Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-September from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on checkout experience, authentication, digital advertising, marketing automation, last-mile delivery, and voice capabilities.
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Ecommerce Product Releases
FedEx Ground expands U.S. operations to six days per week year-round. FedEx Corp. has boosted its capacity and operations to expand FedEx Ground U.S. operations to six days per week. For the holiday season, FedEx will increase hours for some existing employees and hire for approximately 55,000 positions. FedEx Ground will run six-day and seven-day operations through the holiday season and will continue six-day operations throughout its U.S. network year-round.
FedEx
BigCommerce gives brands control with new Checkout SDK. Ecommerce platform BigCommerce has announced the launch of its Checkout JS Software Development Kit — Checkout SDK — a new JavaScript library that makes it easy for merchants to access BigCommerce’s checkout APIs. Checkout SDK provides ecommerce brands, agencies, and developers the ability to customize the entire checkout experience. Also, BigCommerce has partnered with Bolt and Moustache Republic, two agencies, to provide merchants with alternative custom-built checkout experiences using Checkout SDK.
Teikametrics releases Flywheel to help sellers optimize Amazon Advertising. Teikametrics’ new “retail optimization platform,” Teikametrics Flywheel, will allow thousands of sellers and brands to use an algorithm focused on optimizing Amazon Advertising. Teikametrics Flywheel uses big data modeling to crunch billions of dollars of Amazon transactions across thousands of sellers on the Teikametrics platform. These algorithms help individual sellers by automatically optimizing keywords, bids, and advertising campaigns.
eBay expands luxury authentication program to watches. eBay announced the expansion of eBay Authenticate into the luxury watch category, offering consumers thousands of high-end watches, verified by professional authenticators. eBay’s Authenticate program, which launched with luxury handbags last year, includes watches and handbags from sought-after brands marked with an “Authenticity Verified” label. The service also expanded this month into several European markets, including the U.K. and Germany.
eBay Authenticate
New last-mile delivery platform to help small-to-midsize businesses. SinglePoint, Inc. announces the launch of LastMile Delivery. The platform aims to provide worldwide SMBs the ability to streamline their deliveries and give customers the insight and predictability of when a delivery will arrive. LastMile Delivery leverages advanced routing and location technology and provides location tracking, estimated time of arrival, product tracking, and scheduled arrival time.
comScore, Adobe Advertising Cloud to help marketers in GDPR era. comScore has announced a partnership with Adobe that helps marketers achieve more brand-safe, relevant advertising via advanced contextual targeting through Adobe Advertising Cloud. The pre-bid targeting solution leverages comScore’s proprietary page crawling technology to help brands reach customers in more appropriate environments without the use of cookie-based information. comScore’s crawling technology scans content from more than 300 million pages each day and employs a self-learning algorithm to understand word associations and pairings across roughly 350,000 topics. The technology then classifies content against industry standard and custom categories and brand safety criteria to drive placement and bid decisions in near-real time.
Springbot brings marketing automation to WooCommerce. Springbot, a data-driven marketing platform for ecommerce retailers, has announced a new integration with WooCommerce, giving SMB merchants access to Springbot’s data-driven marketing automation and attribution platform, including the latest features announced in the company’s data cooperative Springbot Exchange.
Weebly launches suite of cross-device ecommerce tools. Ecommerce platform Weebly has released commerce enhancements focused on mobile. The enhancements enable mobile-device merchants to (a) manage all facets of shipping and label printing from the Weebly app, (b) reply to questions via Facebook Messenger, (c) approve customer reviews, (d) create branded coupon codes, and (e) edit product listings, pricing, and photos.
Weebly
Walmart tests new last-mile grocery delivery service. Walmart announced a new last-mile delivery pilot — Spark Delivery — which provides an additional way to get groceries from stores to customers’ front doors. Spark Delivery is a crowd-sourced delivery platform that provides drivers with the ability to sign up for windows of time that work best for their schedule. Components of Spark are powered by Bringg, a delivery-logistics technology platform.
8th Wall brings augmented reality to websites. 8th Wall has announced the launch of 8th Wall Web, an augmented reality service for mobile web browsers. With 8th Wall Web, interactive AR can now run directly on any website with features accessible by most smartphones, including positional tracking, surface detection, world points detection, hit tests, and lighting estimation.
Amazon’s cashier-free Go store is coming to New York City. According to TechCrunch, Amazon will bring the Go concept to New York City. The confirmation occurred one day after cutting the ribbon on its second cashier-free convenience store for Seattle. Launched in 2016, Go replaces cashiers with cameras to track shoppers, charging their account when they walk out the door.
Adobe expands voice capabilities in Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe has expanded voice capabilities across Adobe Experience Cloud via Attribution IQ within Adobe Analytics. With Attribution IQ, voice interactions on any device can now be given fair credit. Key Adobe Analytics capabilities are also being expanded to cover voice, for deeper insights. And in Adobe Target (the personalization engine in Adobe Experience Cloud), Adobe is delivering new capabilities that leverage voice insights to drive more personalization on other channels such as desktop web and mobile.
Adobe Experience Manager