Peach Payments and PayJustNow Roll Out BNPL Integration Across Digit Pro POS Devices
South African fintech PayJustNow has completed integration with Peach Payments’ Digit Pro point‑of‑sale terminals, allowing merchants to offer Buy‑Now‑Pay‑Later (BNPL) directly at checkout. The combined solution embeds both BNPL and credit products, removing the need for static QR codes and automatically reconciling transactions in the till. PayJustNow reaches over four million consumers across more than 3,600 merchants and has processed roughly R13 billion (≈ $700 million) in transactions since 2019. Peach Payments, which raised $30 million in 2023 and recently acquired West African PayDunya, will roll the integration out to its full merchant base after a pilot with five retailers.
Beyond the Buy Button: Why Pricing Data Fidelity Is the Heart of ACO
Agentic commerce protocols such as Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) are now live, with Wayfair and Etsy transacting through AI‑driven checkout since January 2026. In this new model, AI agents query a retailer’s pricing API before...
The Agentic Commerce Checklist Every Merchant Needs Now
AI agents are reshaping e‑commerce by querying structured data instead of browsing human‑focused pages. Visa reports nearly 50% of U.S. shoppers now use AI tools for at least one shopping task and expects millions of agent‑driven purchases by the 2026...
Best Chrome Extension for Real-Time Price Comparison: BetterPrice Launches Free Browser Tool for Smarter Online Shopping
BetterPrice has launched a free Chrome‑based browser extension that delivers real‑time price comparisons as shoppers browse e‑commerce sites. The tool automatically scans product details, matches similar items, and surfaces lower‑priced alternatives without requiring users to open new tabs or create...
APAC Brands Lead on AI Ambition, but Execution Can’t Keep up with Hype
Adobe’s 2026 AI and digital trends report shows that 42% of Asia‑Pacific consumers are open to interacting with brand AI agents, and more than half already use AI for personalized recommendations and support. Yet a trust gap persists—38% would stop...
EBay Live Doubles Down on Gaming-Led Fandom and Collectables Culture in Campaign via Dentsu
eBay Australia, together with agency dentsu, has rolled out an integrated eBay Live campaign across YouTube, TikTok and Meta, timed for Star Wars Day. The initiative pairs the platform’s real‑time auction format with top gaming creators, including Fortnite star Lachlan Power,...
How Transparent OLED Is Transforming Retail Display Design
Transparent OLED technology is rapidly displacing conventional LCD screens in retail, museums, and commercial venues. The displays combine digital content with a see‑through glass surface, allowing products behind the screen to remain visible while delivering vivid, high‑contrast imagery. Available in...
3 Big Numbers: The Convenience Store Payments Problem
A Vontier survey reveals that 75% of convenience‑store operators run fragmented payment architectures, often juggling four or more indoor and outdoor terminals. The same study found 88% of respondents suffered at least one payment outage in the past year, with...
Walmart Credits Sparky AI Agent with Lifting AOV, Unit Sales Growth
Walmart’s AI‑driven shopping assistant Sparky is now live across its website, mobile app and stores, delivering a 35% higher average order value for users and more than quadrupling unit sales versus the prior quarter. Weekly active users of Sparky doubled...
China's JD.com Weighs £2 Billion Bid for UK Retailer The Very Group, Sky News Reports
Chinese e‑commerce giant JD.com is weighing a £2 billion ($2.69 billion) offer for UK online retailer The Very Group, according to Sky News. The potential deal follows JD.com’s recent, unsuccessful attempts to acquire UK retailers Currys and Argos. The Very Group, owned...
Tim Hortons Investing $400 Million to Build, Renovate 480 Restaurants
Tim Hortons announced a $400 million national rollout in 2026, adding 80 new restaurants and renovating 400 existing locations across Canada. Franchise owners will fund $270 million, while corporate contributes $130 million, with Ontario receiving the largest share of projects. The upgrades focus...
Vitamin Shoppe COO on Omnichannel and AI Opportunities
The Vitamin Shoppe’s COO, Andrew Laudato, outlined an omnichannel strategy that treats its 650 U.S. stores as distribution hubs, enabling buy‑online‑ship‑from‑store (BOSS) fulfillment and same‑day delivery. The retailer pairs this network with AI tools, from Microsoft Copilot for staff productivity...
