Google announced today the addition of an Explore Nearby button for Google Maps on iOS and Android. The featuring is rolling out "starting this week."The new feature expands the Google Maps as more than just your go-to app for directions. Explore will adjust its results based on context, such as the weather and the time of day. Google recommends that you have location reporting and history turned on for the best results.

Physical stores continue to be customers’ preferred shopping channel and a place where the most significant consumer and retailer value is created, according to a new report by A.T. Kearney. The firm’s “Omnichannel Shopping Preferences Study” found that stores play a crucial role in online purchases, as two-thirds of customers purchasing online use a physical store before or after the transaction. The survey covered all age segments — teens, Millennials, generation X, baby boomers, and seniors.

Fashion retailer Aeropostale is using social and mobile messaging to build anticipation for the upcoming reveal of its new rebranding initiative on July 28, including a text campaign inviting customers in-store and hashtag promotions. By using provocative messages such as “You’ve changed so we’ve changed” and “Are You Who You Were a Year Ago?,” the retailer aims to relate to a younger generation regarding life changes while driving interest  in its new look. The messaging is intentionally vague to draw in attention via mobile and social, where the retailer’s target audience spends much of its time.

If you own a smartphone and make vigorous use of apps, odds are pretty good you’ve touched a link in an e-mail message or advertisement or typed in a web site URL and, to your surprise, your e-mail program or web browser suddenly closes and the app you previously downloaded onto your phone from the sender of the e-mail or the owner of the web site suddenly opens, all in the blink of an eye. What happened? Deep linking. Social networks are big on this. But most big e-retailers cannot make this happen. Yet.

A recent Applebee’s campaign exemplifies mobile video’s potential to build brand and drive sales when it is used as part of an interactive, consistent experience across devices, with the chain experiencing a 5 percent sales jump during the first week of the effort. Applebee’s leveraged YuMe’s new multi-screen video ad unit to target consumers searching for restaurants across television, smartphones, tablets and PC with a video experience showcasing the casual dining chain’s Flavors of Southwest entrees and offer of two meals for $20. 

EBay and Fandango, among the first merchants to build apps for Amazon's Fire smartphone, are using the phone's unique features to eliminate the number of taps and swipes between search, browse and purchase for a more streamlined shopping experience. The Amazon Fire smartphone, which was introduced last month, boasts technologies such as Dynamic Perspective, which responds to the way a user holds, views and moves the phone, as well as Firefly, which recognizes things in the real world such as Web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR codes, movies, music and millions of products. The enhanced carousel enables users to …

If Norm McDonald still sat at the Weekend Update desk on Saturday Night Live, he would have two observations regarding Germany to make these days. First, Germans love David Hasselhoff. And, second, they love digital wallets just as much. While mobile payments solutions continue to stutter step elsewhere in the world, another name has just been added to the list of promising young companies entering the competitive European digital wallet market.

On average, consumers say 64% of their back-to-school shopping will take place in-store, the rest online via computer or mobile device. A new survey of 1,001 U.S. parents with school-age children from customer experience solutions provider Baynote and The E-tailing Group also shows that 40% of consumers say that paper catalogs influence their in-store purchases, more than any other channel. A close second is Amazon, with 36% saying the e-commerce site influences their in-store buying habits. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they will be using smartphones more to research products as compared to 23% who will actually be using those …

A new study released in partnership between cloud-based commerce solutions provider NetSuite and industry advocacy group the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) demonstrates both how few retailers are taking mobile consumers seriously, and also the glut of opportunities that remain for those willing to take the plunge. Conducted by industry research group Frost & Sullivan, the study compares 120 ARA member businesses, specifically focusing on smaller retailers with less than 50 outlets. While this certainly skews the results somewhat, it also serves as a decent barometer for the speed and agility of small to mid-tier retail operations. The survey was carried …

There has been a digital disruption causing a dramatic change in the function, purpose and design of payments channel in just over a decade. Wearable payments will be one of the ways customers do transactions. It is all about convenience and the speed of the transaction. Look at the number of wearable devices being launched on a faster pace with those from big names like Apple, Google, Motorola and Samsung. At LetsTalkPayments, we have already talked about the prospect of wearable technology as a prospect for making payments. And today, we can surely say that it's more than being a …