So far, it has deployed at 2,000 Home Depots and has plans to be at 20 major retailers by the end of the year.

Stay tuned as we cover the announcements live.

10:10 am: “Midmarket businesses represent a third of the U.S. economy, and we looked at our capability and decided to partner rather than build,” explains PayPal president David Marcus.

So rather than ripping out their existing systems, the new stuff integrates with existing point-of-sale systems.

The POS software partners are: Vend, Erply, shopKeepPOS and Leapset.

That plugs PayPal into 50,000 merchants across the country, Marcus said. And that’s added to VeriFone and Equinox POS terminal manufacturers, announced this morning, in addition to an existing relationship with Ingenico.

Cue video of the owner of a PayPal-enabled shop full of cute dresses, who says she likes seeing her customers’ faces on the register, emailing them receipts and knowing their purchase history.

Next topic: large retailers. Don Kingsborough, VP of retail and prepaid, takes the stage.

Physical retail and offline retail is no longer about “location, location, location,” but instead about access to customers, Kingsborough posits.

Kingsborough pokes fun at Google’s mobile wallet pronouncement last year in New York (not by name, but it’s obvious), and other competitors’ tests, saying PayPal is much closer to ubiquity.

PayPal’s big partner so far has been Home Depot, so it trots out the company’s Dwaine Kimmet, treasurer and VP of financial services.

10:28 am: Kimmet says PayPal has been a good partner for 1) improving and speeding up checkout 2) combating bank card acceptance costs and 3) providing value to everyone.

That last one sounds really vague, but he’s elaborating. Kimmet gives the example of how text messaging around transactions gives both added security as well as convenience for customers.

Kingsborough is back to give a list of the first 15 retailers, and says some of them will be launching in the next few weeks. This is the meat of the announcement we were expecting. Office Depot, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice, Foot Locker, J.C. Penney, Guitar Center, Jos. A. Bank, Aeropostale, Nine West, Advance Auto Parts and TigerDirect are the ones I could get before the slide changed.

Now for a string of video testimonials from people like J.C. Penney CTO Kristen Blum. But CEO of Jamba Juice James White is here in person.

White talks about the convergence of online and offline, customer satisfaction, incremental traffic and brand strengthening, while my mind wanders to flavors of smoothies.

Marcus is back to recap. His big theme is scale, and he says that word a bunch of times to describe PayPal’s different categories: online, mobile, different sizes of businesses.

The offline launch will enable PayPal to tap into a market that’s 17 times as large as what it has today, Marcus says.

That was short and sweet. PayPal had given a target of 20 major retailers by year’s end, so announcing 15 in May in addition to Home Depot is pretty far along.

10:55 am: Okay, got the full list of retailers. Here they are: Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Jamba Juice, J.C. Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys “R” Us.

That list includes some overlap with Google Wallet, including American Eagle Outfitters, Foot Locker and Jamba Juice. It seems clear that retailers are willing to try multiple strategies to see what works best.

The Atlanta-based company’s mobile app tries to be a resource to consumers who are looking for local merchants and events, sort of like the Web’s original CitySearch service from years ago — except that it’s on mobile. The app also distributes coupons to restaurants, but instead of charging consumers for the deals, like Groupon does, they are free, and merchants pay a flat rate to Scoutmob each time one is redeemed.

Investors in the company’s second round include AOL Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures, Capital Broadcasting, Cox Enterprises and Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer. To date, Scoutmob has raised $5 million, which means that even if it wanted to, it doesn’t have the resources to go up against Groupon and LivingSocial.

In an interview, Scoutmob co-founder Michael Tavani said the company gets lumped into the daily deals category, but said that from day one, “we tried to differentiate ourselves and to be more of a mobile company.”

So far, the strategy has worked.

The app, which is available free on iOS, BlackBerry and Android, has 1.2 million users who have redeemed one million offers. To date, the company has launched in 10 cities, with varying success rates. Some markets, like Seattle, don’t have many deals yet, while other cities, like Atlanta or Washington, D.C., are used more.

Because of its emphasis on mobile, the company was also able to to score a partnership with payment processing company First Data Corporation.

“It’s crazy, we are a two-and-a-half year-old company, and every week we have the largest payment companies in the world contacting us,” Tavani said. ”They are worried that if they don’t have mobile engagement, then what do they have?”

First Data processes about 55 percent of all transactions in the U.S., and will help Scoutmob close the loop of offering a discount, making a purchase and earning loyalty points.

The new funding will be used to support the company’s next wave of product development, which will include building out a mobile rewards program with the help of First Data and other payment companies it signs up.

Tavani said it will work like this: When users make a purchase at a Scoutmob location using a credit card, they’ll accrue points automatically. Once enough points have been accumulated, they can be redeemed at any Scoutmob retail location.

