Every week we publish a rundown of new products from companies offering services to ecommerce and omnichannel merchants. This installment includes updates on fulfillment, design services, financing, digital marketing, payments, ecommerce customer support, and shoppable videos.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected].

New Tools for Merchants: April 8

ShipStation adds fulfillment consulting. Shipping software platform ShipStation has launched a fulfillment consulting service. In addition to workflow and process optimization, ShipStation consultants will help merchants find the most cost-effective shipping and improve their warehouse layout and order pickup. Experts will also ensure merchants are using all the features of their ShipStation account.

WPBeginner launches Pro Services for WordPress design and maintenance. WPBeginner, a site for free WordPress tutorials and resources, has partnered with Seahawk Media to launch WPBeginner Pro Services. With Pro Services, small business owners can hire vetted WordPress professionals to help design a website, launch an ecommerce store, handle customization projects, maintenance, and more.

Revenued launches financial marketplace for small businesses. Revenued, a company that helps small and medium-sized businesses access working capital, has launched an online marketplace to give SMBs access to tailored financial resources and insights to support growth and stability. Revenued’s marketplace focuses on three verticals — banking, insurance, and compliance — with a curated list of vendors and platforms. Revenued intends to expand the marketplace with additional verticals.

Flip partners with AppLovin to relaunch ad marketplace. AppLovin, a marketing platform, and Flip, a social commerce site, have announced that Flip will relaunch its marketing platform for brands utilizing AppLovin’s Axon technology. The partnership will enable Flip to extend its audience network to AppLovin’s 1.4 billion daily users. Additionally, Flip announced it’s raising $144 million in funding, including $50 million from AppLovin.

Liberis and Shop Circle partner to launch small business ecommerce funding in the U.K. and U.S. Liberis, a global finance platform, has partnered with Shop Circle, an ecommerce software provider, to provide Shop Circle merchants with flexible funding. Shop Circle provides tailored tech stacks and custom packages for Shopify merchants and, now, flexible funding options.

CommentSold launches PopClips for shoppable videos. CommentSold, a provider of video commerce technology, has announced the launch of PopClips to bring shoppable videos on all its platforms, including Videeo for Shopify, Popshoplive, and CommentSold. PopClips offers short video clips wherein five products can be tagged per video. These clips are designed to integrate across various platforms, including websites, mobile apps, and marketing channels such as email and external blogs.

Adyen partners with Adobe Commerce to enable online and in-store payments. Adyen, a fintech platform, is partnering with Adobe Commerce to deliver online and offline payments to global enterprise merchants. According to Adyen, the new partnership enables Adobe Commerce merchants to connect online and offline payments using Adyen’s unified commerce solution. In addition, enterprise merchants operating on Adobe Commerce can leverage Adyen’s checkout, fraud protection, conversion optimization, and data to enhance customer experiences.

Skipify and Visa partner to enhance Skipify’s connected wallet. ​​Skipify, a fintech company focused on the checkout experience, has partnered with Visa’s Digital Commerce Program. Skipify customers can link Visa Click to Pay cards with their Skipify Connected Wallet. Once enabled, Skipify’s identity-powered wallet can recognize participating Visa Click to Pay cardholders on a merchant’s website. The integration utilizes advanced Visa network tokenization technology to minimize the risk of fraud and provide a more secure payment environment.

PayPal adds features for small businesses. PayPal enables small businesses to accept payments, including PayPal, Venmo, and PayPal Pay Later products. PayPal will now give small businesses access to four new features to drive payment acceptance. The features are (i) Apple Pay as a checkout option, (ii) the ability to save payment methods with the PayPal vault for faster future checkout, (iii) a real-time account updater to help customers keep payment methods current, and (iv) access to Interchange Plus Plus (IC ++) pricing.

Chase launches Media Solutions platform. Chase has launched Media Solutions, a digital service that allows brands to connect with Chase’s 80 million customers. In turn, those customers benefit from personalized offers and incentives. The launch of Chase Media Solutions follows the integration of Figg, a card-linked marketing platform that Chase acquired in 2022.

Outvio launches Desk for ecommerce customer support. Outvio, a post-purchase platform for ecommerce, has released Outvio Desk, an AI-powered customer support service. Outvio Desk natively collects all data related to online orders, customers, deliveries, and returns and exchanges. The product features AI automation for repetitive, time-consuming delivery tasks and integrates with email, chat, and social media. Users of Outvio Desk can manage engagement on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Our weekly rundown of new tools aims to help ecommerce and omnichannel merchants. This installment includes updates on customer engagement tools, B2B payments, product discovery, digital marketing, fraud prevention, post-purchase solutions, and conversational commerce.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected].

