Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms that has startled the world with its AR-based camera scanning features. At snap’s Partner Summit, it made an announcement of a number of updates to the company’s developer’s tools and AR-focused Lens studio which includes several focused on bringing shopping into the company’s experience.
One of the updates included the company’s computer vision Scan product. In this, the content in the user’s camera feed is analyzed and related information is brought up. Snap says that this feature is used by approximately 170 million users per month. Scan, which has now been given more prominent placement inside the camera section of the app, has been upgraded with commerce capabilities with a feature called Screenshop. Users can also use the camera to scan their friend’s outfit and subsequently, they’ll quickly be served up shopping recommendations from hundreds of brands. The company is using the same technology for another upcoming feature that will allow users to snap pictures of ingredients in their kitchen and get served recipes from Allrecipes that integrate them.
These features are a branch of broader effort to intelligently suggest lenses to users based on what their camera is currently focused on.
Hence, with this technology, businesses will be able to establish and grow public profiles inside Snapchat, enabling users to see all of their different offerings including Lenses, Highlights, Stories, and items for sale through Shop functionality.
With AR (Augmented Reality), Snap is continuing to emphasize business solutions with API integrations that make lenses smarter. Retailers will be able to access Business Manager so that they can integrate their product catalog on the application. The purpose of these API integrations is to ensure that whatever products the user is looking for, is in stock by the retailer.
Partnerships with luxury fashion platforms Farfetch and Prada will tap into further updates to the AR platform, including technical 3D mesh advances that make trying on clothing virtually appear more realistic.
“We’re excited about the power of our camera platform to bring Snap-chatters together with the businesses they care about in meaningful ways,” said Snap’s global AR product lead Carolina Arguelles Navas. “And, now more than ever, our community is eager to experience and try on, engage with, and learn about new products, from home.”
Amazon customers in the United States will be able to order through the main Amazon app by end of the year since the company said that it had plans to discontinue its Prime Now fast-delivery app. Prime Now, which was launched in 2014, had become a customer favorite, attracting millions of Prime members around the world with ultrafast delivery of everyday essentials, gifts, toys, high-quality groceries, and more from Amazon and local stores. To make this experience even more seamless for customers, the company decided to move the experience from a separate Prime Now app onto the Amazon app and website so customers can shop all Amazon has to offer from one convenient location.
The company made this announcement via a blog post it has posted on its website on Friday. It will enable shoppers to order their fast-delivery products, including groceries and other goods directly through the main app or website rather than a standalone Prime Now app and website.
The two-hour grocery deliveries which were promised by Prime Now will still be available through Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods on the site. Moreover, users will also still be able to order products for fast delivery via the third-party stores that were available on Prime Now. Stephenie Landry, vice president of grocery at Amazon, mentioned the move to discontinue the app is ultimately about making shopping more convenient for customers.
Whether it’s two-hour delivery from Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, or one of our local stores like Bartell’s in Seattle, Morrisons in Leeds, or Monoprix in Paris, Prime members will find what they need alongside the millions of items available on Amazon. Now that the Prime Now experience has a new home on Amazon, we will retire the Prime Now app and website worldwide by the end of this year.
Amazon has already stopped using the separate Prime Now app in India, Japan, and Singapore. On a global level, Landry believed that they will move their third-party partners and local stores to the Amazon shopping experience before the Prime now App and website retire this year.
Customers who used the main Amazon web page or app to get two-hour service have provided “overwhelmingly positive” feedback, Landry wrote.
Before you opt-out of selling on Amazon, you need to make a very important decision about what you are going to sell here. Picking any random product for selling is simply a bad idea to start. In such cases, the Amazon product research tools like Jungle Scout works with the utmost expertise. However, if you are thinking of making a switch to another tool for your product search, then the suitable Jungle Scout Alternatives will be the best way to start your work.
Jungle Scout is always a great tool to perform all of your market research to find out the large number of new products to sell through Amazon. However, it is always a great idea to work with an alternative alongside the Jungle Scout so that you can compare this tool with the results to stay ahead of your competitors. Whether it is free jungle Scout Alternatives or it is the paid ones, the market is filled with a large number of results. Hence if you are looking for one for your best product selling on Amazon, then here are the best 10 jungle scout competitors that you can use as per your suitability. Have a look:
1. Helium 10
The first jungle scout alternative that must be on your bucket list is the Helium. This solid paid alternative of Jungle Scout has a large number of tools in its store, which helps you to have a very easy and effective boost in your Amazon profits.
Helium 10 is one of the most recognized Amazon research platforms with plenty of exclusive features. Along with its Black Box tool, you can easily use the advanced filters to look for a large number of profitable niches and products within a few seconds.
Along with its Scribbles listing optimization tool, this software like jungle scout will help you to boost your rate of conversion in a much useful way. Also, if you are looking for a tool to narrow down the keyword research on your tools, then you can use its Frankenstein tool. Also, it helps in extracting a higher search volume from its keyword lists. The tracker tool helps you to stay on the top of your ranking with the proper strategy.
Moreover, there is the Cerebro Reverse ASIN Lookup tool that lets you have a precise focus on your competitors, which is great to boost your sales on Amazon.
2. AMZScout
To make your search for the profitable product niche becomes much easier with the AMZScout. It offers the entrepreneurs a unique kind of UX with some of the videos. This tool, similar to Jungle scout, comes with a comprehensive means for the products to interpret the data properly. At the same time, it helps in keeping track of the sales quite easily.
