Well it’s over. As you are reading this, it’s no longer possible to order holiday presents online in time for a Christmas Eve delivery, unless of course you happen to live in one of the 13 same-day delivery cities in the U.S. that Amazon services....
Retailers always get all of the attention, especially at Christmas. The reason is simple, retailers sell “what” we buy, and at this time of year that “what” is presents. According to estimates, holiday retail will bring in around $200 billion in 2014, a 5 percent...
By all accounts, 2014 was the year of the “on-demand” economy. Ride-sharing service Uber recently closed out a $1.2 billion funding round, placing the start-up’s total valuation at $41 billion. That represents an almost tripling of the company’s value – a half a year ago Uber...
Though retailers and venues have been adopting Apple Pay, the service’s real strength so far seems to be in the area of in-app purchases. As Christmas drew near in 2014, in-app checkout support from Apple Pay spread to LoungeBudddy and Ticketmaster (among others). LoungeBuddy displays...
Meeting its self-imposed “by Christmas” deadline, Walt Disney World will begin accepting Apple Pay on Wednesday (Dec. 24), 9 To 5 Mac reported. The new payments system, which will also support contactless payment cards and other NFC-based systems including Google Wallet, will be initially available...
Users are frustrated with their mobile shopping experience this holiday season, and social commerce could be next year’s fastest rising star. Those are the key takeaways from several new research reports, according to Mobile Commerce Daily. A Mobiquity study found that 33 percent of consumers...
Last week I laid out the 10 things that happened in 2014 that I believe will shape the direction of payments for the next decade. Those 10 things range from the breach at Target, which galvanized the once -fractured merchant community in the U.S. around...
Rent the Runway, a web-retailer that allows women to rent designer clothing at affordable prices, has reportedly raised $60 million in venture capital. This pushes the firm’s overall valuation to between $500 million and $600 million and brings its total lifetime corporate fund-raising to $116...
Deck the halls, light the menorah, prepare the feast of karamu, shop ’til you drop, then ring in the new year. Wait, something is missing. That’s right, donate to charity, then countdown to 2015. In the past, the season of kindness and giving was also...