Unlike traditional loyalty programs, which require consumers to go to the same coffee shop 10 times in order to earn a free coffee, Scoutmob will let consumers earn and redeem points by visiting any merchant in its network. It’s similar to frequent flyer programs, where miles can be earned at a variety of merchants and then redeemed at a handful of airlines.

“We want to be the equivalent of an airline reward program, but for local,” Tavani said. “That’s exactly what we want to be.”

Scoutmob has landed in a sector spanning local businesses and mobile payments, which is ripe from innovation and extremely crowded by well-funded start-ups and massively large incumbents. But Tavani argues that it’s a level playing field.

“There’s going to be multiple players and lots of winners,” he said. “Groupon and LivingSocial are two with a gigantic lead. But we can go out and visit merchants today — there’s no one preventing us from having those conversations.”

The partnerships are important because it makes rolling out PayPal’s in-store payments technology to retailers much easier.

PayPal is hosting an event at its San Jose headquarters later this morning to announce the next batch of retailers that are adopting the company’s in-store payments solution. AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes will be there to cover the announcements live, starting at 10 am PT.

To date, PayPal has deployed its service to all 2,000 Home Depots, but it has a long way to go in meeting its goal of having 20 major retailers by the end of the year.

One reason why PayPal is able to deploy its services to retailers so quickly is because it only requires sending out a software update to the retailers’ terminals — in other words, retailers won’t have to purchase all new hardware. This morning, PayPal confirmed it has signed up VeriFone and Equinox Payments, the largest and third-largest providers, respectively, which will handle those software updates. PayPal already had a relationship with Ingenico, the second-largest provider.

The relationships inked today are focused on solving back-end integration problems for merchants. But the front-end experience is all about the consumer.

At participating stores, consumers will be able to pay with PayPal by either using a PayPal-issued credit card or by entering a mobile phone number and PIN code into the terminal. Down the road, PayPal could also support near field communication technology.

All told, the three terminal providers manage about roughly 40 million terminals worldwide, representing a large majority of the terminals in existence.

However, the company, which showed strength in online sales and its mobile-phone segment, affirmed its full-year outlook.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

There’s no question that every venture capitalist within 100 miles of Silicon Valley wanted to squeeze their khaki-clad selves into what had become tech’s hottest deal of late.

That would be to get a piece of the new round of funding for start-up phenom Pinterest.

But while piles of VCs and other investors tried to work every angle possible to noodge into the action, the iconoclastic CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann decided to go big and go global by hooking up with a Tokyo-based Internet giant.

Japan’s Rakuten will invest upwards of $50 million in a $100 million round that values the social bookmarking site at $1.5 billion.

Rakuten is one of the largest online commerce companies in the world, with a flagship site Rakuten Ichiba, among others. It was founded in 1997 and had revenue of $4.7 billion in 2011.

Most important in Pinterest’s calculation was apparently the link with its CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, whose nickname is Mickey. One the richest men in Japan, Mikitani is one of the best known entrepreneurs there where he’s been described as “Richard Branson meets Jeff Bezos.”

I briefly chatted with Mikitani last night about why he decided on the Pinterest deal, in a conversation where he focused a bit on Rakuten’s famed “omotenashi” or “empowerment” philosophy. Simply put, the concept is that — unlike an Amazon — Rakuten is a facilitator of commerce, much like its shopping mall metaphor beginnings. The approach is to aid merchants rather than compete with them.

It’s a little eBay, a little Alibaba, some Etsy and even a little Amazon Web Services mixed in. It’s also a place that can move retail globally, which is presumably the attraction to it by Pinterest.

ATD: Why did Pinterest pick you?

Mikitani: We are not a venture capitalist. We got together and talked about our story and our history.

We agreed that we shared a vision of the future of Internet e-commerce.

ATD: Why make an investment?

Mikitani: When we started to talk about being involved in the round of investment, we wanted to invest as much as possible.

We were very impressed by their business model and also the management style.

ATD: What made Pinterest so attractive in comparsion to other similar companies?

Everyone is talking about social commerce and best solution to social commerce, but Pinterest really was the first to use graphics that well to connect with people.

Rarely have we seen such a powerful media and we were seeing huge traffic coming from Pinterest [to Rakuten sites]. It was much higher than anyone else.

ATD: What do you bring to the table?

Mikitani: I think there are some things we think we can do with our expertise. Ben and his team have an extremely strong commitment to make their products as attractive as possible.

But we have 40,000 stores in Japan and we can give them access to our customers and do aggregation to engage in everything. And we have sites in many other countries too.

ATD: How are you going to work together?

Mikitani: We are not going to stop them from doing dealings with other e-commerce companies. But we can have more constructive input on how to make their site more effective from e-commerce point of view.

This is a long-term arrangement and we have a strong committment and attachment to this business. We truly understand their business and respect their management.

Since launching in August, Belly has signed up 1,400 merchants in eight markets, and is adding an average of 100 more merchants each week. Additionally, it has more than 200,000 active users, who have checked into business more than 800,000 times.

