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
Brands and businesses can track their reputations online and connect with consumers through social media. But what about in the real world? One of the biggest prizes in Startupland will go to whoever can figure out how to connect real-world shopping to brands and businesses. Steve Carpenter is going after that prize with his latest startup, Endorse.
Carpenter has been incubating the company for… → Read More
New data from Compuware finds conclusive proof of the popularity of iPads as a shopping device. The firm took a look at the website traffic for 70 U.S. retailers’ delivered to an iPhone or iPad over the start of the holiday shopping season (November 14th through Cyber Monday). On Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, specifically, there were peaks in traffic with a high of 6,475,354 iPad… → Read More
Spotzot, the platform that powers deal targeting for shopping applications and web sites, today announced that it has closed $2.2 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Cervin Ventures, Inventus Capital Partners and TiE-Silicon Valley Angels.
So what is Spotzot? Simply put, the startup enables brands and retailers to reach new customers by way of promotions and coupons that are… → Read More
The newly launched shopping discovery app Zoomingo announced today it has secured $1.3 million in funding from early-stage VC firms Naya Ventures and Benaroya Capital along with several prominent angel investors. Previously self-funded, Zoomingo says it will use the additional capital to enhance its current mobile application, build a retailer platform and grow its community through expanded… → Read More
Walmart is launching an updated iPhone application and a new iPad app, in an effort to better connect customers’ offline and online shopping experiences. The iPhone app in particular brings a number of new features, including voice-enabled shopping list creation, barcode scanning and integrated manufacturers’ coupons, while the iPad app offers the ability to find items both online and at the local… → Read More
Newly launched Zoomingo is a shopping discovery app that aims to help you find nearby sales using either your Android or iPhone. With a focus on clothes, shoes, jewelry, handbags, beauty and home products, the app appeals to the everyday bargain shopper, not the daily deal seeker or the gadget guru looking to compare prices on HDTVs, for example.
Sales data for major retailers is available all… → Read More
Mobile shopping app aisle411 is partnering with ZipList, a recipe search and shopping list platform, in the newest release of the aisle411 iPhone app, out now. With the update, aisle411 version 2.0, is also adding better aisle navigation, mapping out an optimized path through stores, whether that’s to help you locate a single item or all the items on your shopping list. → Read More
In my house, we have a baseline shopping list that contains the things we almost always need to buy — you know, the things we go through quickly like milk, butter, rubber bands, extension cords — and then a rotating selection of fancy cheeses we’d like to try. We usually don’t bother to write down our staple items because we buy them so regularly, but sometimes we get waylaid in the grocery… → Read More
Making online shopping a more social experience to aid discovery is a problem that many startups are busy trying to solve. Meet Nuji, a London-based startup and Seedcamp winner that launched their social shopping discovery service at this year’s LeWeb.
The idea behind Nuji is to fully tap into your social graph to discover products that you actually like, as apposed to products that your friends… → Read More
In what is sure to be the start of a very big trend, JCPenny is announcing their new Facebook application that allows Facebook users to browse and purchase items directly from JC Penny’s Facebook page. Users will be able to browse and search JC Penny’s catalog, as well as “like” products and purchases. I’m not sure I see the point of “liking” your purchase of a new pair of boots, but then again I… → Read More
Shopping online has become standard to most people on the web. While browsing through the thousands of available e-commerce sites can be a tedious and time consuming task, meta shopping sites aim to take the hassle out of a potentially very long search for the best, cheapest and most adequate product out there.
