Social Commerce, Pinterest And The Future Of Fashion Retail. Editor’s note: Leo Chen is a former product manager at Amazon and is currently the co-founder of Monogram, an iPad fashion discovery and shopping app funded by 500 Startups. You can find Leo on Twitter @leoalmighty. Death of brick-and-mortar retail Andrew Chen recently recommended a video to me, which inspired this post. It’s a keynote by Ron Johnson, the CEO of JC Penney and the man behind Apple’s retail revolution. In the video, Johnson spoke about the history of the department store and why JC Penney has fallen behind. It wasn’t very long ago that stores like JC Penney, Nordstrom, and Gap were the pinnacles of fashion retail.
These retailers provided better products at unbeatable prices. Then came e-commerce. That all began to change when Zappos came along with free shipping and returns; customers are encouraged to order multiple sizes and colors, try on the items in the comfort of our homes and return what we don’t want. But soon, online retailers will also become less relevant. UK Daily Deals Aggregator Coupobox Sells Up To DealCollector In Another Sign Of Consolidation. Today comes news of a small but indicative acquisition in the area of daily deals: the UK-based deals aggregator Coupobox has been bought by rival site DealCollector for a song: the price was in the “lower six figures,” according to Stavros Prodromou, the founder and former CEO of the company.
The acquisition is a sign of how consolidation in the sector is hitting aggregators, too. Counting flash sales and private buying clubs with daily deals, there are an estimated 105 sites in the UK alone, with 1,400 across all of Europe, and there will likely be more companies bought or cast by the wayside going forward. “From the consumer point of view we are currently too overloaded with daily deals,” says Prodromou.
The deal will help DealCollector, which started in Germany as Tagesangebote, continue its expansion in the UK. This is part of a wider strategy for DealCollector, according to Prodromou. Partly, that was because of its proportion of repeat users — between 15 and 20 percent, he says. One Kings Lane: Decor site confronts competition. Just in time for Thanksgiving, the 17-inch Mauviel aluminum roaster for $179 - normally $300 - could be what makes or breaks this year's turkey. Unfortunately, it already sold out. Each morning, the 3 million subscribers to One Kings Lane have a chance to jump on about six new sales for home decor, from expensive cookware to vintage furniture, all at a discount of up to 70 percent.
Some items, such as a small wood key rack, cost as little as $9. Other finds cost much more, such as a one-of-a-kind Hatfield cabinet for $9,999. That sold out, too. In what are known as flash sales, the products are available only for a few days or until they are gone. And though they represent just a fraction of the $176 billion online retail industry, they have become increasingly popular. Two-year-old startup One Kings Lane is looking to become something more than just flash sales. "There's an opportunity to make the home decorating process much easier," CEO Doug Mack said. Competition heats up. Pinterest is On Trend But Does it Convert? How Etsy Turns Artists Into Entrepreneurs [INFOGRAPHIC] Etsy isn't just about coffee koozies and repurposed doilies. The ecommerce site may host online storefronts for handmade, vintage and repurposed items, but it also fosters a future for many an aspiring entrepreneur — a pursuit far more priceless than the items it sells.
In fact, Etsy's user friendly interface and robust marketing tools have rendered it comparable to eBay, especially in terms of the companies' sales trajectories. Between 2010 and 2011, Etsy's sales increased by 71% — its 875,000 shop owners now sell an average of 2.9 million items per month. SEE ALSO: Etsy: A Beginner’s Guide to the Crafty Ecommerce Site Etsy even maintains a powerful presence offsite, too. The folks at MBAOnline.com compiled research into an infographic that tells the story of Etsy's impact on both small business owners and the ecommerce industry in general. Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, Nadzeya_Kizilava. L'Atelier: Disruptive innovation. Chez AllStar Deals, les forces de vente sont les consommateurs. Dans la veine du SoLoMo, le site de commerce propose aux utilisateurs de démarcher les commerçants près de chez eux pour qu'ils proposent des deals.
Ils gagnent une commission sur les ventes. Que peut proposer de plus un site de e-commerce permettant déjà d'accéder à d'importantes réductions sur un produit ou un service par le biais d'achats groupés ? De s'investir au sein du processus de commercialisation, peut être. C'est l'idée qu'ont eue les créateurs d'AllStar Deals. Le principe est simple : tout d'abord le client s'abonne à AllStar Deals et part ensuite à la rencontre des commerçants de son quartier. Il se met alors d'accord avec les bars, restaurants et autres commerces de proximité sur une réduction ou sur, par exemple, le concept d'un produit acheté = un produit offert qu'il propose sur le site.
Co-création et réseaux sociaux Une seconde option s'offre également à l'abonné. Petits commerces et grande clientèle Il existe évidemment aussi un intérêt pour les petits commerçants. How Augmented Reality Is Shaping the Future of Retail. What's the future of retail, and how far away is it? Turns out that in the next couple of years, customers will be able to try on clothes and products at home with no shipping required. Technology will allow shoppers to virtually wear garments — smelling, hearing and feeling the fabric as if it were real. Sound crazy? It's not, when you look deeply into the world of augmented reality (AR). Augmented reality technology typically overlays the virtual world on top of the real-world environment through a device, such as a mobile phone or a tablet. Although augmented reality, in its current state, is still a young and developing industry, our bet is that it's going to completely change retail.