AMZ Scout is much reckoned for the most reliable and accurate product information and useful data, which makes it great for your use. At the same time, this tool comes up with budget-friendly planning along with a 7 day trial period. The pricing on this tool ranges between $19.99- $ 39.99. All the plans come up with the product database, competitor data analysis, and keyword tracker. At the same time, this tool helps in assessing your niche properly, which saves toys time and data, which makes it a great one for your business.
3. Unicorn Smasher
If you are looking for a free jungle scout alternative, then Unicorn Smasher will be your great choice. It can be downloaded easily from the Chrome store completely for free. It offers useful insights into the products, trends, prices, and reviews for the products in real-time, which makes it a great jungle scout-free alternative.
This tool is simply great for better data and sales insights, and at the same time, it helps the users to determine the profitable product niche quite easily. One of the unique features of this tool is its dashboard. Hence it provides all the useful information which is important for starting selling on this platform. Also, it offers data analysis which is much effective with product insights, ratings, and best seller products.
4. Viral Launch
The Viral Launch is another very impressive app like jungle scout that lets you find plenty of profitable products on Amazon. The Viral Launch includes a good number of tools to help you to find out plenty of profitable Amazon Products.
With its Product Discovery tool, you can access thousands of filters to find out the untapped markets and profitable niche. It also offers in-depth data with the Market Intelligence tool. You can view historical sales and pierce data along with the ongoing trends.
There is an easy-to-use calculator that helps to determine what your up-front cost should be and how much profit you can make. There is also a quick five-star rating system to give you a better decision about the product. There is a keyword research tool to target better Amazon SEO ranking. The plans on Viral Launch start at $42/ month and goes up to $283/month.
5. AmazeOwl
The AmazeOwl comes up as a very innovative product research tool that provides plenty of useful information about the most promising products, best sellers, lower shipping fees, along with competitive ones. It also lets you have easy monitoring of the competitor’s products, prices, and on the changes of their movements in the market competition.
This tool comes up with Amazon product listings that you can swiftly browse. It helps you to find out the best pricing offer along with plenty of good reviews and scoring. Moreover, it offers historical data for your competitor’s product listings and at the same time offers insight into their movements which helps you to stay much ahead with your product selling strategy.
6. AMA Suite 5
The AMA Suite is popularly known for its suite of the five useful tools, which lets you find highly profitable products on Amazon research quite easily. With the AMA’s Top Product Analyzer tool, you can work easily with Windows and MAC computer software. It helps you to extract at least 100s of top categories from the marketplaces of Amazon UK and Amazon US.
There are at least more than 67200 categories from where you can find out your top-performing products of any category. There are also options for the filters that you can use to get the top 100 results based on the Bestselling one, hot new releases, top-rated ones, most gifted, etc. For each of the products, you can get much important data like product rank, product weight, product dimension, FBA size, etc. You can also search for thousands of keywords that are targeted for Amazon products. AMA Suite comes with only a one-time fee worth $197.
7. Scope Seller Labs
Seller Labs is quite much an alternative to Jungle Scout with its very popular Amazon Chrome extension. The Scope Seller Labs is a much-accomplished tool to find better keywords for the paid and organic traffic campaigns. It also lets you spy on your competitors with the use of the reverse ASIN lookup tool. At the same time, it makes it much easier to discover various data like estimated salary for each keyword, the search volume of keywords, average CPC bid, etc.
There are plenty of tools you can access while working with Scope Seller Labs. There is a Product Tracker tool that you can use to track the performance and popularity of the products, along with viewing historical trends. There are also Keyword Position Tracker and Keyword ranking Lists which helps you strategically to drive more sales to your product. At the same time, there are Estimated Sales Per Keyword along with Product Research Filters, Profit Calculators, etc. The scope comes with two plans- Essential and Startup. Both of the plans let you have easy product research from Amazon.com.
8. Sonar
Though Jungle Scout does not provide any free trial with it, Sonar does. It comes up with a free trial plan for the entrepreneurs, which makes it quite a great budget-friendly tool. With the very profitable planning package, it comes up as a much user-friendly tool with its featured keyword searches. At the same time, you can do ASIN Number searches along with extended searches to target more useful results for your sales.
It offers a very easy and effective generation of the Amazon listing and products, which lets you have a very streamlined selling strategy. At the same time, you can use this tool for data exporting.
9. AMZ Base
The AMZ Base works as a very easy download of the app and a great alternative to Jungle Scout to which sellers can have very quick access. It is easier to offer a guide to the seller not only for the products but also for the most lucrative market.
This one simply works as a great free jungle scout alternative with its product finder tool. You can easily use this tool to generate all the best-selling products to boost your sales. With its precise data generation and proper information delivery, it performs as one of the best substitutes of Jungle Scout, which is essential for the growth of your business to the right path.
Moreover, this gives access to a variety of well-known product sources like Alibaba, AliExpress, etc. At the same time, this tool offers information on each of the products with proper descriptions. Besides, it offers great ease in calculating the FBA fees for the products.
10. Keepa
If you are looking for a very top-notch free Jungle Scout alternative, then Keepa is the one that is worth a try. Keep works as a product finder tool that is easier to download in the form of an app or as a Chrome Extension without any kind of cost.
