Scam Texts Are Creating a Friction Tax for Retailers
Scam text messages (smishing) have surged, costing consumers $470 million in 2025 and eroding the near‑98 % open‑rate that made SMS a retail goldmine. Retailers now face a “friction tax” as shoppers delete or ignore legitimate texts, hurting engagement and revenue. Telecom firm GCH Technologies is modernizing the U.S. Short Code Registry to re‑establish trust through stricter vetting. Meanwhile, startups like Emovid are adding video‑based verification to create a human‑origin layer for brand communications.
Zalando Bulgaria Launch Expected Soon
Zalando is speeding up its European rollout, having gone live in Portugal and Greece and now targeting a Bulgarian launch on August 1 2026. The addition will push the retailer’s footprint to 28 European countries, reinforcing its pan‑European logistics network. The company’s...
Particular Audience Launches PA DiscoveryOS App on Shopify – Signalling a New Era of Accessible Enterprise AI for Merchants
Particular Audience has launched the PA DiscoveryOS app on the Shopify App Store, delivering enterprise‑grade AI search, personalization, and retail‑media tools through a zero‑code, app‑based integration. The solution lets Shopify Plus merchants activate sophisticated AI infrastructure overnight, eliminating the need...
JioHotstar Brings Purchase Intent-Led Ads to Streaming Platform
JioHotstar has rolled out a purchase‑intent advertising capability that ties streaming content to immediate product discovery. The solution uses aggregated, privacy‑safe data to form audience cohorts based on behavioural signals, moving beyond traditional demographic targeting. Instamart is the inaugural partner,...
Retail Technology Leader Jumpmind Hires Experienced Industry Leaders to Accelerate Global Expansion Across Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific
Jumpmind, a cloud‑native retail technology provider, announced three senior hires to spearhead its expansion across Europe, the Middle East and Asia‑Pacific. James Kelly joins as VP of Strategic Accounts, Lee Clinton as Director of Retail Transformation, and Florent Perrillon as...
ByteDance’s Global E-Commerce Push Lifts Revenue as AI Costs Mount
ByteDance’s overseas revenue surged nearly 50% in 2025, outpacing its domestic growth of about 20%. The boost came largely from TikTok Shop, whose gross merchandise value jumped roughly 70% year‑on‑year and approached $100 billion, pushing the overseas share of total revenue...
Does Walmart Price Match? What to Know About Online and In-Store Price Matching Policies
Walmart’s price‑matching rules differ sharply between its brick‑and‑mortar stores and its website. In‑store shoppers can receive a match to the identical item’s price on Walmart.com, subject to manager approval and several exclusions. Online purchases, however, are largely excluded from any...
As Retailers Automate CX Trust Deficit Grows
Retailers are accelerating AI-driven customer‑experience automation, but a trust gap is widening. A Sogolytics survey of 1,011 U.S. adults shows 47% will abandon brands that misuse data, while only 19% believe AI improves CX. One‑third of shoppers say a single...
“Where’s My Package” Problem: The Revolution in Retail Logistics
Retail logistics is evolving from a back‑office function into a core customer‑experience driver. New "agentic" platforms monitor shipments in real time, automatically reroute parcels to avoid bottlenecks, and resolve issues before customers notice. Innovations such as micro‑sector address mapping cut...
Andon Launches AI-Run Store in San Francisco
Andon Labs has opened Andon Market, an experimental retail store in San Francisco run by an artificial‑intelligence agent called Luna. Luna receives a corporate card, a budget and access to digital tools, allowing it to choose products, set prices, manage vendors,...
Clarks Marketplace Launches – Powered by Marketplacer
Clarks has launched a new online marketplace powered by Marketplacer, allowing third‑party brands to sell alongside its own footwear. At launch the site features roughly 50 curated partners, with plans to double that number shortly. The platform gives Clarks full...
Retail Media Finds a New Signal: The Shopper’s State of Mind
Retail media is shifting from pure intent data to interpreting shoppers' cognitive and emotional states. Mental‑health experts highlight grocery trips as high‑stress decision points where fatigue, overload, and anxiety shape buying behavior. Platforms that can read in‑session signals—such as lingering,...
