Adobe and Bolt join hands to ease up eCommerce, adds one-click checkout

November 22, 2021

Adobe has added a new feature to its eCommerce software tool. It has opted for a one-click checkout in partnership with Bolt, according to the reports of Reuters. Bob Ruch, Chief Business Officer of Bolt, added, “We see a 60% higher conversion rate when we’re able to pre-populate all of that information.”

This partnership will provide its clients with secure online forms, eSignatures, identity verification, instant payments, and automated document routing for approvals. This one-click checkout with Bolt marks another of many of Adobe’s collaborations.

A few days after this, Adobe introduced its launch of the procedure. This merged solution combines Adobe Sign’s eSignature workflows and instant payment in Pan America as well as worldwide with the help of MasterCard Send.

In October, Katapult, an eCommerce leasing company, integrated as an accelerate partner in the Adobe Exchange programme. Magento Marketplace of Adobe has Katapult’s lease purchasing option as an extended payment option. These, in turn, blends with the various digital platforms. Katapult’s merging with Adobe quickens the process of funding. It also provides for a hassle-free checkout experience.

As Katapult has now become an Accelerate partner, its merchants opting for Adobe Commerce or Magento Open Source will receive benefits. Their clients will enjoy prioritized support, partner offerings and will be able to access real-time data.

Adobe went on to announce its new addition to Adobe Commerce payment services in September. This add-on will help merchants to independently proceed through the payment process. Hence, it will also help avoid any third-party payment gateways.

These benefits of Adobe are powered by the PayPal Commerce Platform. Adobe Merchants in the United States will be able to avail of these services in the fourth quarter of this year. And as for the merchants of other countries such as Canada, West Europe, and Australia, they will be availing it from the upcoming year, 2022.

Half of US customers started holiday Shopping

November 20, 2021

Santa Claus has yet to come to 34th Street in the Thanksgiving Day Parade of Macy. However, nearly 50% of customers say they’ve already begun doing holiday shopping. Because prices are rising prices and there is a shortage of inventory. For the maximum part, customers intend to spend about the same percentage on presents. 19% of customers say they’ll be expending more on gifts this year.

Just online holiday shopping purchases account for almost 15% of buyers. One-third of the customers intend to expend more, and 45% intend to expend the same amount. Almost 18% of all holiday buyers and 11% of online customers plan to spend less this year. With 11% and 9% respectively, telling studies, they’re uncertain of their spending schedules.

With Generation Z beginning to reach more disposable revenue, they’re possibly expanding extra, at 31%. Seniors and baby boomers are the most likely to be spending less on holiday shopping than the previous year. The interest for purchase is rising now. With pay later assistance over the past year, just 3% of customers say it’s the most crucial payment mode. It is the most important method for online shopping during vacations.

1.6% of the buyers stated that it was most crucial in the previous year. Buyers’ chosen payment modes remain credit cards. 39% of buyers said it was most crucial both this year and the previous year. PayPal’s significance in customers’ minds dropped a little this year. The percentage of wallets stayed just under 6%. Customers prefer to buy from retailers because customers know that retailers can offer a consistent and seamless experience.

Nearly half of buyers say they’re extremely or very attracted to brands for holiday shopping. Brands can offer a consistent experience online and in-store. 42% of the customers say similar for a simplified checkout procedure because a dealer has saved their data. Also, 58% noted that over the next year, they would be very attracted to merchants. Merchants offer rewards for repeat purchases or returning customers.

Alibaba shares affected by 11% due to China’s crackdown

November 19, 2021

Allegedly, Alibaba is a victim of China’s economic crackdown, which is a part of new industry regulation. This regulation was imposed to ensure data protection. Analysts are deeming it to be the most challenging event faced by the e-commerce giant.

China, currently, is suffering from an economic decline that is having its direct and most adverse effects on Alibaba shares, adding to all the regulatory headwinds. Alibaba’s revenue has suffered from 23% to 20% this year. Additionally, the U.S. listed shares of Alibaba fell by 11.1 % this year. It is perceived that Alibaba remains to be on the receiving end of China’s consistent economic crackdowns. China’s economic slowdown is making history by slowing down in the third quarter this year. Additional suffrage was imposed on Alibaba when it was fined $2.8 billion in April for being an active participant in $2.8 billion.

Surveys and reports say that the downtrodden state of the china economy will remain to be consistent over the next few years. The third quarter was the most challenging one for China in which it was seen failing.

Alibaba gets a large portion of its revenue from CMR, i.e., customer management revenue, the sales of which have gone down to its lowest point. The figures day that CMR grew by 3% only this year. This is the result of the slowing of the marketing conditions on the whole in China’s e-commerce market. To add to problems, Alibaba is also facing immense competition from its rival JD.com and some new players, one of which is Pinduoduo, besides social media platforms such as Tik-Tok and ByteDance.

