| News about digital retail commerce |  |
| Top Story |  |  | | - How one cupcake company redefined itself via social media
Brooklyn-based pastry chef Allison Robicelli and her husband gave up their day jobs to open a small gourmet shop just before the market tanked. The pair closed the shop in 2009 and turned their $200,000 in debt into a wholesale business in a borrowed kitchen, and today they're busy connecting with consumers via social channels. "Everyone wants to connect with somebody, but they can't, because they're looking at their phones. I thought, okay, let's develop a strong Twitter presence." Fast Company online (5/29)       |  |  | | How to turn money you already spend into points you can use:
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  - Is Groupon planning a card-reading remote-payment service?
Groupon appears to be testing a remote-payment service similar to Square but with lower transaction fees and a free iPod Touch provided to merchants along with a credit card reader. Groupon refuses to confirm the new service, which would also compete with similar offerings from PayPal and Verifone. VentureBeat (5/24)  | Which do you choose: Customer frustration…or channel integration? Today's consumers expect to shop the way technology lets them work and live: easily, efficiently and seamlessly across channels. Aberdeen's 2012 Analyst Insight on the Omni-Channel Retail Experience explains how your competitors make that happen – and how you can too! This $399 value is now yours free. Download the report now! |
 | Hot Topics | | | | Top five news stories selected by Shop.org SmartBrief readers in the past week. - Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.
- Shutterfly buys Kodak Gallery for a database of 75 million
Shutterfly is buying the Kodak Gallery service for $23.8 million, mostly for the bankrupt company's user database of 75 million accounts. Shutterfly, which had previously acquired the user bases of the defunct SonyImageStation and Photoworks services, will transfer the 5 billion images hosted by Kodak's service to its platform unless Kodak Gallery users decide to opt out of the process. The company says it expects to generate $21 million in revenue this year from the accounts brought in through the Kodak Gallery acquisition. Advertising Age (tiered subscription model) (5/28) - Ralph Lauren to add Japan to global e-commerce roster
Designer brand Ralph Lauren saw its online retail sales grow about 30% last year, in large part due to a growing online retail presence in international markets. The company already sells online in eight countries, and plans to add an e-commerce component in Japan this year. Internet Retailer (5/25)  | Download Forrester Research, Inc.'s April 2012 report: SMB eCommerce Solutions 2012, A Guide To Selecting Your eCommerce Solution, and learn which SMB eCommerce solution you should consider for your business. Click here for your complimentary copy. |
 | | | Most Popular Headlines from Last Week Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers. |
| Interactive Advertising | | | | - Amazon is building up its mobile-ad army for a run at Apple
Leveraging its position as owner of the fourth-most-visited smartphone properties, Amazon might become a formidable rival to Apple in the mobile-ad market. Amazon has hired Microsoft's Jamie Wells to build a mobile-ad sales team and is rumored to be talking to mobile-ad network partners such as Jumptap. More important, Amazon builds and sells its own mobile platform: It has sold 5.5 million tablets since the holiday debut of the Kindle Fire, according to IDC. Advertising Age (tiered subscription model) (5/28) | Shop.org Spotlight | | | | - Toys R Us, Nordstrom Direct executives to headline Shop.org Annual Summit
Digital retail's most influential event is headed to the Rockies, Sept. 10 to 12, and two of the most prominent e-commerce executives will keynote the event. Toys R Us Chairman and CEO Gerald Storch and President of Nordstrom Direct Jamie Nordstrom will share how they have revamped and accelerated their respective online retail businesses and more. Read more. - What retailers can learn from Gap's mobile journey
As consumers continue to drive the mobile experience, it's critical that retailers utilize customers as a resource to help improve their mobile platform. Presenting at the Shop.org digital retail marketing workshop in San Francisco, Gap's Senior Director of Product Management Dave Barrowman explains how this feedback helped in the evolution of Gap's mobile model, and what's up next for its enhanced mobile experience. Read more.
| SmartQuote | | | |  | The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."
--Henry David Thoreau,
American author and poet  |
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