Campaign Retail & Commerce Media Briefing: Maximising Agentic AI, Closed-Loop Outcomes & Creator-Led Commerce
Campaign Middle East’s Retail & Commerce Media 2026 briefing gathered nearly 200 marketers to examine AI‑assisted shopping, agentic commerce, retail‑media orchestration, and creator‑commerce convergence. Speakers warned that AI assistants now shortlist products, shrinking the shelf to a handful of recommendations and...
Before You Add Stablecoin Checkout, Fix These 5 Trust Gaps First
Stablecoins are transitioning from niche experiments to core payment infrastructure, promising instant settlement, zero chargebacks, and global reach. While merchants are eager to add stablecoin checkout for lower fees, the article warns that trust gaps—identity, refunds, compliance, support, and security—can...
Social Commerce Won’t Scale the Way Brands Expect – Deloitte’s Dennis Ortiz Says Start With Creators
Deloitte partner Dennis Ortiz warns that U.S. social commerce will not scale like China’s live‑shopping model because major platforms lack end‑to‑end fulfillment infrastructure. His 2026 Digital Media Trends survey shows 70% of Gen Z and millennials discover products on social but...
The Ordinary Spotlights New York City Transit Problem with Free Bus Shuttle Service
The Ordinary, an Estée Lauder skin‑care label, is launching a free two‑week shuttle called The Ordinary Bus from May 26 to June 9, running between Williamsburg’s Domino Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The service cuts the typical 50‑minute subway ride in half, operating weekdays...
Morrisons to Close 100 ‘Loss-Making’ Convenience Stores
Morrisons announced it will close 100 convenience stores that are currently loss‑making, most of which were acquired in its 2023 purchase of McColl’s. Despite the closures, the supermarket chain remains committed to expanding its convenience footprint, targeting the launch of...
Delivering on Fulfilment Speeds and AI Experience - a Walmart Status Report From CEO John Furner
Walmart reported Q1 profit of $5.33 billion, an 18.8% year‑on‑year rise, on revenue of $177.8 billion. Global e‑commerce sales surged 26% while U.S. delivery volume grew 45%, with 36% of store‑fulfilled orders arriving in under three hours. The retailer says half of...
Boots Reveals Launch Date for First Beauty Concept Store Outside of London
Boots announced that its first beauty‑only concept store outside London will open on 28 May at Bristol’s Cabot Circus. The 11,000‑square‑foot venue will feature more than 200 skincare, haircare, fragrance, cosmetics, premium beauty, wellness and electrical beauty brands. Flagship names such...
Trust Over Speed: Why Security Is the New Currency for MENA Digital Commerce
Checkout.com’s 2026 MENA Digital Commerce report shows the region moving from basic digital adoption to an AI‑driven, “agentic” ecosystem, but consumer trust now outweighs speed. 97% of shoppers demand invisible payments, yet 62% say security is the top purchase factor...
Walmart’s International Sales Growth in Q4 Driven by Flipkart, China Units
Walmart International posted an 18% year‑on‑year sales rise to $35.1 billion in Q4, driven largely by its Indian ecommerce arm Flipkart. Flipkart’s ecommerce volume jumped 27% and its advertising revenue surged 32%, while the quick‑commerce service Flipkart Minutes now fulfills orders...
VIPshop Holdings Reports Higher Profit on Apparel Demand
VIPshop Holdings posted first‑quarter net revenue of RMB26.6 bn (≈US$3.9 bn), up 1.2% year‑over‑year, driven by robust apparel sales and higher spending from its SVIP customer segment. Active customers rose to 41.7 million and total orders increased 3.2% to 172.6 million. The company credited...
Walmart Delivery Can Now Reach 60 Percent of Americans in Under 30 Minutes
Walmart announced that its delivery network can now reach 60 percent of U.S. households in 30 minutes or less, leveraging its extensive store footprint. Store‑based delivery sales have more than doubled over the past two years, making sub‑hour fulfillment its fastest‑growing...
Web Scraping for E-Commerce: Use Cases, Data Sources, and How to Extract Product Data at Scale
Web scraping has become essential for e‑commerce firms seeking competitive intelligence, catalogue research, sentiment analysis, and stock monitoring. The guide outlines primary use cases, from price tracking on retailer sites to review mining on comparison platforms, and highlights high‑value targets...
