Retail is working very hard to make shopping effortless.
Amazon is spending on AI and says its holiday-quarter sales could reach $247 billion. Prada has put product discovery inside ChatGPT. And in the UK, marketplaces are being lined up to collect VAT on some sellers’ sales.
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Fanatics has revamped its Shop the Look tool with OpenAI. It recommends coordinated outfits based on the item a shopper is viewing, using team, style and inventory data. A sot launch involving around 30,000 MLB products saw engagement rise 10% for the pilots - when this gets beyond pilots, it will be interesting.
Amazon has added more than 100 shopping actions to Alexa for Shopping. It can help manage grocery lists and registries, change subscriptions, update delivery instructions and answer questions about refunds. My Alexa still hears “play this song on Spotify” and returns something from a different decade.
Did ye hear? eBay reported third-quarter revenue of $3.2 billion, up 14%. Yeah, no one did.
Into the No Shit Sherlock file: US consumer confidence edged up in October as gas prices eased from September.
Cross-border payments are moving faster, but local settlement remains a pain point. That was the message from payments executives at Money20/20 in Las Vegas.Speakers asked why are we here? That’s the story. End of story.
France has suspended sales and imports for a year of condom brands made using a faulty manufacturing process, after defects raised the risk of them bursting or tearing.
For anyone with a complicated weekend itinerary: check the recall. Or go to the cinema. Or try a nice, entirely platonic evening.
And don’t double up. The NHS says use one condom at a time; using more than one can make them split. There are product categories where “buy one, get one free” is not the move.
And finally, Wilko’s owner, CDS Superstores, is investing in marketplace technology from Mirakl to make it easier for third-party sellers to join the site.
We got through the show without mentioning SHopify Editions, Shopify redundancies or the PHO hackathon challenge launched last week.
We’re still looking for a sponsor. Your brand could sit right here, between the global payments infrastructure and my unresolved Spotify issue. Do get in touch.
I’m Vinny O’Brien.
This has been The V Spot News. See you next time.
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