E-commerce innovations: extreme retailing

Are you ready for "Extreme Retailing" ?
E-commerce has evolved more in the last 12 months than in the last 12 years, with a combination of entertainment, game mechanics, and innovative shopping models.

According to Megan Conniff from the US National Retail Federation's big blog, here are 3 ongoing trends:

1. Deals and discounts (retailmenot.com)
2. Urgency retailing (woot.com)
3. Private shopping clubs (venteprivee.com and its hundreds of copycats worldwide)

And here are 5 upcoming trends:

1. Local discovery & promotion (groupon.com)
2. Mobile empowerment
3. Community and crowdsourcing (myfab.com)
4. Mass customization
5. Game Mechanics/entertainment commerce (swoopo.com)

I so agree with Megan (and with Jochen and Jason from Exciting Commerce, a recommended read by the way...)!

Bonus: here's a video of Joshua Goldman's presentation at the Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference, explaining swoopo.com's killer commerce model:

NYC Alcoholics rejoice! Wakozi is Kozmo For Booze ...

A great local e-commerce service is back on the block in Manhattan...

One of the great flameouts of the 1990s tech boom was Kozmo, which started in Manhattan, and let you order a pint of Ben & Jerry’s online and a Kozmo bike messenger would deliver it to your door. After burning through $280 million in capital, they closed shop. Well, now New Yorkers have Wakozi. It just launched and only covers Manhattan wine shops, liquor stores, and delis. But they’ve learned from the failure of Kozmo. They don’t actually deliver anything themselves. Instead, they only list inventories of shops that make their own deliveries.

Wakozi is Kozmo For Booze