This tool is highly progressive and useful for the sellers, as it helps the entrepreneurs to have a very easy tracking and matching of the products and the necessary product details, which are categorized and based on the needed criteria. It offers the users easier access to the most updated and latest products which are available on the listing. Hence using this alternative is surely very profitable to manage your store properly.
Conclusion
If you are looking for the best alternatives to Jungle Scout, then the above-mentioned tools are simply going to be the best ones. Both the paid and free sites like Jungle Scout can offer you the desired results based on your requirements. However, you need to ensure that you are getting all the features in the tool that you are looking for.
FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational delivery services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. It has recently introduced a program to assist small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMB) owners to proliferate their e-commerce operations during the times of the fatal global pandemic.
This program which has formed in integration with the non-profit Accion Opportunity Fund (AOF), the FedEx E-Commerce Learning Lab is geared toward diverse SMB owners, with a focus on women and entrepreneurs of color who have hit harder by the pandemic.
“The program will provide intensive hands-on learning to a cohort of 150 small business owners across the U.S. through a series of workshops and one-on-one coaching by e-commerce experts,” FedEx said in the release. “They will receive free technical support in setting up and maintaining their virtual stores, as well as support with marketing, managing promotions, customer service, managing orders, and fulfilments and product photography.”
The participants of this program will receive a grant of $2,000 along with a series of seminars on advanced e-commerce topics and access to an online learning hub. The hope is to build the relationship between SMB owners and the e-commerce market that grew by 33 percent the last year. Through this program, FedEx believes to connect diverse small businesses with the tools, resources, and experts that can help them navigate online sales and forge a new path to growth. This program will stretch through a period of 5 months and it will start in the month of September. Since the schedule is timed during September, it is coinciding with the holidays, so that the participants have added help with marketing and technical support during that busy selling season.
The learning lab comes at a time of great uncertainty for SMBs, as AOF’s Adriana Eiriz.
“There is this feeling of an unsure future right now,” Eiriz mentioned. “Small businesses are not even sure if taking on any debt is the right thing — even debt that is low-priced or highly subsidized.”
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. It has recently announced it will now be moving several core processes to Google Cloud.
Due to the change being witnessed in the spending habits of the consumers and the revolution as witnessed by PayPal, there has been a rise in e-commerce like it how never been seen before. Wes Hummel, PayPal’s vice president of site reliability and cloud engineering, asserted the fact that the company would now be able to capitalize on the fact that PayPal can just pay for what they use in the cloud, not pay for unused data. Around 20% of PayPal’s activity last year was handled through the cloud. And the company has seen a hike of 24 percent in the number of active user accounts. There were 392 million PayPal account holders in the first quarter of the year, and last year PayPal handled 15 billion payment transactions.
It is confirmed that the company’s total payment volume encompassed almost $1 trillion last year.
With an increasing demand for public cloud services, with technology research and advisory firm Gartner saying it expects the spending on global cloud services to hit $106 billion in 2022.
Although Google is not as popular as its rivals, Amazon and Microsoft, it has managed some wins, including last month when it got one of its biggest cloud contracts with Univision Communications.
PayPal has introduced certain plans for a super app which is supposed to be released this year, as President and CEO Dan Schulman has said his rationale is that no one really wants to keep “40 or 50” apps on their phone. On the contrary, he said the better idea would be a super app that would bring everything under one umbrella to streamline the operations of various daily lifestyle applications. He also mentions that by the third quarter of this year, the company intended to debut a digital wallet. It will be an “all-in-one” app that will provide more customized and unique shopping.
With the dire need to cater to customer’s online needs and making a push into the fashion industry, Walmart announced that it is acquiring a virtual fitting room start-up called Zeekit. The retailer, however, neither disclosed the financial terms nor cited the quiet period ahead of reporting its first-quarter earnings.
It was posted on the company’s website where Walmart U.S.’s executive vice president of apparel and private brands Denise Incandela mentioned customers will be able to use the feature to try on items from both Walmart’s private labels and the national brands it carries, such as Free People, Champion, and Levi Strauss & Co.
Whenever the technology will launch on Walmart’s website, the customers will be able to either upload pictures of themselves or choose from among different models that represent that height, shape, and skin tone. Subsequently, the technology will give a glimpse of how your clothing would look, fit and resemble the experience they have at any brick-and-mortar store. Moreover, they can also enlist a friend’s help in deciding on a purchase by sharing the virtual outfit and getting an opinion.
By acquiring the start-up, Walmart is hoping to improve the customer experience and make online shopping more social, Incandela said.
“Virtual try-on is a game-changer and solves what has historically been one of the most difficult things to replicate online — understanding fit and how an item will actually look on you,” she said in the website post. “Zeekit will help us deliver an inclusive, immersive, and personalized experience for our diverse customer base.”
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, although is known for selling groceries, basic tees and household items, is now pushing itself into the fashion industry. It has managed to raise its profile by buying clothing companies with a following, including menswear retailer Bonobos, women’s brand ModCloth and plus-sized brand Eloquii. It has also launched its own private labels, including Sofia Jeans, developed with actress SofiaVergara, and Free Assembly, a men’s and women’s clothing brand designed by the former chief creative officer at Bonobos. Furthermore, it has made a deal with fashion resale site, ThredUp, to sell gently used fashion apparel and accessories — a way to carry more higher-end brands on Walmart’s website, but at a wallet-friendly price.
