenever through smartphones, can help consumers answer many of the questions that brand once answered…