At the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York, Mark Mahaney, a Wall Street analyst known for his knowledge of Internet sector companies, shared the following data with the audience. This is the evolution of the average distance between Amazon fulfillment centres and the 50 largest cities in the United States.

Amazon deliberately situates its order deployment centres close to the majority of its consumers. But why do they bother when couriers like FedEx and UPS can deliver orders to virtually anywhere? What is Amazon’s interest in being closer to its customers? According to Mahoney, the next frontier of e-commerce is same-day delivery. He thinks that many consumers would pick online retailers over their brick-and-mortar competitors if they could have a same-day delivery guaranteed. In particular, Amazon is betting on groceries and clothing to fuel its growth in the American market over the next few years.

Any retailer with an online presence should anticipate this movement and start developing large-scale, same-day messenger services. This would allow all e-commerce sites, from big-box brands like Walmart to local shops, to remain competitive against Amazon.

Mark Mahaney’s presentation from AdAge Digital is available on Slideshare.

Read more from Jean Pascal at A Nos Vies Numériques.

Tags: Ad Age Digital Conference, Amazon, E-Commerce, Mark Mahaney, Retail

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We are proud to announce the launch of Hennessy.com, a new web experience for the No. 1 Cognac brand in the world.

Created by our San Francisco office, Hennessy.com was designed to help Hennessy USA increase engagement with U.S. consumers by creating a dedicated website focused solely on the American market, separate from the brand’s global web presence. The new, responsively designed U.S. web property is part of the brand’s larger mobile-first strategy.

To meet the needs of Hennessy’s large and growing mobile audience, we developed a rich and immersive web experience crafted around the brand’s “Never Stop. Never Settle” campaign, which connects leading icons and Hennessy aficionados. The responsive design delivers a unified experience to consumers across web, tablet and mobile devices.

Our human-centered approach to design and technology led to insights about how and through which channels—mobile, tablet or web—Hennessy’s target audience prefers to be communicated, leading to a functionally accessible website that helps consumers understand how the brand fits into their lifestyles.

Tags: Client, Hennessy, Interface Design, Launch, Luxury

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This is the second installment of the Nurun IT Download, with the latest news stories in the technology industry with insights from Nurun experts.

1. Yahoo! acquires Tumblr: Yahoo! and Tumblr reached an agreement over the purchase of Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer made a clear statement in regards to the acquisition, promising “Not to screw it up.” At Tumblr it’s business as usual, with CEO David Karp staying in charge and no major changes being made in the near future.

The bottom line: Analysts see the acquisition as a chance for Yahoo! to get closer to the highly coveted teenage demographic. Increasing brand awareness through Tumblr looks like an interesting plus for Yahoo!, but it’s the long-term level of integration between the two services that will show us if the acquisition was a good move.

2. A closer look at the new Kinect: The new Microsoft Kinect, available with the Xbox One later this year, features many exciting technology advancements. Full HD cameras not only increase the current quality of skeleton detection, but also add features like the detection of subtle gestures, balance, joint rotations and heart rate. It will also support up to six users simultaneously through a larger field of view.

The bottom line: Microsoft confirmed on their technical blog that the SDK and Windows version of the device will be available in 2014. We should expect to see some interesting applications of the technology in retail settings, including interactive store displays and window installations.

3. Chrome introduces conversational search: Already available on Android through Google Now, Google has launched a Siri-like conversational search tool in version 27 of Chrome. You can now search Google using your voice, and Chrome will answer your questions. You can then continue to discuss the same subject using only pronouns.

The bottom line: As much as we want to be excited about this feature, there are still a lot of limitations that need to be addressed if it is to be used efficiently on a daily basis. Breakthroughs in voice recognition patterns will surely help, and it’s good to see Google continuing to work on new features that will continue to make the web more accessible.

4. WiFi network beats speed record: The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany managed to deliver 40 GB of data per second over a distance of roughly one kilometer using high frequencies (240 GHz).

The bottom line: As bandwidth requirements for movie streaming and gaming continue to increase, such as those needed for 4K digital movies, wireless technologies need to evolve to support these kinds of speeds. These kinds of results indicate that consumer technologies with higher wireless speeds will become available over the next few years.

5. A new smart lock for your home: The August Smart Lock is a Bluetooth Low Energy door lock that is controlled through an app. It allows the user to provide single or multiple entries to anyone with a smartphone over a specified period of time. The August Smart Lock will be available before the end of the year for $199.

The bottom line: Innovations like this continue to push the Internet of Things to new heights. We can see devices like the August Smart Lock being incredibly useful to those who use vacation and rental platforms like Airbnb.

6. Google introduces the HTC One Google Edition: After announcing the Galaxy S4 Google Edition at Google I/O, Google and HTC announced the HTC One Google Edition will go on sale starting June 26^th. The highly praised phone will be available without the HTC Sense layer and will receive Android updates as quickly as Nexus phones.

The bottom line: Google is clearly changing its strategy concerning flagship phones for their mobile operating system. Making sure that the best Android phones are available with the stock version of the OS will clearly increase sales of those phones. It will be interesting to see how Google positions its Nexus phones after this.

7. Microsoft brings back the start button: After confusing customers by only displaying the start button when users navigated to the bottom left corner of the screen, Microsoft is reinstating the start button in Windows 8.1. Just as in the past, it will always be present in the corner.

The bottom line: It’s not easy for a company with such an established user experience to change things that are so central to their user base. Using Windows 8 installation rates as a base augment, it will be interesting to track the other changes Microsoft will need to make.

Tags: August Smart Lock, Chrome, HTC, IT Download, Kinect, Microsoft, Tumblr, Yahoo!

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Guthrie Dolin, Executive Director of Strategy at our San Francisco office, will speak in the Cannes Forum, “Welcome to the Connected Age,” presented by SoDA on June 18, during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Tags: Brands, Cannes Lions, Mobile Design, Retail, SoDA

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Consumers love saving money almost as much as they hate waiting in line, which is why retailers are scrambling to find better approaches to in-store payment. The latest retail experiments include digital wallets, better loyalty programs, social gifting and new forms of barter.

To help retailers navigate these and other changes, Nurun has prepared a report that identifies and describes six key retail transactions and payments trends:

• Retailers experiment with Uber-convenient transactions
• Credit cards seek new partnerships to remain relevant
• Making sure loyalty programs reward loyal customers
• Bartering social capital for actual capital
• Bought by many, enjoyed by one
• Digital currency creates a more open approach to payment

Read Nurun’s entire retail transactions & payments trend report for free today. Our report includes a thought-provoking look at all six trends, along with a series of provocative questions that will help retailers consider how they might rethink their approach to transactions and payments.

Please note: This is the third of five trend reports. The next will be a report on analytics, followed by emerging technology platforms. The culmination of trend scanning and subsequent phases will inform future scenarios in our final strategic foresight report, which will be released in 2013.

Tags: Ecommerce, FutureOfRetail, Payment, Retail, Transactions

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We’re incredibly happy to announce that Odopod has officially become Nurun San Francisco! Today, we honour the past and celebrate the future. To see where we’re headed next on this new adventure, check out the freshly redesigned nurun.com.

Tags: Nurun, Nurun San Francisco, Odopod

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