News and Analysis
6 Buy Now, Pay Later Solutions for Retailers
Retailers that don’t start offering flexible payment options on their checkout pages soon risk losing shoppers who prefer the unconventional approach to financing, especially for more expensive items. Flexible payment solutions tout bigger carts, customization, and faster transactions among their benefits.
Retailers Turn to AI to Assist with Forecasting Challenges
With machine learning and AI, retailers have been able to navigate the continued imbalance between supply and demand. This is especially true for digital-first retailers and on-demand businesses. The number of online grocery shoppers increased by 35 million during the pandemic. That opened the door to new opportunities, but it also opened the door to certain logistical challenges that grocers never experienced previously. For example, online grocery shoppers expect the items in their mobile apps to be in-stock and available for delivery immediately, which is different from a shopper who casually browses store aisles to see what’s available at a brick-and-mortar location.
Commentary
LBMA Vidcast: Square Goes Mobile SDK, Gimbal Buys UberMedia
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association show: Square goes mobile SDK, Sinclair + Harman + SK Telecom, Gimbal buys UberMedia, AT&T and others to stop selling location data, LocusLabs partners with IndoorAtlas. Special Guests: Herve Utheza (Here Technologies) & Tom Kenney (Verve).
Trending Now: Brands Shifting Mobile Ad Budgets from Facebook to Google UAC
Brian Bowman: There’s an emerging trend in the advertising industry—for the first time, brands are shifting significant mobile advertising budgets from Facebook ads to Google Universal App Campaigns (UAC). While Facebook advertising has largely dominated mobile marketing budgets, this migration of budgets to Google’s platform has been a helpful shift to diversify risk tied to any single platform. Why is this shift happening now, and what does it mean for brands?
Google and Amazon Escalate Voice ‘Platform Wars’
Mike Boland: Any entity competing for local commerce—publishers, brands, ad-tech players—has a looming platform choice for voice. Like the platform wars between iOS and Android, it’s a matter of deciding where to apply finite resources and development muscle. Maybe the answer is “both” Google and Amazon. But for now, Google appears to have the lead.
Latest Posts
6 Mobile Customer Service Platforms for Retailers
Tech vendors are stepping in with mobile solutions designed to expand the ways store associates interact with customers. These solutions allow employees to do everything from checking inventory and processing transactions on smartphones to accessing real-time information about current promotions and customer purchase histories.
Street Fight Daily: Online Brands Go Brick-and-Mortar, Voice-Assistant Arms Race Escalates
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Why E-Commerce Brands Are Opening Brick-and-Mortar Stores… Amazon and Apple Escalate Battle of Virtual Assistants… Tech Companies, Led by Amazon, Spend More Than Any Other U.S. Companies on R&D…
GTCR Acquires Majority Stake in Simpli.fi
GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in Simpli.fi, a programmatic advertising platform that helps brands master local marketing at scale. The Simpli.fi management team, headed up by co-founders Frost Prioleau and Paul Harrison, will remain in charge of the company’s operations.
At Liftoff, a Classic Formula for Company Culture
It’s never too early to be intentional about establishing and promoting the key values you want your team to emulate, says Liftoff’s CEO Mark Ellis. It provides a set of criteria against which to assess candidates from a cultural fit perspective, as well as a rationale for promoting certain employee behaviors and discouraging others.
Street Fight Daily: Postmates Sheds Employees, What Oath CEO Learned from Leading Patch
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates Laid Off All Its Cities Managers This Week… What Oath CEO Tim Armstrong Learned from Patch’s Struggles… Amazon Pumps Resources into Alexa to Maintain Dominance as Competition Heats Up…
Case Study: How an Unusual, Soft-Sell Sponsored Post Turned Readers Into Customers
“I tried to think about everything I hated about sponsored posts and do the opposite,” says Aaron Seyedian, the founder of Well Paid Maids. “As a reader, I find that sponsored posts on blogs are often lengthy, impersonal and overly centered on sales. I set out to write a post that would be succinct and personal.”
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Beyond Search: AI Visibility the New Growth Lever for MULO Brands