Jason Howie/ Flickr

No more checkout line! E-commerce news by Nabil

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In the last announcement of Amazon with a Smart Grocery Cart, it’s every time clearer that the company is aiming to be a dominant player in the physical retail & grocery space!

We also saw!

  • Tencent Wechat new online shopping experience
  • Walmart leads $1.2 bln in India’s Flipkart
  • Google’s launch Shoploop, a mobile video shopping platform
  • ShipStation Partners with Mercado Libre in cross border push
  • Bolt raises $50M to unveil checkout experience platform

Amazon unveils its own smart grocery cart, in new effort to automate physical retail checkout

Will Amazon reinvent the physical retail? Probably yes! The company is again surprising the industry with the announcement of the new smart cart. This cart uses cameras, sensors and a scale to automatically detect and log items on a digital display behind the handle. The technology makes it possible for shoppers to leave the store without going through a traditional checkout line, a complementary solution to the amazon go model!

Read more about Amazon’s own grocery cart HERE.

Tencent launches new online shopping feature in WeChat app, in a challenge to rivals Alibaba and JD

Tencent launched Minishop, a new tool that allows merchants to build a virtual store on WeChat (the giant super app of China). The move from Tencent is a clear sign of the company ambitions to compete with Alibaba & JD.com by enabling merchants to open a virtual store available to the 1.2 Bln users in the platform.

Check out the news on WeChat HERE.

Walmart leads $1.2 billion investment in India’s Flipkart

Walmart continues to invest in India Ecommerce Giant Flipkart. India is one of the most promising& biggest e-commerce market in the world and global giants such as Walmart, Facebook, Amazon are investing in local giants companies for market dominance! Will be interesting to see who wins?

THIS article about the investment definitely worth reading.

Google’s latest R&D project is Shoploop, a mobile video shopping platform

Google video shopping platform shop loop is designed to introduce consumers to new products in under 90 seconds! An interesting combination of social media and social commerce powered by video.

Video is everywhere and this is clearly one of the way forward for online commerce. Companies like Amazon (Amazon Live), YouTube (shoppable ad format), Facebook (live shopping), Instagram (own Shop) have all invested significantly in selling more online leveraging videos!

Learn more about the mobile video shopping platform HERE.

ShipStation Partners with Mercado Libre, Enabling Merchants to Seamlessly Scale Global Operations

Cross border e-commerce is expected to continue growing at 13% YOY till 2025! We can expect COVID to accelerate further cross border e-commerce growth as people travel less internationally and buy online more. This announcement between ShipStation and Mercado Libre is a big deal for merchants in LATAM & US. Anyone selling from the US will gain access to 600 million Latin American buyers through Mercado Libre.

More about the partnership can be found HERE.

Start up of the Week: Bolt

Bolt Secures $50M in Series C Funding To Unveil Checkout Experience Platform

Did you know that 70% of people drop their cart? This is big challenge for anyone selling online! How to improve the checkout experience? Well that’s what Bolt is working on. The startup offer retailers and consumers more choice, control and flexibility over their transactions by managing the back end of the checkout.

Check out THIS article about the Checkout Experience Platform.

Nabil Malouli is VP, Global E-commerce for DHL Supply Chain where he leads the innovation, strategy and product development of its e-commerce fulfilment and last-mile solutions.

Photo: Jason Howie/ Flickr

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