Boston-based payment startup AisleBuyer plans to announce partnerships in the coming weeks with merchants that collectively represent 9,000 locations here in the US. And today, the payment startup announced partnership with an advisory services company, Alliance Companies, that specializes in payments and will help the company secure more retail relationships in 2011.
Also headquartered in Boston, Alliance Companies provides advisory, consulting and brokerage services, helping secure partnerships for its clients. The company appears to mainly focus on co-branded and private label payment card programs, and has served clients like Gulf Oil, Orbitz, and River Valley Credit Union. Alliance is using its payments knowledge and industry relationships to sell AisleBuyer’s mobile self-checkout solution to retailers across the US.
Currently an AisleBuyer app for Android and iPhone is only available at Magic Beans retail locations here around Boston, and it is critical for the company to expand to other stores in 2011. “AisleBuyer has developed something really exciting by fundamentally changing the way people experience shopping,” said Jeff Coppolo, managing director and partner of the Alliance Companies. “We at Alliance are excited to leverage our payments expertise and relationships to support AisleBuyer’s sales efforts, and are confident that customer demand will be high.”
AisleBuyer has made a series of announcements over the last month that signal the company is gearing up for big things in 2011. In the beginning of December the company announced a new VP of Engineering, Navjit Bhasin, who has a technical background in working with retail companies. The beginning of this month the company also announced Richard Mader, the executive director of the standards division of the National Retail Federation, to its Advisory Board.
While at the National Retail Federation’s 100th Annual Expo last week, AisleBuyer also announced collaboration with a point-of-sale (POS) technology company, Starmount, which they demonstrated jointly at the NRF. Starmount recently released a product described as a “mobile selling assistant” that will help retailer employees assist shoppers to find products and checkout wherever they are in the store. According to the press release, “The complete mobile platform helps reduce abandonment rates and long waits in line, personalizes customer interactions for greater service and delivers in-store efficiency with transactions that can take place virtually anywhere on the store floor.”
With their technology refined for commercial rollout, the partnership with Alliance Companies will help take AisleBuyer national in 2011. “In our discussions with major retailers, there’s been a real demand for mobile self-checkout technology, and this partnership with Alliance will help us implement our solution quickly and reliably, offering immediate value to retailers of all types,” said Mark Farnham, chief revenue officer at AisleBuyer.
We just named AisleBuyer as one of six startups putting Boston on the map for payments. Keep your eye on the company in the coming weeks as they prep for what sounds like some big and exciting retail customer announcements!
