Hi Shopifreaks
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. What a wild time in e-commerce and tech last week turned into! China dominated holiday shopping on Black Friday, Australia banned social media, and Shopify launched its giant globe for the second year in a row.
While we were all busy eating Turkey and arguing with relatives about politics, governments and Big Tech were on the move — but unfortunately not fast enough in Canada to get deliveries back up and running in time for the holidays…
Let's dive into this week's edition where I cover:
- A record-breaking Black Friday
- China retailers pulling ahead in the US
- TikTok's upcoming ruling
- Shopify's big Live Globe
- The Canada Post Strike continues
- Australia bans social media for kids
- X taps into Shopify merchants
- TikTok expands to Spain and Ireland
- Amazon workers go on strike (again)
- Google's gameshow with Jimmy Kimmel
- Amazon faces capacity issues in Europe
All this and more in this week's 202nd Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
PS: Don't forget to submit your 2025 E-commerce Predictions! Hit reply and share yours now, or send me the link to your post if you've already shared yours publicly.
Stat of the Week
Adobe revealed that US consumers made a record-breaking $10.8B of purchases, up 10.2% from last year. Salesforce gave a much higher estimate of $17.5B, up 7% from last year using their data. Globally, Salesforce said spending also reached a new high during the 24 hour period, reaching $74.4B for the first time, up 5% YoY.
That's a fairly large discrepancy between Salesforce and Adobe data!
Salesforce's figures are based on shopping data from 1.5B consumers captured across its customers and other data feeds in its Commerce, Marketing, and Service Clouds, while Adobe says its data is based on 1 trillion visits tracked to US retail sites, covering 100M+ SKUs and 18 product categories. So should we split the difference?
1. China is dominating holiday shopping this year
Chinese e-commerce platforms like Temu, Shein, and TikTok Shop are capturing more holiday spending in the US this year, as shoppers hunt for deals. These companies have outperformed other retailers this holiday season, according to an Earnest Analytics report that analyzed credit card transaction data.
Here's how Chinese sites performed:
- TikTok Shop, which debuted in the US a little over a year ago, saw sales more than triple compared to last year during the first two weeks of November.
- Temu, which launched in the US in 2022, saw sales rise 18%.
- Shein, which began operations in the US in 2017, saw sales grow 16%.
Meanwhile back in the US:
- Amazon has seen flat sales during the first two weeks of November.
- Target saw sales fall by more than 4%.
- Walmart is down 1.9%
- Best Buy is down 15.2%.
- Nike and Under Armour are down a whopping 19.9% and 24.3% respectively.
Not all US brands are doing poorly though:
- Victoria's Secret is up 9.6%.
- Chewy is up 5.5%.
- Abercrombie & Fitch is up 3.6%.
US retailers just simply can't beat direct-from-China marketplaces on price, although Amazon is certainly trying with the recent launch of its Haul marketplace.
Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Group, told Modern Retail:
“Temu, Shein and TikTok Shops have created somewhere between $50 billion and $100 billion worth of consumer demand in the U.S., and they’re fulfilling it. Haul is Amazon’s attempt to try to get some of that demand that it missed out on without eroding their current, much bigger, more important e-commerce business.”
Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada to be made through Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop, and AliExpress this year.
2. TikTok ruling expected by Dec 6th
A US federal appeals court is expected to rule by Dec 6th whether to uphold the law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in the US or face a nationwide ban. President-elect Donald Trump said he will not allow TikTok to be banned, but the decision is set to be made under the Biden administration, potentially leaving Trump with few options to reverse the action (at least quickly).
Reuters outlined three possibilities that could take place:
- Court upholds the law, validating the US government's position and compelling TikTok to quickly appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court or to the full District of Columbia circuit.
- Court upholds the law, but says it's unfair that the legislation expressly singles out TikTok under the Constitution's prohibition of “Bills of Attainder” — which are laws that directly impose a punishment on a specific person or entity. In that case, the court could direct the US government to follow a process to certify that TikTok is a national security threat, giving the app a lifeline or a significant delay in a ban.
- Court rules that the law is unconstitutional and violates American's free speech rights, agreeing with TikTok and ByteDance's argument, which calls the law a “radical departure from this country's tradition of championing an open Internet.” In that case, the Justice Department could also appeal to the Supreme Court or full appeals court panel.
