E-commerce Industry News Recap ?? Week of Jan 15th, 2024

Hi LinkedIn - I'm Paul Drecksler and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter.

This is a summary recap of the 156th Edition published 01-15-2024. Check out the full edition for links and sources and subscribe here.

1. X announced that it's entering into a partnership with Shopify , in a deal that would allow Shopify merchants to expand their reach through the X network. X said in a post, “X ?? @Shopify. More to come on this new partnership, enabling all Shopify merchants to reach even more customers by leveraging the power of X!” Not much is known about the details of the deal, except for what X executive Joe Benarroch posted about the partnership’s future goals including that X wants to bring more engagement to the platform and play a larger role in a merchant's marketing stack.
2. 微软 launched Retail Media Creative Studio, an AI-powered tool that can be used to create customized content for retailers, advertisers, and consumers. In a nutshell, it's a tool that creates banner ads based on images and descriptions from your product page and resizes them to fit various placement types. The tool will automatically pull from your website's colors and fonts to match your brand's aesthetic.
3. 沃尔玛 made an appearance at CES 2024 to announce that it teamed up with Microsoft to build AI-powered shopping experiences and AI-powered tools for Walmart associates. New AI tools include an AI search (shoppers can search for 3-year-old birthday party and get product recommendations), AI Purchase Verification (no more Sam's Club employee checking your receipt on the way out), InHome Replenishment (AI predicts which items need to be replenished in a timely manner), and Augmented Reality (Shop with Friends feature allows shoppers to share virtual outfits with friends for feedback).
4. In other Walmart news… the company is expanding its drone delivery in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. The expansion will serve 1.8M more households in Texas via its partnership with Wing and Zipline by the end of 2024. Walmart says drone deliveries arrive in 30 minutes or less, with some reaching customers’ doorsteps in as fast as 10 minutes.
5. Flowspace partnered with Two Boxes to streamline the returns and recommerce process for sellers and turn potential losses into profitable opportunities. Despite recent reports, Flowspace recognizes that e-commerce returns are not a “problem” but a key service for shoppers and an operational reality for online brands, which is why customer-centric brands tailor their processes to be as simple as possible.
6. eStreamly is launching two new products this week — a free UGC video alert tracker that allows retailers to identify and monitor user-generated video content about their brand across social media, and a gamification feature called Live Trivia that brings entertaining live trivia games to retailers' website and social channels.
7. Not to be outdone by Walmart this week, Amazon also made some AI announcements. Amazon explained how it's now using large language models, generative AI, and machine learning to power four AI features that help customers find clothing that fits, including Fit Insights (combines size charts with product reviews and other data), Fit Review Highlights (extracts review data relating to size and shares a summary), Improved Size Charts (cleans product size data from multiple sources), and Fit Insights Tool (for sellers to get a better understanding of their products sizing in regards to standard sizes).
8. AI, however, is also proving to be a pain point for Amazon. It turns out that AI product title and description tools aren't perfect yet. Shoppers have come across products with AI-generated names like: “I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy." The product listings suggest that companies are using ChatGPT to whip up entire product descriptions, without doing any proofreading, which raises the question — is anyone at Amazon actually reviewing the products that appear on its site? Amazon said yes they were.
9. 谷歌 also launched several new tools for retailers that leverage generative AI to improve online shopping experiences and other retail operations, including: Virtual Agents (can talk to customers and offer product recos), Enhanced Product Search (a Google-like search on merchants' websites), Customer Service Modernization (helps retailers improve self-service capabilities), Catalog & Content Enrichment (automatically generates text for product titles and descriptions), and Retail Software (a new fully managed hardware and software offering).
10. 联邦快递 is planning to launch an e-commerce platform called “fdx” later this year, which it describes as an end-to-end online shopping hub that aims to provide sellers with solutions for everything from reaching potential customers to order fulfillment and returns. So far FedEx hasn't provided many details, other than to say that fdx is being built as a “data-driven” platform that will use the company's insights to optimize the buying and selling process. Sellers will have access to the existing network of customers on ShopRunner, which FedEx owns and customers will be able to see delivery estimates on products as they browse and add things to their carts, even before checkout.
11. OpenAI officially launched its GPT Store, a marketplace for customers to access custom versions of ChatGPT created by other users. The store is initially only available to Plus, Team, and Enterprise users. The custom GPTs are optimized for specific tasks that the standard version doesn’t necessarily support out of the box, and can interact with external applications and draw on proprietary datasets to generate answers. GPT categories include DALL·E, writing, productivity, research, programming, education, and lifestyle.
