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Nationwide Partners With Milo Local Shopping

Winston-Salem, N.C. – The Nationwide Marketing Group (NMG) has begun
providing Milo’s local store locator and shopping service to member dealers at
no charge.

Milo Local Shopping, a subsidiary of eBay, allows consumers to
search for locally available products online and through their mobile devices.

The platform syncs with merchants’ point-of-sale (POS) systems to
provide shoppers with real-time inventory availability and pricing information
within a select geographic area. Customers can then make purchases with one
click for pick up at their local store, giving retailers additional
attachment-sale opportunities.

Making Milo available to Nationwide dealers had been a goal of
Jeannette Howe, executive director of the group’s Specialty Electronics
Nationwide (SEN) division, who said the platform could help level the playing
field between physical and online-only retailers.

Nationwide presented Milo to its members at last month’s
PrimeTime! convention and buy fair in Orlando, Fla., where the shopping service
had an exhibit booth.

“Research has found that shoppers like spending money at local
stores,” said Milo senior marketing manager Michael Blais. “The partnership we
have formed with Nationwide will make it easier for the independent retailer to
be discovered by those shoppers and increase their online presence.”

Blais said dealers can sync their compatible POS systems to Milo
with free downloadable software that will upload their inventory in real-time
for access by local shoppers.

eBay president/CEO John Donahoe, in his

keynote

at January’s Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)  Leaders In Technology dinner during 2012
International CES, noted that the Milo mobile app, along with other eBay retail
services, is enabling brick-and-mortar merchants to compete with e-tailers as
the smartphone continues “blurring the line between e-commerce and retail.”

Nationwide’s Milo program follows a recently-forged

pact

between eBay and the Progressive Retailers Organization (PRO Group), which will
give the buying group’s specialty A/V dealers a storefront presence on the
e-commerce platform.

Over the past several years Nationwide has forged partnerships
with other website development companies, including Ayr1.com, Tailbase, Site on
Time and, most recently, FurnitureDealer.net.

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