Retail Tech: Amazon Invests $4B in AI Startup, Shopify Expands Wholesale with Faire

Glenn Taylor
·11 min read

The weekly Retail Tech Roundup compiles technology news across the supply chain, manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, logistics and fulfillment sectors.

Artificial intelligence

Amazon/Anthropic

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Amazon invested $4 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic.

With the investment, Anthropic will use Amazon’s data centers and deepen its use of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform. Anthropic has been an AWS customer since 2021.

Like OpenAI, which created the popular ChatGPT, Anthropic is a developer of generative AI, the technology capable of learning from vast amounts of data to create human-like texts and images. Earlier this month, the company launched its first consumer-facing premium subscription plan for its new chatbot assistant, Claude 2.

“We have tremendous respect for Anthropic’s team and foundation models, and believe we can help improve many customer experiences, short and long-term, through our deeper collaboration,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “Customers are quite excited about Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s new managed service that enables companies to use various foundation models to build generative AI applications on top of, as well as AWS Trainium, AWS’s AI training chip and our collaboration with Anthropic should help customers get even more value from these two capabilities.”

E-commerce

Paul Smith/Storyblok

British designer brand Paul Smith has partnered with enterprise headless content management system (CMS) Storyblok to modernize and future-proof its website and customer experience.

Paul Smith, with the help of e-commerce storefront agency Limesharp, implemented Storyblok’s headless CMS technology within its eight-month deadline, increased page speed by 50 percent, and generated higher conversion and revenue rates.

To mark its 50th anniversary, Paul Smith set out to re-establish the brand and rebuild its website to match the customer experience at the Los Angeles flagship store.

Paul Smith’s team developed the new back-end internally, while Limesharp built the front-end. By implementing Storyblok’s technology, Paul Smith’s content teams can now update designs and layouts, schedule content, implement bulk updates and access data in multiple ways.

With Storyblok and headless technology, Paul Smith was able to connect its CMS with an array of external apps, such as Larevel for middleware, Magento for e-commerce, Cloudinary for digital asset management (DAM), and Klevu for search, product recommendations and visual merchandising.

“We wanted to find the right mix of composable architecture, easy integrations, ease of use, and flexibility,” said Hannah Bennet, head of digital at Paul Smith, in a statement. “We found that Storyblok was the most established vendor with great developer support. Storyblok also has some fantastic unique features, such as the visual editor. It supports improved performance and provides our teams so much flexibility and freedom. It was an easy decision to make.”

Wholesale marketplace

Shopify/Faire

B2B retail marketplace Faire is entering a partnership with Shopify to serve as the e-commerce giant’s recommended wholesale marketplace provider. As part of the deal, Shopify will also become a Faire stakeholder.

The partnership establishes Shopify Point of Sale (POS) as the preferred provider for Faire’s independent retail community. This builds on an existing inventory, product and order integration on Faire that has driven an increase in efficiency and volume for Faire customers since 2021.

Thousands of Faire retailers already use Shopify, but the partnership aims to give more merchants on Shopify deeper access to Faire.

As part of the partnership, Faire and Shopify will introduce new ways for businesses to grow and manage their B2B offerings across the two platforms. Merchants on Shopify will be able to reorder best-sellers from nearly 10 million products available on Faire via an integrated Faire buyer app. Products and inventory from Faire will be synced to the Shopify POS system for in-person selling.

New merchants who join Shopify may also benefit from discovering Faire through easier access during onboarding, helping them source and secure inventory from over 100,000 brands on Faire.

Brands can simplify their wholesale distribution to “hundreds of thousands” of independent retailers in one place via a fully-integrated Faire seller channel, and can offer a Faire-powered Stockist Map on their e-commerce websites to help consumers shop their products locally.

Virtual assistant

Writesonic

Writesonic, a provider in AI-powered content solutions for individuals and businesses, has launched Audiosonic, a voice generator that can turn text into human-like audio.