The business draws a little bit from Foursquare, because it requires users to check in to earn points; and also draws a little bit from Groupon, because of its focus on local commerce.

But Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, argued that Belly is not at all like Groupon. “It’s the anti-Groupon,” he said. “Groupon is doing lead generation through discounting. … What Belly is trying to do is loyalty.”

The difference, Jordan said, is that Belly doesn’t require merchants to offer discounts to get consumers to come back.

For example, a Chicago comic book store owner is letting shoppers punch him in the stomach; a Washington, D.C., Ben & Jerry shop is giving away a chance to eat ice cream with Jerry after 200 visits; and a barber is handing over the clippers to frequent customers, who will shave off his own beard.

Jordan, the former chairman and CEO of OpenTable and former president of PayPal, said there are four reasons why he was attracted to the start-up:

1. The management team: Founder and CEO Logan LaHive previously worked at Redbox, and before that, Pay By Touch, the biometrics payments company that raised $350 million in capital before failing.
2. Product execution: Jordan said both merchants and customers like the product. Merchants must install an iPad at the register, where consumers can check in to earn points by scanning a bar code from their phone or a loyalty card.
3. DNA of the investors: Before Andreessen Horowitz got involved, LaHive incubated the company in the offices of Lightbank, the VC fund created by Groupon founders in Chicago. Jordan believes that the one who gets to market fastest will win in this market. Belly has that in its DNA.
4. Connected retailers: Once retailers have an iPad in every store, there will be additional opportunities for Belly to roll out other services.

LaHive said the capital will be used to fuel expansion into new markets and to develop new services. To date, the company has raised $13 million.

Belly charges merchants $50 to $100 a month for the service, which includes an iPad, a case and lock for the iPad, marketing materials, and data and analytics to manage their business better.

Belly @ Berry Austin from Bellycard.com on Vimeo.

Seattle-based Walk Score has created an easy way to evaluate how walkable and public-transportation-friendly a neighborhood is on a scale from one to 100.

A 90 and higher is a Walker’s Paradise, meaning that daily errands there do not require a car. On the other end of the spectrum, and for scores under 50, it means there are very few amenities within walking distance and that people are car-dependent. For example, Seattle ranks as a 74.

I caught up with Walk Score’s CEO Josh Herst and co-founder and CTO Matt Lerner in Northwest Seattle to hear the company’s story.

Lerner said the premise behind Walk Score is that the real estate industry is stuck on viewing a house based on the price and the number of bedrooms it offers, but in reality, there are a whole lot of more important factors outside the four walls that should be taken into account.

In a study, Lerner said that every Walk Score point translated into roughly $3,000 in home value — which is why New York and San Francisco have two of the most expensive real estate markets in the country; generally, you can get more for your money the farther you travel out from a city’s core.

Walk Score’s data has spread like wildfire, with more than 15,000 sites paying to have access to its data, including aggregators like Zillow.com and other independent real estate sites. Today, the company is rolling out a study ranking the Top 25 major U.S. cities for transportation. New York is predictably at the top of the rankings, with a score of 81. San Francisco is in second place, with a score of 80, and at the bottom of the list is Raleigh, with a transit score of 23. Seattle is No. 8, with a score of 59.

Here’s Herst and Lerner explaining the importance of their data, and how the Walk Score is affecting where people are choosing to work and live:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120426/walk-score-places-a-value-on-how-easy-it-is-navigate-a-neighborhood-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120419/decide-com-says-it-will-accurately-predict-prices-or-your-money-back/ http://allthingsd.com/20120419/decide-com-says-it-will-accurately-predict-prices-or-your-money-back/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:00:27 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=198125 Decide.com helps eliminate buyer’s remorse by predicting whether the price of products will rise or fall. Now it is confident enough about some of its deals that it’s offering a money-back guarantee.

Starting today, Decide.com will choose 10 deals that it is so sure about that if its prediction proves wrong and the price drops within two weeks of purchase, Decide will automatically alert the buyer and pay them the amount of the price drop (up to $200).

The new feature is being launched today by the Seattle company, which is the brainchild of the folks behind Farecast.com. Like Decide.com, Farecast predicted whether it was the right time to buy an airline ticket. Farecast is now part of Microsoft’s Bing. Unfortunately, Farecast never had a guarantee.

In a statement, Mike Fridgen, president and CEO of Decide, said: “We want to show our users this isn’t just lip service — we’re actually willing to put our money behind our data-driven recommendations.”

The guarantee will be applied to 10 designated deals on the site every day, from consumer electronics to refrigerators and videogames.

Today’s deals include an HP 14-inch laptop for $500, representing a 23 percent savings; a 55-inch HDTV from LG that costs $1,199, representing a savings of 37 percent; and the Haier 1.7 cubic-foot refrigerator for $80, representing a 20 percent savings.

If any of those products become cheaper over the next two weeks, a buyer needs only to submit a photo of themselves with the product, and then Decide will send the money via PayPal or check.

