Jackthreads is a Thrillist company that features clothes and accessories for men. The style is all over the place – goofy t-shirts sit next to nice blazers and jackets – but it’s decidedly urbo-hipster in the design and sizing. Full disclosure: I try my damnedest not to buy their stuff but I still find my self idly clicking through and buying age-inappropriate streetwear. → Read More
San Francisco-based Revel Systems is essentially the industry leader when it comes to iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) for restaurants, grocery and now retail, and today it’s adding additional security features that provide an added level of comfort for users and merchants. Revel 2.0 brings a new identity theft protection system to the POS, which shows an image of the credit card holder on the… → Read More
MallWeGo is launching at the Disrupt NY 2013 Startup Alley today with a social, gaming shopping experience for web and mobile. The company has built a virtual world for socialising with friends in avatar form, which looks like a simplified Second Life or The Sims, but the kicker is it’s built for ecommerce, with a virtual mall where people can buy real-world products. → Read More
Online commerce still isn’t as easy as it should be. That’s because many times, consumers find something they want while browsing a publisher site online, but then have to search for and buy it elsewhere. Well, that’s a process that Los Angeles-based startup Mulu wants to change, with an ad plugin that allows users to buy the products they’re reading about directly on the page. → Read More
Hip online eyewear startup Warby Parker has, over the last two years, been partnering with boutiques to open “stores-within-stores,” or small Warby Parker showrooms, where customers could try on their eyeglasses in 3-D. These showrooms popped up in L.A., Nashville, San Francisco and many others. Today Warby Parker officially announced its first, flagship retail store in SoHo in New York City. → Read More
Forrester recently predicted that the online retail market will grow to $370 billion over the next four years, up from $231 billion this year — a 10 percent compound annual growth rate. In other words, the message is clear: The eCommerce juggernaut ain’t slowing down any time soon. In 2013, every business needs some kind of online presence; the problem, of course, is that many small business… → Read More
While eCommerce has exploded over the last decade, digital marketplaces still suffer the same nagging user experience flaws they always have — particularly person-to-person marketplaces. It probably hasn’t been that long since you heard someone mutter “craigslist is creepy,” or lament about digital payments, security issues or about how it takes forever to sell something on eBay. → Read More
Software may be eating the world, but at present, it’s only been nibbling at entertainment venues and sports stadiums. With the wave of easy-to-use, mobile friendly payment solutions like Square, sweeping through eCommerce, vendors are well aware that they need to upgrade their clunky payment systems. But the problem, Brandon Lloyd tells us, is that most solutions on the market today require… → Read More
Vitamin & health food retailer Vitacost has launched a tablet-optimised website that’s designed to encourage shoppers to put more than just the core items on their shopping list into their basket. Introducing a little serendipity into the buying process makes a lot of sense when you’re selling 40,000+ different products but what’s interesting is that Vitacost sees tablets as the place to do… → Read More
When it comes to office supplies, companies like Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples have long owned the majority of mind-share and brand recognition in the market. But, with the recession, the rise of eCommerce and the growing ubiquity of devices like the iPad, business has been in steady decline for many big-box chains, forcing them to make big cuts to brick-and-mortar operations. → Read More
Online e-commerce giant eBay last week said that it expects to have 12% of its sales coming from BRIC countries by 2015 in a global e-commerce market that will be worth $300 billion, and here is one more step in that strategy: it is leading a $50 million, Series C investment in Snapdeal, an online marketplace in India with 20 million users. Existing backers Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture… → Read More
After nearly being eradicated when the Dot-com bubble burst in 2000, the Brazilian startup community has been slow to come back. However, over the last two years, growth has been accelerating and Brazil’s startups seem poised to make a comeback. As Roi pointed out recently, the support ecosystem for young businesses in Brazil is still thin and plenty of friction remains (like high labor costs and… → Read More
Despite years of chewing the digital cud — not to mention a global financial downturn — there’s no sign of the U.S. or European ecommerce cash-cows ailing, according to two new forecasts from Forrester. In the U.S. Forrester is projecting online retail sales will reach $370 billion by 2017, up from $231 billion in 2013 — a 10% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years. → Read More
After winning LA Startup Weekend, Zaarly almost immediately raised $1 million from a long list of notable investors (even “Steve jOBS”), and then raised $14 million more before the end of the year in a round led by Kleiner, while adding Meg Whitman to its board.