New Tools for Merchants: April 2

Twilio launches Unified Profiles and Agent Copilot to combine customer data and AI. Twilio has launched two new products within Flex, its cloud-based engagement platform: Unified Profiles and Agent Copilot. Unified Profiles provides businesses access to a native data layer powered by Segment (Twilio’s customer data platform), enabling the collection and activation of real-time, consented data for personalized interactions. Agent Copilot leverages this data alongside AI to empower employees with automation and enhanced productivity.

TreviPay introduces B2B financing and payment application features. TreviPay, a B2B payments and invoicing network, has announced a self-financing option and enhanced payment application features to give sellers more control over their trade credit portfolio. The new services give B2B sellers choices over how they fund growth.

Digital River unveils eCompass to drive international expansion. Digital River, a platform for cross-border ecommerce, has launched eCompass to help brands identify and evaluate global expansion opportunities. Powered by transaction data from 150 million global consumers, eCompass gives brands market-level insights and access to Digital River’s proprietary benchmarking data through new interactive dashboards.

Post-purchase platform Route announces expanded integrations. Route, a post-purchase package tracking and protection service, has teamed up with Klaviyo, Recharge, Salesforce, Status, and Zendesk. The integrations allow merchants to integrate Route with their existing ecommerce systems, streamlining operations and optimizing customer experiences. Route states that it powers shipment tracking, package protection, and carbon offsetting for 13,000 merchants. Route’s integrations with leading platforms, tech tools, and carriers build upon its core post-purchase customer experience tools.

Adobe introduces Firefly Services and Custom Models. Adobe has announced Firefly Services and Custom Models to change how brands create and produce personalized content at scale. With Firefly Services, brands can access over 20 generative and creative APIs, tools, and services that eliminate manual and repetitive tasks, from resizing assets to generating and expanding backgrounds for merchandising and ecommerce. These capabilities are embedded into Adobe’s Cloud applications.

Google launches updated product discovery tools for shopping. To provide users with a personalized shopping experience, Google is releasing product discovery elements, including style recommendations, brand preferences, generative AI for item search, and virtual try-ons. When users search for apparel, style recommendations will appear to rate options and provide personalized results. Brands can offer additional looks for more personalization. AI image generation provides realistic visuals to match a shopper’s vision. And virtual try-ons ensure apparel looks as intended.

Zorang introduces ContentHubGPT for Walmart Marketplace. Zorang, a content and commerce company, has released ContentHubGPT for Walmart Marketplace. This generative AI-based content suite allows Marketplace sellers to create engaging story-like descriptions for their product content. According to Zorang, ContentHubGPT for Walmart Marketplace is a comprehensive solution to generate search-engine-friendly product titles, feature bullets, descriptions, and more.

Mastercard and Worldpay partner to prevent merchant chargebacks. Mastercard and Worldpay are enhancing the transaction experience by helping merchants resolve payment disputes faster and with fewer chargebacks. Through the partnership, Worldpay, a global payment technology provider, will offer Mastercard’s Alerts to its 1 million merchants worldwide. The service provides an early warning that helps prevent a dispute from becoming a chargeback, reducing fraud.

Claspo integrates with Shopify, enabling marketing widgets for merchants. Claspo, a website pop-up and widget-building platform, has announced its integration with Shopify. Claspo states that its Shopify app allows merchants to easily create widgets for various marketing goals without technical hurdles and extensive learning. Per Claspo, merchants can manage and scale widgets and boost sales globally with detailed geotargeting and dynamic languages, with minimal effort and reduced risk of errors.

Dashbot integrates with Amazon Lex for conversational analytics. Dashbot, a language data and conversational AI platform, has integrated with Lex, Amazon’s platform for building conversational interfaces. The collaboration harnesses Amazon Alexa’s natural language capabilities while providing insights through Dashbot’s analytics platform. Through Alexa, users gain granular visibility into communicating with Lex chatbots, identify conversational trends and sentiment, and pinpoint areas for conversation flows, refining chatbot responses based on real-world user data.

Bidpath unveils AuctionPay for online auction payments. Bidpath, a provider of online auction software, has launched AuctionPay, a payment platform. According to Bidpath, AuctionPay simplifies payment processing, offering affordability and efficiency to enhance core operations. Bidpath aims to boost bidder participation and reduce transaction fees by ensuring a seamless and secure payment process.

Here’s a batch of new ecommerce books for spring. There are titles on digital marketing, team development, content marketing, AI, launching a startup, and growing a business.

I compiled the list using Amazon. From the “Books” category, I selected “Business & Money.” From there I chose the “Processes & Infrastructure” sub-category and selected “E-commerce.” Then I handpicked titles from that group based on customer ratings and relation to ecommerce. I also selected a few titles from the “Business Development & Entrepreneurship” sub-category.