While it sounds generous, the program probably pencils out financially, too. Of course, Decide hopes that its predictions are correct, but if they aren’t, the company has some buffer, because it earns a commission on the sales it generates.

To be clear, the company is not partnering with the retailer on these deals, but it does earn a referal fee or commission from the retailer if it generates a sale. Some of those rates are hefty; Amazon, for example, pays 4 percent on electronics product referrals.

Since launching last June, Decide says it has served up more than seven million recommendations, which have resulted in an average savings of $87 per product.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120419/decide-com-says-it-will-accurately-predict-prices-or-your-money-back/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120418/will-paypals-mobile-products-provide-a-surprise-lift-to-ebay/ http://allthingsd.com/20120418/will-paypals-mobile-products-provide-a-surprise-lift-to-ebay/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:14:56 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=197436 When eBay reports first-quarter earnings this afternoon, analysts will be looking for early signs that its recent mobile product launches are starting to take off.

During the quarter, the company’s PayPal division rolled out in-store checkout at 2,000 Home Depots and PayPal Here, a new service for merchants that allows them to swipe credit cards using a mobile phone.

PayPal Here is competing against Square, which I reported today is seeking funding at a $4 billion valuation.

Because these offerings are so new, eBay does not currently include any potential revenue in its forecast. It may continue to say today that it is too early to tell what impact, if any, is happening on the business.

“We believe new product launches (in-store check out, Mobile offerings, PayPal Here) could present some wildcard upside to 2012 guidance,” said Citi analyst Mark Mahaney in a note to investors.

Analysts, on average, expect eBay to report earnings of 52 cents per share on revenue of $3.15 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.

Those results are on the high side of eBay’s own forecast, which is estimating revenue in the range of $3.05 million to $3.15 million, with earnings per share of 50 cents to 51 cents, not including some expenses.

Analysts will also be looking to see how the transformation of its core marketplaces business is going, and how well its acquisition of GSI business is progressing. Going forward, the company wants to leverage its expertise in both e-commerce and payments to provide tools to third-party retailers that helps them fend off competitors, like Amazon.com.

The company, which will release earnings after the bell, is trading down six cents at $36.03 a share. The stock recently hit a 52-week high of $38.18.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120418/will-paypals-mobile-products-provide-a-surprise-lift-to-ebay/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120418/squares-next-round-could-swipe-a-4-billion-valuation/ http://allthingsd.com/20120418/squares-next-round-could-swipe-a-4-billion-valuation/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:00:58 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=197555 Square is seeking to raise a fresh round of capital at a massive valuation of up to $4 billion, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

If the company is successful, it will have quadrupled its worth since raising $100 million at a $1 billion valuation only 10 months ago.

While that would be astonishing for a three-year-old company, it’s important to note that negotiations continue, and that investors could ultimately value the company at a slightly more modest number (hmm, like $3 billion?!).

A Square spokesman declined to comment.

Square, which was founded by Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey, has quickly made accepting credit cards via a mobile phone into a mainstream and affordable concept for small merchants.

Over the past year, it has quickly expanded beyond handing out magnetic-swipe readers to offer more robust experiences for both consumers and merchants, including software on the Apple iPad that acts like a register, and software on the iPhone that is a virtual wallet.

The payments method has received a warm reception from mostly small businesses, including taxicabs, food trucks, coffee shops and even lawyers and accountants.

The rumors of Square looking to raise more capital started spreading after Owen Thomas, formerly of the Daily Dot, noticed that Dorsey and Square’s COO Keith Rabois were in Boston and Baltimore, where many institutional investors are based. Thomas called Legg Mason, which confirmed it was looking at the San Francisco company.

Previous investors in Square’s three rounds, totaling roughly $137 million, include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Visa and well-known entrepreneur Richard Branson.

The big question is whether Square will be able to demand such a hefty valuation.

To determine that, based on what is known about the company, I did some back-of-the napkin calculations to come up with its annual revenue.

Last month, the company said it is now processing $4 billion in annual transactions. Since we know that Square charges 2.75 percent per swiped transaction, and 3.5 percent plus 15 cents per keyed-in transaction, we can start to get a better picture of its finances.

Let’s assume that a quarter of the company’s transactions are keyed in — which demands the higher rate. That would mean the company’s revenue would total nearly $83 million for swiped transactions, and $35 million for keyed-in transactions. Because of the additional 15-cent fee per transaction, let’s add another $15 million (which might be generous, but would break down to 100 million transactions at $10 apiece).

In all, the company’s annual revenue would then be close to $122 million.

Most, but not all of that revenue, is then handed over to the credit card companies for processing fees.

To be sure, the company has grown quickly since its inception, and has its eyes set on the very large point-of-sales market. This year, Square said it had plans to expand internationally, and has just hired a new executive from PayPal to take the lead on the effort. In the future it could also generate revenue from advertising or other loyalty programs, although it does not today.