Alibaba, the platform, is floating in the sea of loss which has been determined by EBITDA, which is one of the measures of profitability. In order to fill the loops, Alibaba will now have to largely concentrate on gearing up the CMR sales. This is the only immediate resolution in hand.

Walmart and Target collides to win new customers and keep up sales

November 18, 2021

Target and Walmart put up powerful third-quarter executions this week. They beat Wall Street’s goals and spoke of vacation buyers already beginning to splurge on prizes. Yet the shareholder reaction was swift: A harsh sell-off. Target investments shut down about 5% Wednesday. Walmart shut down almost 3% on Tuesday, after its revenue statement. Investments went on to drop Wednesday, destroying all its profits year-to-date.

The two stories are at odds with the dealers’ strategy. The strategy is of consuming some of the increasing expenses of materials, labor, and shipping. Both Target CEO Brian Cornell and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon have brought an apparent line. Their technique is to keep rates low in a proposal for consumer loyalty. Americans have had a hungry appetite for purchasing. They socked away cash during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the vacation projections are rosy.

Walmart and Target have seen substantial deal boosts during the pandemic. Consumers avoided the shopping mall and purchased more groceries. Target, in specific, has noticed eye-popping amounts that make for difficult comparisons. The corporation’s 2020 deals grew by over $15 billion. And its commodity, even with Wednesday’s trading, is up over 43%.

Now, both dealers face new difficulties. Customers are juggling added costs, from commutes to the department to holidays and dinners at cafes. They are expanding through the more money that they saved during the Pandemic. At the same moment, the dealers are choosing to spend more on transport. They have had to boost earnings and sweeten benefits. They did it to ensure that the stores and warehouses could operate smoothly.

Food is a huge sector for Target and Walmart. Walmart is the biggest grocer in the nation by earnings. Target has utilized its grocery industry as a commerce driver. McMillan and Cornell said they are not noticing clues of price-sensitive consumers. Katie Thomas said some expenses are simpler to pass on to consumers.

Financial stability of US Market largely depends on Digitalization

November 17, 2021

The digital payments system is a home name today. Businesses in the USA are speeding up as the markets are resorting to digitalization all the more. Digitalization has helped marketers with balance sheets, supplier portals, and app-based payments. All the firms, irrespective of their sizes, are transforming their businesses by digitalization.

Adhering to the consistent financial gain induced by digitalization, CFOs also are investing in payment digitalization because they staunchly believe that digitalization helps to maintain balance sheets better. 59% of CFOs are of the opinion that digital payments are very important for the same reason.

The largeness of the firm is directly proportional to the highly placed importance of payment digitization. A survey claims that resorting to this method has retained customers to the firms by 50%. The desire to improve the balance sheet motivates this tendency of frequent resorts to payment digitization.

Payment digitization has drastically changed the face of commerce and e-commerce. Being cost-effective in nature, digital payments are not only customer friendly but also ensure thick profit margins for business firms.

Amongst these, the CFO firms are profiting the most, with annual revenue between $1 billion to $ 1.5 billion. CFO firms are now emerging to be the inspirations of the USA market to the extent that even local businesses are resorting to digital payment systems vehemently.

The digital payment system is the primary reason that is helping the American market to recover post lockdown. US customers are making their purchases online, which is preventing them from stepping out into the crowd.

This is deemed as one of the preventive measures taken against the rapidly spreading virus. More than 4,000 customers have been added to the line of online shopping. This clearly calls for a future that is digital.

FinTech Rapyd partners with Nate on eCommerce platform

November 16, 2021

FinTech-as-a-Service corporation Rapyd has teamed up with nate, a customer payments corporation, to expand its deal now, expand later (BNPL) capacities and other offerings internationally, the corporations declared Monday. Nate’s work has the impact of decreasing friction out of eCommerce platform, utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to make the checkout knowledge “invisible.

With nate, consumers choose the item they wish to buy, with the application filling out shipping and payment data to make things simpler. The coalition with Rapyd will enable Nate to broaden its global development to more than 100 countries. Ultimately, users will be able to test up to 900 regional pay methods, including cash, bank transfers, eWallets, and local debit cards.

The delivery notes that online marketing made up around 24% of all commercial deals in the first 6 months of 2021, as per a study from DigitalCommerce360. Nate CEO and Founder Albert Saniger noted the corporation’s work with Rapyd has displayed the widespread objective of enhancing payment skills.

Saniger noted in a statement that customers deserve a private, seamless, and consistent experience when shopping, and dealers deserve to concentrate on what they commit best, rather than being concerned about an increasingly expensive and complex product. He also added that worsening their coalition was a no-brainer, and again a victory for the whole industry.

