Two announcements from AOL’s Patch network of community news and blogs shows how the platform is expanding its reach in hyperlocal content and services.

First, a partnership with American Express to simplify digital payments and local deals redemption via Serve, AmEx’s next-generation, open payments platform.

By adding Serve to AOL's Patch Deals platform, consumers and merchants both benefit.Continue reading...

Las Vegas city government is moving locations and Zappos couldn’t be happier about it. The online shoe retailer based in Henderson, Nevada, yesterday received local officials' blessing to the e-tailer's amended deal to take over the Las Vegas City Hall building and relocate its corporate headquarters to downtown Vegas.

This is part of the city’s continued attempt to redevelop itself, and revitalize its local economy. As the Las Vegas Sun notes, Zappos' plan is to make the city's "downtown and Fremont Street East a mecca for music, food, affordable housing and other cultural amenities."Continue reading...

The long road to launch for the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle continues with the company’s announcement today of an online pre-ordering program for the car using Amazon’s e-commerce platform. The move is just one more step in an effectively extended tease of new-Beetle enthusiasts that began with the unveiling of the product’s exterior outlines on an Oprah show in November and continued with a nifty TV spot during the Super Bowl telecast in February.

There’s nothing more iconic in the automotive world than the Bug, and Volkswagen is bringing 21st-century marketing savvy to bear to ensure a stratospheric launch of the vehicle that will join the Jetta and the new Passat this fall as the staples of a U.S. lineup that is expected to achieve big sales gains for the ambitious German automaker.

Through the 2012 Beetle pre-order program, customers pay a $495 reservation fee that goes toward the final purchase of a Black Turbo launch edition model, which is outfitted with a turbocharged engine putting out 200 horsepower – quite a kick for a little vehicle like the Beetle.Continue reading...

When Procter & Gamble quietly pulled the plug on a Facebook e-commerce effort last year that used Amazon as the sole retailer for fulfillment of orders, according to AdAge, the CPG giant did so in part because it was concerned about miffing its counterparts at Wal-Mart corporate.

The bricks-and-mortar retailing king increasingly is asserting itself online, and executives at P&G presumably didn’t want to vex their family-friendly programming partners at Wal-Mart, with whom P&G produces made-for-TV movies such as this weekend's anti-bullying drama, Field of Vision, premiering June 11th on NBC.Continue reading...

As e-billing starts to take off, doxo is touting its digital file cabinet as a way to help consumers with smarter ways to organize household bills and documents, is leading the charge of transformation to a 100% paperless environment.

As for businesses, the vast majority — about 85% — still send bills and other business materials as paper by mail, which equates to a $30B opportunity to solve an intransigent billing problem banks and businesses still face.

“No other website or mobile app is working to directly connect businesses and consumers to turn off paper and transform user behavior,” says doxo, which this week launched a mobile app to help connect consumers and businesses digitally.Continue reading...

Diapers.com is spinning off to address the “other baby” in the family — the family pet.

Wag.com is being launched by Amazon's Quidsi e-commerce division as a companion site to Diapers.com and Soap.com (and rival to PetSmart, Petco and other pet e-tailers), selling products ranging from dog food to hamster cages. 

The Wag.com e-commerce brand, which is still in pre-launch mode, promises a 365-day return policy and free two-day shipping within the US on orders over $49. The site has already launched a Facebook and Twitter feed.

When Amazon launches a pet e-commerce site, it's a solid indicator that the pets market is booming.Continue reading...

Small business has been feeding the daily deal industry, routinely assuming 75% of a deal’s cost and often with little or no repeat business. The draw for SMB’s to behemoths like Groupon is the reach: 60 million users and 500 markets.

Smaller merchants are becoming savvier in the deals they are making with the big guys like Groupon, LivingSocial, and web mainstays like Facebook, Yelp, Travelzoo, OpenTable who are all adding Groupon-like features — all the while being "bombarded" by a growing array of smaller wannabes, and contemplating what they can do without a middleman.Continue reading...

Tesco, one of the world's top three grocery retailers, is looking to create more global retail brands, according to new CEO Philip Clarke.

Clarke's new seven-part strategy makes the case that Tesco needs to become more aspirational and give consumers new reasons to shop at Tesco stores — and that means creating new brands, and "highly valued" brands at that.

Consumers, said Clarke, "do not want to just buy Tesco Value shower gel. They want to have something sat in their bathroom that looks like it is a brand. So you create brands." He feels there's ample reason for Tesco to create addtional new brands, since the UK chain is underperforming on its home turf — and the company's Fresh & Easy chain of grocery stores in the US is losing money, too.

That's why he's anxious to add "highly valued brands" to existing private labels such as F&F (its clothing line formerly known as Florence & Fred), and Technika, a consumer electronics brand, both of which are sold globally.Continue reading...