merchants
Accel, SV Angel, Y Combinator Put $1.5M In Online Bank Payments Platform GoCardless
techcrunch.com
If you’ve ever set up an automatic ‘Bill Pay’ feature on your bank account to pay off your utility and cable bills, then you’ve taken advantage of a nifty feature called an ‘interbank transfer’, also known as an ‘Automated Clearing House’ payment. Once they’re set up, they tend to be...
“AdSense For Local Commerce” Signpost Raises $3.75M From Spark Capital
techcrunch.com
Local advertising startup, and recent Google Offers partner, Signpost is announcing its Series A funding round this morning to the tune of $3.75 million, led by Spark Capital. Other angels also participated in the round, but the company isn’t disclosing names. This new round is in addition to previous funding of $1.25 million,...
Dwolla Raises $5 Million From Union Square Ventures To Continue Building Its (Nearly) Fee-Free Payment Network
www.businessinsider.com
Credit card fees really add up. Ben Milne's business was losing $55,000 per year to them, so he created Dwolla to side step the charges altogether. Dwolla is a 17-person startup that is creating a nearly fee-free payment network. Credit cards and PayPal charge merchants between 3 and 5%...
Dwolla Raises $5 Million From Union Square Ventures To Continue Building Its (Nearly) Fee-Free Payment Network
Andrew Mason’s First Earnings Call: “Stop Sending Me Pole-Dancing Deals”
techcrunch.com
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason just finished his first post-IPO earnings calls with Wall Street analysts. (We covered it live and looked at the numbers). “We believe we are on the cusp of a sea change” in behavior, he noted. “We’re about to see what technology can do for local commerce.”...
Card-Linked Customer Loyalty Company Cartera Commerce Raises $12.2M Series D, Readies Expansion Into Local Offers
techcrunch.com
Cartera Commerce, the largest provider of card-linked offers in the U.S., has just raised an additional $12.2 million in Series D funding, bringing its total raise to date to $43 million. The new round was led by Comvest Group, and included participation from all Cartera’s previous investors: Dace Ventures, Flybridge...
Card-Linked Customer Loyalty Company Cartera Commerce Raises $12.2M Series D, Readies Expansion Into Local Offers
Exclusive: Amazon Starts Bringing the Art of Recommendations to Daily Deals
allthingsd.com
Amazon is taking its first step in bringing the recommendation technology that the e-commerce site is known for to the daily deals space. To be sure, no one has yet solved targeting in the space — men are still being offered Brazilian bikini waxes and women get pitched discounts to...
The Death Of This Waffle Joint Illustrates Perfectly Groupon's Cashflow Accounting Methods (GRPN)
www.businessinsider.com
A Washington, D.C., restaurant named Back Alley Waffles claims it is going out of business because it had to wait too long before Groupon sent it the cash it raised from one of the daily deal site's email offers. The restaurant posted a message on its site say it was...
Beyond The Daily Deal: Groupon’s 170M Deals And 33M Users; Aims To Be ‘The OS For Local Commerce’
techcrunch.com
Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason today posted a letter to shareholders with some updated figures on how the company is doing, and a more specific outline of what Groupon plans to do to to move beyond daily deals: ”To become the operating system for local commerce.” The move is a significant one...
Signpost, the AdSense for local business, raises $3.75M
gigaom.com
As local businesses move their marketing spending from Yellow Page listings and mailers to online ads, there’s a growing opportunity to help them make the transition. Signpost, a New York start-up, has been growing quickly by filling this gap for local merchants. Investors are noticing too including Spark Capital, which...
Square Is Trying To Take Magic Mainstream
parislemon.com
Just in case my love letter last November didn’t make it abundantly clear, I’ll reiterate: I love Square. We’re not investors, but I wish we were. I love both the business and the product. And if that level of admiration makes this post biased, then color me conflicted. Apparently well...
Reports: Authorities removing iPads from stores in China, following trademark ruling
www.engadget.com
Government authorities and retailers have reportedly begun removing iPads from stores in China this morning, in apparent response to a ruling issued in December. According to China's Hebei Youth Daily, local representatives of the country's Administrations of Industry and Commerce (AIC) have started confiscating Apple's tablet from retail outlets,...
PayPal Trumps Square's Deal With Starbucks by Partnering With Discover
allthingsd.com
Under a new partnership being announced with Discover, PayPal is super-sizing the number of merchant locations it will accepted at in the U.S. to more than seven million. “The whole industry has been looking for a landmark — that says that all of this is really happening,” said Don Kingsborough,...
Online Community For Small Businesses Manta Raises $44M From Norwest Venture Partners
techcrunch.com
Manta, an online community dedicated entirely to small business, has raised $44 million in funding from Norwest Venture Partners. This brings the company’s total funding to $61 million. With this investment NVP’s Jon Kossow and David Su have joined Manta’s board of directors, which includes previous investors Athenian Venture Partners...
PayPal Debuts Tiered Suite Of Online, Offline And Mobile Payments Options For Small Businesses
techcrunch.com
As we heard over the past few months, PayPal is ramping up its payments options for large and small merchants. The payments giant debuted an in-store payments platform for large retailers; PayPal Here, a card swiper that attaches to a mobile phone for small businesses; and hinted at a brand...