Unless overturned, the law is set to take effect on Jan 19, 2025. However given the scenarios outlined above, where both sides have an opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court, an extension seems likely.
Trump’s Cabinet picks are deeply divided over banning TikTok.
Pro TikTok:
- Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic Rep., Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, over 1 million TikTok followers.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice for health and human services secretary, over 3 million followers.
- Mehmet Oz, ie: Dr. Oz, Trump's pick to direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 1.1 million TikTok followers.
- Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican candidate for President, Trump said will work alongside Elon Musk in a newly created government efficiency advisory roles, 855,000 TikTok followers. Ramaswamy flip-flopped on TikTok, previously calling it “digital fentanyl.”
- Elon Musk, doesn't have a TikTok profile, but opposes a ban. He posted in April, “In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform.”
Against TikTok:
- Michael Waltz, Republican Representative, Trump's incoming national security adviser. Previously said that Biden's campaign should be “ashamed” for joining TikTok after issuing the law.
- Marco Rubio, Republican Senator, has been advocating against TikTok since the company first merged with Musical.ly in 2019. Called the legislation a “huge step toward confronting Beijing's malign influence.”
- Kristi Noem, South Dakota Governor, Trump's choice for interior secretary, banned TikTok from state-owned devices.
- Doug Burgum, North Dakota Governor, Trump's pick for interior secretary, also banned TikTok from state-owned devices.
- Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Oregon Representative, Trump’s pick for labor secretary, voted in favor of the bill.
- Elise Stefanik, New York Representative, Trump's choice for ambassador to the United Nations, voted in favor of the bill.
- Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Trump's choice for surgeon general, advocated for a ban on not just TikTok, but on all social media for children.
On The Fence:
- Doug Collins, former Georgia Representative, Trump's pick for veteran affairs secretary, opposed TikTok's Chinese ownership, but said that the legislative path to ban it was a “tough decision” that created a path to government overreach.
3. Shopify goes global again with its Live Globe in Las Vegas
Shopify launched its second annual Black Friday Cyber Monday Live Globe in collaboration with Sphere Entertainment Co. in Las Vegas, where they projected a real-time visualization of purchases made through Shopify merchants worldwide onto the 875,000 sq. ft. Exosphere building. Watch a video of the sphere in action from Tobias Lütke on X.
The data is fed from Shopify's online Live Globe, which shows actual sales happening live for Shopify merchants every second. This is the seventh year in a row that Shopify has shared BFCM real-time data on its online Live Globe, and the second year the company has projected the globe onto the Exosphere in Las Vegas.
This year, Shopify's engineers and data scientists brought the Live Globe into the cockpit of a spaceship overlooking Earth. New features to Live Globe this year include:
- Interactivity in every direction – everything in the cockpit is interactive, from the Globe itself to the Shoppy mascot bobblehead.
- Synthesizer – you can actually see and hear the sales happening in real-time this year.
- VR Compatible – users with an Apple Vision Pro or Quest 3/3S can immerse themselves in the experience.
- Gravity Toggle – users can turn off gravity in the Live Globe environment and watch the built-in physics system take over.
- More Data – additional infrastructure data stats this year like webhooks per minute and CDN requests per minute.
- Easter Eggs – the more you play around in the cockpit, the more you’ll discover hidden features. Did you find the button that links to Shopifreaks.com?
This is absolutely one of my favorite campaigns by Shopify, and I hope that the annual tradition continues year after year.
How was Black Friday for Shopify merchants?
Shopify reported $5B in Black Friday gross merchandise volume across its global network of merchants, up 22% YoY.
4. The Canada Post strike continues
About 55,000 Canada Post workers went on strike for the second time in six years earlier this month after their union said it had failed to reach a pay deal with the postal service. The union is demanding wage increases in line with inflation, cost of living adjustment payments to be rolled into the basic wage rate, and safe working conditions (which seem like reasonable demands to me).
Flash forward to Black Friday / Cyber Monday and the strike continues, which is having a huge impact on retailers' abilities to get products to customers in time for the holidays. Even the US Postal Service temporarily suspended accepting mail headed to Canada due to the strike.
Lorne James, who owns Otter Valley Railway, a model train company in Ontario told the BBC that he’s lost C$120,000 in sales since the strike began. Up until two weeks ago, James was shipping 99% of his deliveries with Canada Post.
Shopify stepped in to lend support to small business owners.
