Watch, Click, Buy: Video Commerce Will Change Retail Forever

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

September 2016 Innovative Retail Technologies

Move over, product placement. Soon, retailers won’t just be promoting products on TV shows; they’ll be selling them there.

You might call Messiah Jacobs’ path to retail technology entrepreneurship happenstance, or fortuitous at best. It sure wasn’t planned, and he’s the first to admit it. New York born and raised, Jacobs was on track to put his finance degree and uncommon energy to work on Wall Street when the fashion world came calling.

“I had a vision of entrepreneurship, and the opportunity to pursue that vision came from an unlikely place while I was in business school,” he says. A friend was launching a fashion apparel brand, and she needed a business-minded partner to help her do it. Soon, the duo was selling its wares in more than 200 high-end fashion boutiques across the country.