This kind of expansion is anticipated to aim at competitors like Amazon, the top seller of apparel in the U.S. Walmart is the country’s second-largest apparel seller, with an estimated $33.43 billion in total apparel and footwear sales in 2020 compared with Amazon’s $41.15 billion, according to Wells Fargo.
Walmart’s apparel lines include a mix of brands — some made up of mostly low-priced basics, such as Time and Tru and George, and four that it considers more upscale: Sofia Jeans, Scoop, Free Assembly, and Eloquii Elements.
Zeekit is a female-founded start-up that’s based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Its team and three founders CEO Yael Vizel, Chief Technology Officer Alon Kristal, and Vice President of Research and Development Nir Appleboim will join Walmart as part of the deal. Incandela said the company will also bring expertise in real-time image technologies, computer vision, and artificial intelligence, which it can use for other parts of Walmart’s fashion business.
TikTok is working with brands including streetwear label Hype to test in-app sales in Europe, a move that will intensify its competition with Facebook Inc. and further blur the line between social media and online shopping.
TikTok wants to replicate the success of its Chinese-only sister app Douyin, which took in $26 billion from in-app sales in the first year of its e-commerce program. Sources say TikTok is working with brands that include the streetwear label Hype to find ways it can sell products to the app’s millions of European users. The company has been seen promotional shopping campaigns before in the past, but this work in Europe is setting the pilot stage for a global e-commerce launch. The prototype so far is only visible to select participants and it remains unknown when the company will kick off the formal launch. A Hype representative confirmed the test without commenting further. The label’s storefront under its TikTok account displays a range of merchandise with product images and prices.
TikTok’s parent ByteDance is moving aggressively into a $1.7 trillion Chinese e-commerce arena in hopes of adding another mega-growth story to its stable ahead of a much-anticipated initial public offering. It is anticipating more than $185 billion of e-commerce annually by 2022, building on the reach of social media wunderkinds TikTok and Douyin. Unlike Chinese rivals Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. or Tencent Holdings Ltd., ByteDance’s apps also enjoy a broad global fan base and co-founder Zhang Yiming wants to use that as a springboard into the game of online commerce.
“Chinese internet companies will go and incentivize behaviors they think they need for the next stage of ecosystem behavior,” said Rui Ma, a partner with Synaptic Ventures. “TikTok has a lot of learnings from China and Douyin, but the dynamics and infrastructure in the international market are different so they need to make sure they” adapt.
“TikTok has been testing and learning with e-commerce offerings and partnerships, and we are constantly exploring new ways” to add value, the company said in an emailed statement. “We will provide updates as we explore these important avenues for our community of users, creators, and brands.”
With the focus of the grocers shifting towards a hybrid digital-physical future, many stores are seeking out technologies to offer a frictionless experience in the brick-and-mortar space. In the same footsteps is one of the world’s biggest retailers which after launching biometric payments in the city of Seattle, now is bringing its Amazon One pay-by-palm technology to New York City, incorporating the technology at its Amazon Go location at 11 West 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. This expansion, already lives, is the first time the palm payment technology is being used outside of Seattle.
In order to use this technology, one needs to input their credit card into an Amazon One device and simply place their palm just above the scanner. By doing this, one can sign himself up (one-time) after which with their palm alone, they will be able to pay for their purchases. Shoppers will also be given the provision to link their palms to their Amazon accounts.
This kind of technology is an extended version of Amazon’s Just Walk Out initiative, enabling cashier-less store experiences, in which shoppers could swipe a credit card upon entering the store. Subsequently, their purchases are detected and added to a “virtual cart”, and eventually auto-charged when the customer leaves the store. The technology, already available at Amazon Go stores, is available for other retailers to add to their own stores, adding another source of brick-and-mortar-generated revenue for Amazon beyond its own physical locations.
The company asserts that they will first select Amazon Go stores, where Amazon One will be added to the store’s entry gate as a convenient choice for customers to use to enter the store to shop. In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternate payment or loyalty card option with a device at the checkout counter next to a traditional point of sale system.
The company hopes that this technology will well beyond the grocery store down the line.
As a result of the expanded partnership with Facebook, Spotify made an announcement that it is adding new features that broaden the way Spotify content, including both music and podcasts, can be shared across social media. As part of this, Spotify’s Canvas feature, which adds a looping, visual art experience to songs, is being improved. Spotify will also now allow users to share a timestamped link to a podcast, which allows users to tune into a particular moment of the podcast episode.
Earlier, if one wanted to share a podcast then the entire link of the podcast had to be posted. However, there were many times when people would want to comment or discuss just a particular part of the podcast. With new podcast timestamp sharing, the user can now share podcast episodes beginning at a particular moment, so you can make sure your friends tune in at that one part you think they’ll love. When you reach the part of the podcast you want to share, just tap the “Share” button, use the “switch to share” feature at the current playtime, and then select where you want to share the content to.
This is a toggle switch that lets you share from the timestamp where you’ve paused the show. After turning this on, you’re able to choose where you want to share too — like Instagram, Facebook (Stories or Feed), Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, SMS, and more.
This feature could also be used for podcast marketing purposes. Typically, creators post an interesting clip from their latest episode that includes a link to the episode. But Spotify’s new feature could entice someone to tune in at a particular part, then continue listening. They may even choose to follow the podcast after doing so, as they’ll have already found themselves in the Spotify app. While it may not replace other marketing — not everyone uses Spotify, after all — it could serve as a handy supplement to the creator’s existing promotional activity.