Fast forward to today and you’ll no longer find Zaarly’s marketplace on the Web. And, with the next update to its mobile app… → Read More
Sproutkin, a newly launched subscription service for children’s books, has raised an initial, but undisclosed (and still ongoing) seed round of under $1 million from investors which include 500 Startups, the TechFellow Fund, and other angels. Like the tagline implies, the startup is introducing a Netflix for children’s books – that is, it’s a rental service where you pay to receive shipments of… → Read More
Munich, Germany-based online fashion moodboard startup, Stylight, has secured a multi-million euro investment from SevenVentures, the venture subsidiary of media company ProSiebenSat.1. The exact amount has not been disclosed. ProSiebenSat.1 operates 29 TV stations across Europe — and this reach will also benefit Stylight, as the startup said the company will give it “extensive media coverage”. → Read More
Palo Alto-based Fanplayr, a startup focused on driving conversions on any website that offers an eCommerce component, today announced a new $2 million seed investment round, led by Denali Venture Partners. The two-year old startup wants to help websites of all stripes offer up an Amazon-style recommendation, upsell and sales conversion mechanism, without a minimum of hassle and with more guidance… → Read More
If you’re familiar with Birchbox — the subscription service that delivers boxes of cosmetics and beauty products to your doorstep — you know that the New York City-based startup has taken off in the U.S. since launching in September 2010. The service, which was initially targeted only at women and beauty product-centric, has begun to expand its scope into new verticals, launching a subscription… → Read More
Target today made a huge move to counteract the practice of “showrooming,” the term that refers to how consumers are using retail brick-and-mortar stores to go hands-on with items, which they then order online for less – often from competitors like Walmart and Amazon. The company announced that it is now extending its holiday price matching policy year-round, in order to match those prices offered… → Read More
Pretty Penny is a newly launched couponing startup, targeting a young, female audience – specifically the fashionistas and professionals who do a lot of their shopping online. The company, currently operating in bootstrap mode, offers its users a browser add-on that identifies the retail website a user is visiting, searches for relevant coupons and offers, and then presents those in a clean and… → Read More
Back in July, we caught up with New York-based startup NoMoreRack, a flash sales site that, unlike some of the most popular players in the space, isn’t relying on luxury products or fashion to drive traffic. Instead, the young startup offers everyday products at reduced prices — an average of 70 to 80 percent off everything from consumer electronics to clothing — in an effort to become the… → Read More
The numbers keep rolling in: mobile commerce startup Branding Brand released new reports detailing holiday shopping sales on mobile, but unlike the other e-commerce reports which came out over the holidays, this one only includes data on commerce sites where the experience has been specifically tailored for smartphones. It also only looks at smartphones, to be clear, and doesn’t lump tablets… → Read More
BarkBox, the subscription-based service that sends pet owners a box of goodies on a monthly basis, has launched a companion mobile application. The app isn’t merely a mini version of the online service, but is meant to compliment Barbox.com by offering unique features like the ability to buy individual items, rate and revies the items in your current box, buy gift subscriptions, read BarkBox news… → Read More
Pinterest could turn into an absolute monster for e-commerce, and we’ve been waiting to see what it would do to push that forward. We found out today with the company’s announcement of new tools for the business community. Previously, businesses weren’t all that welcome on the service, since its terms of service prohibited it. For reasons. → Read More
Walmart’s experimentation with subscription-based commerce continues today, with the public launch of Goodies.co, a food subscription service featuring boxes of sample-sized treats shipped monthly. The service is the latest to emerge from @WalmartLabs, the retailer’s Silicon Valley-based innovation lab focused on quickly building, launching, and testing new business models that may or… → Read More
As the digital wallet battle rages on here in the U.S., with Google Wallet, Amex’s Serve, MasterCard’s PayPass, Square, PayPal, carrier-backed Isis, and others all wrangling for a piece of the action, Visa’s digital wallet V.me is today exiting from beta, and announcing numbers related to its current traction. The company says that it has now signed up over 50 financial institutions to its… → Read More
A quick update on Pinterest rival Fancy’s massive $26 million round of funding, uncovered via an SEC filing yesterday. Because of the hurricane, the NYC-based team had evacuated the city, making it difficult to track down and speak with the service’s executive staff. Today, that same situation continues, but COO Michael Silverman has at least provided confirmation of sorts, telling us that what… → Read More
LEAP Commerce, a somewhat under-the radar mobile shopping startup, is today releasing a major update to its “Best Decision” shopping iOS app which introduces a true universal cart for consumers. What that means is that shoppers can now buy from many of their favorite stores at the same time, using a single shopping cart. The company is working with 23 e-commerce sites, including top retailers like… → Read More
European online footwear and bag retailer, Spartoo — the ‘Zappos of Europe’ — has raised €25 million ($32.5 million) in Series C funding led by Belgian investment holding company Sofina. Existing investors A Plus Finance, CM-CIC Capital Privé, Highland Partners and Endeavour Vision also participated in the round. The company has raised €45 Million to date, since being founded back in 2006. → Read More
Today, at Y Combinator’s Startup School at Stanford University, Rakuten Founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani took the stage to talk about the company’s culture, acquisitions and its crazy growth over the last year.
Mikitani said that Rakuten was currently seeing about $5 billion/year in revenues and that 25 percent of that revenue was coming from mobile mobile phones, both feature and smartphones. → Read More
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