Common Challenges of Online Fraud
Harold van Graan of Solid8 Technologies outlines how online fraud has evolved beyond simple transaction theft to include checkout abuse, inventory hoarding, loyalty fraud, and promo abuse. Bots can empty high‑value stock in seconds, while account‑takeover schemes siphon points and...
Did You Buy Tickets on StubHub Between May 12-14 Last Year?
The Federal Trade Commission sued StubHub for not showing mandatory fees in the total price of tickets sold between May 12‑14, 2025. As part of the settlement, StubHub will refund $10 million to eligible U.S. customers, automatically processing payments within 90 days after an...
How AI Is Changing Marketplace Business Models (But Not Replacing Them)
AI is reshaping marketplace platforms by embedding machine‑learning into core operations rather than adding it as a bolt‑on feature. Dynamic pricing, intent‑based search, fraud detection and supply‑demand forecasting are now automated at scale, cutting costs and improving match quality. Legacy...
Glossy Research: 3 Out of 4 Brand Leaders Are Using AI for Data Analysis, but ROI on AI Spend Remains...
Glossy Research reports that three‑quarters of top fashion and beauty brands now rely on AI for data analysis, yet the financial returns on those investments remain modest. The study highlights an average ROI of under 10% per year, indicating early‑stage...
Dollar General Prioritizes In-Store Audio over Digital Screens
Dollar General is expanding its in‑store audio network to 12,000 locations by July, swapping 6,000 stores to a new partnership with audio‑tech provider QSIC. The move prioritizes audio over digital screens, citing limited store space and faster campaign rollout. QSIC’s...
Cider Joins Revolve and Shein as Online Fashion Brands Open Permanent Retail Stores
Cider, the Los Angeles‑based affordable fashion brand, opened its first permanent 8,000‑square‑foot store in the city’s Farmer’s Market shopping center after years of pop‑up testing. The move follows $130 million in recent funding and a valuation exceeding $1 billion, as the company...
How ThredUp Is Using AI to Improve Its Marketing Operations and Move Further up the Funnel
ThredUp, the online resale platform, is embedding artificial intelligence across its operations, from automated product tagging to personalized recommendation engines. In its marketing division, AI is now being used to sharpen demand forecasting, allowing the team to allocate spend more...
Why Subscription Growth Breaks After Acquisition … and How Retailers Can Fix It
Retail subscription brands often see strong acquisition but hit a wall once the first purchase is made. The article explains that treating acquisition, onboarding, and retention as separate silos creates fragmented messaging that erodes repeat behavior. This disjointed experience leads...
Retail’s War on Self-Checkout Misses Where Theft Actually Happens
Retail chains are rapidly scaling back self‑checkout lanes amid shrink concerns, but data shows roughly 80 percent of shoplifting happens before the register. The article argues that checkout‑focused security adds friction without cutting loss, and recommends store‑wide computer‑vision analytics to catch...
From the Archive: Boo.com
Boo.com launched in 1999 with a suite of cutting‑edge features—virtual‑reality advisors, multi‑currency checkout, seven‑language sites, and rotating 3D models—backed by $120 million in funding and a $500 million valuation. The site went live on 4 November 1999 but crashed under the strain of...
Kroger Dives Into What’s Driving Online Shopping Ahead of Deal Days
Kroger is launching its Online Deal Days promotion from April 22 to May 5, offering $30 off first pickup or delivery orders over $75 and unlimited free delivery on orders above $50. The event adds digital coupons with 25% discounts on...
As Agentic AI Usage Skyrockets, Retailers Face New Challenges and Risks
Retailers are witnessing a surge in agentic AI‑driven traffic, projected to rise 4,700% by 2025, prompting the rollout of autonomous shopping agents that can locate, purchase, and deliver items on behalf of users. This shift separates the human intent point...
Wayvia Launches Shoppable Next Generation
Wayvia unveiled Shoppable Next Generation, an AI‑powered shoppable media platform that links every marketing touchpoint—display ads, social posts, email—to a real‑time purchase path. The solution surfaces live pricing and inventory from both physical and online retailers, and feeds confirmed sales...