Meanwhile, Eric Rosenthal, Rapyd Vice President, Americas, noted the coalition would give customers more chances for store recommendations or products, as well as simpler checkouts.

Rosenthal noted in the press release that they understand that today’s customers make buying decisions depending on the convenience of the deal, so they are happy to enable nate to improve their capacity to serve consumers and broaden their reach across international markets with social and digital commerce.

Rapyd recently updated the cloud-based Collect and Disburse outlets, which will allow companies to make payouts in many currencies anywhere. Also, Rapyd users will have the ability to control payment timing and have to control utilizing virtual accounts to accept payments.

J&J enters consumer commerce

November 15, 2021

Consumer Commerce is the term used for all retail operations which are independent of location-based marketing techniques. This involves the expansion of its market area to cover niche customer segments as well as expand its range of products on offer.

These involve several techniques. For example, it can consist of platform-based models of business for B2C engagement, but it might also consist of multinational products or using their existing networks or brand value to reach out to specific consumer segments dealing with specific products, etc. like for local retail chains turning towards online in the post-pandemic world.

No matter how these techniques span out, consumer commerce is the most interesting turn that marketing strategy has been taking recently. As a result of this growth and attractiveness of the segment, all the major players want to get a share of this cake.

The recent entrant into consumer commerce from a traditional retail-based approach has been the medical products giant Johnson and Johnson. They are attempting to do this by splitting the company into two publicly traded companies. One part will be dealing with medical equipment, while the other will be dealing specifically with consumer medical goods.

The consumer brands of the company brought in about 17% of the company’s total revenue, amounting to about 14.1 billion dollars. The new company (yet unnamed) will be tied to 35% over-the-counter drugs and self-care products, 32% beauty products, and 31 % essential health products. These are all segments that are expected to mark high growth.

In that respect, this is a great opportunity for investors to get their hands on this cash cow, given its high potential revenues. Like many other brands which are taking the direct consumer sales or platform root, this new J&J subsidiary shows how consumer commerce is becoming increasingly indispensable in the times to come. With the post-pandemic shocks subsiding, it is expected that online sales will be leveraging the top-line growth. Given this context, this decision may turn out to be a game-changer for the company and, of course, the investors looking to take advantage of this opportunity.

Warby Parker acquires sales rise 32% inspite of losses

November 13, 2021

Warby Parker has repeated with its sales rise of 32% in its third-quarter revenue from the level of a year ago. However, its losses have widened as the costs related to its direct listing and compensation have eaten into the sales.

The shares of this eyeglass maker have closed the day up by 9%. The Warby had its first financial report as a public company. It further went public on the New York Stock Exchange through its direct listing on Sept 29.

The net loss of Warby for its three-month period ended on 30th September. It has further grown to $391.1 million or with $1.45 per share compared to the loss worth $41.6 million even though there is a sales rise.

The company has reported $65 million in its expense of stock-based compensation. $23.9 million of costs are staying tied to the direct listing and $7.8 million in the expenses from the stock donation to the Warby Parker Impact Foundation.

The company, Warby, also said that as it will grow its contact lens business, that accounts for a 5% of sales rise. Those transactions will be less profitable. There can be a drag on the margins.

Their revenue has grown up to 32 % to $137.4 million for $104.1 million. The sales have risen to 45% on a two-year basis.

Neil Blumenthal, the CEO, and co-founder of the company, said that the shopping habits of the consumers are starting to revert to the times of pre-pandemic. More people are now coming into the stores of Warby versus buying online, which is influencing sales rise.

“But we don’t care where that final transaction occurs,” Blumenthal said. “And we’ve still found more than 70% of our customers are browsing and shopping and interacting with us on our website and our app before they transact with us.”

The company further said that the total active customers are 2.15 million, which is 23% up from the level of 2020, which is another reason for sales rise. For the year, Warby expects its revenue to stay between $539.3 million and $542 million. It represents a 38% jump from a year earlier or a 46% growth based on two years.

Dave Gilboa, the CEO, and Co-founder of Warby, said that the company sees a sales boost at the end of December. At this time, consumers try to use their flexible spending and other benefits of the furnace before the approach of New Year.

The company is now planning to open its 35 stores which will bring a total count of 161 stores in various locations to address its sales rise. The shares of Warby closed on Thursday at $53.51, which is 1% from its opening trade price.

Online fraud during holiday shopping in 2020

November 12, 2021

At least 12% of online shoppers have experienced online fraud during the holiday shopping season of 2020. According to The 2021 Holiday Shopping Outlook, the survey has been done on 3600 consumers.

However, that headline number is masking a worse enough problem beneath it. The research has revealed that consumers of a certain age and income level have experienced fraud.