Ecommerce Trends: Which Type of Online Retailer Is Growing Fastest in the 2020s?
Digital Commerce 360’s 2026 Top 1000 Report shows ecommerce sales reached $1.379 trillion in 2025, the fifth consecutive year above $1 trillion. Consumer Brand Manufacturers (CBMs) posted the highest five‑year CAGR at 9.3%, led by Apple, Dell and Lululemon. Web‑Only retailers followed closely...
The 5 Shoe Categories That Drove $311 Million in Sales on TikTok Shop During the Last 12 Months
TikTok Shop’s U.S. footwear sales exploded, with the top five categories generating $310.9 million in the 12 months ending March 2026—a 136.9% increase from the prior year. Casual trainers led the pack at $95.7 million, followed by women’s boots, sandals/flip‑flops, slippers, and mules/clogs,...
David’s Bridal Is Ready to Help Couples Budget Their Wedding
David’s Bridal has added a free AI‑driven budgeting feature to its Pearl Planner platform, letting couples input budget, location and guest count to receive real‑time cost breakdowns. The tool allocates funds based on user priorities and regional market data, offering...
Lightspeed Segment Revenue Rises as It Narrows Its Loss; MagTek Eases Kiosk Integration with Cutflow
Lightspeed Commerce added about 3,200 new locations in its fiscal fourth quarter, bringing total sites to 97,000—a rise of 11 % year‑over‑year. The company’s U.S. retail and European hospitality focus generated 21 % revenue growth, with transaction revenue up 16.9 % and subscription...
E-Commerce's 10% Quarter Was Weaker Than It Looked
U.S. e‑commerce sales rose 9.8% year‑over‑year in Q1 2026, the strongest quarter in over two years, but almost half of the gain stemmed from higher prices rather than additional units sold. After stripping out the 1.9% rise in physical‑goods prices, real...
Breuninger Launches in Denmark, Sweden and Romania
German luxury retailer Breuninger has launched its online shop in Denmark, Sweden and Romania, taking its e‑commerce presence to 13 European countries. The rollout follows earlier expansions into Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Benelux, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. CEO Holger...
Ahold Delhaize USA’s Head of Private Label Talks Strategy
Ahold Delhaize USA appointed Abby Cook as senior vice president of Own Brands, a role created to accelerate its private‑label agenda. The retailer’s Growing Together strategy aims for store brands to represent 45% of total sales, up from nearly 40% last...
Why TikTok Shop Is Exposing the Brand Fundamentals Amazon Could Hide
TikTok Shop has shifted from a niche experiment to a core sales channel, prompting brands to reconsider their marketplace mix. Unlike Amazon, which acts as a search engine for intent‑driven shoppers, TikTok generates demand by embedding products in an entertainment...
Digital Catalogs Become Adaptive Commerce Tools
Digital catalogs are transitioning from static PDFs to interactive commerce tools that embed shopping and checkout directly within the experience. Marketers are urged to shift focus from vanity metrics like total views to engagement data such as click‑throughs, drop‑off points,...
IGD Exclusive: How to Win with Shoppers in an Evolving Online Landscape
IGD forecasts UK online grocery will surge 23.6% annually through 2030, reaching roughly $7.8 billion. The market is fragmenting into four sub‑channels—retailer websites, quick commerce, social commerce and direct‑to‑consumer—each with distinct shopper profiles. Retailer websites remain the most used (35% of...
Auchan Replaces Its Paper Flyer with AI
French retailer Auchan has fully discontinued its routine paper flyer distribution, replacing them with AI‑driven digital campaigns as of January. The shift follows a gradual reduction over two years and mirrors moves by rivals E.Leclerc and Carrefour, which have already...
Ace Hardware Debuts AI-Powered Assistant
Ace Hardware has introduced an AI‑powered assistant called “Hey ARMA” for store associates, accessible on handheld devices. The tool delivers instant product knowledge, project guidance, and recommendations, allowing staff to spend less time searching for answers. Hey ARMA is already active in...
Google Search Expands Agentic Capabilities with Information Agents and Universal Cart
Google unveiled new agentic features for Search at I/O 2026, rolling out Information Agents to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers and launching Universal Cart on Search and Gemini in the U.S. this summer. Information Agents continuously scan the web after a...
