Google, Inc.

New York – Barnes & Noble Inc. and Google Inc. are reportedly teaming up on a pilot of same-day delivery of book orders from local Barnes & Noble stores in several U.S. cities. According to the New York Times, customers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area can have online book orders fulfilled from nearby Barnes & Noble locations via the Google Shopping service.

Mountain View, Calif. – Google Inc. has unveiled its expanded office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 300,000-sq.-ft. campus, in the Kendall Square neighborhood, combines space in three buildings previously occupied by Google into one connected campus with a combined 12 floors of office and work space.

The office spreads across one whole building and parts of the other two. It features a public rooftop garden, and a private one for Google employees, along with an employee café offering free meals.

Groupon has named Parker Barrile as its SVP of product. He will lead Groupon’s global product teams focused on Web, mobile and design.

“Parker brings tremendous value to Groupon both as an entrepreneur and an established, effective product leader in global tech organizations,” said Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky. “He will help us evolve our local commerce platform to further engage our customers and help make Groupon a premier online shopping destination.”

By Bill Davis, Director, MB&G Consulting

For much of the last year, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers have been mired in a slump. Not only was last holiday season the toughest in several years, the consumer discretionary sector, which includes retail, was the only one of the 10 macro S&P sectors to be in the red for the first half of 2014. As a result, retail is widely perceived to be in a funk.

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Fujitsu is partnering with OnCue Technologies, a developer of in-aisle point-of-information solutions, to resell OnCue Technologies' InfoCue and Expert OnCue mini-kiosk solutions to big-box, grocery, beverage and hardware retailers in the U.S. OnCue Technologies' cloud-based, customizable mini kiosks enable retailers to deliver expert advice and product information to customers in the aisle without requiring employee training.

Charlottesville, Va. - Smartphones generated 19% of paid search clicks and 9% of search spend in second quarter 2014, while tablets produced 18% of clicks and 19% of spend. According to the Q2 Digital Marketing Report from RKG, which surveyed retailers in its client base, cross-device tracking surfaces 7% more orders overall, but 14% more smartphone orders.

While smartphones produce 12% of traditionally tracked conversions, they contribute nearly 25% of cross-device orders.

San Francisco - DHgate.com, an e-commerce marketplace focused on cross-border trade of Chinese goods, has hired several new executives. These include COO Noah Herschmann, who previously held management roles at Amazon, Groupon, Asia, Staples China and Tweeter.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a host of new capabilities as part of its Mobile Service platform to simplify the development and management of apps.