Lots going on this week with corporate earnings coming in fast.
- How Online Shopping Is Saving the Bricks-and-Mortar Store - I liked this WSJ story for the stats. I think it validates the impact online has on stores vs looking at online vs in-store sales percentages.
- Coty - posts Q3 revenue beat, aims for upper end of 2024 targets on strong demand. They note: The CoverGirl parent has been investing heavily in new product launches and collaborations with influencers and e-retail partners to drive demand at a time when higher prices of necessities force customers to rethink luxury purchases. (Reuters)
- Macy’s - did well in Q1 as luxury and beauty sales stood out. (AP)?
- Lowe’s and Home Depot - saw a drop in Q1 sales. (Modern Retail)
- Walmart - (per Bloomberg) had a strong Q1 earning report:
- The average ticket was flat but the number of transactions rose by 3.8% from a year ago.?
- E-commerce was up 22% during the same period.
- Upper-income households drove most of the gains.?
- Walmart - also opened their 4th massive next-generation fulfillment center. This one is in PA and will employ over 1000 people. (CSA)
- Ecommerce for the market was up 8.5% in Q1. Amazon was up 11% and Walmart as noted above was up 22%. (h/t
Jason Goldberg
)???
- Ulta Beauty - is expanding their partnership with DoorDash to offer on-demand delivery from more than 1,350 locations. (Drugstore News)?
- Children’s Place - The CEO is out and a new interim CEO is in place. They own Children’s Place, Gymboree, Sugar & Jade and PJ Place and operate over 500 stores in North America. (CSA)
- Sam Ash staying online (for now) but closing all stores.
- Amazon - Jason Del Rey at Fortune always does a great job covering Amazon and his latest piece hits the mark: This is the Amazon everyone should have feared. He notes “Amazon is finally at a point where it can both invest heavily in its future AND pump out significant profit at the same time.” My caveat: The FTC is always watching.
- Warby Parker - plans to open another 40 stores this year and expand eye exams which are a growth driver. (CSA)
- Crocs - in sustainability news, they are expanding their pilot “Old Crocs. New Life” program to all stores. Crocs will collect the used shoes, which will either be donated through nonprofit Soles4Souls or repurposed into a new use. (DC360)?
- Squarespace - Permira is taking them private. (CNBC) Looks like BigCommerce is heading that route too.
- Work from home is driving tons of revenue for brands. Top purchase time is Friday between 10-1. (WSJ)
- Tiktok - is planning significant layoffs. I think they see the writing on the wall. (LinkedIn)
- Saudi Arabia - is making a big push for ecommerce. As with many things they do, they lead with investment. (DC360)
- OpenAI and Google I/O - In the world of AI, look to Alex Robicquet at
Crossing Minds
for his always insightful take on the updates.?
- Commercetools - posted more information about their Frontend offering which competes more with Shopify for the mid-market. They cite the Christie Cookie Co. and how they use this plus Klaviyo and Stripe.
- We’ll be attending CommerceNext in NY, June 11-13
- Shopify Editions, their big bi-annual product announcement day, is June 24th in Toronto
- Shopify’s CRO,
Bobby Morrison
, posted an extensive article about his first two years there.?
- Google Cloud noted they’ve been directing enterprise brands to Shopify. Some recent highlights to their Shopify partnership: Shopify on Google Cloud Marketplace. One-click buying on Shopify through YouTube video and Innovative customer experiences with Gen AI.
- Shopify - Google announced YouTube has expanded their affiliate program to all Plus brands in the US.?What this means is you can checkout directly in YouTube from brand and influencer videos.?This has the potential to be really big.?
- Shopify - posted about their effect on B2B.
- Shopify - it is good to be Kaz. (Globe & Mail)?
- Shopify - sued a Chinese competitor for software infringement. Always get your themes from the Shopify theme store folks. Interestingly, this piece also notes: In North America, 117 of the Top 1000 online retailers use Shopify as their ecommerce platform. Still lots of room to grow. (DC360)
- Signifyd - in April they saw fraud pressure and consumer abuse increase 10% YoY and 18% YoY.
- Gorgias - got a new $29M funding round to support: “AI Agent – a fully autonomous AI teammate built on brands’ own knowledge bases, data, and integrations. Our goal is to increase automation from 25% to over 60%.”
-
Fast Simon
- has a good post on “Should Your Site Use Server-Side Rendering (SSR)?”. The answer is yes and they detail why.
- Loop - now integrates with Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
- Thanks to
Taera Ebert
at Loop for sharing some recent stats with me showing that return rates remain stable even after implementing return fees. This one is interesting. More details to come soon in a report from them.
-
Dynamic Yield by Mastercard
- rolled out their AI powered shopping assistant, Shopping Muse, back in November. Try it at Michael Kors. It’s visible on the bottom left as ‘Your Style Assistant’.
As we celebrate this Memorial Day I offer a big thank you to all our veterans who served and particularly those that gave their lives for our country. The local veteran-led ceremony in my small town is always special.
