All posts tagged: ecommerce

Shein Buying Everlane Actually Makes Perfect Sense

Shein Buying Everlane Actually Makes Perfect Sense

Published by skeptic

On Friday, the ultrafast-fashion giant Shein finalized its acquisition of Everlane, a US clothing retailer that made its name by promising “radical transparency” into how its clothes were made. Neither company disclosed the price of the deal, but Puck reported last weekend that it clocked in at $100 million. Founded in 2010, Everlane became synonymous with a certain strain of millennial consumerism that was supposed to be the exact opposite of Shein. It mainly sold elevated basics, and told a generation of anxious and high-minded shoppers that they could feel morally good about buying yet another pair of plain ballet flats or black high-waisted skinny jeans. Shein, by contrast, became notorious by flooding the internet with astonishingly cheap, trendy clothing produced at enormous scale. It has been criticized for years for alleged poor labor practices. Given how differently Shein and Everlane positioned themselves, many people online felt the acquisition fell somewhere between darkly ironic and outright dystopian. The fashion writer Derek Guy, better known online as the “menswear guy,” articulated the vibe in a post …

Amazon launches an AI-powered audio Q&A experience on product pages

Amazon launches an AI-powered audio Q&A experience on product pages

Published by skeptic

Amazon launched a new AI-powered feature on Tuesday that allows users to ask questions about products and receive conversational audio responses generated in real time. The responses are delivered by what the company calls “AI-powered shopping experts,” which present information in a natural, discussion-style format. The new “Join the chat” feature aims to save customers time by providing key product details without requiring them to scroll through lengthy descriptions or reviews. The AI pulls together insights about product features, customer feedback, and other relevant information. For example, shoppers can ask questions like whether a coffee maker is suited for beginners or whether a sweater feels itchy based on customer reviews. Rather than giving generic answers, Amazon says the AI builds on previous responses to provide more relevant and helpful information, while also making sure not to repeat anything. This is meant to be a similar experience to speaking with a knowledgeable employee at a store.   “Customers can ask questions and actually steer where the conversation goes. Every question they ask influences what comes next, making …

Uber will now pick up your returns from your doorstep

Uber will now pick up your returns from your doorstep

Published by skeptic

Uber launched a new feature on Friday that lets customers return purchased items without leaving their home. The new returns feature, which is accessed through the Uber Eats app, is the latest effort by Uber to add “stickiness” to its app by offering services that extend beyond its core ride-hailing and delivery businesses. There are limitations to the new service, and there is, of course, a courier fee. The return fee is calculated based on the courier’s time and distance, according to Uber. Customers can only send back eligible retail items purchased on Uber Eats, and they must comply with each store’s return policy. Participating retailers include At Home, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, GNC, Michael’s Pet Food Express, Pacsun, Petco, and Target. Uber said more retailers will be added in the future. Uber has also placed price limitations on the service. Customers can only return items with retail prices above $20, according to the company. Image Credits:Uber Customers can access the new feature by navigating to their order history in the app, tapping “Return …

You Can Soon Buy a ,370 Humanoid Robot on AliExpress

You Can Soon Buy a $4,370 Humanoid Robot on AliExpress

Published by skeptic

Listing consumer electronics on the internet’s large ecommerce marketplaces is a key step in “democratizing” the products, allowing them to be purchased by anyone with just a click. It has happened to cars (in the United States, you can buy a Hyundai on Amazon), and now it’s happening to humanoid robots. The Chinese manufacturer Unitree Robotics, among the most active robot-makers in the field, is preparing to bring its most affordable model, the Unitree R1, to international markets through Alibaba Group’s marketplace. According to reports in The South China Morning Post, the rollout will initially cover North America, Japan, Singapore, and Europe. There’s no exact on-sale date for the robots yet, but the Post report says it will show up as soon as this week. This is not the first time Unitree has used AliExpress as a global storefront. The company’s G1 model, the more powerful and more expensive predecessor to the R1, is already listed at just under $19,000. The G1 is already on sale on AliExpress. It’s as much of a symbolic step before …

I Asked ChatGPT What WIRED’s Reviewers Recommend. Its Answers Were All Wrong

I Asked ChatGPT What WIRED’s Reviewers Recommend. Its Answers Were All Wrong

Published by skeptic

WIRED’s Gear Reviews team is one of the best in the game—reviewing products across various categories to help you shop for the best. These buying guides and reviews involve hours of hands-on testing and frequent updates to ensure readers, like you, looking for a pair of headphones or running shoes, have up-to-date information when shopping. (WIRED also may earn affiliate commission when readers click certain links to retailers to buy a recommended product.) In past tests, product recommendations from AI tools, like ChatGPT, have generally fallen short. But OpenAI recently revamped its product recommendation features in ChatGPT to provide a more detailed user experience so you can spend more time with the chatbot and less time reading websites and doing your own research. More people are using AI as a part of their online shopping journey, so I wanted to see where ChatGPT currently stands. OpenAI claims to be improving its product discovery tools. But in my tests, if you want to know what WIRED reviews actually say about a product, visiting the darn website …