Meanwhile, the improv of Spotify’s Canvas is a relatively smaller updation. Now, users will be able to preview their social share across Instagram Stories and now Snapchat, to see how it will appear. Before today, Canvas art could only be shared with Instagram Stories.
Spotify notices that the social sharing feature of their platform had become an important aspect of using their service during the pandemic owing to the reason that in-person concerts and fan events had been shut down completely. As a result, artists and creators still want to engage with their fans but have had to do so remotely and digitally. And fans want to support their favorites by posting their content to social networks where others can discover them, too.
The new sharing features are a part of Spotify’s larger investment in expanded social media distribution, which recently led to its partnership with Facebook on something the social network called “Project Boombox.” Facebook in April introduced a new mini player that streams Spotify’s music and podcasts from the Facebook app. That way, users can listen while they scroll, with Spotify playing in the background.
Spotify mentions that the new features are rolling out now to global users on both iOS and Android.
Amazon is teaming up with Tile to take on Apply AirTags together. The collaboration of this partnership was announced by May 7 in a post that mentioned Amazon Sidewalk integration to Tile’s trackers.
According to Amazon, Sidewalk uses a combination of “Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the 900 MHz spectrum, and other frequencies” to allow devices to communicate without Wi-Fi. Devices that support Sidewalk — including a variety of Echo and Ring gadgets — can serve as “Sidewalk Bridges” that work together as access points to the Sidewalk network (think of them almost like individual points on a neighborhood-wide mesh router system). With Tile coming on board along with the Amazon Echo and Amazon Ring, this expands Tile’s network coverage area that will help users track these key finders better. Basically, this integration makes trackers for lost items and the smart lock maker Level in hopes of using this technology to enhance network tracking based on WiFi and Bluetooth.
Both the companies are supposed to start their journey together on June 14th, allowing Amazon’s Echo devices to strengthen Tile’s network.
When Tile will join Sidewalk, its trackers will be then able to found using Amazon’s network in conjunction with Tile’s existing Bluetooth network, making it even easier to find your missing devices. Additionally, Tile is expanding support for Amazon’s Echo smart speakers by allowing users to see the Echo device to which the missing tag is closest. It’s not quite on the level of the hyper-localized tracking of an ultra-wideband network, though.
Last year, Tile had spoken against Apple’s ventures into lost-item tracking and had also accused the company of tweaking its operating systems by changing default settings and turning off the “always allow” default — which disables third-party tracking tools — while setting its own FindMY app to default to “on.” Apple has denied these allegations.
The news also comes as Apple launches its own AirTag trackers, a direct competitor to Tiles. Apple’s trackers rely on a mixture of the company’s Find My network — which leverages the Bluetooth capabilities of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices — and its ultra-wideband radio technology to help locate missing tracking tags.
An epic day and a half of deals, Amazon Prime Day kicks off at midday on Monday 16th July and runs until midnight on Tuesday 17th July. Pictured at the Hemel Hempstead fulfillment centre, an Amazon associate preparing for Prime Day - Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition now £40 off.
With the worsening of the COVID-19 situation in India and Canada, Amazon.com Inc. is pausing plans for its annual sale on Prime Day. Nevertheless, this won’t impact Prime Day in the U.S., which is scheduled for an undisclosed day in June.
India has been brutally shaken by the pandemic in recent weeks, accounting for more than 46 percent of the COVID-19 cases in the world in the past week. Moreover, The country has crossed over 20 million cases of COVID-19 as of this week. Media reports have said the crematoriums and burial grounds have become overwhelmed with the bodies of people who died from the deadly disease. As a result of which, many states in the country have imposed rigorous restrictions, lockdowns, and curfews. On the other hand, Canada saw new COVID-19 infections in April rising higher than the rates in the U.S. for the first time since the beginning of the global crisis. And the country has seen slower vaccination rates as compared to the U.S.
“Based on the increasing impact of Covid-19 in Canada, and the importance we place on protecting the health and safety of our employees and customers, we will pause plans for Prime Day 2021 in Canada,” said the email, sent to Amazon sellers Thursday. The Seattle-based company, in an email, confirmed Prime Day would also be postponed in India, which was reported earlier by CNBC.
Even last year with a massive surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, Amazon was forced to postpone Prime Day, which is formed in 2015 as a way to offer broad swathes of discounts. It rescheduled the event for October 2020 instead of its usual July date.
This year, though, things will still be different from other years in that the eCommerce giant plans to hold Prime Day in June, according to CNBC. It said the reasoning for that is June would likely be “better for customers, sellers and vendors,” who may be vacationing in July now that the pandemic has receded in several parts of the world.
Recode reported in April that Prime Day would be a multi-day event in June, and, as usual, would remain exclusive for only Prime members. Recode speculated that the move to June rather than July was at least partly influenced by Wall Street, with Amazon execs looking to boost sales in the second quarter of the year to help with comparisons year over year.
Twitter, a very popular social media platform has officially come up with a new feature where it allows people to tip others for various tweets. This feature called the name “Tip Jar”. This feature will be available to select users on a global level on Android and iPhone versions of the app. Everyone using the platform in English can send tips, although Twitter has added to the fact that it will soon proliferate this service in more languages too. Payment services that are supported include Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal, and Venmo. . Users can then choose to pay through those options. On Android devices, payments can be sent through Spaces. Twitter takes no cut of the payments.