Imagine you could access all of a product’s distributed and decentralized information… → Read More
So your local camera store doesn’t have what you are looking for, you don’t want to visit a big box store, and you’re concerned about the shady practices of some online retailers? Well worry no longer – Nikon has launched their own online store, with (most) of their products available for purchase direct. There’s even an outlet store if you want pick something up at a discount. → Read More
While the iPad may be too confusing for the British, that’s not stopping UK retailer Marks and Spencer from rolling out a mobile version of their website. I guess if you’re the kind of person who shops at Marks and Spencer this might be good news for you. And while m.marksandspencer.com is not a particularly mobile-friendly URL to key in, the site does helpfully explain upon your first visit how… → Read More
RetailMeNot.com, “a top consumer destination for coupons, discounts and promotional codes for merchandise, groceries, travel and services”, shared some interesting statistics about consumer coupon use for the first month of 2010. New Jersey loves printing off coupons for use in brick-and-mortar stores, while New York prefers online coupon codes. Almost 15 million people visited RetailMeNot.com in… → Read More
I this conversation with my mother-in-law last weekend. Her, “So this Curtis Mathes LCD isn’t any good? You sure, ’cause they are a good brand.” Me, not looking directly in her Medusa-like eyes, “Nope.” And today, I find that the Home Theater Specialist of America warns against purchasing a cheap HDTVs. You know they are serious ’cause they are… → Read More
Good news, everyone! Cyber Monday 2008: Great Depression Edition was a tremendous success for online retailers, which saw a 15 percent volume increase over 2007. That’s what Comscore says, at least. Consumers were tricked into spending $846 million on Monday, compared with $733 million last year. Year-by-year growth isn’t exactly breaking news, but considering the sorry state of the… → Read More
Spending your fiat money from the comfort of your iPhone is even easier, now that Amazon has released an application (“App”) for Apple’s little wonder. The mundane functions are as you’d expect: you launch the app, then you can browse and buy goods from Amazon just as you would from your computer. What’s worth singling out is this little photo-takign feature. Using the app… → Read More
Best Buy had some sort of Black Friday VIP contest going on where the chain invited people to send in their best Black Friday essay. I know. The winners get a $1,000 Best Buy gift card, a trip to a store in a limo, the opportunity to buy up to four “doorbusters,” and so on. I’ve picked out a few excerpts that may interest you. → Read More
BigBookSearch, an excellent little tool I just found on Reddit is pretty limited and obviously Amazon-powered, but it works very well. As you can see above, it basically just retrieves your query results from everything Amazon’s got, including, to my delight, stuff from third-party sellers like used book stores. I found an edition of Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles I’ve been… → Read More
Yesterday Fujitsu presented [JP] Spotcast, a new transmission system that enables customers inside stores to receive up-to-date shopping information on their cell phones. The technology only works if shoppers own handsets equipped with 1-Seg digital TV tuners, which are becoming ubiquitous in Japan (there are currently 33 million of these handsets in circulation). If he or she is interested in a… → Read More
At Germany’s new grocery story of the future (already in use by residents of the present) shoppers can use mobile phones to check out while they shop. The store has created free software for your phone that allows you to use your camera to capture barcodes as you shop. Once finished, just press a button and all your purchases come up as a single bar code. Slide your phone under the barcode… → Read More
So your neighborhood computer superstore is going away, huh? You know, some say that after we die a quick and tragic death, our soul lingers around if it’s not quite ready to cross over to the next plane of existence. So you may very well catch a hint of CompUSA the next time you’re in Micro Center or even Best Buy. Maybe a delicate whiff of register ink or a deeply discounted printer… → Read More
We’re all one step closer to maybe, kind of, almost being able to reliably get our hands on a Wii thanks to a new program by Nintendo of America and GameStop. Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime told reporters today that GameStop would have "many tens of thousands" of rain checks good for grabbing a system in January. So while you might not be able to put a Wii under the tree this… → Read More
If you’ve been following BFF, which I know you have, then you know how aggravating it is to try and open those obnoxious blister packs. With the gift giving season in full force what better gadget could anyone ask for other than the Open It? The Open It from Zibra combines a cutting tool, dual-head screwdriver and retractable cutting blade into the ultimate ‘wrap rage cure’. → Read More
Check out CrunchGear’s Black Friday listing here. We’ll have more for you tomorrow. Gobble gobble. → Read More
How’d you like a Wii for $79? Unbelievable. See this is why you can’t get a Wii anywhere. Amazon’s been hoarding them all for this very event. Up for grabs is your choice of 1000 Wii consoles at $79 each, 1000 40GB PS3 consoles at $139 each, or 1000 Xbox 360 Arcade consoles at $99 each. More scantily clad deals after the jump. → Read More
Shopping carts rigged up with a touch screens and barcode scanners might find their way into London supermarkets soon, according to Reuters. You’d simply scan an item and get a readout of how many calories, fat, and whatnot it contains. It’d be similar to looking at the back of item with your eyes except with a few more steps involved. → Read More
Wingmap is the beta site for a stunning new flight search tool based around a point-and-click map interface. Co-founder Tom Wood exlained to TCUKI that the site allows users to search for flights leaving the area surrounding a city – not just the city or a single airport itself. Trying the site it becomes totally obvious what this means and I found it actually makes the process of finding a… → Read More
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