What are you looking forward to in the future of retail? GoldRun: Changing How Brands Reach Customers GoldRun's augmented reality platform lives on an app, optimized for iOS and Android phones and tablets. Every person who takes a picture with GoldRun becomes a brand ambassador, he says. How Retailers Aim to Bring Shoppers Back to Stores. Shopping online is quick and easy - surfing through Amazon in your underwear means no long lines to deal with or wandering through aisles of stuff to find the one thing you want. When shoppers do find themselves in a physical location, more often than not they check out a product in person and then use bar code scanning apps to find the best deal for their item online without having to make an in-store purchase.
What's a big box retailer to do? The New York Times's Stephanie Clifford reports that big retailers like Walmart, Macy's and Best Buy are adapting by turning their stores into extensions of their online businesses. In April, Walmart began letting shoppers pay for online products in cash at their stores to appeal to customers without bank accounts or credit cards. SEE ALSO: How Augmented Reality Is Shaping the Future of Retail Some retailers are going even further.
Would these new shopping options make you more likely to step inside an honest-to-goodness physical retail store? 'Lucky' Mag Plans User-Generated Section. Every day, thousands of stylish women upload pictures of their outfits, their hair, their nails — essentially, expressions of their style — to personal blogs. Those images are viewed, collected and spread across aggregation sites like Pinterest, Tumblr and Lookbook.nu — and soon, on the website of Lucky magazine.
The Conde Nast-title is planning to launch a vertical powered by user-generated content in mid-August. The vertical, dubbed "Community," will pull from a pool of bloggers who have applied to have their content featured on luckymag.com. Lucky's web editors, using an app called Tidal, will then be able to sort through contributions to find the ones that are most likely to perform well — i.e., have high-resolution images, are written in English, and already have a decent amount of pageviews and comments on their own sites.
Lucky editor-in-chief Brandon Holley describes Community as the "third tier" of its content pyramid. Check Out These Awesome Startup Employee Perks. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Startup life isn't easy, but it seems like a hell of a lot more fun than working at a stodgy corporation. Ambitious startups have struck a balance of "work hard, play hard" by offering employee perks that prove the higher-ups will go the extra mile to show their teammates that they're valued and appreciated.
The best way to attract fun, hardworking people is to let your team behave as fun, hardworking people — exciting work environments are enticing, so ping pong breaks and team lunches should be encouraged, not frowned upon as unnecessary time-sucks. "We want to create a place where people are excited to come to work everyday. But the fun doesn't have to stop when your company hits a certain size. Some of you readers might be wondering how a company can afford such frills — shouldn't they be bootstrapping?
Behind the Launch: Clashing With Your Co-Founder. Discuss the show on Twitter: #BehindTheLaunch In Mashable's new video series, Behind the Launch, we're taking cameras behind the scenes at Vungle, an in-app video advertising startup. The team has raised $2 million from a high-profile slew of investors, including AOL Ventures, Google Ventures and Dave McClure, but no one knows who or what Vungle is, making it hard to attract top talent. The team decides it's time for the world to hear about Vungle, so they craft their first press release and plan a website redesign. But plans go awry, and we begin to see tension between co-founders Jack and Zain.
Watch today's episode and join the conversation on Twitter, #BehindTheLaunch. Missed earlier episodes? About Vungle Vungle is a San Francisco-based company that purveys mobile video ads to promote apps. Jack Smith, Co-Founder — Self-described lunatic marketer and hacker. Bryant Chou, CTO — Full stack engineer and software architect with more than five years of experience developing mobile apps. Groupon Now is live! Offers local deals at any time, wherever you are. - TNW Industry.
Groupon Now! Is a spin on the traditional Groupon model of offering one deal a day in your local area. Instead of just one deal a day, it offers local deals at any moment of the day. If you’re walking down the street and are wondering what kinds of deals are near you, just pop open the Groupon NOW website or the mobile app and punch in your location. You’ll then be presented with a list of deals in your area. Groupon Now! Currently the service is only live in Chicago, where I was able to find deals from local businesses in a variety of categories.
On the merchant side of things, there is a new administration page for those looking to set up a Groupon Now! The process for creating deals is simple, with a clean interface for creating your deal and a calendar to help you schedule it. At the bottom of the interface you can set the exact time periods that you would like to offer the deal. Groupon Now! One Kings Lane: From The LAX Arrivals Terminal To $200M In Revenue. As Susan Feldman waited outside the Southwest Airlines arrivals terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in October 2008, she had a nervous feeling in her stomach, which she compares to blind date jitters. Except this wasn’t your traditional blind date. Feldman was meeting Ali Pincus, her soon-to-be co-founder, for the first time. They had spoken over the phone after a mutual friend set them up to discuss the overlap of e-commerce and home goods, but they hadn’t met face-to-face. Feldman and Pincus both recall feeling a combination of nervousness and excitement.
This wasn’t your typical founder story, but four years later, their brainchild, One Kings Lane, would become a business with over 4 million members, with expectations of over $200 million in revenue for this year. Feldman first started exploring the idea of applying flash sales to the home retail space in 2007. This impetus was partially born out of personal frustration. From Strangers To Founders And liking what they see.