Retailers are looking increasingly to social networks to bring in customers and ultimately drive more sales. But data from online marketing provider Monetate show that social still lags email and search in sales conversions and average purchase amounts.
Chicago-based Boomerang, backed by Groupon founders’ Lightbank, is launching Tuesday to give Facebook users a way to give friends paperless gifts, including vouchers for local restaurants, spas, sporting companies and theaters. Some gift options are free, offering merchants a new way to attract customers.
SafePay Solutions Group is launching a tool in the U.S. and Canada for merchants and consumers that uses a smartphone to verify online purchases. Users who sign up will get the chance to confirm all online purchases using their cards at registered SafePay registered retailers.
Things are looking up a little for beleaguered daily deals company Groupon. Shares in the company rallied Monday morning after a Morgan Stanley analyst upgraded the company to “overweight.”
Between Pinterest and Fab and Fancy and Svpply and Wanelo and Lyst and many other similar startups, the social-meets-design-meets-commerce space is nothing if not crowded. But a couple of former MySpacers believe they can push through the pack with Uncovet, an e-commerce site rolling out to the public today.
Launched in November by former Squarespace CEO Dane Atkinson, data analytics startup SumAll gives small- to medium-sized online businesses a much-needed leg up in understanding the real-time metrics that are having the biggest impact on their bottom line.
New York-based Group Commerce today announced that it has raised $21 million in new funding to help expand its footprint into the U.K., Germany and other parts of Europe, as well as further develop its platform to support all kinds of e-commerce.
The Internet has tapped the wisdom of the crowd, but new content-to-commerce startup StyleSaint is about to test its taste.
Sahil Lavingia, a 19-year-old app designer behind Pinterest and Turntable.fm, has built a simple service called Gumroad that lets anyone monetize a link without having to set up their own store. The company announced it has raised $7 million three months after launching.
PayPal has only taken tiny steps into the increasingly busy Russian market — but now the American payments service is working on a partnership with Russia Post that could prove a dramatic boost.
