Consumers were shopping, transacting and interacting with merchants via online or mobile channels well before the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, but the global health crisis has dramatically accelerated this trend. Customers flocked to online platforms in the pandemic’s initial months as many nonessential retailers’ brick-and-mortar locations...
Federal workers, through partnerships with several online retailers, will now be able to purchase equipment like desks or office supplies through an eCommerce network for the first time, The Washington Post reports. The General Services Administration (GSA), which handles those purchases, has struck a partnership...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering the retail mainstream. Domino’s uses it to set pizza delivery times. Sephora’s ColorIQ scans shoppers’ skin to provide custom recommendations for foundation and concealer. Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab is experimenting with a number of artificial intelligence tools. And the most recent case in point:...
Beijing’s Missfresh Ecommerce Co., a Chinese grocery delivery startup, is expected to receive more than $500 million in expansion financing as COVID-19 has fueled demand for fresh food at home, sources told Bloomberg News. This second round of funding promises to raise a total of...
May 08, 2020
Businesses and consumers still see the new coronavirus’s reverberating effects upon their finances and lives. Gig workers have been particularly affected by the pandemic, as many saw their opportunities for work dry up and disappear over the past few months amid stay-at-home orders and social distancing protocols. The United States government has attempted to offer […]
April 08, 2020
Before COVID-19 arrived on the scene at pandemic scale and upended nearly every corner of day-to-day life for consumers and businesses all over the world, “digital first” was a popular...
January 06, 2020
That mobile order ahead has rapidly changed the entire landscape for quick-service restaurants (QSRs) is undeniable. One can see it in the numbers — Chipotle Mexican Grill recently reported that...
December 13, 2019
In commerce, when it comes to taxes, new business models beget new (tax) problems. Against that backdrop, tax collection in the nascent restaurant delivery space remains fragmented at best —...
May 22, 2020
Beijing’s Missfresh Ecommerce Co., a Chinese grocery delivery startup, is expected to receive more than $500 million in expansion financing as COVID-19 has fueled demand for fresh food at home, sources told Bloomberg News. This second round of funding promises to raise a total of about $500 million for the Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed company. Its […]
March 20, 2020
India is making a move to tighten controls on big tech companies like Amazon and require them to turn over data and other requested information in a timely manner, Reuters...
March 05, 2020
Car sales in China plummeted 80 percent last month as the coronavirus epidemic stopped people from going to dealerships, according to reports on Wednesday (March 4). The decline by the...
February 20, 2020
Walmart, which has been struggling in Japan for a number of years, is seeing eye-opening growth in its online food grocery delivery service, according to a report by Reuters. Walmart’s...