Online fraud is really having a much scarring effect. It has left many consumers concerned about the fraud in the holiday shopping season of 2021.

To further better understand the shopping preferences of the consumers, the survey has assigned online holiday shoppers to four main categories. The categories include – hard-to-please, practically-driven, convenience-driven, and advice-seeking.

Among all the consumers who have experienced online fraud, advice-seeking shoppers have the highest number of incidences. 29% of them are saying that they have experienced fraud twice. 8% said that they would experience it more than two times.

The other three groups of the persona were less likely than the sample group to say that they would experience fraud either twice or even more than twice.

On the other hand, none of the practically-driven shoppers said that they experienced online fraud more than two times.

On the other hand, the advice-seeking shoppers had higher incidences of fraud. They are not among the personnel group who are mostly concerned about fraud during the holiday shopping season of 2021.

Instead of that fact, the No.1 spot is getting held by the hard-to-please shoppers. 100% of them say that they have concerns regarding Online fraud.

Advice-seeking shoppers have ranked second. The other 39% are saying that they have concerns.

The other two personas, on the other hand, were less worried. Only 9% of the convenience-driven shoppers and less than 1% fall under the practically-driven shoppers. They have said that they have concerns about online fraud.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com earns $48.7 billion in 1 day

November 11, 2021

The e-commerce giant JD.com has now racked up an amount of 311.4 yuan in sales across its platforms. It has collected this massive amount during the Singles Day shopping event. It has already smashed the record from last year.

JD.com has released its figure. It is referred to as the transaction volume. It comes in the form of the amount of money that has transacted across its e-commerce platform.

It does not directly translate into the revenue of the company. The e-commerce giant is not taking the returned items into its account.

However, it is an indication of the demand of the shoppers on Singles Day or Double11. It is one of the major shopping events in China. It eclipses Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US for sales.

Last year, the volume of this e-commerce giant, JD’s transaction, totaled up to the amount of 271.5 billion yuan. There are still some of the hours left for Singles Day.

The sales of the JD ended at midnight China time on Friday. Thus the transaction volume will increase more.

The rival of this e-commerce giant, JD, Alibaba, has not yet released any kind of figures for the transactions across the platforms. Alibaba started with the Singles Day event in 2009. But now, retailers across the nation are involved in the sales. They are offering huge discounts to further attract the customers into buying their goods.

Even though it takes a traditional 24 hour for a flash-sale type of event, Singles Day took a long time last year.

The e-commerce giant JD opted for its pre-sale period from Oct 20 to Oct 31. They started the sales before the official sale started immediately and continued until the middle of the night on Friday. The longer sales period is now happening as a part of the reason that has influenced the growth of JD’s translation volume this year.

The Double 11 of this year has taken on a different feel under the situation of China’s crackdown on its technology sector. There are concerns about economic growth. President Xi Jinping is pushing towards a much moderate wealth for all or for “common prosperity.”

In an interview after Singles Day, the CEO of the e-commerce giant JD said that “consumer demand keeps increasing.”

33% Paycheck-to-Paycheck Consumers will continue online shopping

November 10, 2021

The greatest share of all the consumers is saying that all the health-related issues are now mostly the concern for them about COVID-19. Consumers who live with paycheck to paycheck difficulty are more likely than others will say about the financial impact of the pandemic. They are more likely to stick to online shopping.

At least 32% of those consumers say that financial issues are one of the top reasons for their concern regarding COVID-19.

In comparison, 29% of the consumers who live paycheck to paycheck are comfortable. The other 25% who don’t live paycheck to paycheck say that the worries regarding finance are their top concern. They are more likely to make their shift to online shopping.

The latter two groups are having more concerned about the social effects of the pandemic. At least more than half of the paycheck-to-paycheck consumers have said that the possibility of another lockdown or outbreak is their concern.

On the other hand, other key issues include avoiding the spreading of viruses, losing the social contract, and the risk of death. It can further fuel up the need for online shopping.

At least more than a third of the consumers live paycheck to paycheck, saying those are the reasons for concerns about the pandemic.

As the crisis finally passes, many of the consumers will expect to shop more. They will continue with both online shopping and in-store shops.

Among the consumers living paycheck to paycheck, at least one-third say that they will buy in-store even more than often they did.

About a quarter of them said that they would buy online along with home delivery more often. It will further boost up the scope of online shopping.

On the other hand, at least one-fifth said that they would purchase online with curbside and will opt for in-store pickup.

These findings indicate that the end of the pandemic will boost the confidence of the consumers. It will also inspire the shoppers to purchase more both in person or to opt for online shopping.

ShipBob, a logistics startup to launch 20 fulfillment centers in Europe

November 9, 2021

According to the reports of UK Tech News, ShipBob, the logistics startup, is planning to open 20 fulfillment centers in 2023 in Europe to help more consumer brands compete with the eCommerce giant Amazon and capitalize on eCommerce’s popularity.