New Ecommerce Books for Spring 2024

Punchlines to Profit: How to Leverage The Power of Comedy to Create Revenue-Generating Content by Megan Nager

“Punchlines to Profit” explores the art of comedy in successful digital marketing. Whether for an established brand, a startup, or a content creator, adding humor to an online presence is a powerful way to establish a voice, entertain an audience, and gain a following. Discover the power of authenticity, the psychological effects of comedy, ways to implement comedy into your content and brand, and professional tips from stand-up comedians. Paperback $15.95.

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Reignition: Transforming Stuck Startups into Breakout Winners by Dave Hersh

Drawing upon the author’s experience as an entrepreneur and investor, “Reignition” outlines how to transform a stagnant startup into a lean and focused organization — and remake an established company. Learn to avoid common mistakes around premature scaling. Gain the confidence to change a company, the skills to do it, and the reassurance that you are not alone. Hardcover $27.95; Kindle $9.99.

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Create Once, Distribute Forever: How Great Creators Spread Their Ideas and How You Can Too by Ross Simmonds

“Create Once, Distribute Forever” guides entrepreneurs wanting to unlock efficiency, brand awareness, and sustainable digital marketing success through content distribution. Learn the ins and outs of content, how to overcome roadblocks, why remixing and republishing content is important, and how to uncover your business’s most profitable distribution channels. Hardcover $26.99; Kindle $7.99.

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Untrapping Product Teams: Simplify the Complexity of Creating Digital Products by David Pereira

“Untrapping Product Teams” outlines tactics for working with product teams on digital products. Explore the product journey. Learn to recognize dangerous traps and the strategies to overcome them. Simplify decision-making, apply mindful product discovery, use delivery to accelerate value, and measure results beyond outputs. Craft product principles and set solid foundations for product teams. Paperback $39.99; Kindle $14.95.

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Time Is Now: A Journey Into Demystifying AI by Raj Verma

“Time is Now” will help entrepreneurs and small business owners leverage AI and emerging technologies for practical decision-making. Through stories and relevant examples, explore AI and learn how today’s leaders must make decisions through a convergence of information, context, and choice. In the explosion of AI, leaders have a responsibility to learn before they act. Leverage today’s tools with the insight needed to benefit the future. Hardcover $27.99; Kindle $9.99.

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Simple Marketing for Smart People: The One Question You Need to Win Customers without Gimmicks, Hype, or Hard Selling by Billy Broas, with Tiago Forte and Ali Abdaal

Cutting through the clutter of the modern digital marketing landscape, “Simple Marketing for Smart People” helps readers create simple yet authentic marketing to resonate with customers and clients. Learn techniques to instill beliefs necessary to compel customers to act. Craft essential and effective marketing content through email, social media, and a website. Kindle $7.99.

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The Covert Code: Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing by Anna Covert

“The Covert Code” presents clear solutions to take control of your digital media strategy. Learn the insider rules for optimizing digital media, how to create a strategic budget, when and how to leverage search marketing, where remarketing will deliver optimal value, and more. Discover how to decode the digital marketing landscape and seize the opportunity to connect with the customers you need. Hardcover $32.99; Kindle $9.99.

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Zero Risk Startup: The Ultimate Entrepreneur’s Guide to Mitigating Risks When Starting or Growing a Business by Paulo Andrez and David S. Rose

“Zero Risk Startup” is designed to help entrepreneurs systematically reduce risk on the path to success. Mitigate entrepreneurial uncertainties through more than 100 practical tips and tools. Learn whether or not to start a business, how to identify and mitigate risks with the Zero Risk Startup methodology, strategies to get external funding, and AI technologies for risk mitigation. Hardcover $29.99; Kindle $8.99.

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Growing Your Beautiful Small Business by David Y. Choi

“Growing Your Beautiful Small Business” is for small and early-stage companies experiencing challenges. Learn fundamentals and perspectives on entrepreneurship, practical business lessons, and intellectual exercises to develop growth strategies and plans. Paperback $14.95; Kindle $9.99.

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Stress-Free LLC: A Quick Start Blueprint to Easy Business Entity Formation by Wesley WealthGuard

“Stress-Free LLC” is a practical guide to forming an LLC. Get a clear seven-step plan for swift and efficient LLC formation. Learn actionable tactics to optimize your LLC’s tax structure and financial efficiency. Discover why an LLC is your gateway to protecting your assets and minimizing risks, ensuring a secure foundation for your entrepreneurial endeavors. Paperback $9.99.

A robust email list could be an ecommerce business’s best investment. Depending on the survey, email marketing returns as much as $40 for every $1 invested in 2024. The challenge is acquiring and retaining subscribers.

Fortunately, a simple change in perspective can unlock growth.

