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Apple recently partnered with Postmates to promote its Apple Pay and Apple TV, its mobile payment system and entertainment platform respectively. While such promotions happen everyday and are hardly news, this partnership offers us a window into three emerging, bloody, and besieged digital markets, namely food delivery, mobile payment, and content streaming. All three markets face intense competition and slower-than-expected adoption rates, and both Apple and Postmates would greatly like to improve their standing within them--this promotion, then, essentially represents a mutually-beneficial partnership aiming at increasing adoption and continued use. 

Long before consumers crowded into Apple Stores and Tesla Showrooms, Niketown was way ahead of the curve. Nike direct to consumer sales began in 1990 with Portland’s Niketown, and, as technology has changed the ways consumers and brands interact within the retail landscape, Nike has emphasized and grown its DTC channel. Last quarter, DTC accounted for 27% of Nike’s $8 billion in revenue.

Automation is already all around us, assuming everyday tasks we customarily associate with human labor. We see it in the fast food industry, we see it in retail, and, increasingly, we are seeing automation in grocery. Yes, self-checkout is already a mainstay at many grocery stores, but from Des Moines to Sweden and back to California, three stores in particular have driven automation into the grocery experience in truly novel, and potentially game-changing ways.

“On your last grocery trip, did you pay the best price for items in your basket?” So asks the download page for Basket, a grocery shopping utility that promises pricing transparency for everyday Americans.

A hot new technology trend has hit the market, and several industries are taking advantage: the mobile checkout movement. We’ve seen what can be accomplished with beacon technology, so it’s no surprise that mobile has more capabilities that can further enhance the shopping experience.