The tool can help e-commerce, retail and customer service-oriented businesses create virtual assistants with human-like voices. Text-to-speech capabilities can boost customer service by empowering virtual assistants and chatbots with the ability to instantly respond to customer inquiries with a human-like feel.

Audiosonic easily generates conversion-optimized content for blog posts, ads, emails, podcasts, and more. This text-to-speech product integrates with Writesonic’s suite of offerings providing AI text generation capabilities, human-like audio conversion and language translation that allows users to reach different audiences.

Writesonic leverages cutting-edge natural language processing and GPT-4 technology.

Audiosonic is designed to play an integral role in making the process of information delivery more efficient and interactive. This technology offers assistance to those with visual disabilities and can help with navigation. It also enhances e-learning with audio narration making learning more engaging for students.

Writesonic’s existing offerings include Chatsonic, which uses GPT-4 for interactive AI driven conversations; AI Article Writer, for in-depth content, and now Audiosonic.

Post-purchase

ParcelLab

ParcelLab, a global provider of post-purchase customer experience software, has launched Campaign Manager, a self-service content tool that helps non-technical users set up, run and measure the impact of post-purchase marketing campaigns.

A product within the ParcelLab Engage suite, Campaign Manager provides retailers with statistical visibility when creating or updating audience segments for more impactful post-purchase communications that drive brand loyalty, engagement and revenue.

The launch comes as segmented customer experiences become more critical for brands looking to drive engagement and repeat customer orders. To meet this need, Campaign Manager provides a user interface (UI) for e-commerce, product, marketing and customer support teams to leverage high-engagement communications for audiences that boost customer retention all in one place.

Users can build influential campaign audiences based on tracking stages, individual rules or rule groups. For highly targeted audiences, users can combine groups based on data, including products ordered, customer location, marketing segment or order-specific information such as delays. The solution also enables visual campaigns for a targeted audience that drives click-through.

“We can easily find 100 use cases for Campaign Manager,” said Marten van der Meer, knowledge specialist at Ikea, in a statement. “We look forward to exploring those possibilities with ParcelLab to enhance our post-purchase communications further.”

With Campaign Manager’s dynamic design, brands can ideally tailor use cases based on the business impact they want to achieve, including reducing unsuccessful or delayed shipment inquiries, mobile app adoption, foot traffic to physical stores, and customer loyalty programs. With data-driven visibility over campaign reach for a defined audience segment, brands can strengthen personalized touch points with content such as tutorials, guides and inspiration for a specific product. Campaign Manager also enables brands to market to those who have signed up for campaigns with targeted promotions for new customers that drive higher engagement.

“Our company’s business model demands high volume and cross-border shipments, which include multiple processes across different geographies to deliver the package successfully,” said José Pedro Sá, senior business analyst, delivery, Farfetch, in a statement. “By launching Campaign Manager, we enhanced the delivery experience for customers by sending alerts for additional customs clearance information required. We reduced delivery-related contacts by 30 to 40 percent in the first roll-out and are now expanding the solution to new locations to localize the customer experience and best serve our customers.”

Warehouse management

Duluth Trading Company/Manhattan Associates

Duluth Trading Company, a casual wear, workwear and accessories retailer for men and women, implemented Manhattan Active Warehouse Management at its new automated distribution and fulfillment facility in Adairsville, Ga.

The retailer invested $53 million last year to build its first-ever automated distribution and fulfillment center and selected the platform from Manhattan Associates to optimize operations.

Manhattan Active WM will provide this advanced facility with enhanced efficiency, allowing Duluth Trading to handle increased order volumes and reduce turnaround times. The Adairsville warehouse will serve as a flagship automated distribution center, setting a model for future implementations across Duluth Trading’s logistics network and supporting the company’s plan to achieve at least $1 billion in sales by 2025.

