Merchant Innovation

Alphabet’s Drone Program Project Wing Hits Turbulence
November 10, 2016

Is Alphabet’s drone delivery project, dubbed Project Wing, in trouble? News earlier this week of a management shakeup at the unit, where two leaders were reported by the Wall Street Journal as being “pushed out” from the project as infighting marked internal struggles, might suggest some difficulties...

Merchant Innovation
Worldpay Launches Worldpay Total In The US
October 20, 2016

Worldpay announced Wednesday (Oct. 19) the launch of its newest omnichannel payment platform for the United States — Worldpay Total. Connecting and simplifying payments across sales channels through a single integration point, Worldpay Total delivers end-to-end payment processing by combining point-of-sale (POS), integrated payments and acquiring...

Merchant Innovation
Alibaba Hopes To Blend eCommerce With Traditional Retail In China
October 14, 2016

Alibaba warns that Chinese eCommerce operators could face “tremendous challenges” as it aims to transform the country’s traditional retail industry, worth an estimated $4.5 trillion. According to Internet Retailer, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said his company hopes to “upgrade” traditional retailers in China through improvements to...

Merchant Innovation
eBay Buys Another Machine-Learning Company
October 11, 2016

In an effort to further boost its artificial intelligence platform, eBay announced last week plans to buy Corrigon Ltd., a visual search technology company. Although the purchase price was not disclosed, it marks eBay’s third acquisition of an artificial intelligence-related company in 2016, according to Internet...

Merchant Innovation
Ant Financial Names New CEO
October 10, 2016

Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba’s online and mobile financial services affiliate, shuffled some of its top executive positions over the weekend and named a new chief executive officer, according to Reuters. Eric Jing, formerly Ant’s president, has been named the company’s new CEO, while current CEO...

Merchant Innovation
Are Shopping Carts And Wishlists Keys To Omnichannel Success?
October 07, 2016

The disparity between the most and least omnireadi merchants is getting to be downright cavernous. According to the new Q3 2016 OmniReadi Index™, the top 10 percent of merchants improved their omnichannel scores by 16 percent over the last quarter, while the bottom 10 percent...

Merchant Innovation
As The OmniReadi Gap Widens (And Stagnates)
October 06, 2016

The disparity between the most and least omnireadi merchants is getting to be downright cavernous. According to the new Q3 2016 OmniReadi Index™, the top 10 percent of merchants improved their omnichannel scores by 16 percent over last quarter, while the bottom 10 percent saw...

Merchant Innovation
The Metal Shopping Cart’s High Tech Makeover
October 01, 2016

Groundbreaking, innovative, trailblazing — these aren’t the type of adjectives you would think of to describe the typical shopping cart that gets pushed around physical stores. In fact, most of them look pretty similar from store to store. But, then again, you probably haven’t seen...

Merchant Innovation
Is Instacart The Next Online Delivery Service Facing A Boycott?
September 30, 2016

Online grocery delivery service Instacart could soon be facing a boycott from shoppers over a decision to eliminate tips in exchange for a raise in the guaranteed delivery rate, according to TechCrunch. The change, which is slated to begin in mid-October, could reduce some Instacart shoppers’...