Why Marks and Spencer Is Spending £140m on Digital and Technology This Year After Putting the Cyber-Crisis of 2025 Behind...
Marks & Spencer is committing roughly $179 million to a digital‑and‑technology overhaul after a 2025 cyber‑attack that cost the retailer about $168 million and drove online sales down 18.4%. CEO Stuart Machin says the spend will focus on AI, data capabilities, a...
Lenskart to Step up AI Push in FY27, Targets Scale-Up in Eye Tests, Automation
Lenskart announced that artificial intelligence will drive its FY27 growth strategy, rebranding itself as a consumer‑AI company. The retailer plans to scale eye‑testing capacity to 100 million tests, up from roughly 30 million today, and embed AI across stores, factories, and its...
Fushi Tech Unveils AI Agent Strategy Targeting Overseas Merchants
Fushi Tech, a Yeahka subsidiary, launched Fynix AI shop, a full‑stack AI Agent that acts as a digital employee for overseas merchants. The platform automates the entire commercial cycle—from customer acquisition to payment and repeat purchases—by integrating payments, CRM, and...
Walmart Inc (WMT) Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript
Walmart reported a 4.9% constant‑currency revenue increase in Q1, driven by a 24% surge in global eCommerce. Adjusted operating income rose 10.5%, outpacing sales growth and highlighting the profitability of its advertising and membership businesses. The company emphasized rapid omnichannel...
When the Shopper Is a Machine: The Loyalty Implications of Agentic Commerce
Retailers are witnessing AI agents—both third‑party platforms like ChatGPT and proprietary chatbots—making purchase decisions on behalf of shoppers. Programs such as Loblaw's ChatGPT‑integrated PC Express, Albertsons' and Target's conversational ads, and Woolworths' Gemini‑powered Olive illustrate the shift toward agentic commerce....
Medicube, Crocs Are Betting on TikTok Shop for Discovery E-Commerce
TikTok Shop is positioning itself as the hub of discovery‑driven e‑commerce, linking inspiration to purchase within a single platform. At the April TikTok Shop Summit, brands like K‑beauty leader Medicube and footwear giant Crocs showcased how creator‑led content and nonstop...
Home Depot Puts AI Tools for Pro Customers Into One Workspace
Home Depot is consolidating its AI‑enabled tools for professional customers into a single, project‑management workspace, streamlining order planning, material‑list creation, delivery tracking and team collaboration. The retailer’s Pro segment posted double‑digit growth in Q1, outpacing its DIY business, driven by...
Google Unveils Its New Universal Cart for Agentic Commerce
At Google I/O, the company introduced Universal Cart, an AI‑powered shopping hub that lets users add items from different retailers while browsing Search, Gemini, YouTube or Gmail. The tool runs on the Universal Commerce Protocol co‑developed with Shopify, enabling agents...
Open Banking to Reshape Retail Payments in Canada
Canada’s retail payments are on the cusp of a rapid transformation as open‑banking frameworks move toward implementation. Interac’s Konek platform, backed by major banks, will let shoppers pay directly from chequing or savings accounts while preserving existing trust. The shift...
Grocers Need to Make Sure Stores Have Personality
The Food Industry Association (FMI) released its U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2026 Report, revealing that shoppers still favor physical grocery stores despite growth in online channels. On average, consumers visit more than five grocery banners per month, seeking stores whose...
Target’s Viral Partnerships with Roller Rabbit, Parke and Pokémon Are Driving Sales and Foot Traffic
Target is accelerating its growth strategy by rolling out limited‑time collaborations with viral brands such as TikTok‑favorite Roller Rabbit, the fast‑growing Parke, and the iconic Pokémon franchise. The Roller Rabbit collection alone generated $6 million in its first hour, while the...
Klarna Offers a Shopping Search App As BNPL Rivalry Grows
Klarna, holding roughly 35% of the global BNPL market and serving about 43 million U.S. users, launched the Klarna Shopping Search app integrated with ChatGPT. The AI‑driven tool taps a Klarna server that indexes roughly 100 million products and 400 million merchant listings,...
Clog London Targets 100 Exclusive Stores by 2030; Opens New Outlet in Bareilly
Clog London, an online‑first footwear brand founded in 2018, is accelerating its offline rollout across India’s Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 markets. The company opened a new exclusive outlet at City Centre LA Mall in Bareilly, raising its total store count to...