Read original story on: The Next Web
PayPal has officially launched a new Pay After Delivery service in U.S, which allows PayPal users pay for their goods up to two weeks after online purchases are made. New partnerships with Burger King and GoDaddy were also announced to assist the launch. Facing increased competition from Apple Pay and alike, PayPal needs such new features and partnerships to help it stand on its own, once it spins off from eBay.
Read original story on: The Verge
Starbucks will be tipping its toes into ecommerce next year with plans for launching an on-demand delivery program in select markets. The delivery service will be available to loyalty program members through a new “Mobile Order and Pay” app, set to debut later this year. Given the success its mobile app has enjoyed, along with the rise of on-demand economy, it seems reasonable for Starbucks to double down on mobile-focused initiative.
Read original story on: Re/code
With Apple Pay going public this week, it looks like mobile payment is undoubtedly l’air du temps ( fancy French for “all the rage right now.”) Not to be left behind, online marketplace Etsy will start offering free credit card readers to some of its U.S. sellers as part of an effort to extend its reach beyond the Internet and explore a new revenue stream (Etsy charge 2.75 percent of each transaction). The Square-esque dongle will be used in conjunction with an Etsy app to allow sellers to accept credit card and debit card purchases. So next time you visit a hipster craft fair, prepare to swipe your card on one of these.
Read original story on: Statista
Amazon reported disappointing quarter earnings on Thursday, missing both revenue and profit estimates. And it seems like the lackluster sales of the Fire Phone is to blame, primarily. Not only did Amazon take a $170 million write-off related to the phone’s weak performance — in addition, Amazon’s prime cloud business is currently locked in a price war with Microsoft and Google. Still, the holiday season is upon us, and as the chart from Statista shows, the E-Commerce giant always bounces back pretty well during the fourth quarter, especially with three pop-up stores opening to assist the holiday shopping this year.
We have seen a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers going digital by opening online stores, but it is rare to see a digital retailer to open a physical store (Warby Parker and Piperlime are among the few who have done it). So it’s come as quite the surprise that Amazon, the No. 1 ecommerce site in the States, is opening its first brick-and-mortar store in Manhattan just in time for the holiday-shopping season. The store, located across from the iconic Empire State Building, will reportedly function as a mini-warehouse, with limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns and exchanges, and pickups of online orders. As it’s right in the neighborhood, we’ll be keeping a close eye on its development.
After some successes with native content advertising, BuzzFeed is moving into new territory. Earlier this week, the viral content site debuted its first foray into ecommerce-enabled content with a L’Oreal sponsored post that features a click-to-buy link for readers to purchase products that are relevant to the post. Such integration could help BuzzFeed and the sponsors better quantify the impact of branded content, but whether it can successfully drive up digital sales remains to be seen.
Reddit, one of the biggest content sharing sites in the world, has raised $50 million in Series B on a $500 million valuation and, in a surprising move, plans to give back 10% of the round’s equity to the user community through its own cryptocurrency. With this move, Reddit could potentially revitalize its community while also introducing some new “freemium” features linked with its its own “reddit money”. This, in turn, could potentially open up a new revenue stream should Reddit decide to allow exchange with fiat money.
“Reimagine Retail for the Connected Shopper” is the second Ad Week seminar we attended earlier today. Presented solely by Michael Dill, Managing Partner of Match Marketing Group, the seminar explored the various facets that today’s digitally connected shoppers are reshaping the retail market.
Four Aspects Of Connecting
Dill started by noting that when Ad Week first started in New York 10 years ago, “neither Twitter or smartphones existed.” But things have changed, as social media and mobile devices have significantly altered the retail experience by keeping consumers constantly connected. Shoppers today are connected to stores, to the media, to each other, and most importantly, to the shopping experiences. The connected shopper “thinks of brands and retailers as providers, both in terms of value and experience”, and therefore expect to form a connection with them.
Three Types Of Connectors
While Dill did acknowledge that “the coveted Millennials are the mainstay of connected shoppers”, he maintained that “it’s not about the different generations or demos, but rather how different types of shoppers connect to stores and each other”. According to Match Marketing’s study, today’s connected shoppers can be behaviorally categorized into three archetypes: Mass Connectors, Task Connecters and Elite Connectors, each with their unique characteristics and demands.
Two Ways To Earn That Connection
To earn that valued connection with today’s shoppers, marketers need to utilize an insight-driven, shopper-centric approach to drive action while also building emotional connections with relevant and valuable connectors. “With transparent prices and ubiquitous social recommendation, it’s the retail experience that truly differentiates“, Dill explained, “so connected shoppers today are looking for something different and richer than the traditional shopping experience”. And as retail enters a new era where digital drives offline sales, “to connect with the shoppers is to win at the crucial moments of the connected shopping experience”.
Amazon is once again turning to Twitter to further the reach of its ecommerce empire. Now simply by replying with #AmazonWishList to any tweet that contains an Amazon product link, U.S. users can save linked products to their Wish List. This move follows the #AmazonCart, a similar initiative launched back in May that lets users add products to their Amazon shopping cart without leaving Twitter, now a vital cog in the global e-commerce.
Alibaba, the leading company in China’s ecommerce industry, opened at $92.70 a share on the New York Stock Exchange today, making it the biggest public offering in U.S. history. This is hardly surprising to anyone who knows the company, as it is the most popular destination for online shopping in China, the fastest growing ecommerce market in the world. At more than $92.50 per share, Alibaba’s market cap is hovering around $228 billion, which makes it larger than Facebook, IBM, and its American counterpart Amazon.
