Amazon’s Retail-as-a-Service Expands into Payments, AR, and Salons
As Amazon continues to mature, it needs to find revenue growth in new, creative places. The company’s booming advertising business is one such conquest. Iterating on the AWS playbook by bringing tech-fueled logistical innovations to physical stores could be another.
How Should Retailers Navigate the Post-Covid Landscape?
While the return of nearly unrestricted in-person shopping heralds brighter days for brands and retailers, it is also a challenge. Consumers have gotten used to digital shopping as e-commerce soared amid the pandemic. How will retailers provide that same frictionless experience to meet elevated customer expectations in-store? Amy Vale, CMO at cash-back app Dosh, weighs in.
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.
Who Benefits from the Surging Interest in Contactless Payments?
More than half (51%) of Americans are now using some form of contactless payment. Consumers are most likely to use contactless cards for buying essentials at grocery stores and pharmacies, where 50% of consumers say they worry about the cleanliness of signature touchpads.
Consumers in the U.S. have historically been slower to adopt contactless payments, and that’s something that is tied to a lack of merchant adoption, says Rob Fagnani, vice president of strategy at Formation.ai.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech?
Could forced adoption of alternative shopping methods like curbside pickup lead to user acclimation? Will millions of shoppers get exposed to the merits of these streamlined options and like what they see? Will new habits be born that sustain throughout normal times?
If so, these technologies — along with virtual-office enablement — could benefit from this period as a blessing in disguise for exposing their value propositions. But who stands to benefit most? We’ve identified five local commerce tech areas to which this could apply.
Mobile Payments: Does Local’s Holy Grail Have Holes?
Mobile payments continue to be equally opportune and elusive. The potential benefits are huge, but I’m skeptical that mainstream consumers will alter their entrenched habits when they still don’t see cash or credit cards as a pain point.
Why Mobile Payments Will Heat Up in 2017
Mobile payments have been inhibited by point-of-sale hardware upgrade requirements and the lack of a killer pitch for either users or merchants. But the movement to chip-based credit and debit cards in the U.S. could help.
5 Pay-by-Mobile Vendors for On-Demand Parking
Parking is among the most popular uses for mobile payments, with 19% of consumers having paid for parking with their smartphones and 26% indicating they’d be interested in doing so. Here are five examples of vendors offering mobile payment parking solutions right now.
Street Fight Hyperlocal Analyst Predictions for 2016
With 2015 drawing to a close, it’s time again to look ahead to what we can expect in the hyperlocal space in 2016. This year, we did things a little differently. We invited our regular analyst contributors to 1) weigh in on what they felt would be a “sure thing” in the coming year, 2) offer a prediction on something that might get big (but might not happen), and 3) identify something that hyperlocal marketers and merchants really don’t need to worry about. This is the first of several predictions pieces we will feature this week.
6 Reasons Why Hyperlocal Tech Initiatives Continue to Elude Consumers
Hyperlocal is a totally logical concept in the minds of technologists, analysts, and investors, but many hyperlocal tech initiatives have yet to catch fire with consumers. Part of the challenge is people are creatures of habit. Here are six reasons why hyperlocal tech will continue to elude consumers’ grasp in 2016.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Launches Food Delivery App, Walmart Develops Own Mobile Payments Service
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Tests Standalone Food Delivery App (TechCrunch)… Walmart to Offer Smartphone Payments in Stores (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Is Updating Instant Articles to Help Publishers Make More Money (Adweek)…
Street Fight Daily: HomeAdvisor Expands to New Cities, Airbnb Confirms Rumored $1.5B Round
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… HomeAdvisor Expands, Takes On Angie’s List in Search for Ambitious Employees (Denver Business Journal)… Airbnb Just Confirmed a Massive $1.5 Billion Round That Makes It the Third-Highest Valued Startup in the World (Business Insider)… Yahoo: Be Careful Playing in Traffic (Wall Street Journal)…
Street Fight Daily: Mobile Payment Transactions to Reach $27B by 2016, How to Sell on Social Media
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… U.S. Proximity Mobile Payment Transactions to Reach $8.71 Billion in 2015 (eMarketer)… The New Wave of Selling on Mobile and Social (TechCrunch)… Amazon Books Should Be the Future of Brick-and-Mortar Retail Chains (Gigaom)…
Street Fight Daily: Uber Seeks to Raise Another $1B, Is Amazon Building Its Own Shipping Network?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Said to Plan Another $1 Billion in Fundraising (New York Times)… Amazon May Be Building a Team That Will Help It Replace FedEx and UPS (Business Insider)… Mobile Payments Will Triple in the U.S. in 2016 (eMarketer)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s New Retail Features, Local Mobile Ad Spend to Reach $6.5 Billion by 2019
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Woos Retailers and Shoppers Alike with New Features (Gigaom)… Mobile Spend by Local Advertisers Forecast to Hit $6.5B by 2019 (MediaPost)… Security, Data Breaches Slow Down Mobile Payments Adoption (eMarketer)…
Street Fight Daily: Postmates’ Super-Speedy Food Delivery, Apple Approves Native Ad Blocker
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates Takes on Uber and Sprig with Quick Food Delivery Service Pop (Recode)… Apple Approves an App That Blocks Ads in Native Apps (TechCrunch)… Amazon Commands Almost Half of All Product Searches, and Marketers Are Ignoring Omnichannel (VentureBeat)…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Will Cut 1,100 Jobs, LivingSocial is Planning a Comeback
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Groupon to Cut 1,100 Jobs, Pull Out of 7 Countries (Chicago Tribune)… The Resurrection of LivingSocial (DCInno)… The Commoditization of Ad Tech — How the Cross-Device Landscape is Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better (Medium)…
Street Fight Daily: Apple’s Mystery Mapping Vans, Google’s Other Payment Play
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mystery Solved: Apple Vans gathering Next-Gen Maps Data, Grabbing Street View Storefronts and 3D images (9to5 Mac)… Google’s Other Mobile Payments Service: Hands Free at McDonald’s (Wall Street Journal)… Dave Morin Sells Path’s Social Networking And Messaging Services To Prevent The Rest Of The Path Ship From Sinking (Pando)…
Street Fight Daily: McDonald’s Beacon Strategy, Yelp Stock Plummets
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… McDonald’s Beacon Strategy Pushes In-Store Conversion Rate To 20% (Mobile Marketer)… Analysts Lower Price Targets as Yelp Stock Tumbles (MarketWatch)… Leaked Lyft Document Reveals a Costly Battle With Uber (Bloomberg)…
Commerce Content: A New Way to Connect with Customers Online
Most millennial consumers, the generation with the most spending power, grew up shopping by researching a product before purchasing. Nine out of 10 consumers consult reviews before making a purchase, and 56% say they consult at least four reviews before making a purchase. This portends a different way to reach consumers and convert.