Amazon Pressured Levi's, Other Retailers to Hike Prices, California A.G. Says
California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleges Amazon pressured Levi Strauss and other vendors to force competitors like Walmart to raise prices on items such as Levi’s Easy Khaki Classic pants. The filing outlines three schemes: using vendors as intermediaries to...
How Advertisers Are Thinking About Meta’s Affiliate Tool Rollout
Meta unveiled a suite of creator‑focused affiliate and checkout tools at Shoptalk, extending shoppable Reels on Instagram and product‑tagging on Facebook. The affiliate program, backed by partners such as Amazon, eBay, Temu, Shopee and Mercado Libre, lets creators earn commissions...
Lululemon Pushes Into Mexico With Stores, E-Commerce
Lululemon is rolling out a dedicated Mexican e‑commerce site, lululemon.mx, while simultaneously planning a rapid store rollout. The company aims to open eight new locations this fiscal year, bringing its Mexican footprint to more than 30 stores by year‑end. The...
Australia Post Offers eBay Sellers In-Store Printing of Shipping Labels
Australia Post and eBay have launched a "Print in Store" service that lets Australian eBay sellers generate a QR code to print shipping labels at participating post offices at no extra cost. The feature removes the need for a home...
How Amazon’s Artist Merch Operation Is Changing the Game for Fans
Amazon has turned concert merchandise into a frictionless, home‑delivery experience by pairing QR‑code ordering with its Just Walk Out technology. The service debuted with Doja Cat in 2023 and now powers pop‑up stores for Mariah Carey, LE SSERAFIM and Drake, letting fans grab...
Marketplaces Account for 61% of European Ecommerce
Marketplaces now account for 61% of European ecommerce gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2025, up from 56.2% in 2023. Globally, they captured 83.4% of ecommerce GMV last year, dwarfing the 16.6% share of first‑party stores. Amazon remains the dominant platform,...
How Prime And A Smarter Alexa Are Giving Amazon An AI Shopping Edge
Amazon launched Alexa+, an AI‑powered upgrade to its voice assistant, to all users in March 2025. The new assistant can handle complex conversations, place orders, manage smart‑home devices, and suggest recipes, all while leveraging Amazon’s 30‑year e‑commerce expertise. Early data show...
Why Fashion Brands Are Betting Big On Q-Commerce Ads
India’s quick‑commerce (q‑commerce) market surged to roughly ₹64,000 crore ($6.9 bn) in FY25, growing at a 142% CAGR and now serving 33 million monthly users across 150+ cities. Leading platforms—Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart—are turning advertising into a major revenue stream, with Blinkit...
The Home Depot Acquires Automation Firm
The Home Depot announced the acquisition of SIMPL Automation, a firm that combines advanced engineering with artificial‑intelligence to streamline distribution‑center operations. The deal, whose financial terms were not disclosed, adds AI‑driven robotics and real‑time analytics to Home Depot’s supply‑chain toolkit....
Winning Google Ads Campaign Structures For DTC Ecommerce via @Sejournal, @MenachemAni
The article stresses that Google Ads account structure is the linchpin for DTC ecommerce success because each search query is an explicit buying intent. It outlines three costly mistakes—launching every campaign type simultaneously, duplicating products across campaigns, and segmenting Performance...
Race Day Starts Before You Get to the Track: StubHub and New Era Team Up for F1’s North American Season...
StubHub and apparel brand New Era have announced a strategic partnership to sell bundled ticket and merchandise packages for Formula 1’s North American races. The collaboration will debut ahead of the 2024 season, covering the Miami Grand Prix, the United States...
Tier-2 and 3 Cities Drive Next Wave Of Growth For India’s D2C Sector
India’s tier‑2 and tier‑3 cities are now the primary engine of growth for the country’s direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) market, accounting for roughly two‑thirds of new orders in FY 2025‑26. Buyers in these regions contributed about 60% of incremental gross merchandise value (GMV)...
