Finally, we have the long awaited merger of a directory with a retail solution. Today, prior to its earnings call, Local.com announced it would integrate product and store availability into its growing suite of women-oriented services by acquiring Krillion.com. The sale price was $3.5 million.
When it was launched in 2006, Krillion was a real …

When hyperlocal zeroes in on local marketplaces, it makes a lot more sense to me. Witness ShopBuffalo, an attractive new marketplace from The Buffalo News launched as a companion to Buffalo.com. The site has partnered with ShopCity and Hero, a local design firm.
Launched March 31 as part of a broader redesign, ShopBuffalo provides free …

Retail inventory has been revving up as a new, highly mobile-oriented tool for retailers to highlight stock on hand and steer consumers to store locations. It is an important lead-generating feature on new shopping portals, such as FindnSave. Research by JiWire shows that 62 percent of consumers seek product availability when researching goods online. The …

Groupon has been reaching deep into the verticals, first with home and garden, which launched a couple of weeks ago. Now it is testing real estate leads via a Chicago offer with Dream Town Realty.
As first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, Dream Town Realty will provide $1,000 back to $25 Groupon purchasers or sellers of …

 
Even as preprint circulars continue to account for a hefty chunk of newspaper revenues, the race to migrate these FSIs onto digital platforms that provide compelling shopping experiences and command premium CPMs is revving up. Associated Press will soon release iCircular for mobile devices, Gannett’s PointRoll operates ShopLocal, Local.com has a local option and several deal/offer aggregators …

With 300,000 delivery and takeout restaurants in the U.S., the online food ordering space is definitely heating up, with New York Magazine’s MenuPages launching in many markets, and allmenus.com still playing (although with leadership changes).
Now coming on strong is Chicago-based GrubHub,which has just announced a new round of $20 million in Series D funding …

Last year, a deal-a-day panel at SxSW Interactive might have been relegated to a satellite campus (read: off-the-beaten-path Austin hotel). Two years ago, it may not have existed at all. But in 2011, group buying is a $1.2 billion market (according to us), and attendees packed a convention center ballroom to explore how the deals …

Many national retailers have operated Facebook pages for years, and now local businesses are on-boarding at an alarming rate (BIA/Kelsey’s LCM 14 survey revealed that 48 percent of SMBs already have a dedicated page). These stats augur social shifts 2011: from experimentation to performance, and from communication to transactional commerce.
Adgregate Markets is an early mover …

The interrelationship of daily deals with TV and radio stations and newspapers intrigues us with potential. While not a big factor, traditional media companies can parlay their brand name, promotional power, sales forces and Web sites to reach new merchants that never would have otherwise advertised with them.
Second Street Media, Tippr, TownHog and a host …

LivingSocial created a stir when an e-mail circulated from the group buying site informing deal-a-day aggregators that they would be dropped as affiliates. However, as 8coupons cofounder Landy Ung and The Dealmap CEO Jennifer Dulski reminded the ILM:10 audience last month, not all aggregators are created equal. As such, they are not all being treated equally by LivingSocial.
Pure daily deal …

Deal-a-day group buying is a certain hit. But how important is it in the scheme of things for local media companies? For The San Diego Union-Tribune, deals represented “the number one new revenue growth,” in 2010, according to Mike Hodges, VP of interactive for the newspaper company, who was quoted in a recent UT article …

EBay has issued a press release today, recounting some of its mobile milestones this year. Most notable was the 166 percent year-over-year increase in holiday gross merchandise value (11/25-12/25) to $230 million.
Designer handbags, diamond jewelry and Rolex watches topped the list for most expensive holiday purchases. For the year as a whole, top categories were clothing, …

Shopping portals have moved beyond “federated search,” and now combine the best of daily deals, coupons, weekly ads and other promotional information in ways that are more efficient — and drive more shopping.
At the national level, Gannett’s ShopLocal.com has been moving in this direction for some time. At the local level, we’ve recently seen the …

The ability to track retail inventory has been on the retail wish list for years. Retailers advertise goods, and then disappoint customers when they don’t have them in stock. Or they have loads of stock in the store, and don’t know they need to promote it to deplete it. Or they have a lot of …

In case you haven’t noticed, eBay has been ramping up a local strategy in the past few months via the integration of all its vertical properties with its home site, the $75 million purchase of Milo.com, and today, a $200 million acquisition of Brands4Friends, a fashion-oriented, German e-commerce site with 3.5 million members and 200 …

During the 72-hour whirlwind that was ILM:10, several other announcements also came down the pike. Among them:
- Group buying giant Groupon continues its flurry of partnerships. The Chicago-based deal a day inked separate deals with the Chicago Tribune Media Group and JiWire. The Tribune agreement calls for Groupon to power local deals each weekday on the company’s recently …

In the context of Google’s reported $6 billion acquisition offer to Groupon, questions were raised at ILM:10 about the true potential of deal a day beyond its current two or three daily deals and banner ad e-mails. For Nimble Commerce CEO Prashant Nedungadi, the real potential is moving local advertising into performance-based models.
“Group buying …

EBay’s e-commerce prowess is well-established. Now, it is making inroads into the nearly $1 trillion online-search-for-offline-purchase market with the acquisition of Milo, a shopping search engine that catalogs and categorizes real-time inventory at more than 50,000 stores (national retailers such as Best Buy, Nordstrom and Advance Auto Parts participate).
Terms of the deal were not officially disclosed, …

Fresh in the wake of reports that Google will spend at least $5.3 billion on Groupon, LivingSocial — the Avis of deal a day — has announced a $175 million investment from Amazon. It simultaneously announced an additional $8 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
“If you want to become the biggest local commerce player, …

The hordes of shoppers who still enjoy standing in lines and fighting for parking spaces on the “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving is an offline event. Or is it?
Local sites are prepping shoppers who want to see what’s available at the stores, including The Dealmap, Milo.com, Local.com and Superpages. Other local media companies, including the Los …