News and Analysis
How Americans Shop Today
All industries—apparel, grocery, electronics—are affected differently by the move to e-commerce, and consumers are turning to new options, including social marketplaces, disrupting what we typically think of as digital shopping. Here are some insights on major market changes, including the key to Amazon’s dominance, the industries flouting the turn to e-commerce, and a curious preference among millennials, from a recent survey of 1,000 consumers by Signs.com.
6 Companies Reimagining Last-Mile Delivery
There’s a renewed push in Silicon Valley to tackle last-mile delivery. The use of autonomous vehicles, drones, and artificial intelligence is what more and more vendors are pushing for. Last-mile delivery is the most expensive part of shipping, and increasing fees mean prices are only going higher. The company that can get goods from a transportation hub to the customer’s doorstep in the shortest amount of time will win the retail game, and technology firms are hoping that their innovative solutions will be the answer that retailers are looking for.
Here are six examples of companies that are working to innovate in the last-mile delivery space.
Offline Retailers See Huge Boost From Prime Day’s Online Sales
Amazon wasn’t the only retailer to see high purchase intent during its two-day event. Competing retailers saw similar successes piggybacking on Amazon’s newest shopping holiday with their own discounts and limited-time deals. This year’s Prime Day event drove a 14% spike in U.S. traffic on its first day, compared to baseline traffic from the month of June.
According to data collected by Constructor.io, an AI-first SaaS provider for ecommerce sites, among the non-Amazon companies having sales during Prime Day, search volume increased an average of more than 500%.
Commentary
How Cisco’s Meraki Became the Largest Vendor of Bluetooth Beacon Gateways
While Meraki’s routers have long had the ability to broadcast iBeacon packets, in October they released a software upgrade which enables API access to these radios, activating a major new feature. Now customers can use their Wi-Fi access points to monitor beacons from third party vendors.
Under Pressure, Local TV Advertising Still Shows Lots of Opportunity
Local TV ad spending is set to take a big hit next year, projected to decrease at a double-digit pace after an election and Olympics year. Nonetheless, local TV represents a solid opportunity for smart media and marketing tech companies, as TV remains U.S. consumers’ primary time-sink.
The SDK Equation: Four Questions for Restarting the Conversation on Publisher Integration
How can mobile marketing restart the conversation around SDK integration with publishers, industrywide? Let’s start with distinctions and empowerment — key ways that the industry can arm publishers with the knowledge they need to evaluate a good SDK while detecting the badly built versions.
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Street Culture: DoorDash Aiming to Constantly Improve Both Product and People
Translating the desire to support business owners with successful on-demand functionality relies heavily on DoorDash’s 200 core employees. In 2015, the company expanded from three markets to 22, and CEO Tony Xu says he expects the company to double in size in 2016.
LBMA Podcast: Amazon, The Grammys, Parkhub, and Euclid Analytics
On the show: Gemalto launches LinqUs IoT platform; KeyDuino means fist bumping your car to unlock it; MicroChippy and Bubbledogs create a pop-up Canine Cafe; ParkHub & Verifone parked cars at SuperBowl 50; Verve launches self-serve location platform for SMBs.
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Data Now Available to Marketers, Ads Coming to Facebook Messenger
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Agrees to License Its Data to Sprinklr, All the Better for Marketers to Understand Their Consumers (AdAge)… Facebook Plans to Put Ads in Messenger (TechCrunch)… Yahoo Warns of Industry-Wide ‘Pause’ in Mobile Growth for 2016 (VentureBeat)…
New Alignable Rankings Shed Light on What SMBs Really Think of Tech Vendors
Alignable, a social networking platform for small business owners, has released its first quarterly SMB Trust Index which shows what small businesses think of a variety of small business technology brands. The index features a Net Promoter Score (NPS), which ranks products and services by user
Survey: SMBs Beefing Up Local Marketing — And Favoring Free Social Over Websites
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are upping their digital marketing game — even though they still don’t have a clear understanding of the relative ROI of various channels. According to Thrive Analytics’ Local Pulse Report, 42% of SMBs are planning to boost their local marketing budgets in 2016.
Street Fight Daily: Google Fresh Expands to Grocery Delivery, Nextdoor Arrives in Europe
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Launches Grocery Delivery Service in San Francisco and Los Angeles (TechCrunch)… Nextdoor Launches in Europe (The Next Web)… Report: Apps Convert Better for Retailers than Mobile Web or Desktop (Marketing Land)…
How SMBs Can Use Data to Become More Efficient Marketers
Without data to back up their performance claims, many vendors struggle to maintain a positive reputation. Here are six ways that small and mid-size businesses should be using data to improve their marketing efforts.
News and Ad Industries Eye Sweeping Realignment With Users (Part 2)
RJI and its collaborators believe the Information Trust Exchange is a systematic, and entirely feasible, improvement over the present patchwork identity processes that are ruining relationships among news publishers, advertisers and users.
Street Fight Daily: DoorDash Can’t Reach $1B Valuation, Facebook Preps for Commerce
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… DoorDash May Be Latest Example of Valuation Pushback (Silicon Valley Business Journal)… Retailers and Shoppers Are Pushing the Right Buttons on ‘Remote Control’ Commerce (GeoMarketing)… You Thought Uber Was Already Everywhere, But Just Wait (The Verge)…
Inside Facebook’s Push to Make Pages the Dominant Mobile Tool for SMBs
Sheryl Sandberg says SMB advertising remains one of Facebook’s “biggest opportunities,” and the company plans to use its Pages product to help corner that market. Street Fight spoke recently with top Facebook execs about driving value for SMBs.
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