Gilt, the innovative fashion flash-sale site is opening a physical outlet in Louisville, Ky. for one month beginning June 28th.

The pop-up shop, dubbed Designer Outlet, will house thousands of products for men, women and children as well as accessories and housewares from Zac Posen, Vera Wang, Badgley Mischka and Missoni, among others, for up to 90 percent off.

"The exciting new concept store is a unique addition to our local retail market. We're fortunate that Gilt's presence in Louisville affords us the opportunity to dress high-style at great prices and I'm sure it will be well-received by consumers," said Craig J. Richard, President and CEO of Greater Louisville Inc.Continue reading...

Amazon’s home grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh, is expanding slowly—on purpose. Ther service's first roll-out beyond its home base in Seattle hit Los Angeles last week as Amazon starts in on a strategic plan to focus on high-density urban areas and warehousing robotics, according to a report from Reuters.  

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has shown a lot of restraint in rolling out the grocery product as a handful of competitors like PeaPod, Fresh Direct and a host of more local, store-based systems have entered the space. But Bezos has slowed the process in order to learn from previous mistakes, as well as the mistakes of others. After all, with less than one percent of online activity responsible for the $586 billion in grocery retail sales, the addition of online grocery to Amazon's portfolio makes it virtually unsurpassable. Continue reading...

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is acquiring Inkiru, a small startup focused on real-time predictive analysis in its latest effort to spur e-commerce.

"The similarities between Inkiru and @WalmartLabs are uncanny, with both having an innovative spirit and the ability to leverage big data to improve the customer experience," the company wrote in a blog post. 

Inkiru is joining @WalmartLabs in what Venture Beat describes as a "fairly straightforward 'manquisition,'" the latest move in a series of tech-centric acquisitions as the company looks to build upon its online sales prowess, which has already seen over a 30 percent increase in e-commerce in the first quarter. Determined to take competitors like Amazon head-on, Walmart CEO Mike Duke said the company expects online sales to hit $10 billion this year—an estimate that takes into account the recent purchase of Chinese online retailer Yihaodian.Continue reading...

Groupon keeps pivoting to a new mobile-based e-commerce business model, but there are a lot of obstacles to morphing into a top competitor in a space that is attracting many other significant brands.

The Chicago-based company, of course, was the pioneer in the business of offering online deals at local merchants, and founder Andrew Mason built Groupon into the giant of that industry and a $20-a-share IPO nearly two years ago. Then Groupon got competition in that space and merchants began grousing that the architecture of the Groupon deals was far better for consumers than for them. Mason was sacked in February and now board members are looking for a permanent CEO.

In the meantime, investors and employees alike have been heartened that Groupon not only has shored up its local-deals business but also is in hard pursuit of a big chunk of the mobile-shopping business, hoping to become the first big e-commerce player to get the majority of its revenue from mobile.Continue reading...

Dollar Shave Club burst onto the scene last year with a viral video, a great product—subscription-based replenishable razorblades—and a cheeky attitude. Now for its Act Two, the brand is looking to other areas of men's grooming needs with One Wipe Charlies.          

“Our goal is to own the bathroom and to be the easiest place for guys to get the things they use every day,” said Dollar Shave Club CEO Michael Dubin in an intro video to the brand's newest product.Continue reading...

eBay is diving deeper into mobile-enabled, real-time shopping with the launch of "shoppable windows," which will bolster the site's partnership with physical retailers while capitalizing on the greater shift to on-the-go shopping. 

The once online auction-only behemoth continues to expand its role as a middleman between consumers and retailers, following earlier pop-up shops and virtual storefronts. Last year saw the introduction of the mobile, same-day delivery shopping service eBay Now (which is relaunching on mobile) as well as partnerships with major retailers such as Macy's on mobile payments, and wooing major retailers like Target.

The first four windows will be open from June 8 through July 7 in New York City, each offering 30 items from the new Kate Spade Saturday collection, which was recently launched by Fifth & Pacific. The screens, which measure 9 feet across and 2 feet high, are placed on the front windows of closed stores, allowing shoppers to touch and order products, which are delivered within an hour via courier. Payment will be accepted by couriers through PayPal Here, eBay’s mobile payment service.Continue reading...

Amazon, the $60 billion e-commerce giant that sells just about everything online, is ready to make a play for the biggest plum of them all: the online grocery business. 

The company, which has used its home base of Seattle to test its "AmazonFresh" grocery delivery service for years, could begin rolling out the service to other cities this year, first Los Angeles and then San Francisco, according to Reuters. If all goes according to plan, AmazonFresh could show up in as many as 20 other cities, even some outside the United States, next year.

In a remarkable progression, Amazon has grown from an online bookseller to the world's largest e-commerce retailer. Along the way, it has expanded into virtually every product category, if not on its own, by acquiring companies like Zappos, the online shoe seller. Amazon already sells a wide range of consumer goods, such as health, beauty and cleaning products, but delivering perishable items brings a whole new level of complexity to its expansion. That's why Amazon is said to be adding refrigeration equipment to distribution centers outside the Seattle area.Continue reading...

Walmart is moving ahead with its future in e-commerce, but at the same time the chain is now having problems with one of the stalwart advantages of its glorious past: the stocking of its stores.

The chain has acquired two San Francisco Bay Area tech companies and plans to hire more than 150 engineers, technicians and developers for its growing @WalmartLabs tech lab. Walmart bought One Ops and Tasty Labs to help expand its cloud-computing technology and digital-shopping platforms to compete with e-commerce rival Amazon, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The effort is part of the same overall push by Walmart that also includes expanded integration with social networks such as Pinterest, mobile check-outs and its test of adding the option for shoppers to have purchases delivered same-day to their homes or to a nearby storage locker.Continue reading...