Merchant Innovation

Merchant Innovation
New Research: Card-Linked Offers Reaching Top Earners and Gen Z
March 05, 2024

The end of 2023 provided little reprieve from rising prices, even as the impending holidays encouraged consumers to manage spending. The need to save made card-linked offers especially attractive to budget-conscious shoppers. Discounts and rewards were key drivers of consumer interest in and use these...

Merchant Innovation
Citi Ventures’ Zec: ReCommerce Helps Luxury Brands See Second-Life Revenues
August 18, 2023

Etsy, eBay and Craigslist marked the “first generation” of ReCommerce sites — where anybody could sell just about anything to anyone.  Etsy, Poshmark and Depop took the concept a bit further, with direct eCommerce conduits to higher-end fashion.  As Jelena Zec, director of venture investing...

Merchant Innovation
Cash Use Down 23% in Mexico, Cards Fill the Gap
June 20, 2023

Shoppers in Mexico strongly prefer shopping in-store to shopping online. Seventy-one percent of local shoppers reported making their most recent retail purchase in a brick-and-mortar store — far more than consumers in other countries. However, this choice does not mean local shoppers eschew digital shopping...

Merchant Innovation
Women and Millennials Lead UK’s Digital Shopping Transformation
April 14, 2023

Digital features are crucial to winning over the United Kingdom’s tech-savvy shoppers — and merchants know it. We find that U.K. merchants go out of their way to provide customers with various digital shopping options, including click-and-collect, buy now, pay later (BNPL) options and even...

Merchant Innovation
Banks and FinTechs Say Receipt Data Powers More Personalized Rewards
March 20, 2023

Financial institutions (FIs), FinTechs and merchants have set their sights on integrating item-level receipt data into their operations in the next three years. By doing so, FIs aim to increase customer engagement by delivering personalized digital experiences, while merchants want to streamline the purchasing experience...

Merchant Innovation
Virtual Bagel Brand Offers Consumers ‘Inexpensive Luxury’ amid Inflation
December 05, 2022

As consumers reevaluate their spending, direct-to-consumer (D2C) food brands have had luck selling affordable indulgences. For example, PopupBagels, a virtual brand launched during the pandemic as a side project, has grown into a growing business with 800-1,000 orders per week. On Thursday (Dec. 1), the New...

Merchant Innovation
Pure-Play Auto Retailers Leverage Immersive VR Car-Buying Experiences to Attract Buyers
November 21, 2022

Considering that the Egyptian pound has lost nearly a quarter of its value against the greenback since the beginning of 2022, while the country’s car market is suffering from the same inflationary pressure and supply chain issues as the rest of the world, there has...

Merchant Innovation
GlassesUSA Aims for D2C Disruption Through Customer Clarity
November 15, 2022

In the highly competitive online eyeglasses sector, the ability to predict the experiences consumers want can make all the difference.  Whether that comes from surfacing the right products with the help of digital tools, targeting the right promo to be competitive on price, or striking...

Merchant Innovation
Grab Focuses on Efficiency and Profitability by 2024 
September 27, 2022

With a focus on sustainable growth, Southeast Asian technology group Grab is revving up efficiency across its processes as it targets profitability by 2024. The Nasdaq-listed firm valued at about $10.8 billion expects revenue to grow by 45%-55% year on year in 2023 and is...