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Walmart’s newfound focus on its third-party marketplace signal its attempts to make it a sizable portion of its business. However, merchants interviewed by Modern Retail have had varying experiences on the platform.
Umamicart launched in early 2021 and, according to co-founder and CEO Andrea Xu, has been seeing double digit growth month-over-month. It offers Asian products from sauces to meats to vegetables, growing from 400 SKUs at launch to now over 1,000. Xu joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the trials and tribulations of growing a digital grocery startup.
Over the years, link-in-bio tools have become an essential part of social commerce in the U.S. Now, Shopify is hoping to grab a greater slice of those sales with a new link-in-bio tool it is announcing today called Linkpop, which will be available free of charge to anyone, whether or not they have a Shopify account.
In the past, customer service chatbots were considered a good way to handle simple customer service inquiries. However, as CX teams become overwhelmed with e-commerce tickets, retailers like Harry Rosen are looking for ways to deepen chatbots' capabilities.
With fresh Series A funding of about $25 million led by venture capital giant Tiger Global, the company is looking to team up with more retailers in various categories this year. That includes furniture, jewelry, travel and automobile.
Over the past few years, many brands have build out loyalty programs in hopes of collecting more first-party or zero-party data. Asics is the latest brand trying to get a more granular sense of who its customer base is by testing out a variety of surveys, quizzes, browsing features and pop-ups.
Verishop co-founder and CEO Imran Khan says independent brands are flocking to his social commerce marketplace in the wake of Apple’s iPhone privacy changes. In an interview with Modern Retail, he spoke about how he's strategizing the social commerce marketplace's future.
After receiving funding in December, Food52 is looking to cover all aspects of the home category, both editorially and product-wise. The home and kitchenware brand has recently made acquisitions and five strategic hires.
The demand for home furnishings has ebbed and flowed, and e-commerce players are trying to keep their momentum going. One company that capitalized on the home goods trend is Overstock. So much so, the online retailer is phasing out its other categories and focusing on furniture and home decor.
Delivery platforms have traditionally focused on speed over sustainability: for third-party providers like Instacart, for example, grocery stores themselves determine their own packaging and are the companies held responsible for state-based plastic bag fee ordinances. However, as the food delivery space matures, some providers are beginning to take plastic packaging reduction into their own hands through reusable bags and recycled packaging materials.
Over the past few years, direct-to-consumer dessert brands have become mainstays on social feeds. These e-commerce bakeries include startups like Last Crumb, Bougie Bakes and newcomer Raize, and operate from ghost kitchen facilities while relying digital marketing to grow their customer base.
In the midst of Apple’s anti-tracking updates and the impending cookiepocalypse, smaller players are thinking outside the box. Brands like Doe Lashes and others have been utilizing quizzes, questionnaires and discounts to learn more about their customers.
BodyMark, the temporary tattoo segment of legacy pen and razor brand Bic, is going all in on Instagram ahead of the Superbowl this month. After learning more about the social media ads that were successful -- showing products in use on Instagram -- the brand drove a 968% lift in attributable sales.
With the rise in operating and shipping costs Amazon has faced, the company is hiking its Prime membership cost for the first time since 2018. Starting in March, the service will cost nearly double the rate it cost a decade ago. However, the increase is unlikely to cause any major churn among loyal members.
The competition for shoppers and sellers on resale sites is more fierce than ever. So much so, that players like Mercari are heavily investing in app design and marketing campaigns to encourage users to shop and list more items.
For years, retail experts have touted live streaming as the hottest new way to acquire customers and create instant sales. However, executing video commerce isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy, as lingerie brand Adore Me has found.
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