Omnichannel

Seattle – Amazon.com is making a serious bid to control the Indian e-commerce market with a planned $2 billion investment in its Indian operation. In a statement emailed to major U.S. media outlets, Amazon said it sees “huge potential” in India’s economy and e-commerce market.

BitPay, a payment service provider (PSP) specializing in e-commerce, B2B and enterprise solutions for the bitcoin digital currency, has unveiled a new pricing plan that offers basic payment processing free, forever.

The company is hoping to leverage the pricing plan to woo businesses into accepting bitcoin for goods and services.

Seattle – Amazon.com and Blackhawk Network Inc., a prepaid and payments network, have teamed up to bring customers a new way to manage and spend their gift cards. Using the new Amazon Wallet app, customers can more easily store, redeem and check the balance of gift cards from dozens of major retailers and restaurants.

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.

San Jose, Calif. – PayPal is rebranding its Bill Me Later online credit service as PayPal Credit. PayPal says it is making the name change as it moves credit more towards the center of our business, aligning it more closely with the overall brand.

In addition, PayPal plans to introduce PayPal Credit to the U.K. and Germany, based on requests from customers and retailers. The company also plans to expand PayPal Credit to other markets in the future.

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market reported that profit for the third quarter rose to $151 million from $142 million last year, but revenue and same-store sales missed projections, sending the organic grocer’s shares downward.

Revenue rose to $3.38 billion from $3.06 billion, shy of the $3.39 billion expected by Wall Street. Same-store sales rose 3.9%, well short of the estimated 4.9% gain and marking the worst performance in at least 14 quarters.

The retail industry is undergoing an unprecedented omnichannel transformation with an overwhelming majority of leading retailers aggressively reconfiguring supply chains to provide shoppers a seamless experience, according to a new study from Boston Retail Partners.
 
The omnichannel trend has been underway for many years now, but Boston Retail Partners indicates that more than 90% of retailers are pursuing omnichannel supply chain re-invention efforts the management consulting firm describes as “unified commerce.”
 

Rochester, N.Y. – Wegmans Food Markets Inc. plans to open 10 new stores in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. The stores include one in Maryland, two in Massachusetts, two in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, and four in Virginia.