Divey Gulati and Dhruv Saxena launched ShipBob in 2014. The headquarter is located in Chicago. According to the report, the estimated valuation of ShipBob is more than $1 billion and offers to help the SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses) to contend with the rulers of the eCommerce industry by providing with inexpensive and faster delivery.

With ShipBob, other brands have instant access to the international networks through the fulfillment centers. Also, it offers inventory tracking, order identification, and fulfillment of the best carriers for delivering affordably and quickly, according to the report.

The international expansion of the startup will be beneficial to the U.K. initially because it plans to make 5 fulfillment centers in the upcoming year. And this particular act will enable the brands to have access to potential customers in North America and will be able to ship within a few days to the U.S. people. This will further enhance the potentials for domestic brand shipping.

In September, this logistics startup has included customization features for the holidays. It involves kitting and gift notes, along with integrations with eCommerce customer service platform Gorgias and commerce solution Linnworks.

In July, Dhruv Saxena explained how customers are expecting a faster delivery nowadays.

Dhruv Saxena said that “An eCommerce brand that is selling on their website, they don’t have the infrastructure to compete on these ever-increasing consumer expectations”. He added, “That’s effectively what ShipBob is trying to do: to help these eCommerce brands access the same infrastructure that Amazon has built exclusively for itself”.

The startup is planning for the future, and they are making a network for allowing their merchants to offer same-day and next-day delivery options as well.

Delivery app Rappi to come in function form next year

November 6, 2021

Rappi Inc., a Colombian delivery app, is now planning for its initial public offering in late 2022. The co-founder, Juan Pablo Ortega, has told about this release at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

The SoftBank Group Corp backs Rappi. It had held a much informal conversation with the banks and was planning to hire advisers. It is now preparing its listing for paperwork in the first half of 2022.

Ortega says that they are planning to IPO with this delivery app in the US from next year. A spokesperson from Rappi has said that no conversation or any external actions are getting initiated regarding an IPO for the company.

He said that the statement of Ortega shares his personal feelings that do not represent the goal of the company. The value of Rappi has hit $5.25 billion after the funding wound worth $500 million in July. Its investors are Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and Andreesen Horowitz.

In July, the delivery app, Rappi launched a program for Visa credit cards for Brazilian users. It includes the no-fee RappiGold, RappiPrime Infinite, which will offer 3% of cashback on the purchase of Rappi. Or at least it will have 1% with others.

Rappi also intends to grow financial services in the other markets. Last year the online payment platform SafetyPay teamed up with Rappi for the solution of cash for instant reconciliation with its network.

The delivery app Rappi has a network of 380 financial institutions in 17 countries.

In March, Rappi and Uber Eat had won the first round for its dispute against the Brazilian rival iFood.

The antitrust watchdog CADE has said iFood cannot sign deals with restaurants. It also cannot change any contracts or exclusivity clauses until the resolution of the case. It went in favor of the delivery app Rappi.

The initial complaints of Rappi had said iFood was eliminating the competition with its demands that restaurants will only work with iFood. It is creating higher barriers to entry for new delivery companies.

Uber Eats is backing up the complaint of Rappi. Earlier this year, Uber and the delivery app Rappi had dropped their meal delivery fees in Mexico.

eCommerce platform Wish and Klarna to offer BNPL in US

November 5, 2021

Klarna, the retail banking shopping and payment service, is now expanding its partnership range. It is now partnering with eCommerce platform Wish through the parent company of Wish, ContextLogic. It will now allow for better flexible payment making in the US.

Wish works as one of the biggest companies for eCommerce. It offers a much-curated shopping experience along with customized shopping feeds.

The eCommerce platform Wish has at least 90 million active users in at least 100 countries. It has partnerships with 550000 merchants on a global scale. The partnership between Wish and Klarna took place in 2014 in Europe.

Wish put its priority to offer more buy now and pay later or BNPL opportunities. Thus it is now expanding its partnership with Klarna to the US.

Through Klarna, the eCommerce platform, Wish’s users can further split their costs through installments. Users can now pay the first 25% for the four payments at the checkout area. The platform will collect the other three automatically every two weeks after.

The expansion of this partnership will strengthen in the next year. The service is rolling out for the use of Wish in Italy, Spain, Canada, France, and Australia.

“We’re thrilled to expand our longstanding partnership with Klarna to give our U.S. customers a greater level of freedom to shop and pay for their items when and how they want,” said Chief Product Officer Tarun Jain at the eCommerce platform Wish. “This partnership furthers our mission to bring an affordable, accessible, and entertaining shopping experience to millions of our customers around the world.”