Many merchants offer a discount — typically 10 to 15% — to encourage signups but then engage subscribers solely with more deals and offers. The merchants train subscribers to buy only when items are on sale.

What would happen if those merchants — retailers, wholesalers, direct-to-consumer brands — approached email marketing like social media?

Content Marketing

Editorial emails are a content marketing tactic for attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. Including tips, instructions, and recommendations expands email from promotional to informative, giving prospects new reasons to subscribe, engage, and buy.

The process is similar to social media marketing and goes something like this:

• Create a compelling and product-relevant editorial newsletter.
• Attract subscribers.
• Include products in each newsletter.
• Optimize for sales.

Content

Step one is to create compelling content related to the products your business sells.

Take Masterbuilt as an example. The company’s products are grills and smokers. Its content and social media marketing focus on recipes — the product and the content work together.

Masterbuild would require little additional effort to produce a grilling newsletter. It could bundle several of its recipes into a weekly round-up.

The approach is a proven winner. Consider these five recipe newsletters and their reported email subscriber counts in March 2024.

Subscribers

The next step is to attract subscribers. Social media algorithms show posts to like-minded users who might follow your business.

But many social media marketers also boost those posts via advertising. Something similar exists for editorial newsletters. Let’s consider four subscriber growth drivers.

Organic recommendations. Substack, which blends editorial newsletters with social media features, was among the first to offer organic recommendations. When someone subscribes to an editorial newsletter, the platform suggests others.

For example, “The Real Heroes of Ecommerce” is a newsletter on Substack from marketer Jason Shepherd. Subscribing to that newsletter produces Shepard’s recommendation of “The Human Voice.”

Paid recommendations. Newsletter publishers can acquire subscribers for about $3 each via Sparkloop, ReferralHero, and others. Recommendations are available only for editorial newsletters, not marketing.

Paid growth. Several newsletter growth businesses have emerged. These agencies — Email Crush, Paperboy Studios, GrowthLetter — place ads in various channels to attract subscribers.

Blog and forms. Let’s not forget your company’s blog and web forms. Double down on promoting newsletters.

Include Products

An editorial email must be worth reading. Don’t skimp on this part. And don’t forget to include products, as follows.

Treat products like sponsors. Editorial newsletters frequently have sponsors. No rule prevents a sponsor from being a company’s own offerings.

Make it a recommendation. Many editorial newsletters recommend products after the main content. Think of these as text ads for your products.

Treat them as editorial. Masterbuilt could publish a weekly editorial newsletter featuring three recipes, an interview with a barbeque pro, and a tip for using the company’s “Autoignite” system. This mention could push a subscriber to place an order.

In each example, set up tracking to attribute sales.

Optimize for Sales

The last step is to optimize the editorial newsletter to produce the most revenue.

• Measure the newsletter’s sales performance.
• Segment subscribers to the products they are likely to purchase.
• Monitor subscriber sources. Focus on folks who subscribed via an organic recommendation if they produce the most sales.

“Cash is king” and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” are common phrases heard in the payments industry. However, digital payments have had an undeniable impact in the sector, and according to new research from Boku, the global network for localised payment solutions, there has been a continued decline in the market share of traditional card payments.

Produced in collaboration with Juniper Research, the Boku report, titled 2024 Global Ecommerce Report: The Changing World of Payments surveyed 10,500 consumers. It analysed data from 37 major markets across the globe to identify global, regional and country specific trends. The findings highlight significant and rapid consumer shifts in e-commerce payments away from the traditional card networks (and in emerging economies cash on delivery) towards local payment methods such as digital wallets.

Nick Maynard, VP of fintech market research, at Juniper Research said: “Our research for this report from Boku highlights that against a backdrop of continued strong growth in e-commerce, the global card schemes (credit, debit and card-linked wallets) continue to lose share to regional and local payment methods. This is a trend seen at an aggregate global level but also repeated in every region across the world.”

Emergence of A2A payments

Further findings revealed that account-to-account (A2A) payments (instant payments and bank transfers) such as PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, or iDEAL in the Netherlands are revealed as the fastest-growing payment method within e-commerce. A2A payments are forecast to more than double and become the fastest growing local payment method within e-commerce. This accounts for 18 per cent of all e-commerce transactions by volume by 2028 globally (up from eight per cent in 2023).

Furthermore, instant A2A and non-card-linked wallets will account for over 50 per cent of e-commerce transaction value globally by 2028.

Declining card transactions and growing local payment methods.

The report also found that card values will decline to 19 per cent of transaction value by 2028 (down from 31 per cent in 2023). By volume, card payments will account for just 30 per cent of e-commerce transactions in 2028 ( down from 41 per cent in 2023).

