"Thanks to Groupon, merchants may face a similar, but perhaps even more damaging, fate. Prices are likely to erode as consumers come to expect deals. They will wait for sales to buy, and merchants will find themselves competing ever more fiercely. Meanwhile, merchants' brand power will be eroded as consumers look to Groupon (as they do to Orbitz), rather than to the merchants themselves, for the best deals."
"Tabbedout, a mobile payment system for restaurants and bars, is now upgrading its system with customer relationship management tools that helps merchants understand who's walking in the door and helps them treat customers better. Now, when a customer opens a tab through the Tabbedout mobile app, restaurant owners can see if he is a new customer or a regular, how much he normally spends and what he prefers to order.
Merchants can also receive direct feedback from customers through the Tabbedout app. That allows them to respond directly to a customer or offer a special coupon to thank him or soothe him after a bad visit. And with the new CRM tools, Tabbedout merchants can also segment and target their users. Merchants can send an offer as a reward for a loyal customer or entice a new customer to come back and get back data on how many offers are actually redeemed."
Uber Local Offers.
The premise of the program is simple: Uber riders who've registered Visa cards to their Uber accounts can rack up rewards points by using that same Visa card at various local merchants. Uber users get one point for every dollar spent at a partner merchant and are notified via the Uber app when they spend money at those local merchants. Once users have racked up 100 points, they get a $10 ride credit on Uber.
consumers browse and follow offline retailers and if one of walk.by's merchants has the product in stock. it will notify the users and they can hold item.
Foursquare Local Updates let merchants send text, photos and Specials to customers who have either checked into a business several times or liked it on Foursquare. The updates will be shown to customers when they're in the city where that business is located. The new function will begin rolling out this week.
According to Foursquare, brands including H&M, Luke's Lobster, Togo's Sandwiches, Outback Steakhouse, Northern Spy Food Company and Wolfgang Puck plan to use the updates feature. The tool is free to merchants.
"LevelUp operates a mobile payment network with 3,500 U.S. merchants in 20 U.S. markets, and 250,000 active users. The service recently rounded up $21 million in funding to scale growth. The new NFC-equipped terminals, along with a newly adopted "interchange zero" policy, are designed to accelerate LevelUp's maturation process."
Similar to how you can scan a giftcard at Starbucks, but its a terminal with a special android phone that only runs the LevelUp program. Customers link their debit/credit card to the app for a scannable QR code
"Cudo, the Microsoft-backed Australian daily deal site that offered a $99 Chinese e-reader bundled with a CD of pirated e-books (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling), is now blaming the e-reader merchant for the mistake and says it will be sending buyers a different e-reader."
Online payment company Jumio has announced the launch of Netverify: an image recognition technology that allows merchants to remotely scan credit cards and IDs with a webcam or phone.
Burger King -- quick-service restaurant joins Google, eBay and others in leveraging mobile to support home-delivery or same-day delivery strategies.
Following footsteps of amazon and walmart's same day delivery
Send allows instant disbursements - imagine payments from insurance companies that land to your bank account nearly instantly - and P2P payments that let consumers "seamlessly send and receive funds from friends and family typically within seconds through providers including issuers, money transfer operators, merchants and more."
Amazon announced this morning a plan to spread adoption of its payments service, Amazon Payments, to more third-party websites. With the launch of its Amazon Payments Global Partner Program, the retailer will help e-commerce platform providers and other developers integrate with Amazon Payments so their own merchants can offer the option to "Pay with Amazon" at checkout.
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