But, by at least one historical measure, the valuation is rich beyond belief.

PayPal, which was also looking to disrupt the banking industry by enabling peer-to-peer payments online, was sold for $1.5 billion to eBay in 2002, just months after going public at a valuation of nearly $800 million.

At the time it went public, the company was roughly doubling year over year and had generated $103.7 million in 2001, its first full year of operations — or slightly less than Square’s estimated revenues.

Much like PayPal back then, Square faces intense competition, making alliances with much larger companies or raising big war chests critically important.

Square faces stiff competition and pricing pressure from Intuit, eBay’s PayPal, Google and other upstarts, like Pay Anywhere.

Still, it has made a splash that is seeing major reverberations around the sector, which a big valuation will make larger still.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120418/squares-next-round-could-swipe-a-4-billion-valuation/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120417/millions-of-americans-dial-up-travel-plans-from-the-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20120417/millions-of-americans-dial-up-travel-plans-from-the-phone/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:43:03 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=197281 While total spending on online travel continues to grow, it is the mobile travel market that has everyone excited.

In a report released today, eMarketer estimates that 16 million Americans will book travel from their mobile devices this year, increasing 33 percent from 12 million in 2011. Even more people — roughly 37.8 million — will use their phones to research travel this year.

It’s no wonder that big online travel agencies, like Priceline and Expedia, are quickly expanding into mobile. One common mobile strategy is to build an app that gives deep discounts to people who book a hotel room from their phone for the same night.

Travelers who may not have access to a computer are an obvious market for hotel information, flights, maps, reviews and other services.

EMarketer said despite mobile’s rapid growth, total spending on online travel is growing more slowly than overall online retail sales. This year, online travel spending is set to increase 11 percent to $120 billion in the U.S.

But clearly all the trends spell bad news for travel agents and physical travel agencies. EMarketer expects a majority of Internet users to research and book via the Web.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120417/millions-of-americans-dial-up-travel-plans-from-the-phone/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120417/the-lonely-blackberry-store/ http://allthingsd.com/20120417/the-lonely-blackberry-store/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:37 +0000 Will Connors http://allthingsd.com/?p=197122 On a gray stretch of highway 25 miles northwest of Detroit, in a strip mall next to an OfficeMax and a dry cleaners, sits the only stand-alone BlackBerry retail store in North America.

The store opened in 2007, six months after Apple Inc. rolled out its first iPhone. It was supposed to mark the beginning of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.’s retail push in the U.S. and Canada.

Instead, the store serves as a somber reminder of RIM’s failed strategy to stave off competition from larger rivals domestically.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120417/the-lonely-blackberry-store/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120415/best-buy-details-store-closings/ http://allthingsd.com/20120415/best-buy-details-store-closings/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:22:37 +0000 Miguel Bustillo http://allthingsd.com/?p=196482 Best Buy on Saturday disclosed the 50 large stores it is closing as the struggling electronics retailer tries to shrink its massive footprint of about 1,100 big-box locations in the U.S.

The list of 50 stores being closed by the world’s largest specialty electronics chain includes seven locations in California and six in Illinois.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120415/best-buy-details-store-closings/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120412/internet-only-bonobos-gets-cash-and-rack-space-from-nordstrom/ http://allthingsd.com/20120412/internet-only-bonobos-gets-cash-and-rack-space-from-nordstrom/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:54:33 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=195895 Bonobos, the New York-based online clothing brand, says it has closed $16.4 million in new funding from Nordstrom and that it will start selling its pants at the high-end department store.

The partnership and funding is a huge vote of confidence for the brand, which up until today only existed on the Internet.

If you haven’t seen the ads and don’t already know, Bonobos is known for “better-fitting” men’s pants, and while I’ve heard many men say it’s true, it’s apparently hard to explain why — sort of like why the company is named after a kind of over-sexed chimpanzee. Wait, maybe it’s not that difficult to understand. Ahem.

To be sure, the company has a large selection of nice pants.

Bonobos said the round of funding was led by Nordstrom, along with full participation from existing investors, such as Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

In a statement, Andy Dunn, founder and CEO of Bonobos, said “We understand there are people who still want to touch and feel clothing before they purchase. We realized we needed help expanding beyond our web-only roots.”

Since launching in 2007, Bonobos has expanded to offer a full clothing line for men. Beginning in April, Nordstrom will carry the top two product lines of Bonobos, including chinos and cotton trousers. The brand will launch at 20 of Nordstrom’s stores and within the Men’s Shop on Nordstrom.com.

“Our investment with Bonobos will enable Nordstrom to participate in the young company’s phenomenal growth, and we look forward to what we can learn from each other as we build the business together,” said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct.

Last March, Nordstrom acquired HauteLook, an online retailer that offers flash sales.

