The startup world can’t seem to get enough new fashion-focused companies these days (or rather, lots of startup founders have discovered women are a great target audience in the wake of Pinterest’s soaring growth). So here’s another entry to whet your collective social shopping whistles: Boutine.com. Similar in some respects to Polyvore, as it also enables women to browse and create new looks by… → Read More
As mobile payments continue to become more commonplace among retailers, smartphone consumers are already showing a pretty strong appetite for mobile shopping on their devices. According to a June 2012 survey among 5,000 Android and iPhone users in the U.S., Nielsen found that just over 50% of them have used a native shopping app on their phones. The analysts say that in total some 48 million U.S. → Read More
One Jackson, the latest e-commerce startup to target the popular kids’ clothing market, is preparing to make a big splash with its public debut next week. The company plays in the same space as other online clothing startups experimenting with Silicon Valley-inspired business models, including the subscription-based offerings from Wittlebee and FabKids, for example, as well as the web-based… → Read More
Crane & Canopy is a newly launched online home goods store that’s benefiting from the power of the Internet to flatten the traditional supply chain and save on costs. Like many of the new arrivals in the e-commerce space, the company isn’t hiding the same old business model from the brick-and-mortar era behind a shiny new front-end. It’s getting rid of all the extra people and processes in… → Read More
Decide.com, the shopping engine that tells you when to buy, is expanding into a new frontier: it’s now going to tell you what to buy, too. The service, launched last summer by former Farecast engineers following that company’s acquisition, has come a long way since its original debut where it was positioned as an electronics-only shopping service. Today, Decide offers “buy or wait”… → Read More
Pranav Dharma, a former IBM engineer, self-described “fashionable” geek, and founder of new women’s apparel startup Modington, thinks that today’s online e-commerce sites don’t reflect how women really shop for clothes and accessories. So he decided to create one. Enter, Modington.
“I was inspired by observing how my wife shops,” says Dharma, “she would get a dress, then started hunting for… → Read More
Commerce Sciences, the stealthy Israeli and Palo Alto-based e-commerce startup, is launching into open beta today, and is finally revealing what it has built. It’s a Meebo Bar for e-commerce! The company made waves earlier this month when it announced $1.8 million in seed funding from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Israeli VC firm Genesis Partners, T5 Capital, and a number of angel… → Read More
The Pinterest effect on e-commerce sites continues: online wine retailer Wine.com, a company with $67 million in annual revenue, is adding a social shopping component to its website which not only looks like Pinterest, but is also powered by Facebook. Wine.com says it’s using technology provided by Sociable Labs, a San Francisco-based startup which introduced its licensable “EverShare” product… → Read More
Commerce Sciences, an Israeli eCommerce startup currently shrouded in the infamous “stealth mode,” wants to help personalize your online shopping experience.
To do so, the Palo Alto and Israeli-based company is announcing today that it has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from a number of familiar names. The investors include Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, veteran Israeli VC firm … → Read More
Mobile shopping app shopkick is announcing a partnership with MasterCard today which will allow cardholders to earn “kicks” (shopkicks’ in-app rewards) by linking their card with shopkick’s Buy & Collect program and making qualifying purchases. These kicks can later be redeemed for things like gift cards, music downloads, movie tickets, and other offers.
In addition, in exchange for… → Read More
ShopSocially, a social commerce startup, is formally announcing the launch of its social shopping platform and is revealing some of its early insights from its customer lineup. The company has worked with several hundred customers to date, including big-name brands like Sears, The Children’s Place, Sport Chalet, CafePress, Ritz, Zales and others.
We’ve also learned that the company had quietly… → Read More
A somewhat stealthy new startup called Gumhouse just raised over $6 million according to this SEC filing, and there are some big names attached to the project, it seems. According to the Gumhouse.com website, the service is described as a “social stream video shopping network,” which uses Facebook to personalize your shopping experience. After a little digging, it appears the service has already… → Read More
NYC-based Adore Me, yet another player in the subscription-based e-commerce business, has raised a second round of funding totaling $2.5 million. Investors in the new round included Redhills Ventures, U.S. angels, plus Jaina Capital and Ventech Capital, two funds that specialize in Internet, information technology, communications technology, and green startups.
