Google, Inc.

Google is reportedly looking to beef up its professional apps offering by purchasing a well-known provider of hosted online retail services. According to Re/Code, Google is considering purchasing Shopify. The Canadian provider of cloud-based e-commerce tools is a public company valued at $2.25 billion. [Re/Code]

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv, to get her perspective on what’s going on in the rapidly growing online delivery space.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
We’ve got a bunch of players in the industry who are aggregating inventory in a simple, flexible and cost-effective way for last-mile fulfillment. Companies like Amazon and Google are resetting customer expectations of what’s possible.

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv, to get her perspective on what’s going on in the rapidly growing online delivery space.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
We’ve got a bunch of players in the industry who are aggregating inventory in a simple, flexible and cost-effective way for last-mile fulfillment. Companies like Amazon and Google are resetting customer expectations of what’s possible.

The number of retail industry innovators on the agenda for Shoptalk now exceeds 230 and organizers of the event slated for mid-May aren’t done yet.

Apple did not create the mobile payment market when it launched Apple Pay in September 2014.

However, Apple Pay did effectively bring mobile payment to the forefront of retailers’ omnichannel commerce strategies. Consumers are slowly starting to follow, with Deloitte data showing in-store mobile payments have increased from 5% of total in-store payments 2014 to 18% in 2015.

Whole Foods Market has been offering deliveries via Instacart in select markets for about a year, but reportedly is significantly extending the scope of the deal.

According to Re/code, Whole Foods has at least in principle made an unspecified investment in Instacart. Whole Foods has also reportedly signed a five-year deal making Instacart its exclusive perishables delivery provider.

One in three consumers has changed brands because of the information they found while shopping online, according to research from Google.

That means that great product content can make or break your brand’s online presence. Unfortunately, many brands struggle with how to make sure that their product content is accurate and meets not only shoppers’, but retailers’, needs, as it is hard to do both well.