By 2028, local payment methods will account for 58% of ecommerce transaction values (up from 47 per cent in 2023), accounting for a majority of transaction value online for the first time. Boku also estimated that in four years 37 per cent of all individuals globally will actively use local payment methods.

Younger generations are paving the way

Payment choice is key for consumers around the world. Today’s mobile-first generations – with whom access to and affinity with card networks is low – prioritise the convenience and seamless nature of paying with digital wallets, direct carrier billing and Instant A2A payments. As with the adoption of many new technologies, the adoption of localised payment solutions by younger generations and populations is paving the way for adoption by older consumers.

Stuart Neal, CEO of Boku said, “Our research shows the way the world transacts online is changing fast, and that change is being driven in the main by a consumer preference for convenient, seamless payment methods like digital wallets, direct carrier billing and Account to Account transfers.

“Merchants now realise that the key to their future global growth and success lies in their ability to offer consumers more payment choice. At Boku, we’re excited to provide the world’s largest merchants with access to our global network of localised payment solutions so their customers can more easily pay for the things they love, the way they want – no matter where they are in the world.”

Regional takeaways include:

Africa & Middle East

Africa & Middle East is in many ways already a local payments and mobile money success story, with the region’s services such as M-PESA and MoMo seeing strong adoption. As such, merchants require highly localised payments strategies in these markets to ensure continued results.

Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific payment requirements are changing quickly. While card payments will continue to account for a significant amount of payments – around a third of e-commerce payments by volume by 2028 – local payment methods are fast gaining traction, winning market share from card payments.

Europe

Europe, in particular, will see a dramatic shift away from cards, with the proportion of e-commerce transaction volume featuring cards dropping from 53 per cent in 2023 to just 30 per cent in 2028. A2A payments will experience massive growth from 16 per cent volume of transactions in 2023 to 25 per cent in 2028, due to the ability it provides in moving money without additional intermediaries.

Far East and China

Far East and China is a mobile wallet-dominated market, with great emphasis on ‘super apps’ such as WeChat and Alipay. E-commerce payment methods are anticipated to stay somewhat consistent with this over the forecast period with little shift in the payment methods used, due to how well-established the market already is.

LatAm

LatAm is a market in motion – e-commerce payment methods are changing rapidly, which means merchants must alter their acceptance strategies, or they will fail to take advantage of e-commerce growth. PIX is the obvious early success story, but CoDi in Mexico, as well as PSE in Colombia are also winners.

North America

North America is a heavily-developed market in regards to e-commerce, with the majority of consumers having access to bank accounts and plastic cards. One of the greatest concerns for e-commerce consumers across North America is the ability to checkout seamlessly, as well as having the ability to pay in installments resulting in growth of lower friction payment methods such as; Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), A2A payments and non-card-linked wallets.

The Indian Subcontinent

The Indian Subcontinent is seeing an increasing shift towards local payment methods, with A2A payments in particular gathering momentum. Local payment methods are anticipated to have a sizable share of payment methods by 2028, equating to 72 per cent of e-commerce transactions by value, an increase from 58 per cent in 2023.

India is the largest driver of both volume and value within the Indian Subcontinent, therefore it is unsurprising that the highly successful UPI scheme is driving local payments forward, providing a template for future growth.

Internal linking is crucial for search engine optimization. It helps Google discover all pages on a site and assign value to each. The more links to a page, the more important it is.

A site’s structure impacts internal links. Examples include navigation, footer links, “related articles,” and “related products.”

However, the most impactful links are “contextual” because Google looks at the surrounding context to assign relevancy signals. A link in the body of this article is contextual.

Contextual links are hard to scale, especially for sites with thousands of pages, but AI technology can help. AI can spot phrase variations and synonyms to identify relevant pages for contextual links.

Here are three AI-powered internal linking tools.

LinkWhisper

LinkWhisper is a WordPress plugin and Shopify app that analyzes contextual links (internal and external), identifies pages with zero or too few inbound links, and suggests where to add links. The tool focuses on contextual links only, ignoring those in navigation, widgets, and sidebars.

The report is also helpful for identifying broken and orphaned pages — those with no inbound internal links (accessible via external links or sitemaps).

LinkWhisper suggests relevant internal links while a user writes in the WordPress editor. It’s a handy reminder. The tool can additionally recommend internal links to a list of pages.

Pricing for LinkWhisper starts at $97 for a one-time WordPress license or $7 per month for the Shopify app with a 7-day trial.

LinkActions

LinkActions connects to Search Console to analyze a site’s structure and provide internal linking suggestions. It can also add internal links automatically. Just paste the LinkActions code snippet in your site’s header and enable internal link insertions.

Pricing for LinkActions starts at $64 per month for up to three sites and 1,500 pages. The free trial includes a limited report with no automation.

