This past week might be titled “The Great Platform Rally of 2023.” The FinTech IPO Index surged 11.9% through five sessions, led by double-digit gains in all manner of platform firms serving a variety of verticals. Year to date the index has soared 41.1%. And...
Walmart may be learning the hard way that having the most sought-after digital features barely matters if customers do not know they exist. PYMNTS’ research highlights that Walmart customers are less likely to realize these features exist than Amazon customers. We collected data on how...
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan faced scrutiny from Republicans at a Thursday (July 13) House Judiciary Committee Oversight hearing. Under Khan, the FTC’s budget has ballooned by 30%, with the Biden administration granting an additional $430 million in fiscal year 2023, the New York Post...
A looming strike at United Parcel Service (UPS) could have a sharp economic impact. A strike could cost over $7 billion in losses for just one 10-day work stoppage, Reuters reported Thursday (July 13), citing findings from Anderson Economic Group (AEG). The findings include estimates for customer losses of up...
Capitalizing on shifts in how consumers work, Instacart is going after the coworking spaces market with its latest partnership, seizing on businesses’ desire to draw consumers back into physical workplaces. The grocery aggregator’s business arm announced Thursday (July 13) a partnership with Industrious, a coworking space company with more than...
Construction-focused FinTech Trunk Tools has raised $9 million to help workers get paid faster. The company’s seed round, announced Thursday (July 13), comes at a time when instant payroll is becoming increasingly important to workers. “The manufacturing and construction industries have grappled with a labor shortage and productivity crisis...
Small businesses made this year’s Prime Day event the largest ever, contributing to more than 375 million items sold, even outpacing Amazon’s own retail business. Before Amazon’s 2023 Prime Day kick-off, PYMNTS reported that the e-commerce giant had some lofty aspirations to exceed its 2022...
Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Bard, has officially launched in Europe and Brazil as the company prepares to take on ChatGPT. The company announced in a Thursday (July 13) blog post what it called the largest-ever expansion of its AI chatbot, coming as the tech giant faces off...
Retailers are recognizing that offering free shipping may not be sustainable in the long run. However, rather than eliminating it, they are raising the criteria for customers to qualify for it and reassessing the ways they can make up for lost costs. Several retailers, including...