E-commerce Industry News Recap ?? Week of Nov 6th, 2023

This is a summary recap of the 146th Edition of the Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter - brought to you by Paul Drecksler. Check out the full edition for links and sources.

1. Since its launch in April 2020, Shop App has only been available as a mobile app. It allowed customers to shop and discover products across multiple stores, earn cashback, and track delivery of their Shopify orders in one central place. (Some of those features came later.) Now Shopify announced that these features are available on desktop browsers via https://shop.app. Shopify said in an e-mail to merchants, “By launching Shop on the web, we can enable more buyers to discover and purchase from Shop merchants without having to download an app.” .
2. Privacy officials in #Europe ordered Meta to stop serving behaviorally targeted ads to EU residents, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, without their consent. The order, issued Friday and made public Tuesday, extends and broadens a short-term order issued earlier this year by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, which required Meta to either obtain user consent or pause serving ads. Last week I reported that Meta began offering users in the region the choice to pay a monthly subscription to use Facebook and Instagram without any ads or continue to use the services for free with ads. It's not yet clear whether Meta's planned subscription option will comply with European privacy standards. Is privacy guaranteed for all EU users, or just those who can afford to pay? .
3. The US Copyright Office is taking public comment on potential new rules around generative AI’s use of copyrighted materials. The comment period opened on August 30th with an October 18th due date for written comments regarding changes it was considering. The Verge collected the arguments from Meta, 谷歌 , 微软 , Adobe , Hugging Face , StabilityAI, Anthropic , 苹果 , and other tech companies. Reasons Big Tech had to not change the rules ranged from "it'd just be a very small payment to each copyright holder" and "it's no different than reading a book" to "it'd hurt small AI startups" and "copying the content is just an intermediary step." (This story is a really eye-opening read if you have time to check out the full edition.) .
4. Emails obtained by Forbes reveal X is getting ready to launch a handle marketplace, allowing users to purchase popular usernames for up to $50,000. Elon Musk first hinted at this initiative in Nov 2022 when he announced plans to free up a significant number of dormant handles. The emails, which Forbes agreed not to publish to protect the anonymity of their recipients, came from active X employees and noted that X recently made updates to its handle guidelines, process and fees in preparation for the marketplace. It's not yet clear whether X will be the only seller of usernames, or if users will be able to sell handles to one another (with X taking a cut). .
5. xAI, Elon Musk’s new AI venture, launched its first AI chatbot technology named “Grok”, which is positioned to compete with OpenAI, Google Bard, Meta Llama, Inflection, Anthropic, and others. The company says that Grok is modeled on “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and is supposed to have “a bit of wit,” a “rebellious streak,” and answer the types of questions that other AI might dodge. (Just say, “Anti Woke GPT”, Elon. We know that's what you're alluding to.) The part that's most interesting and different about Grok is its access to Twitter as a source of real-time info. .
6. Woo.com is now the home for all things Woo , including their e-commerce platform, marketplace, agency program, and partnerships. Woo, which is owned by Automattic (creators of WordPress ) since 2015, wrote in their announcement that Woo is how many loyal customers refer to them for years anyway, so now they're leaning into the name. The shorter brand name also lets them attach it more easily to other arms of their business — such as Woo Experts and Woo Payments (which they most recently changed the name to from WooCommerce Payments). .
7. Google Registry launched a new top-level domain: .ing. During the Early Access Period in November and December, customers can pay a one-time fee of more than $1 million for the privilege of being one of the first to register these new domains, and then they'll get progressively less expensive from there. They are also working on a .meme TLD, which is currently in a limited registration period. There are too many TLDs are this point. What started out as seven original TLDs (com, org, net, edu, mil, int, gov) has grown to over 1,500 TLDs! You'd think the over-supply would have brought the cost of domain ownership down to pennies, but instead the opposite has happened. The price of domains has skyrocketed. I thought this was our Internet. .
8. Crunchbase data revealed that VC's love affair with DTC may have come to an end. So far in 2023, U.S. investors have put just over $130M into DTC brands, which is a 97% decline from 2021, when over $5B was invested in this category. To be fair though, 2021 was a peak outlier. 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022 all showed around $1B investment in DTC brands. However even so, $130M is a big fall from that average. .
9. Faire , the wholesale marketplace, which last month I reported deepened its relationship with Shopify after a sizable investment, laid off around 250 employees across engineering, product, design, and data science. Faire most recently laid off about 7% of its workforce last October when it had approximately 1,200 employees at the time. .
10. GoodRx , a website that helps users find discounts on prescription drugs, is facing a class action lawsuit in Florida claiming that the company allowed Google, Meta and Criteo to spy on its customers by installing their tracking pixels on the users' browsers — which is apparently a no, no in the health care world. The company is facing a similar class action suit filed in California in May this year. .
11. Amazon is shutting down its two physical clothing stores after 17 months of operation. Amazon Style stores were very tech heavy, allowing customers to scan an item's QR code to view more info like customer ratings, or use their Amazon Shopping app to have additional items brought to their fitting room. Amazon says it's closing them down to focus on its online shopping, but I think the plan all along was never to keep them open long, and simply run a live test of its retail tech that it'll eventually license to other companies like PacSun. .
12. Amazon added BNPL to its Amazon Business platform via its partnership with Affirm, which also handles the payment option for its consumer marketplaces. Approved customers will be able to extend payments between three and 48 months. The payment option will be available to all eligible businesses by Black Friday. .
13. Speaking of BNPL, Walmart Canada introduced BNPL as a payment option for customers shopping online on Walmart.ca. The program is powered by Klarna, whereas Walmart US utilizes Affirm for its installment solution. .
14. Intuit QuickBooks introduced new e-commerce features to help merchants manage their inventory across multiple sales channels. The new automations include the ability to sync inventory across sales channels, spot opportunities for growth, maintain accurate inventory quantity, receive low stock notifications, and track costs of goods to understand profitability. .
15. TikTok announced a new integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud that will enable TikTok advertisers to transfer leads generated by their marketing campaigns directly to Salesforce. The integration will bring TikTok insights directly into the CRM, streamlining the process of managing and maximizing ad campaigns. .
16. The NFT marketplace OpenSea is planning to layoff half of its workforce, an estimated 115 employees, after having already reduced its headcount by 20% in July 2022. At the same time, the company announced that they are working on “OpenSea 2.0”, which they claim is a major upgrade to their product. .
17. PayPal named Jamie Miller as Executive VP and CFO of the company, effective Nov 6, 2023. Miller, who most recently served as Global CFO of EY, will be responsible for PayPal's financial strategies and will lead the company with planning, treasury, tax, reporting, and investor relations. .
18. Klarna employees were planning to strike next week in Sweden over the lack of a Collective Bargaining Agreement, a written legal contract between an employer and a union, of which over 90% of employees in Sweden are covered by one. However after a week of negotiations, the company reached an agreement to join the Banks Employer Organisation by Jan 1, 2024 and to sign a CBA that includes members of all unions belonging to the one central organization Saco. .
19. Plus 4 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including Tabby's $200M Series D round at a $1.5B valuation, making it the first fintech unicorn in the MENA region. .

For more details on each story, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/shopify-marketplace-eus-bombshell-ai-vs-copyright/

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

#ecommerce #ecommercenews #business #retail #tech #google #amazon #shopify #ai #ar #retail #tech #business