LinkStorm

LinkStorm crawls a site and reveals:

• Immediate internal linking opportunities based on the content,
• Additional copy for each article to increase linking opportunities based on the semantic similarity of the two posts.

It also cites the optimal number of internal links for each page and shows where to place a link on the page and the preferred anchor. It does not automatically add the link, however.

LinkStorm costs $30 per month for 1,000 pages across unlimited sites. A free trial is available.

Data-driven customer segments enable brands to personalize marketing campaigns, improving engagement and conversions.

Yet first-party data remains an underutilized marketing asset of ecommerce companies. Most focus their promotional efforts on email, SMS, and even direct mail, missing the opportunity to use their data in advertising.

My company manages paid media for big and small companies. We see performance lifts of 25% or more from targeted segments versus a broader audience.

Here are 10 segments to jumpstart your ecommerce ad performance.

Ecommerce Ad Segments

The larger the customer list, the more complex the segmentation. The number of segments depends on the company, the budget, and available creative messaging.

All customers

Start with the broadest audience: all purchasers. Remarket to them with product launches or sales, and exclude this segment from customer acquisition campaigns.

Top customers

Repeat customers make or break most ecommerce businesses. Creating a top customer segment — e.g., frequency of purchases, the time between purchases, total value — helps focus on those essential buyers.

Sale and non-sale purchasers

Sale purchasers are prospects for flash promotions and discount campaigns. Excluding non-sale purchasers helps maintain their full-price purchasing behaviors.

Gift purchasers

A checkout flow should include the option of marking the purchase as a “gift” or adding a gift message. It improves the customer experience and facilitates a gift purchaser segment. That audience becomes valuable during gifting holidays such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the Q4 season.

Category purchasers

Category segments enable new-product campaigns and cross-sells. A customer who purchases from Category A is likely interested in those new or related products. Create messaging and campaigns to capitalize on that preference.

Unengaged purchasers

Lapsed or unengaged customers are another worthwhile segment. Use paid media to re-engage these buyers and reach them through a channel other than your own email solicitations.

Peak-season buyers

Brands with peak selling seasons beyond Q4 should create segments of customers who purchased during those periods. Timely targeting of those buyers often produces high ROAS.

Q4 customers

Most consumer brands depend on Q4 sales. Create a segment dedicated to those customers and message appropriately to maximize your impact.

Likely to purchase within x days

Predictive platforms such as Klaviyo, Bloomreach, and others can identify buyers who are “likely to purchase.” Create this segment and test various timeframes to avoid advertising to customers who would have purchased anyway.

Likely to have high AOV

Predictive platforms can also anticipate “high average order value” buyers. These segments can be lucrative and are worth testing.

Getting Started

To start, download customer segment lists from your ecommerce platform and upload them to Meta, Google, or other ad channels. Email addresses are required, and first name, last name, country, and postal code are helpful. Some platforms sync directly to ad channels. Klaviyo, for example, integrates with Meta and Google.

Next, activate campaigns that target these customers. In my experience, brands with extensive customer lists do not require look-a-like campaigns. With enough data, ad platforms can target broad-reach audiences as well or better.

Customize ad creative and messaging to the segment. If you’re trying to reach gift purchasers, for example, consider ads showcasing common gift products with dynamic gifting prices.

Every week we publish a list of new products and services for ecommerce and omnichannel merchants. This installment includes updates on livestream commerce, cross-border transactions, logistics, omnichannel sales, customer experience platforms, fraud prevention, and email and SMS marketing.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected].

New Tools for Merchants: March 25

Checkout.com partners with Bolt to provide accelerated checkout. Bolt, a checkout technology company, and Checkout.com, a payment solutions provider, have announced a partnership. Through this collaboration, Bolt will become Checkout.com’s exclusive one-click checkout provider, and Checkout.com will become Bolt’s preferred payment partner. Bolt will integrate with Checkout.com to expand payment options for new and existing merchants. Checkout.com will leverage Bolt’s network of merchants and over 80 million shoppers.

ParcelLab announces Order Tracking for Salesforce on AppExchange. ParcelLab, a post-purchase software provider, has launched Order Tracking for Salesforce Service Cloud on Salesforce AppExchange, an enterprise marketplace for partner apps and experts. Order Tracking for Salesforce provides customer service agents with a unified view of all relevant orders and return information, including product details, shipping status, communications, and the customer’s order history, to resolve delivery questions quickly.

Cirro Fulfillment integrates with Shopify. Cirro Fulfillment has integrated with Shopify. Shopify merchants can now connect their store data with Cirro Fulfillment for enhanced logistics management. Cirro Fulfillment has more than 4,000 clients using its fulfillment service in over 80 centers globally.