Twitter says it will not make any cuts for any tips that users receive on the platform. On Android, tips can also be sent within Spaces, which is Twitter’s live-audio chat feature. According to Twitter, it says, “since users can drive the conversation on Twitter, the company wants to make it easier for them to support each other beyond Follows, Retweets, and Likes, and that’s why they are introducing Tip Jar. This is the first step in our work to create new ways for people to receive and show support on Twitter – with money.” Twitter adds that select creators, journalists, experts, and nonprofits will see the Tip Jar on their profile, and it will soon give this capability to more users.
How to use and send a tip to someone’s profile?
The Tip Jar feature is rolling out to select accounts. You will see the Tip Jar icon next to the follow button on someone’s profile page.
When you tap the icon, you will see a list of payment services or platforms that the account has enabled.
Select whichever payment service or platform is preferred.
Click on the link that will take the user to the selected app, where they can pay the preferred tip account.
With the doubling of online wine alcohol in a year’s time, the country’s largest direct-to-customer (D2C), wine merchant has joined hands with a leading e-commerce platform provider to enable scores of vintners an increased ability to sell and promote their products.
BigCommerce is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) e-commerce platform that empowers merchants of all sizes to build, innovate and grow their businesses online. WineDirect is the leader in winery direct-to-consumer (DTC) services including e-commerce, point-of-sale, wine club, fulfillment and marketplace distribution solutions. In an era of rapidly increasing consumer expectations, their unique end-to-end platform enables wineries to provide next-level service and create customer relationships that last.
While announcing the collaboration, both WineDirect and BigCommerce stated that their upcoming integration will bring modern, flexible e-commerce access to over 2.000 different wine brands around the world and take digital selling practices to the next level.
“Together, BigCommerce and WineDirect provide the modern platform wineries need to take their ecommerce capabilities to the next level,” said Russell Klein, chief commercial officer for BigCommerce. “As consumer buying behavior continues to evolve, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19, wineries have the opportunity to significantly enhance their online sales. Through this partnership, wineries will now have access to world-class digital storefronts, inclusive of the functionality, security and speed needed to jumpstart their digital transformations.”
Klein further stated the partnership will provide wineries with the world-class eCommerce functionality they need to reach more customers directly, while providing the businesses with the functionality, security and speed needed to jumpstart their digital transformations, particularly in the aftermath of COVID. He believes that although wineries have been slower than other industries to adopt, but competition for consumer attention is increasingly fierce and to stay top-of-mind, wineries need to leverage every tool at their disposal.
With BigCommerce handling the digital side of the deal via the creation of attractive online storefronts, fast checkout, powerful analytics and flexible APIs that connect with third-party apps, WineDirect can focus on working with wineries to develop new sales and services.
The new platform is set for a partial roll out in the fall in time for the holiday season, ahead of a full migration beginning early 2022.
Wix.com which is a software company providing cloud-based web development services has recently announced that it is acquiring Rise.ai, a gift and customer re-engagement solution for online brands.
Wix is a classic template website builder and an AI platform rolled into one. One can choose from over 500 industry-specific templates and make use of its incredible drag-and-drop editor. Wix platform powers various online stores, service providers, events, and restaurants. Due to this service, the companies are able to sell through online means, social media, and mobile storefronts as well as manage and track inventory, orders, and fulfillment to payment and brand marketing. On the other hand, Rise.ai is a strategic re-engagement solution that provides brands and retailers with a unique currency of their own. Powered by Artificial Intelligence, Rise.ai helps merchants grow by retaining customers and increasing their average spending.
Head of Wix e-commerce Arik Perez stated that they are enthusiastic at the thought of expanding their offering and services as part of the Wix eCommerce strategy. He believes that by providing merchants with more native tools, they can enable long-term growth of not only the customer value but also revenues to build their businesses and keep optimizing and increasing profitability. Rise.ai is considered to be the best solution of its kind in the market, and the integration will allow merchants to easily manage and maintain customer engagement tools, ultimately leading to increased loyalty and revenue.
Wix is looking forward to joining hands with this AI-based platform in order to provide a full solution to merchants to manage customer re-engagement activities, which should boost customer spending and repurchases, including gift cards, loyalty programs, rewards, and referrals. The gift card and loyalty company will make e-commerce on Wix that much more comprehensive and effective.
“Customer retention has become the top priority for e-commerce brands worldwide, as acquisition costs continue to spike,” said Rise.ai Founder and CEO Yair Miron in the release. “Since our founding, we have powered tens of thousands of leading brands with loyalty and re-engagement solutions to grow their businesses. We are now thrilled to join Wix and bring Rise.ai to hundreds of thousands of online stores around the globe and help them rise.”
Online sales accounted for approximately one-fifth of total retail revenue generated last year. As a good side of the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce all around the world has hiked to $26.7 trillion in 2019, and increased from 16 to 19 percent of total retail sales in 2020, according to a report released on Monday (May 3) by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
With U.S. dominating the overall e-commerce market, followed by countries like Japan and China. Moreover, Korea posted the biggest increase in online retail sales in 2020 — 25.9 percent, up from 20.8 percent in 2019. The country’s online sales went from roughly 1 in 5 transactions in 2019 to more than 1 in 4 in 2020. Digital sales were up in several countries, with worldwide eCommerce up 4 percent from 2019, per the report. China had a 24.9% share increasing from 20.7% the year prior, and the United States surged from 11% to 14.0%. Furthermore, Online transactions in the U.K. went up by 23.3 percent over the previous year’s 15.8 percent.