In an open letter, Shopify called on the federal government to “do whatever is necessary” to get striking Canada Post workers back to work ahead of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend, claiming that at least 67,000 of its associated small businesses rely on Canada Post to fulfill orders, especially to rural areas and to what Shopify calls a “monopoly” on P.O. box deliveries.
Shopify added that Minister of Labour and Seniors Steve MacKinnon must immediately intervene to “prevent a devastating blow to Canadian small businesses at their most critical time of year.”
Negotiations were at a stall.
Negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have broken down, particularly over the issue of allowing temporary workers to help expand the company's delivery to seven-days-a-week.
Canada Post says it has delivered 10M fewer parcels since the strike began and began temporarily laying off striking workers last week — a move the union has called illegal, but which Canada Post says are in accordance with the Canada Labour Code.
However on Sunday (yesterday), Canada Post presented the union with a “comprehensive framework for reaching negotiated agreements,” which includes proposals to bring greater flexibility to its delivery model, while also “demonstrating movement on other key issues.”
Canada Post wrote in a statement:
“It is our hope that these proposals will reignite discussions and, together with the support of mediators, help the parties work toward final agreements. To facilitate talks, we will not be providing further details outside the negotiations process at this time. We understand the impact CUPW’s national strike is having on our employees, customers and so many Canadians. Canada Post remains committed to negotiating new collective agreements that will provide the certainty everyone is looking for.”
While it's great that Canada Post and the workers union may come to a resolution soon and get employees back to work, it might be too little too late this year for small businesses to have a successful holiday season.
5. Australia bans social media for kids under 16
The Australian Parliament approved on Thursday a social media ban for children under 16 years old, marking the first country in the world to set such a restriction.
The law will require platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X, and Instagram to implement robust age-verification systems to prevent kids from creating accounts, or face fines up to 50M Australian dollars.
The ban does not apply to “messaging apps, gaming platforms, or educational services” including YouTube, Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, Kids Helpline and Google Classroom.
Wait, so YouTube and WhatsApp are educational services, but TikTok and Snapchat are social media?
Doesn't WhatsApp have status updates, and YouTube has shortform videos? Honestly what's the difference between YouTube and TikTok in terms of content served to children?
Proponents of the law say:
“Platforms now have a social responsibility to ensure the safety of our kids is a priority for them.” – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
“This is a responsibility these companies should have been fulfilling long ago, but for too long they have shirked these responsibilities in favor of profit.” – Sen. Maria Kovacic
Sonya Ryan, whose 15-year-old daughter Carly was murdered by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretended to be a teenager online, described the Senate vote as a “monumental moment in protecting our children from horrendous harms online.”
Opponents of the law say:
“We are concerned about the process which rushed the legislation through while failing to properly consider the evidence, what industry already does to ensure age-appropriate experiences, and the voices of young people.” – Meta
“The social media ban legislation has been released and passed within a week and, as a result, no one can confidently explain how it will work in practice – the community and platforms are in the dark about what exactly is required of them.” – Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group, Inc.
“This policy will hurt vulnerable young people the most, especially in regional communities and especially the LGBTQI community, by cutting them off.” – Sen. David Shoebridge
“The government is running blindfolded into a brick wall by rushing this legislation. Young Australians deserve evidence-based policies, not decisions made in haste.” – Christopher Stone, executive director of Suicide Prevention Australia
What comes next?
Social media companies have one year to work out how to implement the ban before penalties are enforced.
Well, congratulations I guess to all Australian parents who no longer have to protect or parent their children, as the responsibility has been abdicated to Big Tech.
6. X matches Shopify merchant ad spend up to $100k
X announced a new promotion in collaboration with Shopify in which X will match Shopify merchants' ad spend this holiday season. The company wrote:
“Speak with an X Ads Specialist to earn a 100% match on your ad spend for 30 days, up to $100k USD. Must be a Shopify seller in the US or Canada to participate.”
Here's how to take advantage of the offer:
- Submit the form and install the X Shopify App
- Connect with an X Ads Specialist
- Launch campaigns
- Receive free credits after 30 days
The offer is valid until Dec 8th, and the ad credits remain valid for 30 days from the date of issue. No minimum ad spend is required. News articles from last week indicate that the offer initially ended on Dec 1 and required a minimum ad spend, but both those terms have since changed.