Merkle launches a global messaging solution. Merkle, a customer experience management platform, has launched Intelligent Messaging to create unified brand experiences by blending AI assistance and human interaction. With Intelligent Messaging, Merkle says it can create turnkey chat experiences across social and messaging platforms, delivering always-on conversational interactions throughout the customer journey.

​​Cart.com launches Constellation AI for product merchandising and inventory management. Cart.com, a provider of unified commerce and logistics solutions for B2C and B2B companies, launched Constellation AI, a suite of features embedded across the company’s platform. According to Cart.com, Constellation AI leverages machine learning algorithms, predictive modeling, and generative AI to make selling and listing products more efficient. Features include new sales channel identification, product title and description generation, intelligent repricing, and AI-powered demand forecasting.

PriceSpider launches new commerce enablement capabilities. PriceSpider, a customer journey platform, has released tools to build omnichannel experiences. Auto-Create automates product feed maintenance and management. Enhanced data sharing provides brands using a dedicated warehouse with direct query capabilities, API connectivity, and native connectors. The Click to Retailer feature offers brands purchase paths created and enabled within minutes through self-service admin.

Commerce experience platform Nosto integrates with Klaviyo for personalized cross-channel shopping. Nosto, a commerce experience platform, has announced an integration with automated marketing provider Klaviyo, enabling retailers to build personalized shopping journeys. Brands can now import Klaviyo’s segments and email lists into Nosto and provide a personalized, on-site experience. Using Nosto’s segment details within Klaviyo, brands can create relevant email and SMS campaigns with personalized content based on shoppers’ behaviors and affinities, such as color and size preferences.

AliExpress launches livestream shopping in the U.K. AliExpress, an Alibaba-owned retail marketplace, has launched a livestreaming ecommerce service in the U.K. through a partnership with Vogue Business. Shoppers can browse a platform where local models, actors, and TV personalities host livestream videos to sell products. Each creator will earn a commission on every sale made via their streams and could potentially develop their own fashion collections through a competition later in the year.

Digital agency Verndale acquires Yaksa to expand ecommerce services. Verndale, a Boston-based agency, has announced the acquisition of Yaksa, a commerce experience agency based in Montréal. This acquisition aims to enhance Verndale’s market presence, expand its service offerings, and deliver value to clients. Yaksa will continue to operate under its own brand for the short term. According to Verndale, the expanded company is now one of the largest independent digital experience agencies in the U.S. and Canada.

Cashfree Payments launches RiskShield to prevent payment fraud. Cashfree Payments, an India-based payments platform and API banking company, has launched RiskShield, a real-time management solution for payment gateways. RiskShield uses advanced AI and machine learning across a merchant network to identify fraudulent transaction patterns and empower merchants with controls to define specific rules for their businesses. According to Cashfree Payments, RiskShield mitigates fraud, minimizes litigation risks, and improves transaction experiences.
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Pandion secures $41.5 million for its residential parcel delivery network. Pandion, a residential delivery network for ecommerce parcels, launched by Amazon Air founder Scott Ruffin, has announced a $41.5 million Series B funding round led by Revolution Growth. Pandion states it will use the funding to accelerate the expansions of its network, including building new technology offerings, expanding its geographic reach, and increasing delivery speed for customers such as Saks Fifth Avenue.

Every week we publish a rundown of new products from companies offering services to ecommerce and omnichannel merchants. This installment includes updates on payment platforms, smart search, B2B commerce, resale programs, gated-offer tools, logistics, customer experience platforms, and generative AI tools.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected].

New Tools for Merchants: March 18

Amazon launches new generative AI-powered listing tool. In addition to using text or an image to generate product listings, sellers can now leverage existing listings by providing Amazon with a URL, which is automatically parsed by generative AI. This new capability is rolling out and will be available to U.S. sellers in the coming weeks.

eBay launches Preloved Partner program. eBay is launching a new pilot program late this month to highlight pre-owned fashion, which sellers can join by invitation only. eBay will display a “Preloved Partner” program badge next to qualified items. Eligible sellers must maintain certain performance metrics, including Top Rated Seller status, a minimum of 95% positive feedback, 30-day returns, and fewer than 1% “Not Received” items.

SAP announces composable payment solution. SAP’s new composable payment solution for retailers, Commerce Cloud, integrates with numerous third-party payment service providers, including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, and Airwallex. Commerce Cloud’s composable architecture allows retailers to pick payment partners tailored to their unique needs and markets. The new framework is extensible and headless, helping ensure the front- and back-ends are decoupled and operate independently.

Walmart Commerce Technologies releases AI-powered logistics platform. Walmart is making its AI-powered logistics platform — Route Optimization — available to businesses as a SaaS solution through Walmart Commerce Technologies. Route Optimization provides businesses of all sizes the use of AI-driven software to optimize driving routes, pack trailers efficiently, and minimize miles traveled. Walmart says companies using this technology avoided 94 million pounds of carbon dioxide by eliminating 30 million unnecessary miles and optimized routes to bypass 110,000 inefficient paths.