WTO suffers fresh blow as e-commerce reform push hits a wall at Cameroon meeting

WTO suffers fresh blow as e-commerce reform push hits a wall at Cameroon meeting

Published by Sam Flores

YAOUNDE: World Trade Organization (WTO) talks broke up on Monday (Mar 30) with no agreement on a plan for reform or even on extending a moratorium on e-commerce, piling more pressure on the trade body that finds itself increasingly sidelined by economic nationalism. The four-day ministerial talks in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde ended in the early hours with Brazil blocking a bid by the United States and others to prolong a moratorium on duties for electronic transmissions such as digital downloads and streaming. Expectations for progress had been low before the talks, but there had been hopes that the moratorium would be renewed at least. In the end, even that proved impossible amid resistance from Brazil, and trade ministers could not agree to extend it for more than two years, which was not enough for the US, diplomats said. US officials and business groups expressed frustration at the impasse, and the failure to reach a joint decision was described as a “major setback for global trade” by Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle. Singapore, which …

Countries sidestep WTO deadlock to implement e-commerce deal – POLITICO

Countries sidestep WTO deadlock to implement e-commerce deal – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

“Today, ministers decided to, let’s just move on,” South Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo told POLITICO. “Don’t wait until everybody agrees on everything. Because time is of the essence.” Han-koo labeled it a “practical approach,” under which “when the time comes more members join … and consensus is formed to integrate this into the WTO.” Meanwhile, however, the deal should be implemented “as soon as possible [where] members can reap the benefit,” he said. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said: “By moving forward with the E-commerce Agreement, participating economies are … demonstrating that the multilateral trading system can respond, and is responding, to new challenges.” However, many delegates on the ground are not convinced. “This is effectively an admission that the WTO is not capable of delivering multilateral or plurilateral agreements for the foreseeable future,” said Chris Southworth, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce UK. “Countries and blocs will have to negotiate large scale deals on their own.” WTO members “have tried six times for integration of the [JSI] in the WTO. … It’s …

Why Walmart and OpenAI Are Shaking Up Their Agentic Shopping Deal

Why Walmart and OpenAI Are Shaking Up Their Agentic Shopping Deal

Published by skeptic

The chatbot also is intentionally flexible, with the new integrations in mind. “It can take on slight tweaks to the look and feel, to make it feel like a natural part of other environments,” Danker says. Shopping Shift The new Walmart experience is part of a broader pivot for OpenAI to focus on having checkouts take place within embedded apps, the Information reported earlier this month, without providing a rationale for the change. Danker spoke about the shift at the Morgan Stanley investor conference this month but didn’t cite the data behind it. OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson says the company wants to focus on improvements to help users research products, while giving merchants more control over checkout. “We appreciate our partners for learning with us,” she added. Walmart has excluded some products from Instant Checkout because it knew “the single-item checkout experience is detrimental” in some cases, Danker says. For instance, when someone buys a TV, they likely need to buy accessories like HDMI cables. On its website, Walmart can nudge shoppers to buy a …

How to make your e-commerce product visible to AI agents? Use this new system trusted by L’Oréal, Unilever, Mars & Beiersdorf

How to make your e-commerce product visible to AI agents? Use this new system trusted by L’Oréal, Unilever, Mars & Beiersdorf

Published by skeptic

For future-focused e-commerce brands, the primary customer is rapidly changing from a person behind a screen to the AI agents that said human customer deploys on their behalf to research and, if projections are correct, purchase the product on their behalf. Investment banking and financial services giant Morgan Stanley, for instance, has published research suggesting 10-20% of the entire U.S. commerce spend could be agentic by 2030 — amounting to $190 billion to $385 billion. In response to this seismic shift, the four-year-old agentic AI e-commerce startup Azoma has unveiled the Agentic Merchant Protocol (AMP). This new framework is designed to provide high-volume retailers — such as grocery brands, electronics manufacturers, and fashion labels — with a “brand-friendly” anchor in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by autonomous shoppers The idea is compelling and deceptively simple at its core: instead of the current status quo wherein merchants selling physical products online have to manually enter information about each product like SKUs and materials on different online marketplaces and product listing aggregators (e.g. Walmart, Amazon, Google Shopping, etc.) …

WorldFirst: The e-commerce payment partner you need to know

WorldFirst: The e-commerce payment partner you need to know

Published by Daniella Wilson

In the fast-paced world of global e-commerce, the difference between healthy margins and breaking even often comes down to money management. For small businesses and online sellers, traditional banks can become a bottleneck, charging high foreign exchange (FX) fees and holding business up with snail-paced transfer speeds. If you’re battling with outdated international banking processes, it might just be time to switch it up. WorldFirst is that alternative to a traditional bank. A global leader in international financial services since 2004, WorldFirst is a trusted partner for 1.5 million+ businesses negotiating cross-border trade and international payments. Its flagship WorldFirst Business Account is designed to combat the complexities of running a global business, allowing you to focus on what matters most: growing your business’s footprint and profit margin. Streamline your global operations with multi-currency management (WorldFirst) The cornerstone of the WorldFirst experience is the multi-currency World Account. Unlike traditional business accounts that tether you to a single currency, WorldFirst allows you to receive, hold, and spend in over 20 currencies. This is one of the many …