Meanwhile, the Head of Klarna in North America, David Sykes, said that the modus operandi is about offering a frictionless way of online shopping to more customers.

Earlier this week, Klarna had made its debut as a one-stop app for shopping. It allows customers to shop all from one online store. They can browse for interesting offers and get many curated collections for shopping. Users will also get notifications for the price decrease. They can track their delivery and manage the tasks of payments, returns, etc. On top of that, their partnership with the eCommerce platform will leverage more.

Customers can now further choose the options of payments with interest-free installation from any of the online shops.

With the partnership of Klarna with the eCommerce platform, Wish enables shoppers to get the interest-free installment payment option. Now they can use this payment for a shop even if it is not a direct partner of Klarna.

Facebook allows Pay links for the app creators outside Apple store

November 4, 2021

Facebook will now allow its creators on its platform to share Pay links. Now the fans of Facebook can pay for the subscriptions alternative pay system of the platform.

This will now effectively let the parent company, Meta, further shrink the 30% tax of the Apple App Store for in-app transactions.

Fans who are signing up for the subscription of Facebook with Pay links will help the creator to keep all the money they are paying, minus taxes.

Facebook is now working under the gray zone under the rules of Apple. A spokesperson has told that the social network believes that it has got the allowance to do this on iOS. Apple made a rule so that the iOS apps cannot offer any other payment option for buying items digitally. However, the current Pay links model of Facebook is making it o that the content

Creator rather than Facebook itself sending people to pay up for a father online subscription.

According to the spokesperson, the social network will not take away the ability of the users to subscribe through Apple’s payment system.

The report further stated that the CEO of Meta, Mark Zukerberg, has said the reason for this Pay links has some other purpose. He said that all of these will make things easier for the creators to monetize further.

“As we build for the metaverse, we’re focused on unlocking opportunities for creators to make money from their work,” Zuckerberg said. “The 30% fees that Apple takes on transactions make it harder to do that, so we’re updating our Subscriptions product so now creators can earn more.”

Facebook’s future Pay links subscription will allow the creators to charge based on recurring. It will let the fans have access to exclusive content as per the report. It is available in 27 countries and lets the creators meet all certain eligibility standards.

The Apple App Store fees have also been a subject of controversy before. A court battle is still going on between Epic Games and Apple in 2020.

Apple had already booted the most popular game of Epic, Fortnite, out of its platform due to payment-related issues. Hence the issues can surge due to Pay links.

The epic game has used its payment system rather than the one that Apple offers. Hence the case is going on between these two industry giants.

As of late October, Apple said that it is objecting to the ruling from an antitrust court for making it. It will make the company use all buttons and Pay links for outside payments.

Logistics FinTech Roadsync linking up Comdata’s Mobile payments with check out platform

November 3, 2021

Comdata has recently extended its partnership with a Logistics FinTech company. It is joining hands with the provider of digital logistics FinTech RoadSync. This partnership will further help in enhancing the payment making for warehouses, distribution centers, and many similar kinds of places.

This news is coming amidst a surging crisis in the supply chain. It is making things more difficult for the company to initiate shipment and payments.

While the problems are rising high for the logistic companies, Comdata has found a way out. The Fleet Cards and Comcheks of Comdata now can be used for making conjunctions with the Logistics FinTech RoadSync Checkout.

This initiative will further help in streamlining the expenses for routine business payments for the carriers and truckers. They Can now also transfer the various funds and can process payments from any place.

The Logistics FinTech RoadSync will now also enable drivers to have access in better ways for paying the maintenance and the roadside assistance. It is now also offering a capture of digital receipts.

“The industry’s extensive use of manual payment processes has been a long-standing roadblock to operational efficiency,” said Comdata President Eric Dowdell in the release. “Now, with so many shortages and delays, creating operational efficiencies with digital solutions is even more critical to the longevity and success of the logistics sector. This partnership will enable fleet service providers to close the gaps caused by external supply chain bottlenecks to save time and improve their bottom line.”

The CEO of Logistics FinTech RoadSync, Robin Gregg, said that getting a connection to the financial solutions and effect faster payment is very critical. It aids in better efficiency and improved cash flow for the companies that deal with logistics.

In September, the company RoadSync had teamed up with FYX Fleet. It has a network for assistance during roadside fleet necessities. They took the step to make things simple for payments that can get accepted in the transactions that take place for roadside assistance.

The Logistics FinTech RoadSync is working on its goal to further simplify the acceptance of payments for both the payers and the merchant. It will further help in making the transactions of roadside assistance even more lucrative.

FYX will work to offer the customers an easy way to pay directly through RoadSync. It will allow the invoices to get textured straight away to the consumer who can use any of the payment methods.

Logistics FinTech RoadSync can complete the transaction with the provider as the payment goes through. It will further make sure that the payment is speedily taking place.

