As we all gear up for the holidays, everyone is scrambling to buy those last-minute gifts for friends and family. Even The Crunchies monkey. Where do monkeys shop, you ask? Well, we left that up to our own Josh Constine, and I think you’ll agree that it was a good idea on paper, but at the end of the day, maybe just a good old hug will do. Last month, we broke the huge fun story that… → 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
Shopular, a mobile shopping startup coming out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2012 batch, is today formally launching its smart couponing application on both iOS and Android. Founded by two former Shopkick engineers, Shopular soft-launched its app a few weeks ago, but with today’s update, it now offers national coverage at retailers and malls across the U.S. → Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt alumni Maluuba is launching the latest version of its Siri-like Android app in the Google Play store today. The major new feature in this latest release is the addition of shopping-related queries and results to the 18 other categories Maluuba currently understands. → Read More
Amazon today announced a new feature called Friends and Family Gifting, aimed at helping customers better organize their gift lists and gift ideas for others, generate Facebook-enabled gift suggestions, receive reminders, and share their gift lists out via email or to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. → Read More
Eliyah Finkelstein and his team of Bagggers have a dream: to make it simple for users to shop. Their new product, baggg.it (I told them to maybe try for bagg.it or something a bit easier, so hopefully that extra g will go away soon) is a way for you to shop online by collecting items from disparate sites into separate bags. → 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
The iPad seems to have dominated online shopping from tablets, according to an IBM report, and in fact won out over all other devices in mobile e-commerce. Arguably, that’s because it offers more of a full-web experience, and is more pleasant for browsing standard online retailer sites than a smartphone. But tablet-based shopping continues to be a less than optimal experience. → Read More
Chances are, if you ask a kid in the U.S. what they want to find under the tree (or holiday symbol of your choosing) this year, they’ll ask for an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or iPad mini. Those devices occupied four of the top five spots on Nielsen’s annual holiday shopping study among kids aged 6 to 12, which tracks interest in consumer buying habits over the next six months. → 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
When reviewing a new iPhone application called Glyph earlier this week that tells you which credit card to use in order to earn the best rewards, we mentioned that a competitor in this space, Wallaby, was doing something similar. As of this morning, however, it’s not just doing something similar – it’s doing the exact same thing. Today, Wallaby is also introducing its own iPhone application which… → Read More
Google Shopping‘s pay-to-play service is going global. The commerce-focused vertical formerly known as Google Product Search, is now expanding the roll out of its commercial model to other countries outside the U.S., including the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, Australia and Switzerland. The announcement comes on the heels of the completion of the U.S. transition… → Read More
Glyph is a new mobile application, now live in the iTunes App Store, that will tell you the best credit card to use in order to earn the most valuable rewards, whether that’s cash back, travel or hotel loyalty points, discounts, or any other type of credit card-activated reward. At launch, the company supports over 250 credit cards, including the top 18 credit issuers in the U.S., representing… → Read More
Gyft, the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 finalist which lets you buy, store and share plastic gift cards on your iPhone, is starting its big holidays push with the introduction of a new feature which will allow users to re-gift their own cards by sending them to others via email, text or Facebook. The addition (“Gyft It”) is one of many forthcoming new features, as the startup prepares for its… → Read More
Emerging out of stealth mode today, San Francisco-based startup BuyVia is throwing its hat into the ring as another shopping service and mobile app designed for price comparisons. The company is predominantly focused on consumer electronics like laptops, smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, and video games. → Read More
Since Google’s social layer, Google+, is making its way into all of the company’s products, its Shopping venture isn’t being left out. Today, the company announced two new features for Google Shopping to help you find the best reviews for items as you’re making your holiday decisions. Which TV? Which gadget? Well, why not read reviews from people you might be connected to. Makes sense to me. → Read More