NIQ Brandbank and Prodx Unite to Advance Retail Personalization
NielsenIQ announced a strategic collaboration between its Brandbank product‑content service and Prodx, a provider of enriched, structured data. The partnership creates a unified, real‑time data foundation that lets U.S. retailers activate high‑quality product information across search, discovery and retail media...
Nearly Half of UK Shoppers Experience Payment Failures at Checkout, Research Finds
Nearly half of UK shoppers—46%—reported a payment failure at checkout in the past year, according to Transaction Network Services (TNS). The study links most breakdowns to fragmented network connectivity rather than the payment software itself, especially in POS systems, kiosks...
Brands Falling Short on Emotional Drivers
A new Phaedon research report reveals that U.S. consumer brands are overestimating loyalty, as customers note a persistent gap between valued emotional drivers and brand delivery. While companies score well on reliability, data security and program clarity, they fall short...
Hookflash Hits the Bullseye with Darts’ Giant Digital Brief
Nodor Group, the maker of Winmau and Red Dragon darts, has hired digital agency Hookflash to overhaul its e‑commerce platform and drive direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) growth. The agency will apply a data‑driven conversion‑rate‑optimization (CRO) and experimentation framework to increase website value....
Commerce Announces Winners of EMEA Region Customer and Partner Awards
Commerce announced the 2026 EMEA Customer and Partner Award winners at its Wembley Stadium Commerce Live event, celebrating top performers on the BigCommerce and Feedonomics platforms. Customer categories highlighted growth, AI‑driven experiences, connected commerce, emerging innovation and B2B excellence, with...
Maximizing the Transaction Moment: Why the Point of Purchase Is Retail’s Most Undervalued Growth Lever
Retailers are rethinking the point of purchase, labeling it the Transaction Moment—a window where trust, attention, and intent peak. By embedding relevant, brand‑controlled offers into checkout and confirmation pages, companies like Backcountry generate $0.25‑$0.35 incremental revenue per transaction without new...
Tapping Into the Latest Emerging Payment Solution Trends
Consumers now expect a broad menu of payment options, with 61% using digital wallets and 35% trying buy‑now‑pay‑later services in the last 90 days, according to Discover’s 2025 Payments State of the Union research. Adoption of account‑to‑account (A2A) rails is...
Unified Commerce: Why It’s the Next Evolution of Retail
Unified commerce is emerging as the next evolution of retail, moving beyond omnichannel by consolidating all sales channels onto a single, real‑time architecture. This model eliminates data latency, ensuring inventory, orders, and customer information are instantly consistent across online, in‑store,...
Smarter Stores Start Behind the Scenes
Retailers are re‑thinking the hype around customer‑facing AI and realizing that the true value of artificial intelligence lies in behind‑the‑scenes operations. Large language models work best when tightly tailored to interpret and act on internal data, turning fragmented information into...
Loyalty Isn’t a Program Anymore. It’s a Payment Experience.
Retailers are moving loyalty from separate programs to the payment experience, using Marqeta’s Flexible Credentials to embed rewards, debit, credit and installment options in a single card. The platform lets shoppers choose payment modes and redeem points instantly at checkout,...
U.S.-based Commonplace Marketplace Eyes Expansion Into Canada
Commonplace, a U.S. marketplace that bundles payments, delivery and item inspections, is weighing entry into Canada. The platform specializes in bulky, high‑value second‑hand goods such as fitness equipment, appliances and furniture, and currently serves sellers within a 1,000‑mile radius across...
Mountain Warehouse Launches Composable Ecommerce Platform with BigCommerce
Mountain Warehouse, a global outdoor retailer with over 400 stores, has replaced its decade‑old custom ecommerce system with a composable platform powered by BigCommerce. The headless architecture integrates best‑of‑breed SaaS tools such as Contentful, Algolia, and Stripe, allowing faster feature...
Payment Sovereignty Debate Accelerates: What CB Payments Network in France Has to Say Against Visa and Mastercard
France’s Cartes Bancaires (CB) network is positioning itself as a sovereign alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing political pressure to curb reliance on foreign payment schemes. The Financial Times reported that French officials are urging the CB system to...