Walmart takes over Botmock Tech Assets to improve chat and voice tools

November 2, 2021

Walmart is now taking acquisition over technology assets from the conversation design company Botmock. This acquisition will help Walmart to make advancements to its own platform for conversation.

At the same time, with this acquisition, Walmart is pursuing its goal to offer non-technical teams better customer service to access all these tools. They can now work with this tool without any kind of additional coding.

“Our customers today are busier than ever, and they’re looking for simple ways to quickly connect with Walmart whenever they need us. We’re seeing one of the easiest and most natural ways for customers to do this is through voice and chat, which is why we’ve built and deployed multiple conversational experiences and have plans to introduce even more,” said SVP Core Retail Services & Emerging Technology at Walmart, Cheryl Ainoa.

With this acquisition over the Botmock, Walmart can now offer its merchants, designers good quality customer service. The other non-technical teams will also get the brilliant benefits.

The goal of Walmart is to empower the operations of business owners who are operating within the company’s ecosystem. They will get the ease in developing chat, voice, and intelligent assistant experience quite conveniently.

With its launch in 2016, Botmock has settled its headquarters in Canada, Ontario. It works with brilliant technology expertise, which has made it emerge as one of the leading solutions for companies.

It offers a simple set of tools that helps to design, test, prototype, and further deploy any kind of conversational application to multiple platforms. Now it will help Walmart.

The platform of Botmock requires no essential coding. It uses a simple drag and drop interface, which can create coding in the background with the creation of a conversation flow. This tool will offer Walmart’s users the ability to build up natural voices and a chatting interface. They will be able to deploy the functions quite quickly.

“Building seamless interactions for voice or chat is a fairly difficult design problem that requires us to consider all possible conversational flows, which depend on customers’ unique situation and needs,” Ainoa from Walmart said.

Usually, a very simple request of a customer like” add milk to cart ” takes many variables like type, size, the quantity for the action of the correct response. In the past, it used to take a huge team of engineers to make the design of a prototype.

With such complexity issues, it used to take months for deployment. However, with the technology of Botmock, Walmart is now having the ease of building and deploying the conversational experience within just a few days.

Mdada, a social commerce start-up, earned $3M in just 2 months

November 1, 2021

In the September of 2020, the co-founders of the social commerce start-up Mdada opted for their first Facebook Livestream to sell their product. A year later, they can now boast of their 500000 Singapore dollars with its weekly revenue. They have hit the total amount of revenue for 3.9 million Singapore dollars during the August and September of this year.

The secret behind this growth is “entertainment” that one of his founders has shared.

“You need to plan your show because this is not just selling; this is infotainment. Entertainment needs to be high, and that can be very challenging because sometimes even I myself run out of ideas,” CEO and co-founder of this social commerce Pornsak Prajakwit have said as per reports.

Together with the co-founder Addy Lee and Michelle Chia, the CEO Pronsak has launched the physical livestreaming hub of the company in Singapore in 2021. It is one of the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. It also boasts 11 livestreaming studios and one of its warehouses in a similar compound.

The most expensive product this social commerce company has sold through its live stream was Rolex Daytona Green Dial. They have sold it at the price of $120000. To date, the company has successfully garnered more than 5 million live stream views. They have more than 28000 followers. The company has marked its growth with 30 employees.

Mdada has further declined to specify any of its earning figures. But it said that the figure was profitable enough. The unaudited revenue of the company for this financial year happened on Sept 30. They have earned about $15 million Singapore dollars.

Pornsak has said that his social commerce company takes part in training sellers, whom they call their “key opinion leaders.” Those individuals further learn what they need to sell and whom to sell. The entire task is commission-based. Thus working harder comes with better returns.

Pornsak said that the longest live stream in front of a camera was 12 hours. The commissions are usually of 20-30% sale based on the product.

Due to the pandemic, many companies have turned to live streaming to reach out to customers. Fiona Lau, the co-founder of the social commerce Shopline, has said that their merchant sign-up has increased up to 46% during the time of the pandemic. Many of them have adopted live streaming to replicate the “human-to-human interaction.”

Pornsak has spent at least more than a decade in the industry of regional entertainment. He acknowledged that his familiar faces help much in business. “People trust you. When you tell them, ‘This is something that I’m using, and I believe in it,’ I guess it’s more believable compared to someone who’s not a known face,” he said.

The social commerce company Mdada has further ventured into the EU market in October while debuting with Mdada Travelogue series. It conducts the sessions for live streaming there as the team travels in the places of Europe. Also, it introduced many brands of Europe to their platform.

Kuzlo, Egypt’s B2B eCommerce firm, raises $3 million

October 30, 2021

Kuzlo, an Egyptian B2B eCommerce firm, has come up with an announcement on October 30. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of fundraising for pre-seed, which has closed now.

