The COVID-19 pandemic was many things. Global contagion. Health catastrophe. Herald of new geopolitical tensions and a long-running commentary on how far we’re willing to go to protect — or not — our fellow humans. It was also a business earthquake that shook up most industries around the world. But as quickly as COVID came […]
WhatsApp is introducing new Yellow Pages-like features to help users find businesses from within the instant messaging app, part of the Meta-owned platform’s growing attempts to make deeper inroads with e-commerce. The encrypted messaging service, used by over 2 billion users worldwide, said on Thursday that it’s expanding a feature called ‘Directory’ to all users […]
While e-commerce was on the rise before the pandemic, the massive shift to digital supercharged the online shopping industry — bringing entirely new categories of products (and shoppers) to the web. According to Adobe, Americans have spent a record $1.7 trillion online over the last two years, a 55% uptick from two years before the […]
Cainiao, the logistics arm of Alibaba, is traveling far from home to seek expansion for its business. The company recently launched its first parcel distribution center in Brazil, adding to its regional network of sorting centers in Mexico and Chile, it said Monday. Alibaba’s e-commerce business in China has been hurt by a combination of […]
Etsy is is launching a new image search feature that is designed to help users find what they’re looking for faster. Up until now, the only way to search on Etsy was through keywords. Now, users on iOS can tap the new camera icon in the search bar and upload or take a photo, after […]
Dropit, a retail technology platform that bridges the digital divide by unifying merchants’ online and in-store inventories, has raised $25 million in a Series C round of funding. Founded in 2014, London-based Dropit counts retail brands including L’Occitane, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Estee Lauder as customers, in addition to shopping malls. At its core, Dropit […]
Accel has backed a startup named Mason based in India and the U.S. that has built a commerce engine for sellers around the world to help them sell products online without paying the exorbitant ‘Amazon tax.’ The California-based startup, which has its R&D headquarters in Bengaluru, is claimed to allow sellers to have their D2C […]
After seeing a ton of venture capital investment flow into independent beverage startups recently, it was time to take a step back and see if this kind of company actually made sense as a venture investment. For one, the competition for space on grocery store shelves is fierce, eclipsed only by the fact people are […]
If you’ve watched even one episode of “Project Runway,” you’ve noted that clothing designers use a “fit model” as the basis for creating their garments. That same method is used by clothing brands all over the world. However, everyone’s body shape is different, and very few of us are built like a fit model, so […]
A data breach from 2018 is putting Shein under the spotlight as the ultra-fast fashion e-commerce platform continues to conquer Gen-Z markets across the world. Zoetop, the firm that owns Shein and its sister brand Romwe, has been fined $1.9 million by New York for failing to properly handle a security incident, according to a […]
