News and Analysis
Retail Prepares for a Covid-Inflected Holiday Season
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift from brick-and-mortar commerce to digital transactions. It has also forced brick-and-mortars resisting the hybridization of their own businesses to adopt digital methods, turning restaurants and apparel stores alike into both brick-and-mortar establishments and online sellers.
Against that backdrop, retail’s biggest quarter will present novel challenges this year. Retailers will need to optimize for online transactions and contend with fragmented national and global landscapes where it may be safe to go to stores in New York but not in Los Angeles.
Coronavirus Boosts OTT Viewership and Opens New TV Ad Opportunities
To be sure, kids are not the only ones spending more time staring at the TV screen. The coronavirus has catalyzed a golden age for TV viewership and non-traditional formats such as over-the-top viewing in particular, said Sean Buckley, COO of global video advertising platform SpotX.
SpotX announced a strategic investment in CTV and OTT-focused ad serving platform SpringServe Monday. I checked in with Buckley to find out how the partnership will benefit both companies and how the coronavirus year has affected TV viewership as well as video advertising.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech? Part II
What about the tech adoption accelerants happening on the supply side? Tech giants who provide marketing and operational tools for local businesses have been in hyperdrive over the past few months to roll out new Covid-era features.
Here are three areas where we’re seeing the most activity … and where we could correspondingly see the most local business evolution.
Commentary
What Happens When Knowledge Panels Aren’t Actually Knowledgeable?
In the latest of their biweekly columns, David Mihm and Mike Blumenthal explore what they find to be a troubling practice on Google’s part: granting select platforms the power to insert themselves into a local business’ knowledge panel without any recourse for the business or verifying that the information is accurate.
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Foursquare Analysis Shows Where Customers Go When Retailers Close
Using both explicit and passive location data from its Foursquare City Guide and Foursquare Swarm apps and websites, the company analyzed consumer visits at Macy’s and Kmart locations that closed in 2016. Foursquare also looked at foot traffic at competing retail stores around the same time period.
Google Analytics for Brick-and-Mortar? Spatially Targets Where to Set Up Shop
Hillit Meidar-Alfi, the company’s founder and CEO says the service “is building the most powerful platform for location search and analytics with applications for small and medium businesses, marketing technologies, ecommerce, real estate, and more. Businesses using location analytics will have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not.”
Case Study: Brick-and-Mortar Shop Looks to Compete with Online Sales
At Nutrishop in San Francisco, Jason Miller is using a digital platform called Pointy to automatically publish his products online and also drive customers into his store. By integrating Pointy’s box with his Lightspeed POS system, Miller has been able to scan products with a scanner and have those products appear on his store’s Pointy page online.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Looms Over Snap IPO, Inside a Local Publisher’s Rise
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… A Rival’s Shadow Looms Over Snapchat IPO… How Local Publisher Technically Media Is Diversifying Its Business with a Community Focus… Marketo CEO on the Company’s Big Plans to Take On Big Marketing Clouds…
Street Culture: How Some of the Most Successful Startup Leaders Motivate Their Teams
New tech startups might not have a formula to create culture, but many leaders consider culture an important component for success. Though every company is different, some trends emerge: leaders must be transparent, they must hire for fit, and they must give employees a way to feel that they partially own the company.
Street Fight Daily: SMBs to Prioritize Social Marketing, Snap Files for IPO
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… U.S. SMBs Plan to Prioritize Social Media Spending Over SEO and Email in 2017… Snapchat Parent Snap Inc. Files for IPO… Data Management Platform Adoption Is on the Rise, but Challenges Remain…
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