Like Bonobos, several venture-backed companies have cropped up over the past couple of years that encourage men to shop more online, such as Indochino, J. Hilburn and TrunkClub. In December 2010, Bonobos raised $18.5 million.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120412/internet-only-bonobos-gets-cash-and-rack-space-from-nordstrom/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120405/the-hottest-fashion-in-e-commerce-clothes/ http://allthingsd.com/20120405/the-hottest-fashion-in-e-commerce-clothes/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:07:20 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=193623 Apparel is the fastest-growing segment in e-commerce this year, thanks to new ways to display clothing online.

EMarketer predicts that the apparel and accessories category is expected to grow by 20 percent to $40.9 billion this year, up from $34.2 billion in 2011.

That beats the sale of books, music and videos, which have historically been considered the most dominant e-commerce categories — those are now expected to grow by only 18 percent to $20.4 billion this year.

The report published by the Internet market research firm today is the first time it has broken down its forecasts by category.

EMarketer attributed the gains in apparel to retailers’ improved methods for displaying products online that make purchasing clothes, in particular, less of a guessing game.

Some of the visual innovations are stunning.

For instance, Amazon.com’s MyHabit, a private sales clothing site, produces animated videos of models wearing the clothing for sale. The representations are so realistic, the fabric sways as the model struts and turns as if walking down a catwalk.

On the more whimsical side of innovations is eBay’s augmented reality app that allows users to “try on” a pair of sunglasses by layering them over a picture of their face.

But in addition to new display technology, there are also many more apparel sites for consumers to choose from. Over the last two years, the idea of private sales or flash sales — offering expensive, high-end fashion at steep discounts — has spread like wildfire.

Free shipping also plays a role since it removes some of the risk for consumers: If they don’t like a shirt or pair of pants, they don’t have to pay a fee for delivery back to the retailer.

Overall, the report is predicting another big year for e-commerce. It expects U.S. retail sales to grow 15.4 percent to $224.2 billion in 2012, which is higher than eMarketer’s previous forecast that called for e-commerce to grow 11.3 percent to $209.3 billion in 2012.

The biggest category in 2012 is expected to be computer and consumer electronics, which have a higher price point, and are expected to bring in a total of $48.6 billion.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120405/the-hottest-fashion-in-e-commerce-clothes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/ http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:56:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=191988

Last week, I visited Los Angeles to get a gander at some of the many digital companies that are doing some interesting things down south of Silicon Valley.

First stop: HipSwap, a community-based marketplace that is now in 14 U.S. cities after initial tests in Los Angeles and New York City.

Its goal is to de-creep the experience — because no matter how it’s done online, local buying and selling still has a lot of glitches. Using a visual approach (think Pinterest), with hipster social hooks (think Airbnb) and focusing on location (hmm, perhaps think Foursquare), complete with delivery in some cities, HipSwap is hoping to differentiate itself from big players in the space, such as Craigslist and eBay.

The app-heavy HipSwap allows anyone with stuff, including boutique merchants with quirky stuff to move, to quickly snap photos of items, price them and then — presumably — sell. Payment is made via PayPal or credit card, with HipSwap in between the buyer and seller, to ease the transaction’s typical awkwardness.

Because it is local, the items are varied, from trendy baby strollers to funky furniture to antique sewing machines. And, because it is in the L.A. area, HipSwap is also pushing celebrity fare, with a charitable “Shop My Closet” marketplace and video series, which recently included Kyle Richards from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

The Santa Monica, Calif. start-up recently closed $1.1 million seed funding from a number of prominent investors, such as Founders Fund, Greycroft Partners, as well as former Microsoft exec — and early Pinterest angel — Hank Vigil and Mahalo President Jason Rapp.

Here’s a video interview I did with co-founder and CEO Rob Kramer about the interesting retail concept:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/livingsocial-finds-that-full-priced-offers-not-discounts-work-better-on-mobile/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/livingsocial-finds-that-full-priced-offers-not-discounts-work-better-on-mobile/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:40:35 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=191269 LivingSocial is killing off its last-minute offers for restaurants and spas in favor of a new full-price service it calls Takeout & Delivery.

“This is the bigger opportunity we see under real-time commerce, based on the adoption we’ve seen with our members and the feedback from the restaurants,” said Greg Mazanec, LivingSocial’s general manager for Takeout & Delivery.

The move is a big step away from the company’s roots of offering large discounts to draw patrons into a store or restaurant. But the step also raises the broader question of whether mobile commerce — as we’ve envisioned it for years — will ever take off.

For the past decade, mobile executives and others have promised that, someday, consumers will be alerted of nearby deals or specials on their phone as they walk by a coffee shop or a restaurant. For example, a free latte with a purchase of a scone, or free fries with a burger and milkshake.

More recently, LivingSocial and Groupon were considered clear front-runners for bringing that promise to scale, because both have a large user base and a dense enough footprint of local businesses for it to work. But now LivingSocial is downplaying the idea of location-based offers, a year after launching.

Groupon, which launched a competing product called Groupon Now soon after LivingSocial Instant, continues to offer these real-time deals.

