Can personalized product recommendations exist without historical data?
Greetings, Pulse Subscribers!
This week we’re short, sweet, and packed with the latest industry offerings. Here’s the agenda:
Exceeding customers new expectations
Recommendations without sales data
A new way to book a night out
The future of livestream shopping
Store-less grocery delivery
Let’s dive in.
Startup Deals
Headless E-commerce Platform | As we move toward a post Covid-19 world, retailers of all sizes will have to adjust to the dramatic way customer expectations have changed. Simply having goods for sale is not enough to stand out in the world of e-commerce anymore. Seattle-based startup, fabric, offers the tools to thrive in the new world of e-commerce. With hundreds of powerful commerce application programming interfaces (APIs) and the orchestration framework to make them work better together, fabric connects product, pricing, and order data across every channel; helps create new experiences on any channel; and allows users to update content across channels all from one place. With 4.5x year-over-year growth in 2021, fabric helps clients like Crate & Barrel, Chico’s, Restoration Hardware, and Pier 1 Imports meet – and exceed – customer expectations in the digital space. Through Series C funding led by SoftBank, fabric recently raised $140 million at a $1.5 billion valuation.
Product Recommendation Platform | When a customer searches an e-commerce site, recommending the right product can be the difference between making a sale and a customer leaving for another site. Unfortunately, successfully recommending the right product can be difficult for companies that lack the breadth of sales data that a company like Amazon has, but Depict.ai gives businesses that breadth. Depict does this by gathering data from a wide range of sites across the Internet using its AI-based platform and then ordering it to fit searches made on its clients’ sites, to produce relevant recommendations and convert customers. Depict claims that its tech can increase clients’ e-commerce revenue by between 4% and 6% “without needing any sales data at all,” according to CEO Oliver Edholm. In Series A funding led by Tiger Global, Depict recently raised $17 million.
Corporate + Startup Partnerships
Uber + Yelp + PredictHQ | This trifecta partnership has led to the creation of Uber Explore, a new feature in the Uber app recently rolled out in 15 cities across the US and Mexico. Under the new Explore tab in the Uber app, customers can make dinner reservations, buy event tickets, and book the ride to get there, all through the app. Yelp provides reviews and recommendations of restaurants in the area, while PredictHQ, a New Zealand-based demand intelligence platform, discovers events and offers additional information about them. While Uber continues to expand far beyond ride-sharing, this new ability to book an entire night out through the app seems designed to bring people back to the platform that made Uber, Uber.
Walmart + TalkShopLive | As social e-commerce continues to grow, livestream shopping – where customers can purchase products featured in live videos – has gained considerable momentum in the past few years. During the holiday season, Walmart teamed with TalkShopLive, a real-time social buying platform, to have celebrities such as Rachael Ray, Drew Barrymore, and Ree Drummond present livestreaming shows. These events surpassed expectations, and the two companies have teamed up again to launch eight livestreaming shopping experiences, with programming featuring Black-founded brands, baby products, and brands from women entrepreneurs. Viewers are able to interact with show hosts and make purchases within the livestream. Livestream shopping is already a multibillion-dollar market in China, and partnerships like this point to it potentially becoming just as large in the US.
Kroger + Ocado | Is it possible to expand a grocery business without opening new grocery stores? With this partnership between grocery giant Kroger and online grocery retailer Ocado, the answer is “yes.” Kroger is expanding into Oklahoma, one of only 11 states it does not currently serve, but it won’t be opening a store. Instead, Kroger is using Ocado’s micro-fulfillment technology to build fulfillment centers powered by artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and automation to provide grocery delivery up to 90 miles from the hub location. The two companies announced they will build up to 20 fulfillment centers to connect to an array of regional markets and new grocery businesses, all without opening a new grocery store.
Forge Retail Showcase
Future of Delivery | April 21, 2022 | 11:00AM - 1:00PM ET
Rapidly evolving customer expectations are driving disruption across the supply chain at breakneck speed. Nowhere is change happening quicker than in delivery. New technologies, strategies, and tactics are reshaping the industry – for both startups and retailers. Players who understand this changing market have an opportunity to delight and better serve their customers, who are quickly embracing these changes.
Join us for our next Showcase event as we speak with industry leaders and insurgents about the latest innovations in delivery technologies, including quick commerce pioneers, autonomous delivery solutions, and automated supply chain enablers.
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See you in two weeks!