eCommerce

Walmart-backed PhonePe winds down its Pincode app in yet another e-commerce step back

Commerce /

In its latest retreat from India’s crowded online retail market, Walmart-backed fintech giant PhonePe has wound down its Pincode e-commerce app and will shift the business toward B2B services for offline merchants. On Thursday, PhonePe founder and group CEO Sameer Nigam said operating a consumer-facing quick-commerce app had become a distraction from the company’s core […]

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Shopify resolves outage disrupting merchants on Cyber Monday

Apps /

Earlier today, Shopify faced a major outage that disrupted the operations of numerous merchants, leaving them unable to fulfill transactions. According to Shopify’s status page, the company has found and fixed the issue. The disruption is particularly problematic given that customers were actively searching for deals on Cyber Monday, one of the busiest online shopping

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How a headphone site operator built loyalty startup Lantern to solve his own problems

Fundraising /

Andrew Lissimore has been running the audio apparel site Headphones.com for nearly a decade now. While audiophiles have a high affinity towards their gear and want to try out new gadgets, Lissimore wasn’t satisfied with continuously spending money on platforms like Meta and Google to acquire new customers; he wanted to find a way to

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eBay to acquire social marketplace platform Tise

Commerce /

eBay announced on Monday that it’s acquiring Tise, a social marketplace for second-hand fashion and interior design items. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. eBay says the Oslo, Norway-based company’s platform will open the door to a community of Gen Z and millennial customers. The company also says Tise’s community features, such as

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Etsy faces user boycott over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ branded products

Commerce /

The Florida GOP isn’t the only one profiting from the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” by selling merchandise. A subset of Etsy buyers and sellers began a boycott of the online marketplace this month over its decision to allow “Alligator Alcatraz”-branded merchandise on its site. Today, this sort of merchandise — including T-shirts, hats,

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GenAI as a shopping assistant set to explode during Prime Day sales

Commerce /

A new report estimates that AI will be a larger-than-ever part of the online shopping process during Amazon’s Prime Day sale, which began Tuesday morning. Amazon’s annual sale, which this year spans four days (July 8-11), is predicted to drive $23.8 billion in online spending across U.S. e-commerce retailers, as other businesses run their own

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Remark raises $16M to build out human-powered expert models for e-commerce

Fundraising /

Startups working on AI-powered e-commerce tools often rely on external data or user signals to build and improve their models. However, a company called Remark is taking a different approach by letting thousands of human experts chat with users while they are purchasing items, and then using that knowledge to train models. Remark also makes

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India’s GoKwik raised a small $13M round for a hefty leap in valuation

Startups /

GoKwik, an Indian startup that offers a suite of integrated e-commerce products, has raised a small round of $13 million, which it calls a “growth” round, that has boosted its valuation to $450 million pre-money. While the new funding round, led by RTP Global, is 63% smaller than its Series B of $35 million, announced

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