Mazanec declined to say how Instant performed financially, but said it was the company’s first attempt at “real-time commerce,” and it turned out that the response for takeout and delivery had been extremely high. ”It was the repeat behavior that was important to us,” he said.

Now the value is centralized around convenience instead of discounts. That’s something merchants generally like more, too. Instead of offering discounts to people who may have already been looking for a latte or a burger, now they are drawing in more people at full price.

Mazanec describes the nearby Mexican restaurant that already had a long line during lunch. He said the only way for them to sell more food without expanding physically is to offer takeout and delivery.

“Consumers aren’t pulling their phones out to search for the nearest real-time discount on a car inspection or framing service. They are, however, looking for a faster and better way to order food from their favorite local restaurants,” he said.

Now, Takeout & Delivery will replace Instant on the LivingSocial apps.

The mobile app allows users to place and pay for orders for either pickup or delivery. On the back end, the restaurant receives the order by fax, and is able to say how long the order will take to fill. Consumers who show up for takeout are directed to a specific line and can pick up their order without having to pay. Restaurants that offer delivery are responsible for supplying the drivers.

Discounts can always be layered on top of the transaction if a merchant wishes, but it’s no longer the starting point. LivingSocial shares the revenue from the transaction.

“This helps broaden our offerings and puts us in a place where we can offer fast casual to five-star gourmet,” he said.

By adding the service, LivingSocial also starts competing with other delivery services that have declared this to be a big market opportunity.

Seamless, a New York company focused on online delivery and takeout, recently acquired MenuPages and booked more than $400 million in orders last year. And GrubHub, a Chicago-based company, recently raised $50 million and acquired Dotmenu and Allmenus. GrubHub projected that orders would hit $225 million in 2011.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/livingsocial-finds-that-full-priced-offers-not-discounts-work-better-on-mobile/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/paypals-new-leader-to-bring-entrepreneurial-vibe-to-payments/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/paypals-new-leader-to-bring-entrepreneurial-vibe-to-payments/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:00:34 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=191264 David Marcus’s self-proclaimed interests include mobile, payments, technology and getting stuff done.

True to his word, the entrepreneur has done a lot in the past eight months.

He sold his start-up to eBay for $240 million; became PayPal’s VP of Mobile; and launched PayPal’s mobile payments service, called Here. Now, he’s been named president of PayPal. The position opened up in January, after Scott Thompson stepped down to become CEO of Yahoo.

Now, with his appointment, Marcus’s list of things to do grows a lot longer.

In an interview, eBay CEO John Donohoe emphasized that what PayPal needs more than ever is an entrepreneur at the helm, one who can take advantage of all the opportunities that lie ahead.

“It’s the right time for PayPal to combine the global scale and reach with a product guy and entrepreneur like David, who is going to take PayPal to the next level,” he said.

PayPal, which is eBay’s fastest-growing division, is pushing into two new hot areas: Mobile payment and point-of-sale.

Mobile payments are taking off as people shop online from their phones and tablets, while offline is a massive opportunity dominated by the Visas and MasterCards of the world.

It’s hard to put a dollar figure on the market opportunity, but PayPal tries putting it in perspective.

In mobile alone, it expects payment volume to hit $7 billion this year, up from $150 million in 2009. For point-of-sale, it will double PayPal’s $70 billion business if it captures 2 percent of all sales. If it captures 4 percent, it will triple it.

Before joining PayPal, Marcus was the founder and CEO of Zong, a mobile payments company that was building a platform that allowed users to charge purchases to their carrier bill. Today, PayPal uses Zong’s platform for mobile payments, and is also leveraging it for its offline payments business. For instance, when using PayPal to pay at the register, users don’t need to have their wallet or phone with them. They can simply enter a phone number and PIN to pay. That technology is live today at more than 2,000 Home Depots.

Donahoe said he was impressed by Marcus when eBay was still in talks to acquire Zong.

“He really felt deeply that if he could get Zong to PayPal’s scale that we could do extraordinary things,” Donohoe said. “From the moment he joined, it’s been fun to watch an innovator who’s been recognizing that he can innovate at scale.”

Over the past seven months, Marcus has been charged with the launch of PayPal Here, which allows small-to-medium-size merchants to accept payments using a small dongle plugged into a smartphone. The service, which launched earlier this month, is nearly identical to a service offered by Square, a start-up founded by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.

Marcus said he was really impressed with how fast it was to launch such a complicated product that required encryption and compliance on a global scale. In the first 24 hours, the company signed up more than 1,000 businesses an hour for Here.

“The organization came together, and we built it really quickly,” he said. “I’m excited in this new capacity. If we innovate at scale, we can change the world in a meaningful way.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/paypals-new-leader-to-bring-entrepreneurial-vibe-to-payments/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120329/google-to-sell-tablets-on-its-own-this-year/ http://allthingsd.com/20120329/google-to-sell-tablets-on-its-own-this-year/#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:06:23 +0000 Amir Efrati http://allthingsd.com/?p=191434 Google Inc., undaunted by a short-lived attempt to sell a smartphone on its own, is now pushing into Apple’s iPad market.