“These statistics show the growing importance of online activities,” Shamika Sirimanne, UNCTAD’s director of technology and logistics, said in a UN press release. “They also point to the need for countries, especially developing ones, to have such information as they rebuild their economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
On the other hand, while e-commerce firms got a boost from the pandemic, digital platform firms in the rideshare and travel space experienced a steep drop in gross merchandise value (GMV). Companies in the service space also saw declines in GMV. For instance, Expedia fell from 5th place in 2019 rankings to 11th in 2020, Booking Holdings from 6th to 12th, and Airbnb, which launched its initial public offering in 2020, from 11th to 13th,”, according to the report.
However, China’s Alibaba remained atop the rankings by GMV, followed by Amazon in the United States.
Despite the drop in services companies, the total GMV for the top 13 B2C e-commerce companies rose by 20.5% to $2.9 trillion in 2020, outpacing the 17.9% gain in 2019.
In the announcement, Payoneer stated that it is joining hands with eBay to enable sellers select countries to get paid for their sales on eBay’s core marketplace and that it is part of eBay’s “mission to modernize and grow its marketplace” giving sellers a more streamlined, less complex payment experience. Sellers will get faster access to funds, more flexibility managing multi-currency payments, and the chance to list on eBay sites around the world.
Founded in 2005, Payoneer from last month has begun managing payouts for eBay sellers from Greater China as eBay extends its payment management around the world. The two companies plan to expand even further as the year goes on.
Payoneer CEO, Scott Galit, mentioned and he along with the company is honored to partner with eBay, a true pioneer, and giant in the world of e-commerce. “Their goal of creating a streamlined, modern marketplace that simplifies cross-border commerce is one that resonates deeply with us and our customers”, he added. They are looking forward to working with eBay to provide the best possible experience to sellers all over the world.
The agreement comes just after the news that Payoneer will go public this year through special purpose acquisition company FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp in a deal that values the eCommerce company at $3.3 billion.
Payoneer, whose clients include mammoth companies like Amazon and Airbnb as well as a range of small businesses, saw its payments volume increase by 55 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to nearly $14 billion, up from $9 billion in 2019. Payments increased by 53 percent for the full year, from $29 billion in 2019 to $44.4 billion in 2020.
“Managing payments on our platform is a key component to enhancing the eBay experience for our customers,” added Alyssa Cutright, Vice President of Global Payments at eBay. “We’re excited to be partnering with Payoneer at a time of such growth for both our companies. Together, we will build on the momentum that e-commerce has seen in the past year, helping sellers transact with customers across borders with flexibility and security, all on a simple, modern platform.”
Amazon made an announcement on Thursday that it is shifting its annual Prime Day an early than when it is normally held, the main reason is to boost spending in what is normally a slower time in the retail calendar. The company, although still has to confirm the specific date. This two-day shopping ritual is normally held in the month of July, but Amazon stated that it will take place in the second quarter, suggesting a June event.
In a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky mentioned that Amazon intended to hold Prime Day earlier in the year in 2020, but those plans were ruined by the Covid pandemic. Instead, the event was delayed until October, resulting in an earlier-than-ever kickoff to the holiday shopping season. As stated by them he mentioned that there were a number of factors that have led the company to pre-pone the event. Among those reasons, the CFO cited the Olympics taking place in July, as well as it being a “vacation month” for many families.
“It might be better — for customers, sellers, and vendors to experiment with a different time period,” he said. “We experimented the other way … in 2020, by moving it into October. But we believe that it might be better timing later in Q2. So that’s what we’re testing this year.”
By shifting the event early he expects that people will start buying more things. There will be excited about things getting back to normal, and people probably are going to be buying more clothing items and more travel-related items — that they have not been buying for a very long time.
in the past, Amazon has used Prime Day as a means to push and promote its fashion offerings, a growing part of its business. This could be its biggest opportunity to do so, as many Americans are emerging from their pandemic cocoons and are refreshing their wardrobes.
Highlighting the benefits of new timing, it could prompt an earlier kickoff to back-to-school shopping for many parents. After the winter holidays, the back-to-school season is the second-busiest retail occasion.
By moving Prime Day into the second quarter, Amazon also could be looking to soften the comparisons it will face as it laps the stay-at-home lockdowns of last spring when business boomed. In 2020, Amazon’s second-quarter revenue surged 40% to $88.91 billion, thanks in large part to shoppers’ stockpiling during the health crisis.
“They’ve got a big number to beat,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. “All retailers are going to suffer from this. It’s not manipulation, but it’s definitely putting the trade where it needs to go to make the numbers look very positive.”
The American multinational e-commerce corporation states an unfortunate fact to its investors that its growth rate will fall from 42 percent in the 1st quarter to just 8-10 percent in the following quarter. This was informed by eBay CFO Andy Cring over a conference call. It claimed that the company’s guidance reflected the “correlation between mobility and gross GMV” which means the more people are able to get out and about, the less they will turn to digital stores to buy and sell things.
The outlook from the 25-year-old original online marketplace comes in the wake of similarly cautious — or realistic — forecasts from several of eBay’s mega-cap eCommerce rivals that digital growth in the post-pandemic era is not going to be as robust as it has been over the past 12 months when consumers were largely locked in their homes.