“Manhattan Active Warehouse Management will fully modernize our logistics operations, allowing us to optimize our distribution and fulfillment processes,” said Kevin Helmeid, vice president of logistics at Duluth Trading Company in a statement. “With Manhattan Associates’ expertise and industry-leading innovation, we are now better equipped to handle the ever-changing demands of our customers.”

Built on API microservices, Manhattan Active Warehouse Management is a cloud-native WMS that unifies every aspect of distribution planning and execution.

Livestream

HSN/Sling

Livestream shopping network HSN has debuted on Sling Freestream, a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service offered by Sling TV. HSN joins fellow Qurate Retail brand QVC as the only two live shopping channels on the streaming platform.

HSN brings its live video commerce (vCommerce) programming, featuring a variety of product categories, to Sling Freestream. The network presents a curated assortment of exclusive products and top brand names in health and beauty, jewelry, home/lifestyle, fashion/accessories and electronics and incorporates entertainment, personalities and industry experts to provide unique shopping experiences. Top destination programs have included “Gotta See G by Giuliana Rancic” and “The List with Debbie D.”

Sling Freestream brings viewers a lineup of more than 400 free Live TV channels and access to over 40,000 on-demand shows and movies.

This launch reflects HSN’s continued strategic expansion of its “vCommerce” experiences through partnerships and collaborations with new media and digital platforms. HSN engages millions of customers across the U.S. via two linear channels, a website and mobile app, a shoppable streaming service (HSN+), and social pages. HSN’s linear channels are available on cable/satellite TV, free over-the-air TV, and digital livestreaming TV.

Omnichannel

AllSaints/NewStore

U.K.-based contemporary fashion retailer AllSaints will roll out a mobile point of sale (mPOS) from omnichannel cloud platform NewStore in more than 200 stores globally.

This is an extension of a current partnership, as brand previously selected NewStore to replace its homegrown direct-to-consumer mobile app. AllSaints’ digital transformation strategy focuses on offering a premium, unified, and seamless shopping experience.

With NewStore, AllSaints will now offer more personalized, high-touch shopping experiences that can complement the quality of its products, regardless of when, where, or how consumers choose to interact with the brand.

“Our goal has always been to create customer journeys that are effortless and contemporary. To do this, we needed a modular yet comprehensive omnichannel platform that could empower us to innovate and adapt,” said James Reid, chief innovation officer, AllSaints. “We originally selected NewStore to build our consumer app, but that was just the beginning. By expanding our partnership, we are elevating the overall customer experience and future-proofing our technology strategy at the same time.”

The NewStore mPOS can help the retailer enhance associate mobility, streamline the checkout process, and allow AllSaints stylists to interact with customers anywhere on the store floor.

By integrating with the other components of the AllSaints retail tech stack, NewStore will be able to access all customer, order and inventory data.

The AllSaints App, which is built on the NewStore Consumer App solution and available on iOS and Android, went live in March 2023. The app has been downloaded more than 75,000 times, with more than 8,000 reviews and an average app rating of 4.9 stars. The retailer says the app quickly became a profit driver, now accounting for a “significant proportion” of e-commerce revenue, more than doubling the performance of the original AllSaints app.

Pricing/promotions

ToolsGroup/Evo

Retail and supply chain planning and optimization software ToolsGroup has acquired Evo, a provider of AI and machine learning (ML) solutions for business performance optimization, for an undisclosed sum.

The integration of Evo’s responsive AI solutions with ToolsGroup’s Service Optimizer 99+ (SO99+) and JustEnough solutions will offer customers more efficient, real-time supply chain and dynamic price optimization capabilities.

ToolsGroup supports more than 400 customers in optimizing their inventory to meet service level or assortment requirements. By combining the data science capabilities of Evo, with the end-to-end capabilities and mature ML models of ToolsGroup’s retail and supply chain planning applications, organizations can better optimize business outcomes.

Following a significant investment in 2021 from tech-focused private equity firm Accel-KKR, ToolsGroup has expanded its product offerings through the Just Enough demand management acquisition in 2021 and Onera retail execution acquisition in 2022.

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