Instacart Getting Advertisers to Pay Fees for Delivery
Online shoppers hate paying delivery fees. So Instacart Inc. is getting Pepsi to foot the bill. The grocery delivery startup is working with General Mills, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, and other consumer goods makers to cover the cost of delivery or provide other discounts when customers buy their products. In addition to the coupons, the companies pay Instacart to advertise on its website. Since introducing the program about six months...
Warm Weather Leaves Stores in the Cold
New York — The unseasonably warm weather has left some people feeling cold about holiday shopping. Rosemarie Nowicki, who lives in Berkeley Heights, N.J., finally spent some of her holiday budget last weekend buying coats online for her family because she hated the thought of being stuck in a store with such mild temperatures outside. “It’s hard to get into the holiday spirit; I’ve been walking around in short-sleeve shirts and capri...
Day Doesn’t Draw Shopping Throngs
New York — The annual ritual of Black Friday, as we know it, is over. Gone are the throngs of frenzied shoppers camping out for days ahead of the big sales bonanza on the day after Thanksgiving. And forget the fisticuffs over flat-screen TVs. Instead, stores around the country had sparse parking lots, calm, orderly lines, and modest traffic. Black Friday, which traditionally is the biggest shopping day of the year, almost looked like...
Online Shoppers Browse More, Buy Less
Washington — It’s only getting harder for retailers to close the deal with online shoppers. A new report has found that customers are leaving retailers’ websites more frequently without buying anything and, when they do open their wallets, they are spending less on average per order. The findings come as retailers have been pouring money into adapting their sites to appeal to customer’s fast-evolving digital preferences, and they may...
Apple, Google Give a Reason to Pay by Phone
San Francisco — The tech industry has been saying for years that smartphones would make traditional wallets obsolete. But most people still use cash or plastic when they shop in stores. That could change later this year when three leading tech companies are promising to give shoppers more reasons to use “digital wallets.” Apple said last week that it’s adding store-issued credit cards and store rewards programs to Apple Pay, the...