Are you doing okay, X?
X is currently on track to bring in an estimated $2.9B in total revenue for 2024, which is a significant decline of the $4.4B that Twitter earned in 2022. It's estimated that X is now worth around $9.9B, which represents an 80% drop from the $44B Musk paid for the platform in 2022.
7. TikTok Shop expands to Spain and Ireland
TikTok is gearing up to launch its Shop platform in Spain and Ireland in the coming months, according to two store owners approached by the platform. Merchants are being invited to join TikTok Shop in both countries, which are listed as “invite-only” markets on TikTok's seller page.
These moves mark TikTok Shop's first push into Europe in three years, after its British debut in 2021. TikTok's plans to expand into other parts of Europe have been delayed several times, first to summer 2024, and then to October.
TikTok Shop is currently available in the US, UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Singapore — and it seems to be doing great! At least in the US…
Business Insider reports that TikTok Shop saw over $100M in single-day sales on Black Friday with creators hosting over 30,000 livestreams throughout the day. Content creator and Canvas Beauty founder, Stormi Steele, earned $2M in a single livestream!
Overall, the most popular Black Friday product categories on the app were fashion, beauty, and home goods.
8. The fifth annual Amazon worker strike
Amazon workers from 20 countries around the world went on strike for Black Friday in protests dubbed “Make Amazon Pay,” which are scheduled to last until today, Dec 2nd.
The demonstrations are happening over “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy” according to the event organizers, who are petitioning the company for increased wages, better working conditions, and the permission to form unions.
This is the fifth straight year of Make Amazon Pay actions, which always start on Black Friday. The aim of the movement is to “hold Amazon accountable around the world” by targeting the busiest holiday shopping weekend.
Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, said:
“Amazon's relentless pursuit of profit comes at a cost to workers, the environment and democracy. We stand united in demanding that Amazon treat its workers fairly, respect fundamental rights and stop undermining the systems meant to protect us all.”
Amazon says that the organizers are being “intentionally misleading” and continuing “to promote a false narrative.” The company argues that it has “created more than 1.5M jobs around the world” and that it provides “a modern, safe and engaging workplace.”
At this point, Amazon must build these strikes into the cost of doing business and hire additional seasonal help accordingly at its facilities around the world. I support the mission, but the execution doesn't seem to be having an impact on Amazon's bottom line.
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
Google launched a series of ad campaigns — one aimed at changing the way users talk and interact with its AI technology, Gemini, on Pixel phones. Another showcases Google Shopping featured as a game show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel that explores how friends exchange gifts during the holidays. Each game show episode features Kimmel and a pair of celebrities who compete in activities similar to those seen on “The Price Is Right” and “The Dating Game,” relying on Google’s holiday shopping insights and search data.
Amazon is currently having capacity problems at its logistics centers in Europe and is warning sellers that it cannot accept all inbound shipments in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Czech Republic and Poland. This means that merchants in those regions may have issues getting their inventory to the marketplace in time for the holidays. Amazon announced that if they are unable to accept a sellers' shipment, they will arrange the next available appointment directly with the carrier.
Shopify now supports payouts in multiple currencies for European merchants, eliminating a key reason that merchants have had to operate multiple accounts and storefronts, instead of relying on Shopify Markets to power their cross-border sales. The feature is now available for users of Shopify Advanced and Plus in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria. Multi-Currency Payouts currently supports 17 currencies including the USD, AUD, CAD, Euro, and more.
Elon Musk confirmed in a post reply to Y Combinator founder, Paul Graham, that links don't get the same reach as they used to on the platform, which many users have already discovered. X's new “For You” algorithm prioritizes images and videos, significantly reducing the reach of posts with links. Musk wrote, “Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking.”
Temu and Shein are poised to account for a greater share of toy sales in the US and EU this holiday shopping season, as the two companies increase their toy offerings. In the US toy market, the two marketplaces challenge Amazon, Walmart, and Target, which collectively account for about 70% of toy sales.
AI is making Philippine call center work more efficient, but at the detriment to working conditions. Many workers say that AI tools are monitoring their calls and tracking their performance with such scrutiny that they've “become the robots.” AI programs go as far as scoring agents on their tone, pitch, mood of the call, use of positive language, if they avoided interrupting or speaking over a caller, how long the caller was on hold, and how quickly the calls were resolved.