12. Just when you thought the layoff frenzy was over at tech companies, a fresh wave is upon us for the new year. Amazon laid off hundreds of employees across Twitch, Prime Video, MGM Studios, and Audible. Google is laying off a few hundred AR Hardware engineers, members of the Google Assistant team, and core engineers, as well as Fitbit co-founders and other Fitbit leaders. Flipkart is set to let go of about 5-7% of its workforce, or around 1,500 employees, by April, initiating the layoffs via performance reviews. Instagram , Unity Software Systems , and Duolingo have also made layoffs in January.
13. Microsoft became the world's most valuable company on Friday, as its market cap ended a trading session higher than Apple's for the first time since 2021. Microsoft's market cap stood at around $2.887T, its highest ever, while Apple's was $2.875T. Most companies wouldn't mind just being worth the difference!
14. The eBay photo scam is back, this time with the special edition pink Stanley cups sold at Starbucks inside Target stores. Sellers listed photos of the cups, tricking buyers into thinking they were buying the product itself, when they were actually just buying a photo of the cup. So like an NFT?
15. Speaking of NFTs, X removed the option for premium users to use a verifiable NFT image as their profile picture, two years after debuting the feature (pre-Elon Musk takeover). The ability for X Premium subscribers to activate the feature via the iPhone version of the mobile app is no longer available and X Premium marketing no longer mentions the feature.
16. The X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission was compromised on Tuesday and posted that the regulator had approved a Bitcoin ETF “on all registered national securities exchanges,” which sent the price of Bitcoin temporarily soaring above $48K. SEC chairman Gary Gensler quickly chimed in from his personal account, tweeting that the account was “compromised” and that, “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.”
17. BigCommerce and Marketplacer partnered up to allow merchants to transform their online stores into marketplaces. The BigCommerce Marketplace Connector, developed by Web Force 5, allows third-party sellers to list and sell their products directly from their BigCommerce stores, each with distinct products and catalogs.
18. Speaking of creating marketplaces, Shopify and Mirakl teamed up to allow merchants to launch and grow marketplace sales using Mirakl’s suite of AI-powered platform solutions. Through the new partnership, Shopify merchants can add marketplace sellers into their operations using the Mirakl Platform, as well as sell through other Mirakl-powered marketplace platforms. So now it's BigCommerce + Marketplacer vs Shopify + Mirakl!
19. One more Shopify partnership to report on this week… Shopify and Manhattan Associates partnered up to help retailers build unified omnichannel shopping experiences. The partnership will see Shopify's platform combined with Manhattan's omnichannel order management solution, including their post-purchase customer service tools and digital self-service solutions. Nautica will be the first joint customer.
20. Firework , a video commerce and engagement platform built for brands and retailers, unveiled a lifelike AI-generated human avatar named AVA, who helps brands transform their sites into virtual stores. AVA serves as an always available brand and product expert, capable of answering customers' questions, offering guidance based on past purchase history, and demoing products in real time.
21. In response to the Digital Markets Act which goes into effect on Mar 6th, Google will now let users in the EU select which services like Search, YouTube, Maps, and Chrome share their data, an opt-out that could remove personalized recommendations based on previous activities. However Google says it will still share user data when it's necessary to complete a task, such as paying for a purchase on Google Shopping with Google Pay, or to comply with the law, stop fraud, or protect against abuse. Hmm… The DMA also includes rules on interoperability and competition, such as Google will no longer be able to treat its own services more favorably in Search’s ranking than other services.
22. Afterpay launched a new tennis-inspired campaign to build awareness of the truly “unbelievable head-turning ways” people can use Afterpay to buy now and pay later. The creative can be seen on Channel Nine during the live broadcast of The Australian Open, as well as BVOD, social and other online channels.
23. Speaking of commercials, Apple won a 2023 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial for its The Greatest campaign, which raises awareness of seven people going about their lives, who are living with vision, mobility, or cognitive impairments. The two-minute film showcases how Apple products make life easier for people across the world every day.
24. Amazon announced a Buy with Prime integration with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, offering shoppers the ability to search and filter for Amazon Prime-eligible items. Shoppers will also be able to add both Prime-eligible and other items to their carts and purchase all items in a single checkout.
25. Wix introduced a new revenue-sharing initiative for Partners engaged in Wix Studio. Agencies and freelancers can apply through the Wix Studio Workspace and earn a 20% revenue share on new sites created in 2024, as well as a 50% share of revenue from client sales on sites using Wix Payments. Wow that's pretty generous! I'd love to earn 50% revenue on Shopify Payments revenue from all the stores I've opened through their Partner program.
