In a real-life example of I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine, Alibaba and retailer Office Depot are teaming up to help small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. capitalize on the $23.9 trillion global business-to-business ecommerce market. In a video, John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group, said the deal lets Office Depot bring its products to…
Pinterest is already a destination for style inspiration, but now it’s making it easier for brands and consumers to shop on the app. Starting today, retailers can add their entire catalog to Pinterest to create Product Pins on Pinterest as well as make shopping ads available through the self-serve ads manager tool. Users will start…
It may seem like every day is Amazon Day, but now it’s official–and it is whatever day of the week U.S. Prime members select to be their delivery day. Amazon Day is also an effort to reduce the number of shipments from the ecommerce platform. While it is unclear exactly how many boxes Amazon ships…
As more direct-to-consumer brands test bricks-and-clicks strategies, many are finding a home, if not a guiding hand, at one of the nation’s biggest retailers: Target. The retailer recently made a series of moves that are appealing not only to direct-to-consumer brands, but to its customer base. On Monday, Target announced several new clothing lines, including…
Brands and retailers jumping into the podcast pool is nothing new, with companies like Chanel and Barneys New York hopping on the trend. But now direct-to-consumer brands are slowly beginning to test the waters. And one of them–Lively, a women’s lingerie and leisure company–is debuting “The Lively Podcast: No Makeup Needed” today. The 10-episode season,…
Even though the holidays are long gone, retailers and brands are already looking at data from last season to start planning for next year. A new report from Salesforce shows how the holiday season shaped up and which trends companies are paying close attention to, like mobile shopping, dates when consumers finish their shopping and…
The direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) universe is filled with a seemingly infinite amount of categories, let alone brands. Mattresses, toothbrushes, clothing, sneakers, razors, and now, we can add men’s fertility to that list. Dadi, a new men’s health startup dedicated to fertility and sperm storage, believes the time is ripe for men to bypass the stuffy doctor’s…
Residents of an undisclosed neighborhood in Snohomish County in Washington state have started receiving packages from Amazon’s Scout, an autonomous six-wheeled delivery system the company says is “the size of a small cooler.” While it doesn’t appear customers can specifically request delivery via Scout, Amazon said it is an option for some Amazon customers north…
Brandless, a direct-to-consumer essentials company, is expanding its category line to pet and baby products. For the first time as well, some products will cost $9–a change from the brand’s signature $3 price tag. The news comes right after Brandless introduced a subscription service, in which customers can get some items on a reoccurring basis….
The National Retail Federation (NRF)’s conference last week featured the usual gadgets and gizmos to show attendees the future of retail. Buzzwords like AI and blockchain abounded at panels and in booths. And while some of the news to come out of the conference, like Giant Food Stores unveiling “Marty” the somewhat adorable robot, was…
Software firm Adobe came to the NRF’s annual show earlier this week armed with a slew of product enhancements focused on what it calls customer experience management (CXM)–including some new visual search functionality for fashion retailers in particular. This tool allows retailers to easily add functionality to their websites so customers can upload photos of…
All is fair in the game of ecommerce–even working with a potential competitor. It’s why an increasing number of direct-to-consumer brands are using Target to test a retail strategy–and why the retailer is open to it. As both try to compete with Amazon’s ever-increasing dominance, it’s one way these companies get to fight the ecommerce…
U.S. retail giant Walmart announced yet another autonomous grocery delivery pilot–this time it’s with last-mile vehicle company Udelv in Surprise, Arizona, which is just outside of Phoenix. This particular pilot will include one of Udelv’s custom-built cargo vans, which the manufacturer says includes features like customizable cargo space for multiple orders. In a blog post,…
If you didn’t know where Batman shops, you do now: He and celebrities like Slimer, Scooby-Doo, the Griswolds, Doc Brown and more–or, more specifically, their cars–make cameos in a new spot from Walmart promoting its free grocery pickup service. The campaign debuts during NBC’s Golden Globes broadcast tonight and features familiar vehicles from movies and…
In days of yore, peckish college students had to physically seek out sources of sustenance. No more: Food giant PepsiCo announced it is bringing a fleet of self-driving robots to the nearly 5,000 students at the University of the Pacific’s Stockton, California, campus. The robot, Snackbot, hails from robotics company Robby Technologies, and will include…
Delivery company DoorDash is partnering with self-driving car company Cruise to test food and grocery delivery early this year via an autonomous vehicle in San Francisco. A rep said the company will start with one vehicle and add “several more” over the next six months. The vehicle will deliver to customers who have opted in…
There’s virtually no ecommerce story this year that doesn’t feature Amazon, but it’s not the only company that made waves. Ahead are a few of the biggest ecommerce trends from 2018 and many–like Amazon’s quest for dominance to the rise of more permanent retail stores of digital darlings–are likely to continue in 2019. Amazon, Amazon,…
Brace yourself for yet another retail holiday. This time, it’s Super Saturday, or the Saturday before Christmas, and it is upon us. According to a survey from industry body the National Retail Federation (NRF) and data firm Prosper Insights and Analytics, 56 percent of nearly 7000 respondents–which the NRF said equates to about 134 million…
Surprise, surprise millennials not only love to shop but they do it using a variety of payment methods. That and a few other notable data points are out today in a new study commissioned by Snap Inc. with Cassandra, a research and consulting firm focused on millennials and Gen Z. The study, conducted from Aug….
Traditional retail is out and experiential retail that’s fun and Instagramable is in. Camp, a new 10,000-square-foot toy store in New York, is not only selling toys, it also has workshops, in-store activations and interactive areas for kids to try things out in an environment wholly different from that of the now-defunct Toys R Us….
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