What is the potential for Facebook Shops? Could it be looking beyond transactions to a WeChat scenario creating a total consumer experience? In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Andrea Szasz, a principal analyst at Kearney, talks about Facebook’s initiative and how it fits into the bigger picture of ecommerce in the COVID-19 era.
Facebook launched of Facebook Shops, a way for small businesses to set up free online storefronts that will stretch across Facebook and Instagram, and eventually across its Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger universe of users as well. It integrates with a number of major ecommerce platforms, excluding Adobe’s Magento.
Shogun, a drag-and-drop ecommerce website builder, has raised $10M in Series A funding from Initialized Capital, VMG Partners and Y Combinator to expand its platform and launch a new product helping sellers compete with Amazon and do headless commerce. Major brand clients include Leesa, MVMT and K-Swiss.
Evolv Ventures, the investment arm of CPG giant Kraft Heinz, has joined a $110 million funding round in automation and robotics firm Fabric with an undisclosed investment, keeping an eye on ways to tap into Fabric’s expertise and capabilities in ecommerce and applying it to the B2B world.
Same-day delivery platform Postmates is going live with a delivery app in the Shopify App Store, in beta during Q3, that lets smaller Shopify merchants offer customers the new option of two-hour delivery as the immediacy wars continue to heat up. Merchants receive email notifications when customers opt for two-hour delivery.
Deliverr, a startup that helps merchants fulfill two-day and same-day orders on platforms like Amazon, eBay and Shopify, has raised $23 million in new funding, bringing its total to $30 million as it looks to hire new staff and expand its network of third-party logistics partners.
Microsoft has added new features and functions to its Dynamics 365 platform that allow retailers to create product pages with reviews and ratings, based on its Azure cloud services platform that goes head-to-head with Amazon’s dominant AWS offering.
Adding robotics capabilities to its new fulfillment service launched in June, major SMB ecommerce platform Shopify is acquiring 6 River Systems for $450 million, the companies announced, making it the first platform firm with this capability for its ecommerce seller customers worldwide.