With brick-and-mortar retailers reopening worldwide, consumers are heading back to stores — and they’re taking their newfound digital shopping and payment habits with them, says Joan King, senior vice president of eCommerce for retailer Crate and Barrel. In the latest Commerce Connected Playbook, King discusses...
Consumers were shopping, transacting and interacting with merchants via online or mobile channels well before the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, but the global health crisis has dramatically accelerated this trend. Customers flocked to online platforms in the pandemic’s initial months as many nonessential retailers’ brick-and-mortar locations...
The pandemic outbreak has pushed consumers and businesses online and looking to make connections to make commerce smoother and more seamless across the board. Its why PayPal is guiding businesses over the digital divide, Ticketmaster is upgrading its mobile offerings and Square is making workers...
Consumers’ appetite for change as to how they feed themselves has been particularly busy of late, pushing Starbucks to sweeten its loyalty offerings to customers and meal kits to rise to prominence once again. Starbucks Sweetens Rewards As Coronavirus Takes Toll On Membership Program Starbucks...
Just when it seemed America was starting to actually use gym and fitness studio memberships that so often fall dormant after a few visits, COVID-19 shut down the workout industry hardcore. Consider the empty gyms and studios of 2020 as compared to mere months ago....
Today in the connected economy: Facebook enhances Messenger for social streaming, Visa pushes Click-to-Pay into Canada, and TVPage integrates its social selling apps with SAP. Facebook Launches ‘Watch Together’ Feature to Bring People Together Virtually Facebook is adding a “Watch Together” feature to its popular...
In the latest news in the ever-expanding connected economy, Facebook is pushing out a new “Facebook Campus” function to connect college students, Google is rolling out a new platform for video events and Microsoft is helping to create “virtual crowds” for NFL games. Is the...
Small- to medium-sized (SMBs) are the backbone of the American economy: 30.7 million SMBs operate across the country and account for 64 percent of new jobs. They represent 99.9 percent of all businesses in the U.S., but they face many hurdles. The U.S. Bureau of...
Digital-first businesses that need capital as a cushion for lumpy cash flow find tapping their banks for funds can be tedious and slow, says Abe Shak, CEO of accessories retailer The Time Store. In this month’s Payments Powering the Platform Economy Report, Shak explains how...