The funding round of Kuzlo has got the lead from Nama Ventures. It will give the company some more capital to further aid the small retailers in the space of fast-moving consumer goods.

The CEO of the B2B eCommerce firm Kuzlo, Ayman Elgarem, is seeing digitization as the main driving force for the transformation of the variety of industrial sectors. It will also benefit the marketplace in Egypt.

The managing partner of Nama Venture, Mohammed Al Zubi, said that the investment they made in Kuzlo is a part of the investment thesis.

Last month the central bank of Egypt rolled out the licenses. It had allowed the merchants to further accept any kind of contactless payments. The B2B eCommerce firm of Egypt got the allowance to receive contactless payments from mobile phones. Well, it didn’t say anything about when the new system will take place. Also, it had not disclosed anything about which business will get the eligibility for a license.

Egypt has recently passed its Data Protection Law in July of the previous year. It has derived its inspiration from the GDPR in Egypt.

It is now triggering new guidelines for the processing ways for a B2B eCommerce firm to store customer data digitally. It has a design that can spark the further growth of online banking in the market.

It is now imposing a penalty on the companies which are not sticking to the rules for online privacy concerning the data storage for digital and electronic ground.

Egypt has also passed a law that lets the central bank offer banking license to Fintech companies apart from just a B2B eCommerce firm. It is now crafting legislation that would help in governing the non-banking FinTech.

Last month, Capiter, a Cairo-based startup has raised $33 million in a Series A funding round to expand its platform for eCommerce in Egypt by2022. Capiter has more than 1000 sellers and 50000 merchants in its customer base. It can customize the application as per the needs of each buyer.

This B2B eCommerce firm is developing a machine learning model which will help merchants to know which items they must buy to keep their inventory updated.

Alibaba rises in Europe and leaves Amazon behind in 1 region

October 29, 2021

Alibaba is now investing further in Europe for Singles Day. This Chinese tech giant is now competing with Amazon to explore the eCommerce market of Europe.

Alibaba remained among one of the top three online sellers for consumer goods in the areas of eastern Europe in the last year. Amazon was not in the list of top 10 for the region that includes nations like the Czech Republic and Poland.

Amazon, as of now, is the top seller in western Europe. It includes regions like Spain, France as per the data of Euromonitor. But Amazon’s market share in the region has not grown during the time of the pandemic. It will remain at 19.3% in 2020. On the other hand, the market share of Alibaba has increased up to 2.9% in 2020, which is up by 2% from last year. Alibaba is holding first place in the eCommerce market of 2019 in eastern Europe. However, the Polish online site Allegro is also obtaining first place in 20220 during the time of the pandemic. On the other hand, Russian rival Wildberries took second place, which pushed Alibaba to the third position.

The competition is taking place as online shopping in this region of Europe has not gotten another lift this year. The policies to stay home and social distance remain in place for months. There are many controls over the operation to beat the wave of the Covid infection.

NielsenIQ said in a report that it is time for the next stage of eCommerce growth in Europe. For fast-moving consumer goods, there is a category that includes personal care, food, beverages, and home care. The eCommerce sales for those goods have grown double in Italy and Spain. Alibaba is very interested in riding the wave for growth. It had announced different business units for its expansion in Europe.

The shopping event of Single day is getting a spearhead from Alibaba in Chi. Singles day, also popular with Double11 since it falls on the 11th day for the a11th month of the year.

In recent years Alibaba has also promoted the festival of shopping overseas with its website called AliExpress. This platform connects Chinese sellers with world buyers, which allows them to opt for foreign business.

Not only the AliExpress of Alibaba wants to sell to the consumers of Europe, but also it wants to involve the local merchants in selling. Li, the head of AliExpress Supply Chain, said many businesses further prefer to work with multiple eCommerce sites instead of AliExpress alone.

On the other hand, the small and medium-sized merchants will also like to build their brand on the platforms and even on their sites. Thus AliExpress is more of a third-party role through the selling of logistics and service for store management.

“In general, I think there’s lots of learning from China in terms of, how do you think about e-commerce,” Jonathan Cheng, partner at Bain & Company and leader of the firm’s Greater China Retail practice, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “We would argue that China’s absolutely at the forefront in terms of customer operations, and marketing and also in effectiveness and all that.” Hence it is not unclear why Alibaba is growing at a rapid pace.

“Double 11 is going to be a great way for a lot of these companies as they start to grow. It’s a great way for you to go acquire customers,” Cheng said, declining to comment specifically on Europe. “Amazon did a very similar thing.”

But he has further noted that after years of huge growth in the number of customers, a company like Alibaba will need to think more about retaining them. It will further help in earning profits.

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