The Internet search company is planning to market and sell tablets directly to consumers through an online store, similar to rivals Apple and Amazon.com Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The move is an effort to turn around sluggish sales of tablet computers powered by Google’s Android software.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120329/google-to-sell-tablets-on-its-own-this-year/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120323/best-buy-is-selling-nearly-as-many-iphones-as-apple-itself/ http://allthingsd.com/20120323/best-buy-is-selling-nearly-as-many-iphones-as-apple-itself/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:03:53 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=189404

Apple’s move to make Best Buy an outlet for the iPhone back in 2008 is proving a wise one — lucrative, too.

Over the past few years, the retail chain has become an increasingly important outlet for Apple, extending its reach and distribution via its 1,100 stores. About 600 of them host an Apple Store-within-a-store, most of those in geographic locations that Cupertino feels are too small to support a dedicated Apple store.

And they’re selling a lot of iPhones.

Almost as many as Apple itself, according to new data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP).

The firm surveyed iPhone buyers in December 2011, January 2012 and February 2012, asking them where they purchased the device. And it found that retail stores accounted for 76 percent of iPhone sales; online stores, 24 percent. When the iPhone 4S first launched, retail stores and online outlets accounted for 67 percent and 33 percent of sales, respectively, largely due to online preorders.

More interesting, however, was the breakdown of the stores themselves. According to CIRP’s data, Apple sold 15 percent of all iPhones purchased in the U.S. during the period of the survey (retail, 11 percent; online, 4 percent). Meanwhile, AT&T sold 32 percent via its online and retail stores; Verizon, 30 percent — again, online and off — and Sprint, 7 percent.

And Best Buy? The big-box retailer sold 13 percent, just 2 percent shy of Apple itself. The remaining 3 percent is “Other,” which I’m told is a combination of retailers like Radio Shack and Walmart and respondents who received their iPhone as a gift and didn’t know where it was originally purchased.

So when it comes to iPhone distribution, it’s obviously the carriers that drive sales. But retail partners like Best Buy are clearly hugely important, as well. Nearly as important as the Apple Store.

“Apple Stores and the Apple Web site are tremendously productive, but they are limited by their relatively small retail footprint,” CIRP’s Josh Lowitz told AllThingsD. “There are four times as many Best Buy stores, and probably 20 times as many AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint stores, so aggressive distribution through all these channels is critical to Apple’s U.S. strategy.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120323/best-buy-is-selling-nearly-as-many-iphones-as-apple-itself/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/ http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:26:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=185323

We Twihards saw it coming at the end of the last installment of the “Twilight” movie franchise, as the main character, Bella, finally got to be a sparkly vampire.

Actually, she seems to have become a rather pasty white one, with blood-red lipstick — which is also the look being sported by her long-tortured paramour, Edward, in this new clip from the second “Breaking Dawn” film.

The video ran in an exclusive deal with Target in its retail stores, connected to the DVD release for the first part of the movie. Guess what? Someone had a smartphone and caught the whole thing.

Kids today! Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120228/paypals-in-store-payments-system-hits-home-depot-stores-across-u-s/ http://allthingsd.com/20120228/paypals-in-store-payments-system-hits-home-depot-stores-across-u-s/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:18:07 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=178879 Following a test phase in which PayPal allowed its employees to purchase items at a handful of Home Depot stores using a PayPal credit card or account number, the eBay-owned payments giant is rolling out the new payments system in 2,000 Home Depot locations across the U.S. The move comes as competing companies and start-ups are aggressively exploring more mobile and in-store payment options.

Within the next two weeks, PayPal said in a post on the PayPal Blog, every Home Depot in the U.S. will be equipped to accept payments from customers using a PayPal card or mobile phone number and PIN combination.

Yesterday, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, PayPal also said it was increasing its efforts in the area of carrier payments, calling for wireless carriers to “revise standards to help optimize user experience, increase flexibility of carrier payments as a payment method, and increase payout rates for merchants.” The statement comes after Boku — which directly competes with PayPal’s recently acquired Zong — introduced a white-label service for in-store payments with wireless feature phones and smartphones, through a partnership with MasterCard.

In recent weeks, PayPal’s in-store payments system at Home Depot stores has come under fire from Visa, which is working on its own digital wallet service, called V.me. Visa’s global head of product, Jim McCarthy, said that PayPal’s system poses security risks, and that thieves could potentially see a paying customer’s account number as they enter it in at a payment terminal.

PayPal responded by reiterating its commitment to innovating point-of-sale purchasing, and said users’ data is more secure in PayPal’s cloud than it is in their pockets.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120228/paypals-in-store-payments-system-hits-home-depot-stores-across-u-s/feed/ 1