Since its start in November… → Read More
Like Milo before it, Wishpond launched in late 2010 to build a local search engine that aggregates realtime inventory and product listings from brick and mortar retail stores — from big chains to mom and pop shops. The startup has since focused its efforts on developing social commerce solutions for retailers, launching tools like Social Store, which allows any business to quickly create and… → Read More
This morning, Nielsen is putting hard numbers to how consumers like to shop with their smartphones, backing up trends we already suspected to be the case. In particular, the new report examines how consumers use their phones when shopping out there in the real world (what’s that?) – using phones to compare prices, scan barcodes and even redeem coupons. Not surprisingly, how you use your phone has… → Read More
Smart shopping service Decide.com, which started off with a focus on consumer electronics before its recent addition of home appliances, is a unique player in the comparison shopping market. The service doesn’t just return prices and reviews, it actually tells whether to buy or wait to buy a given product by analyzing market conditions, trends, news, product release history, and more. Today, that… → Read More
A new mobile shopping service called NetPlenish is announcing today that it has closed a round of $1.9 million in seed funding from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, Gold Hill Capital, BHV Capital, TEEC Angel Fund, Ludlow Ventures and several angel investors, including its founders. The news was timed alongside the official launch of the company’s mobile application, available on both iPhone and… → Read More
The mobile apps from stealthy loyalty startup Punchcard have only been on the market since February, but the company is now reporting it’s close to being cash-flow positive. Like a digital version of paper punchcards which reward repeat customers for their business, Punchcard’s app lets customers snap photos of their receipts in exchange for cash payouts or other rewards directly from the… → Read More
NYC-based financial services startup for families, Tykoon, is exiting its private beta and is launching its first mobile app for iPhone. The company, which aims to change the ways kids think about and use money, is more that your typical allowance tracker application – it’s a platform for earning, saving, giving and spending, the latter which includes kid-friendly access to a curated and… → Read More
Walmart.com is launching a new way to checkout, targeting customers who don’t have credit or debit cards…or money in the bank for that matter. The company is now allowing customers to buy online and pay with cash. The change reflects the current economic conditions in the U.S., as Walmart states (citing FDIC figures) that one in four U.S. households is “unbanked” or “underbanked” – meaning they… → Read More
YC-backed new car-buying service CarWoo is partnering up with car comparison site FindTheBest, which operates something like a Kayak.com for hundreds of products and services from smartphones to snow blowers. The partnership means FindTheBest’s Car Comparison tool will now point users over to CarWoo’s service when shoppers are ready to look for a local dealer. → Read More
High-end design, fashion and travel-focused Pinterest rival The Fancy is rolling out several new features today, including a new slideshow option, the addition of four more languages, and a new visual search engine that allows users to search for items with similar colors.
The latter addition, which brings to mind the “search by color” feature over on crafty community Etsy or the new color… → Read More
Decide.com, the shopping search site for consumer electronics and home appliances founded by former Farecast engineers, is now putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak. The service, which helps consumers know whether to “buy” or “wait” when researching items like laptops, phones, TVs, washers and dryers, wants to make it easier to trust its recommendations with the launch of a price… → Read More
Using a smartphone while shopping to find better deals or to look up product reviews is now pretty mainstream. There are some interesting differences between how Hispanics use their phones while shopping compared to the average U.S. consumer, though. While observing 15 Hispanic smartphone owners in Los Angeles and conducting a nationwide survey of 500 Hispanic smartphone users in late 2011, White… → Read More
Decide.com, the consumer electronics search service launched by several former Farecast engineers, is expanding its focus today to home appliances. Previously, the service told users whether they should buy now or wait to purchase consumer electronics like cell phones, tablets, desktop and laptops.
But according to Decide CEO Mike Fridgen, home appliances share much in common with CE devices… → Read More
One year after the infamous Fab.com “reset” from a social network for gay men to a powerhouse design shopping site, CEO Jason Goldberg is taking a look back on the company’s progress. Staying true to the startup’s “one thing” as he calls it (design, obviously), the company has grown to more than 2.5 million members, up from 1.5 million at the end of last year. That’s 67% growth in the first two… → Read More
Amid the increased speculation surrounding Silicon Valley darling Pinterest’s forthcoming revenue model, competitor Fancy, a social photo-clipping service popular among the style-conscious set, has been quietly working on revenue ideas of its own. Previously, the service was doling out coupon code to users who “fancy’d” images belonging to specific merchants, but today, the site is diving… → Read More
Clothes Horse, a fashion technology company based out of New York, is publicly launching its platform today in an attempt to address one of the biggest challenges facing online shoppers: buying clothes that fit. Through the use of a customizable widget that merchants add to their own websites, Clothes Horse can determine within just 30 seconds how the retailers’ items will fit any customer. The… → Read More
Design-focused startup Fab.com is launching a new type of shopping experience today with the debut of what it’s calling “Weekly Speciality Shops.” These new stores will be targeted across five of Fab.com’s well-performing verticals: Kids, Pets, Foodie, Vintage Modern and Fashion. These are not Fab.com’s top verticals, however, but are those that appeal to particular segments of shoppers.
As… → Read More
ShopSavvy, which you probably know as the barcode-scanning, price comparison app, is launching a major new feature today: SavvyListings, a mobile marketplace. With the addition, the company is hoping to turn its user base of some 20 million into customers who buy and sell items directly with each other. → Read More
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