Commerce

Amazon kills ‘Inspire,’ its TikTok-style feed for discovering products

Commerce /

Amazon is shutting down “Inspire,” its TikTok-like, short-form video and photo feed that was previously available in its mobile app. The feed allowed users to discover products and shop from content created by influencers, brands, and other customers. A company spokesperson confirmed the move to TechCrunch, saying “We regularly evaluate various features to better align […]

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EU’s Disinformation Code moves closer to becoming DSA benchmark

Commerce /

Staying on the right side of the European Union’s online rulebook when it comes to the slippery topic of disinformation is set to get easier for platforms that commit to the bloc’s long-standing Code of Practice on Disinformation. You know, the voluntary Code that Elon Musk pulled X (formerly Twitter) out of back in 2023.

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Lanch bags $27M for a social media-skewed take on fast food

Commerce /

E-commerce startups built around food continue to gobble up funding as investors look for sticky consumer concepts that can scale without breaking the bank. On Wednesday, Germany’s Lanch — which taps social media and influencers to develop popular food brands alongside retail networks for distributing them — closed funding of €26 million ($27 million) to

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Shopify took down Kanye’s swastika t-shirt shop, but another antisemitic storefront still operates

Commerce /

Shopify took down Kanye West’s online store after the musician sold t-shirts with the swastika symbol. West, who also goes by Ye, advertised his online store in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday, directing viewers to his website, where the only item listed was the swastika t-shirt. Though Shopify removed a policy banning sellers from

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Saudi’s BRKZ closes $17M Series A for its construction tech platform

Commerce /

Construction procurement is highly fragmented, manual, and opaque, forcing contractors to juggle multiple suppliers, endure lengthy negotiations, and deal with delayed payments. In Saudi Arabia, where trillion-dollar infrastructure and real estate projects are underway, these inefficiencies are even more pronounced. To address this, BRKZ, a Riyadh-based construction tech startup, offers a tech-enabled managed marketplace that

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Shopify pushes for ‘open trade’ as Trump delays import exemption

Commerce /

On the same day that President Donald Trump delayed ending a trade exemption targeting certain Chinese imports, ecommerce company Shopify published a blog post making its stance on U.S. trade policy clear. In the post, Shopify endorsed “open trade,” calling for regulators to give online merchants the “freedom to expand without constraints imposed by geopolitical

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Swiggy, 2024’s biggest tech listing, falls below its IPO price and 2022 valuation

Commerce /

Indian food delivery company Swiggy’s stock fell below both its IPO price and its last private valuation as mounting losses and a wavering market position in quick commerce pressured its margins in the last quarter. The food delivery company’s stock fell as low as ₹374.80 ($4.29) on Thursday below its November IPO price of ₹390,

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Shein gets more questions from EU about DSA compliance

Commerce /

After consumer protection scrutiny dialled up on fast-fashion giant Shein in the European Union on Wednesday, the bloc’s executive announced Thursday that it’s sent a fresh request for information (RFI) to the ecommerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pan-EU online governance framework. The Commission oversees larger platforms’ compliance with a subset of

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Sotira lands $2M to help brands offload and monetize their surplus inventory

Commerce /

An estimated 20% to 30% of all inventory in the U.S. is surplus, with much of it ending up in landfills. A startup called Sotira wants to help address this problem: It leverages AI to help companies offload and monetize their surplus inventory. Sotira partners with brands to offload millions of pounds of surplus grocery,

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