Meet the New Wave of Technology Investors
It's so interesting that top brands are becoming technology investors and acquirers in the eCommerce race. FootLocker, Nike, McDonald's are all big examples of the trend.
FootLocker recently made a new investment in NTWRK - called "shopping at the speed of culture.” I tried it out and it's basically a marketplace with a "show" concept for launching new products to consumers. Those products come with an interactive experience and a lot of video hype plus a built-in wallet. It's like if Instagram were just a set of shoppable video channels.
If you think about it, it is almost impossible for a large retailer or brand to compete with the VC world. So what a lot of these big players are doing is investing in these content + commerce and/or technology players that have captured brand or consumer attention.
People want to be entertained and not just shop. If you can treat commerce as an interesting special event, then it becomes something you can be excited and entertained by - if you do it right.