Shopping for clothes online is difficult, especially because one brand’s size 10 can be another brand’s size 8. BeauCoo, a Calgary-based startup that is launching out of beta today, combines social networking based on women’s real body dimensions with mobile photo sharing and shopping to help female shoppers find the clothes that will look good on them. BeauCoo is currently only available on the… → 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
Gamestop today announced plans to launch 80 new holiday concept stores called GameStop Kids across the U.S., offering kid-friendly shopping experiences. The storefronts will sell video games, but focus on accessories, licensed good like plush toys, and collectibles. Judging by the product list, however, this looks like a store designed not only for actual children, but for anyone with a love of… → Read More
Decide.com, the shopping search engine that tells consumers both what and when to buy, is introducing its premium level of service today. Starting now, Decide.com will begin to charge for its “when to buy” recommendations – the recommendations which serve as Decide.com’s distinguishing feature versus the other shopping search services on the market currently. → Read More
E-commerce startup One Kings Lane is one of the first flash sales sites to partner up with a digital catalog company – in its case, the startup is joining forces with Catalog Spree, which lets shoppers browse on both the iPad and web. This is also Catalog Spree’s first deal with a non-traditional retailer, the company says. Typically, the startup works with brands and retailers like Nordstrom… → Read More
Commerce Sciences, the Palo Alto-based e-commerce startup backed by $1.8 million in seed funding from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Genesis Partners, and others, is rolling out a feature called one-click personalization which allows online retailers to customize the shopping experience to individual website visitors. → Read More
Amazon subsidiary Quidsi, which currently operates sites like Soap.com, Diapers.com and the newly launched eco site Vine.com to name a few, will launched two more sites this week, AfterSchool.com and Bookworm.com. Both sites are targeting families with children, the former featuring over 70,000 items for “children’s activities” and the latter offering 45,000 children’s books to start. → Read More
HashTip is a new mobile app targeting savvy shoppers, primarily moms, who want to share tips with each other about kids’ products, activities and deals. (OK, cue snarky comment about how we already have Pinterest for that.) But unlike Pinterest, HashTip isn’t about posting “inspirational” imagery, it’s more heavily focused on social commerce. The service augments its tips with extra info… → Read More
Although it wasn’t among the services Google axed during its latest bout of “spring cleaning,” it’s definitely the end of an era for Google Shopping: starting on October 17th, the service formerly known as Google Product Search will make the full transition to a Paid Listings Service here in the U.S. It’s another example of Google’s changing position on what’s known as “paid inclusion.” In other… → Read More
People who own iPhones are much more likely to research buying decisions, comparison shop, and actually purchase things on their devices than are mobile users on Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone devices, according to a new study which polled over 50,000 mobile device owners. 85% of iOS users employ their iPhones for shopping research, and 69% percent have actually bought something. → Read More
The rising star of mulitchannel retail is mobile, according to a survey of U.S. and U.K. consumers conducted by a digital marketing group Econsultancy. It’s not a particularly surprising finding — given the capabilities and pervasiveness of today’s smartphones — but the findings underline the expanding role mobiles are playing in shoppers’ lives. → Read More
Love Etsy, but looking for something even more unique? Makeably, a new marketplace for custom-made goods, can help. The site, founded by two ex-Googlers and longtime friends, Ryan Hayward and Anastasia Leng, has just launched into beta, offering makers a new way to manage their custom work requests online – a process which, today, is largely handled via email.
On the site, buyers can search… → Read More
Bureau of Trade, a new online marketplace for men’s shopping, is today launching into public beta and announcing a $1.2 million round of seed funding led by Foundation Capital, with contributions from Founder Collective, FFAngel, Courtney Holt on behalf of the Techfellows Fund, and other angels. Offering a catalog filled with thousands of unique, primarily pre-owned items sourced from… → Read More
Capillary Technologies, a social CRM company that helps retailers engage over mobile, email, social and in-store channels, is announcing the close of $15.5 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners with Qualcomm Ventures also participating in the round. The company, which offers a cloud-based SaaS platform for customer engagement, clienteling, loyalty and… → Read More
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