New Ecommerce Tools: July 9, 2024

Our rundown of new tools for merchants this week includes social commerce, flexible payments, luxury shopping, fulfillment, AI-powered pricing, and shopping in the metaverse.

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New Tools for Merchants: July 9, 2024

Walmart helps sell used collectibles. Walmart Marketplace is allowing sellers to list collectors’ items without incurring referral fees until September 30, 2024, along with additional perks. Sellers can (i) display the conditions of collectibles through a new grading system, (ii) build anticipation around a new drop by offering pre-orders for products, and (iii) select a preferred return policy: no returns, a 15-day return with sealed, or the standard 30-day Walmart return policy.

Captiv8 integrates with TikTok Shop. Captiv8, an influencer marketing platform for enterprise brands, has expanded its partnership with TikTok to include an integration with TikTok Shop. The integration into Captiv8’s Commerce Suite enhances its social commerce capabilities, strengthening efforts to advance the creator economy and maximize the earning potential for creators. The collaboration follows the recent launch of Captiv8’s Brand Exclusive Storefronts.

Klarna partners with Adobe Commerce on flexible payment options. Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later service, has partnered with Adobe Commerce to enable merchants to implement Klarna’s BNPL and other payment options, such as direct payments, pay-after-delivery, and installment plans. According to Adobe Commerce, consumers are embracing the flexibility of BNPL services, with Adobe Analytics data showing over 11% growth in 2024.

e.l.f. Beauty to sell physical items on Roblox. e.l.f. Beauty is testing real-world commerce, powered by Walmart, on the Roblox virtual universe gaming platform. e.l.f. has created a virtual kiosk within its e.l.f. UP! experience on Roblox, where U.S. visitors can purchase Roblox-exclusive limited-edition physical products. The e.l.f. UP! experience is developed in partnership with Egen (cloud development) and Supersocial (metaverse services).

Luxury platform Senser expands to the U.S. Senser, a luxury shopping platform, is entering the U.S. market. Senser partners with over 2,500 brands across 60 countries, offering a curated selection of more than 500,000 luxury items. The platform serves over 2 million high-net-worth customers. All products are shipped directly from European boutiques, allowing consumers to purchase their desired items at 30-60% off retail prices while enjoying a VIP-level professional fashion service experience.

Mollie and Riverty partner on BNPL invoicing. Mollie, a Europe-based financial service provider, is partnering with buy-bow-pay-later provider Riverty, supported by Bertelsmann, the media company. Mollie customers now have an additional option to pay later — up to 30 days. Riverty’s solution is integrated with Mollie, allowing customers to activate it in their Mollie dashboard. Riverty is available for Mollie customers in Belgium, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. Mollie now offers more than 30 different payment methods.

Dunnhumby unveils AI-powered assortment tool for products. Dunnhumby, a provider of customer data science, has launched an assortment solution, harnessing AI to enable retailers to identify and curate product ranges. Retailers can deliver localized assortments tailored to the unique preferences of a customer base. Retailers can use the planogram feature to optimize layouts based on customer behavior and implement merchandising rules, restrictions, and AI-powered predictive analytics to quantify product arrangements.

Google Merchant Center releases Merchant API Beta. Google has released the Merchant API Beta, an update of the Content API for Shopping. The Merchant API can help showcase products with new features, modular design with isolated sub-API updates, and improved alignment with Google’s API improvement proposals. It allows multiple API feeds, enhanced management of supplemental feeds, and support for other shopping feeds, such as promotions. New features include simplified promotions statuses, local feeds, and more.

Co-op partners with Walmart Commerce Technologies for online fulfillment. Co-op is partnering with Walmart Commerce Technologies to implement its online fulfillment technology, Store Assist. The app allows retailers to manage pickup, third-party marketplace, ship-from-store, and last-mile delivery orders all in one place. This streamlined omnichannel fulfillment workflow will enhance in-store processes and operations, remove the need for colleagues to switch between quick commerce apps or different devices, and allow for faster delivery times to support Co-op’s commerce growth ambitions.

Amazon Q in Connect utilizes step-by-step guides to assist customer service agents. Amazon Q in Connect, a generative-AI powered assistant for contact center agents, now recommends step-by-step guides in real time, which agents use to resolve customers’ issues. Amazon Q in Connect uses real-time customer conversations to detect their intent and provides a guided workflow to solve the problem.

HyperFinity launches AI-powered pricing for retailers. HyperFinity, a decision intelligence platform for retailers, has launched an AI-powered pricing product. According to HyperFinity, the tool presents data and insights in an easy-to-consume format, replacing spreadsheets. Users can model commercial scenarios based on price change decisions to understand margin impact as well as create AI-driven actions against every product in the range.