SheerID and Payment Plugins partner on gated offer platform for WooCommerce merchants. SheerID, a provider of identity verification for commerce, has partnered with Payment Plugins, a developer for WooCommerce, to launch SheerID for WooCommerce. The new platform allows merchants to verify consumer eligibility for gated offers and discounts instantly. SheerID states the platform is a no-code, turnkey solution.

Rebuy introduces Smart Search for ecommerce. Rebuy, an ecommerce personalization platform for Shopify brands, has released Smart Search with the goal of increasing conversion rates and lowering cart abandonment rates through personalized experiences. Rebuy states that Smart Search can be set up and implemented in minutes. Additional enhancements will be released throughout the year, including collections merchandising and semantic search.

Fortis and WooCommerce partner on B2B payment integration. Fortis, a payment and commerce technology service provider, has partnered with WooCommerce. This collaboration aims to provide B2B payment functionality to the WooCommerce platform and Fortis’s expanding back-office ecosystem. Fortis will debut as a verified payments app in the WooCommerce Marketplace and the WordPress Plugins Marketplace.

Verndale announces strategic partnership with BigCommerce. Verndale, an ecommerce agency, has partnered with BigCommerce to provide design, development, and optimization services to merchant sites. Verndale’s commerce practice serves mid-market and enterprise clients and works with content management systems, enterprise resource planning platforms, customer relationship management platforms, and product information management databases.

Brevo launches Commerce Suite for customer-data analysis. Brevo, a provider of customer-management applications, has launched Commerce Suite to provide merchants with a 360-degree view of customer data. Brevo says Commerce Suite enables merchants to analyze the full spectrum of their customers’ purchasing habits across all channels, allowing them to send more personalized recommendations. Per Brevo, merchants using Commerce Suite can improve the customer experience through multichannel communication adapted to each customer by email, SMS, chat, and social media — per Brevo.

ShopMy secures $18.5 million to help influencers earn more from promoting products. ShopMy, a marketing platform for content creators, has raised $18.5 million in a round led by Inspired Capital. ShopMy’s platform equips creators with the tools to earn from their product recommendations, such as building digital storefronts, accessing a catalog of millions of products, making commissionable links, and chatting directly with companies. ShopMy will use the money to scale its network of 40,000 creators.​

Zendesk to acquire Ultimate for AI-powered CX automation. Zendesk, a customer service platform, has announced it will acquire Ultimate, a provider of help-desk automation, to deliver a customer-service AI offering. With the addition of Ultimate, Zendesk says it will offer AI agents enhanced intelligence for proactive problem-solving, complementing human expertise. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Google released this month updates to its core algorithm and spam policies. It also issued widespread manual penalties to sites with excessive AI-generated and low-grade content.

Google is prioritizing spam — manually and algorithmically. If you’ve experienced a decline in rankings but no manual actions, audit your content for potential spam violations.

Here’s where to start.

Scaled Content

“Scaled content” refers to expanding articles rapidly via automation or AI. Google has advised against scaling for years. It has now provided example violations:

• Using generative AI to create content.
• Scraping content — e.g., from RSS feeds, search results —  and publishing it without changes.
• Combining content from many sources and republishing it without alteration.

To my knowledge, Google has not to date expressly disallowed AI content, but including it now as “scaled” implies excessive use should be avoided.

Expired Domains

Domains become available when their owners forget or neglect to renew them. In many cases, expired domains retain link authority, prompting some search optimizers to buy them and then publish new (vaguely relevant) content or 301-redirecting the domain to a third-party site.

Google now includes such expired-domain tactics as spam, but its examples are extreme:

• Affiliate content placed on previous government-owned content.
• Medical products sold from expired domains of non-profit organizations.
• Casino websites hosted on domains previously owned by schools.

Apparently Google is targeting aggressive cases, but it may eventually include common uses.

Parasite SEO

“Parasite SEO” involves placing low-quality content on a trusted domain. Google calls this “site reputation abuse.”

Google’s examples mainly include content unrelated to the domain, such as:

• An educational site hosting a page for payday loans.
• A news site hosting automated coupons.

The guidelines also emphasize a lack of editorial oversight and include scenarios not considered spam:

• Press release sites.
• News publications with syndicated content from other quality publications.
• Sites with user-generated content, such as a forum or comment sections.
• Native or third-party ads, sponsored content, or appropriately tagged affiliate links for monetization, not rankings.
• Manually selected coupons.

Unaware?

Most businesses have never participated in these tactics, but some may have done so unknowingly through external consultants. Keep an eye on Search Console notifications and organic traffic.