Amazon is closing its advertising division in Israel, resulting in the layoff of around 50 employees, as part of a global decision by the company to phase out the Amazon Ad Server, which helps advertisers and agencies manage digital campaigns. The shuttering of Amazon Ad Server was first announced in October 2023. The company says it is working with affected employees to find alternative roles.
Patagonia employees have criticized the company for not living up to the standards with which it markets itself. While the brand still treats its employees better than most corporations, according to the employees, many feel that the company is slowly losing its culture of prioritizing sustainability over profit, and that the company is having trouble balancing the long-term business health against its core values while providing a consistent level of benefits to all employees.
Temu and AliExpress are under fire with South Korea's government for shipping children's winter clothing that contains higher amounts of toxins like lead, cadmium, and phthalate plasticizers. The government tested one Temu jacket that had 622 times the legal limit of phthalate plasticizers, which are associated with several potential health risks including reproductive abnormalities, behavioral problems, and cancer.
Google Analytics added new features that help merchants identify and fix hidden product listings and improve visibility on Google Shopping. The Analytics dashboard now displays Merchant Center recommendations directly to alert users of potential product disapprovals that could limit their exposure. Additionally, Google expanded its Custom Channel Groups functionality to support manual ad content parameters, giving markets more flexibility in channel analysis by removing the limitation of using only automatically tagged parameters.
Offering BNPL as a payment option increases customer spend by around 10% and increases customers' willingness to buy a product by 9%, according to research by Imperial College Business School. The study analyzed weekly data from a large US retailer that introduced BNPL and was able to make a direct comparison of sales made both before and after it was added. The researchers are urging regulators to ensure BNPL providers don’t have a disproportionately negative impact on those already struggling financially.
Meta is developing a feature that copies Bluesky's “Starter Packs” feature– which are hand-curated lists of suggested users to follow. The feature has become so popular on Bluesky that websites are organizing people's Starter Packs into a searchable database. Starter Packs are also often found shared by users in the Bluesky feed or made available as a tab on a user's profile.
Vietnam will soon require e-commerce platforms to declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers operating on their platforms. Additionally, international suppliers operating on e-commerce and digital platforms like Facebook, Apple, TikTok, and Google must either directly register and pay taxes in Vietnam or appoint an authorized representative to do so.
Safety advocates are suing OSHA in an attempt to reveal more details about three fatalities at Amazon warehouses during a summer 2022 heat wave in New Jersey. The complaint says that the agency has failed to respond to public records requests seeking documents about the incidents, which OSHA had previously determined were unrelated to work. The campaign behind the suit is seeking inspection records, documents from the investigation, and video of the incidents.
Etsy is offering $5 off orders of $25 or more on Cyber Monday (today) for buyers in the US, UK, Canada, and parts of Europe, in a last ditch attempt to make Etsy “THE gifting destination” during the holiday sales event. The promotion will only last 24 hours and there is no cost to sellers.
Meta will face trial in April over the FTC's allegations that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush emerging competition. The FTC sued in 2020, alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on personal social networks and overpaid for both companies to eliminate nascent threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem. Meta argues that the lawsuit does not account for competition from TikTok, YouTube, X, and LinkedIn.
A 22-year-old TikTok influencer was arrested in Florida after allegedly stealing over $500 worth of merchandise from a Target store's self-checkout. Police identified the woman after she posted a video on TikTok of herself stealing the items by using the self-checkout to scan false barcodes with cheaper prices. LOL, nice one.
The US Department of Homeland Security is pursuing an investigation against Temu for potential forced labor violations. The investigation centers around the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prevents goods made in whole or in part in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from entering the United States because of the presence of forced labor in that region.
Meta is planning to build a new fiber-optic subsea cable that extends around the world via a 40k+ kilometer project that could total more than $10B. Meta would be the sole owner of this cable, marking a first for the company. The completed cable would give Meta a dedicated pipeline for data traffic around the world.
BNPL is expected to account for $18.5B in spending this holiday season, marking an 11.4% increase from last year, according to Adobe's holiday forecast. The payment method has already accounted for $6.9B in holiday spending from Nov 1 to Nov 28, with nearly 80% of purchases made on mobile devices.
At the end of 2023, China had over 15M professional livestreamers, equating to one in every 100 people. (Wow, that's proportionally almost as high as the number of Realtors in California and Florida!) The country's Ministry of Human Resources officially recognized livestreamers as a profession earlier this year, which allows streamers to benefit from state-sponsored vocational training subsidies and skills certification.