26. Shopify revealed custom software it built to run its business more efficiently, including Shopify OS, a system that helps leaders make decisions about the business like head count and title recommendations. It also revealed GSD, or “get shit done”, an internal system used for tracking progress on tasks, which gives visibility into work happenings across the company by designating it into various projects, which roll into missions and then themes. So Shopify turned productivity into a video game?
27. Threads will soon allow posts to become visible to Mastodon clients, as it shifts its platform into the Fediverse. Beginning in early 2024, replies posted on Mastodon servers will also become visible in the Threads app, and later in the year, users will be able to follow Mastodon accounts within Threads, reply to them and like their posts.
28. Google is shutting down its free website offering for Google Business Profiles in March, and from then on will redirect customers from those sites to the company's Google Business Profile. Honestly they weren't even really necessary, as all the sites did were regurgitate information from the company's Business Profile. There are plenty of other better free website tools out there that company's can transition into.
29. eBay entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of MA in regards to actions taken in 2019 by former eBay employees against Ina and David Steiner, who run the EcommerceBytes publication. If you're unfamiliar with what went down between eBay and EcommerceBytes, eBay went American psycho on the Steiners several years ago for criticizing their platform.
30. VICTORIA'S SECRET'S is tapping into Google Cloud's Vertex AI to enhance its online search capabilities and personalize product recommendations. The company is deploying a generative AI virtual assistant and using AI to optimize inventory forecasting and allow customers to upload and search images, allowing Victoria's Secret to provide custom recommendations for individual customers (or their wives).
31. Amazon missed a Wednesday deadline to offer remedies to the EU over its $1.7B acquisition of iRobot, after the bloc raised concerns that the deal could stifle competition in the robot vacuum cleaner market. Under EU merger procedures, the deadline for companies to submit remedies typically falls on working day 65 of a Phase 2 investigation, which was last Wednesday. The commission has until Feb. 14 to make a final decision on the deal.
32. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are opening headquarters in Saudi Arabia amid pressure from the government, which said it will stop giving contracts to companies without regional headquarters in the country. The three firms have all received licenses to establish regional HQs in Riyadh, just ahead of the deadline set by the government.
33. Instacart is now letting advertisers use its shopper data to target ads on Google Shopping campaigns, as part of its strategy to let brands target ads off-platform. Last year the company announced partnerships with Roku and The Trade Desk.
34. Instacart is also piloting ads on its AI-powered smart carts in Southern California. CEO Fidji Simo said, “You can imagine an experience where you are going through the aisles of the store, you drop a box of cookies in your cart and we immediately suggest Dreyer’s ice cream to make ice cream sandwiches with your cookies and we even tell you which aisle you can find this product in.”
35. JD Logistics is now offering an international express delivery service that will initially cover 23 countries across North America and Europe, facilitating one-way deliveries from China. Looking ahead, the company plans to extend the reach of this service throughout China, allowing customers to book doorstep pick-ups on the WeChat app and receive one-hour pick-up by JD in-house couriers with real-time parcel tracking.
36. Not to be outdone, Cainiao, the logistics arm of Alibaba, announced a consolidated shipping service to the US that allows consumers to package several items they have bought together, cutting delivery times to as little as five days. Cainiao said the cross-border shipping service would mainly help Chinese consumers and students in the US who tend to buy lots of goods on Chinese e-commerce sites.
37. Grocery e-commerce sales in the US slipped to $95.8B in 2023, down 0.18% compared with 2022, according to new research by Brick Meets Click and Mercatus. The decline was mainly fueled by a slowdown in order frequency by online grocery shoppers, shrinking for the second consecutive year. What's wild (and sad) is that the data reveals that shoppers ordered less frequently last year, but still ended up spending almost as much as the year before. Grocery prices have gotten out of hand in the US.
38. Speaking of inflation, PYMNTS reports that according to the latest Consumer Price Index, the most basic expenses, especially shelter, were up 0.3% in December, up from 0.1% in November. On a trailing 12-month basis, prices were up 3.4%, higher than the 3.1% trailing 12-month rate seen in November.
39. A PYMNTs survey also revealed that 1 in 7 consumers in the U.S. have used BNPL to pay for gasoline in installments during the past 12 months. This means that folks were paying for gas several months after using the tank in many cases.
40. Plus 12 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Photoroom raising between $50-$60M at a $500-$600M valuation for its AI image editor.

I hope you found this recap helpful. For the full editions each week delivered straight to your Inbox with more details and links to sources, subscribe free at https://www.shopifreaks.com

See you next week!

PAUL

#shopify #amazon #google #squarespace #bigcommerce #wix #ecommerce #ecommercenews #ecommerceindustry #newsletters #retail #tech #temu #shein #alibaba #perplexity #ai