Product Review | Shopilly
October 3, 2012 by admin · Leave a Comment
Note: I serve as an Advisor to Shopilly and have seen the product grow from concept through static screen shots to a fully functional shopping service.
I believe we are witnessing the emergence of the next generation of ecommerce. While online shopping continues to grow and is dominated by Amazon and eBay — as well as retailers such as Apple, Walmart and Target — there are newer firms redefining ecommerce as inherently mobile, social and local. Shopilly is one of those new players and just recently launched its service.
What is Shopilly?
Shopilly is a new service for consumers that brings together offers, deals, and promotions from leading stores and brands in a very attractive, visual and easy-to-use interface. Read more
Retail Email Run Amok
August 30, 2012 by admin · 3 Comments
“I’m not gonna lie. I want you for mine.” Toadies.
I have a love/hate relationship with my email inbox.
I experience emotional cycles with my email – at times I frantically sign up for newsletters, industry briefings, sweepstakes, sports updates, daily deals and share my email when shopping online.
Then the inevitable occurs . . . work and personal emails intertwine in an ever-growing deluge of information bombarding my inbox. At some point it tips and instead of feeling in touch, in-the-know and connected, I feel overwhelmed. When I get to this point, I whipsaw to the other extreme – unsubscribing left, right and center, bouncing emails, marking them as spam and deleting mass quantities of email without so much as opening them.
It got me thinking: “How did I get here?” Read more
Have Mobile Payments (Finally) Arrived?
December 6, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Based on the sheer volume of investments, predictions and hype about the potential of mobile payments, the above headline could have been written years ago. But one tangible recent development indicates that mobile payments may finally be about to take off.
Really!
In the past, there have been many hurdles holding the mobile payment market back. These included:
- Handsets. They lacked the appropriate SIM or RFID technology.
- Networks. Banks and credit card companies are notoriously slow, lack innovation and are conservative by nature.
- Security. Communicating over unsecure mobile networks is already an issue, and when it comes to financial transactions, security becomes paramount.
- Merchant Acceptance. Establishing a large enough footprint of national and independent merchants is very difficult. In technology, we call this a problem of “scale”.
- Consumer Behavior. Consumers don’t change their behavior unless there is a good reason to do so. For any number of reasons, most consumers have not yet embraced mobile payments.