71% of Canadians say they plan to spend the same or more this year, while opting for smarter, more deliberate purchasing strategies, according to a study by Talker Research. One strategy includes “slow shopping,” which involves spreading their shopping across the season, hunting for deals and promotions, and comparing brands and styles. Probably a smart move this year, since it's likely their packages wouldn't arrive anyway.
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
Volta, a European startup that aims to be the Shopify for B2B transactions, raised €6M in a pre-seed round led by Emblem. Volta aims to digitize the catalog management process for midsized wholesale and distribution companies that still use paper catalogs and rely on manual order processing, with plans to add logistics integrations and financing options in the future.
Cardless, a San Francisco-based startup that helps companies launch and manage co-branded credit cards, raised $30M in a round led by Activant Capital at an undisclosed valuation. Although several major competitors exist in the space, the company claims that it's built a more efficient platform that offers a customized card experience to sign up and onboard users, as well as an embedded card application and management solution.
Trendyol, Turkey's leading e-commerce platform that's majority owned by Alibaba Group, is considering raising $1B to help its growth, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is informally soliciting interest from potential investors for a funding round that could kick off as soon as next quarter. Trendyol last raised $1.5B in 2021 from SoftBank and General Atlantic at a $16.5B valuation.
Amazon announced that it invested more than $1.49B across its retail and cloud businesses in Singapore in 2023 into improvements to its fulfillment centers, delivery stations, and data centers, as well as investments towards technology, safety, customer programs, and employee compensation. The company's investment in Singapore has supported more than 4,000 indirect jobs in areas like construction and logistics and more than 6,000 jobs that support sellers in the country.
Secret Sales, a UK-based online marketplace focused on offering discounted fashion and homeware products, acquired Afound, a discount online apparel retailer that launched in 2018 by H&M Group, for an undisclosed amount. This deal will enable Secret Sales to expand its footprint in the Nordics and follows the recent acquisitions of Dress for Less and Dreivip.com.
Movopack, an Italy-based startup that provides reusable packaging for e-commerce, raised £2M in a round led by 360 Capital. Movopack's packaging is made from recycled plastic bottles and woven recycled polypropylene and is designed to be reused by retailers up to 20 times. The funds will go towards the firm's official launch in the UK, marking its first expansion outside of Italy.
ShopDeck, a Bengaluru-based e-commerce enabler for D2C brands, raised $8M in a Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The company, which emerged from a pivot of a social commerce platform called WMall that shut down in 2022, previously renamed itself NuShop and later ShopDeck. It plans to use the funds to improve its AI technology and expand into Tier II and III cities.
Nice One Beauty, a Saudi Arabian online cosmetics retailer, plans to raise as much as $322M with an IPO in Riyadh, offering a 30% stake in the company. The funds will be used for working capital, development and marketing of its own brands, enhancing logistical capabilities, and general growth.
SALESmanago, a Polish customer engagement platform designed to help e-commerce marketing teams acquire customers through omnichannel experiences, acquired Leadoo, a Finland-based lead-driven marketing platform for businesses that offers chatbot solutions to generate leads and convert visitors into customers, for an undisclosed amount. SALESmango will integrate Leadoo's conversion expertise to build a CEP starter kit and growth framework, providing mid-market e-commerce businesses with advanced engagement and retention tools for customer acquisition.
/dev/agents, an AI startup co-founded by former Google, Stripe, and Meta executives, raised $56M in a round led by Index Ventures, alongside notable angel investors from Scale AI, Open AI, and Palo Alto Networks. The company aims to build an “operating system for AI agents” to fix the fragmented landscape of different operating systems and setups that it says is currently stalling adoption of the use of autonomous AI bots by businesses and consumers.
Nuqleous, an Arkansas software company specializing in retail analytics and space planning optimization, acquired Interactive Edge, a New York-based software platform for retail insights and reporting automation, for an undisclosed amount. The combination of the two platforms will enable its clients to automatically generate customized, data-driven presentations that use multiple data streams and adapt to each retailers' specific needs, which the company says is unprecedented in the industry.
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PAUL
Paul E. Drecksler
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PS: Why did the turkey cross the busy road? To prove he wasn't a chicken!