PayPal debuts in bars, restaurants with TabbedOut integration
gigaom.com
PayPal, the online payment giant, has been working its way into physical stores and is now rolling out as a payment option in more than 2,000 Home Depot locations. The eBay division isn’t just targeting retail, however. It’s also making its debut in restaurants and bars with a new partnership with...
Microsoft 'Shopping assistant' patent could help you find Elmo, more time for the kids
www.engadget.com
Microsoft's just been granted a patent entitled "Shopping assistant." The claims indicate a system that generates a route to a product based on user-defined criteria (i.e. quickest, cheapest, shortest distance,) it also indicates that certain real-time conditions from participating merchants, such as stock levels, could also help determine the...
Groupon acquires ecommerce ‘big data’ startup Adku
venturebeat.com
Group deals company Groupon has acquired e-commerce data firm Adku for an undisclosed price, the startup announced today. Adku provides a service that attempts to optimize a person’s shopping experience on sites like Zappos, eBay, and Amazon by using various data about each shopper. The service uses signals like location,...
Yelp now lets local business owners sell gift certificates through their profile page
thenextweb.com
Yelp has announced its latest product feature for small business owners…gift certificates. This launch follows on from Yelp Deals which officially launched last summer, after a testing phase which kicked off the previous August. This latest roll-out means that companies can now sell gift certificates direct to customers via their...
Payments Network Takes On Google
online.wsj.com
More than a dozen big merchants are expected to announce their plans to jointly develop a mobile-payments network that would battle similar services from Google....
Loyalty Service Swipely Adds Analytics And Targeted Campaigns
techcrunch.com
Swipely, the startup led by TellMe Founder Angus Davis, is doubling down on its credit card-based loyalty strategy. The company first launched as a way to share your credit card purchases with your friends, but when that idea (as deployed by Swipely and others) failed to take off, Swipely shifted...
Square addresses #1 request: separate log-ins for multiple workers
gigaom.com
Square, the mobile payment wunder-startup, is quietly growing up, adding new features that make it more appealing to bigger businesses and existing customers who are growing quickly. On Wednesday the company is taking on its most requested feature: unique log-ins for multiple workers. Previously, Square enabled just one log-in for...
Amazon and Etsy are two of the most popular sources of content on Pinterest. Time to monetize?
thenextweb.com
Zoomsphere, a social media statistics tool, is now giving users a little bit of insight into the most popular sources of content on Pinterest. Vying for the number one spot are Google and Etsy. At the time of writing this, Google is in the number one spot for daily pins, but that...
Fancy doubles its user base to 500k in two months, launches an Android app
thenextweb.com
Since launching its commerce platform in February, Fancy has gone on to double its user base to 500,000. A lot of signups is all good and well, but what really counts is how often engaged those users are. While Fancy itself wants to veer away from the Pinterest comparison, it’s...
Square's feeling good, on pace to take $5 billion in payments per year
www.engadget.com
Despite growing competition from PayPal, Intuit and Verifone, it appears that Square's business is still going gangbusters. The grandaddy of all smartphone payment systems is set to take $5 billion in payments this year, up from $2 billion a scant six months ago. According to company COO Keith Rabois,...
Groupon Promising Merchants "Lowest Cost" Payments Service (And It's Using an iPhone)
allthingsd.com
Groupon is rolling out a new payments service today, which it hopes will create new reasons for merchants to continue using the Chicago daily deal provider. In an interview, Mihir Shah, Groupon’s VP of Mobile and Merchant Products, confirmed to AllThingsD that Groupon Payments is available starting today in the U.S....
Foursquare Plans To Join Local Coupons Game
www.fastcompany.com
News updates all day from your Fast Company editors.Foursquare CEO and cofounder Dennis Crowley has revealed that his company has serious monetization plans that center on personalized local offers--a transformation for the company from its usual "check-in" game model. Merchants will be able to buy promotions the give users access...
Foursquare Launches $10 Instant Verification Service For Businesses
techcrunch.com
Foursquare is enhancing its feature set for businesses today, with the introduction of a new verification service for merchants. The company says that for a one-time, $10 fee, owners and managers will now be able to instantly verify their business in order to start using Foursquare’s business tools, which include...
REVEALED: Foursquare's Big Money-Making Plans
www.businessinsider.com
Foursquare is about to start trying to make big money. The plan: allow merchants to create coupons for the people who "check-in" to their business locations. In a Q&A with the Wall Street Journal's Spencer Ante, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley says the idea is that merchants will use their Foursquare...
SCVNGR raises $12m from Google, others, to boost mobile payment product LevelUp
thenextweb.com
SCVNGR, the Boston-based company behind the location-based mobile game with the same name, has raised $12 million in funding for its other venture, mobile payments platform LevelUp. Part of a larger fundraising round, the investment comes from prior backers Google Ventures, Highland Capital and Balderton Capital with participation from new...
Google Catalogs makes web-based catalog browsing a reality
www.engadget.com
For folks who prefer to get their retail therapy in digital form, Google Catalogs is a godsend. In case you forgot, it's an aggregation portal with digital catalogs from myriad merchants that lets you browse retailer wares without killing trees and now it's available on the web. When Catalogs...
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Just a test of the new info bar. What do you think?