Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
Amazon isn’t the only retailer encroaching on the financial services space. It may be the scariest — just the rumor of it entering a company’s space will send its stock price down — but ultimately, Amazon only cares about getting more buyers and more sellers to join its platform.
Overstock’s Raj Karkara, vp of loyalty and financial services, echoed that sentiment earlier this year, saying that offering financial services or connecting customers with financial services providers is a natural extension of its retail function of buying and selling consumer goods.
“Our goal is to bring products to market faster,” Karkara said. “We want to expand the customer relationship as much and as fast as we can.”
It’s obvious that banks need to borrow from retailers when creating customer experiences whether it’s in the branch, the mobile app or even the payments. But while retailers are already ahead on digital experiences, many from CVS to 7-Eleven to some of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world are also borrowing from banks to improve their own customer relationships.
Here are three major retail companies beyond Amazon or Alibaba that are growing their financial services offerings.
More in Marketing
Behind the rise of the chief productivity officer and what it means for companies and employees
The CPO is envisioned as the leader who orchestrates people and technology together to drive business outcomes.
OpenX redraws the SSP-agency relationship
The gradual realignment of programmatic’s middlemen discussed at Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit.
Omnicom’s reshuffled leadership emerges as the ad industry’s new power players
Omnicom’s Black Monday saw thousands of jobs cut, and a chosen few put in charge of what is now the world’s largest marketing services group. They face a number of challenges, however.