Back in the month of January, the pace of [COVID] vaccines was very different from where they are today. Mobility has improved throughout the quarter in most markets.
“So when you look then on a quarter-over-quarter basis, the biggest difference between Q1 and the outlook for Q2 would be the fact that mobility is in a better place today than it was at the beginning of the first quarter,” Cring mentioned.
On the other hand, one of the trends that are also benefiting eBay right now is the rise in e-commerce and the demand to buy and sell second-hand clothing, shoes, and accessories.
In order to meet the dynamic ends of the market, the company said it launched its first “Recommerce Report” last quarter which revealed that 87 percent of U.S. seller who responded to eBay’s survey said that they had sold pre-owned goods in 2020, and almost three-quarters of sellers surveyed began selling pre-owned goods last year for supplemental income.
Additionally, in the hope to acquire more buyers, eBay stated that it is was also deploying new ad formats to its display and social marketing, including video, and leveraging a mobile-first approach to increase engagement from Generation Z and millennial customers through social shopping such as its new “eBay Sneaker Showdown.”
Amazon Web Services Inc., which is a part of Amazon.con Inc made an announcement that it’s open-sourcing the device driver software at the heart of its AWS DeepRacer robots, its 1/18th-scale autonomous racing vehicles designed to demonstrate machine learning technology.
AWS DeepRacer provides a fast way to learn about machine learning programming by putting it into practical terms using autonomous vehicles as a real-world example of its use. To be precise, AWS DeepRacer is an Ubuntu-based computer on wheels powered by the Robot Operating System (ROS) due to which the company is able to open-source the code, making it straightforward for a developer with basic Linux coding skills to prototype new and interesting uses for their car. Now that the AWS DeepRacer device software is openly available, anyone with the car and an idea can make new uses for their device a reality. The company has a belief that offering the device to developers, will enable and give way to more creative uses of the car by changing the car’s default behavior.
“With the open-sourcing of the AWS DeepRacer device code, you can quickly and easily change the default behavior of your currently track-obsessed race car. Want to block other cars from overtaking it by deploying countermeasures? Want to deploy your own custom algorithm to make the car go faster from point A to B? You just need to dream it and code it,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the open-source project.
Amazon provides the ability to train models against a virtual track that matches a real-world track to build up the machine learning scripts for the robot. That way training, testing, and iteration can happen quickly before the rubber meets the road – through eventually, it’s more fun to put wheels on cement.
It can be bought on Amazon.com as a kit starting at $319. With today’s announcement, Amazon is offering a 25% discount on AWS DeepRacer ($100 off) and AWS DeepRacer Evo ($150 off) until May 27. Either is required to get started.
After introducing the cars in 2018, the company has developed in-person DeepRacer leagues, and more recently virtual races. In fact, the company reorganized the leagues last month to encourage new people to get involved with the technology. Adding an open source component could increase interest further as developers get a chance to make this their own, and really add new layers of usage to the cars that haven’t been possible up until now.
Weav, which is building a universal API for connecting commerce platforms is raising funds worth $4.3 million from a large group of investors along with a partnership with Brex.
Weav says that by using its API, companies can prompt their business customers to “securely” connect their accounts with selling platforms, online marketplaces, subscription management systems, and payment gateways. Once authenticated, Weav aggregates and standardizes sales, inventory and other account data across platforms and develops insights to power new products across a range of use cases, including lending and underwriting; financial planning and analysis; real-time financial services, and business management tools.
The platform was founded by engineers Ambika Acharya, Avikam Agur, and Nadav Lidor after participating in the W20 YC batch, Weav now in the field of fin-tech infrastructure along with many others that has the vision to give fintech and financial institutions a boost. The company’s technology is designed to give organizations access to “real-time, user-permissioned” commerce data that they can use to create new financial products for small businesses. The products that the company has devised enable its customers to connect to multiple platforms with a single API that was developed specifically for the commerce platforms that businesses use to sell products and accept payments. Moreover, it operates under the premises which lets companies implement financial products creating new opportunities for not only e-commerce merchants but also creators and other entrepreneurs.
As observed, the platform has witnessed an impressive growth that too in just a short period of time. It supports platform integrations such as Stripe, Square, Shopify, and PayPal. (More on that later.) Since its API went live in January, “thousands” of businesses have used new products and services built on Weav’s infrastructure, according to Lidor. Its API call volume is growing 300% month over month.
Consequently, the start-up has managed to attract the attention of a number of big investors including institutions and the founders of prominent fintech companies. Foundation Capital led its $4.3 million seed round, which also included participation from Y Combinator, Abstract Ventures, Box Group, LocalGlobe, Operator Partners, Commerce Ventures, and SV Angel. Furthermore, more investors like Brex founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi; Ramp founder Karim Atiyeh; Digits founders Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang; Hatch founder Thomson Nguyen; GoCardless founder Matt Robinson and COO Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas; Vouch founder Sam Hodges; Plaid’s Charley Ma, as well as executives from fintech such as Square, Modern Treasury, and Pagaya, has also put money into this venture.
Foundation Capital’s Angus Davis said his firm has been investing in fintech infrastructure for over a decade. “We were excited by Weav’s vision of a universal API for commerce platforms,” Davis wrote via email. “Much like Plaid and Envestnet brought universal APIs to banking for consumers, Weav enables a new class of B2B fintech applications for businesses.”
