Ecommerce Product Releases: February 3, 2022

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late January from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on headless commerce, multichannel fulfillment, video engagement, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, conversational commerce, and customer care.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email releases@practicalecommerce.com.

Ecommerce Product Releases

Walmart posts Open Call 2022 access for Walmart Marketplace sellers. Sellers who have their own brand now have the opportunity to sell products in Walmart and Sam’s Club physical stores, provided the items are made, grown, or assembled in the U.S. Access to Walmart’s annual Open Call event started February 1 and closes February 25, 2022. Marketplace sellers should watch their email inbox or Seller Center for an exclusive invite.

Walmart Marketplace blog.

Amazon introduces Style, its first physical store for fashion. Amazon has debuted Style, its first physical fashion store for women’s and men’s apparel, shoes, and accessories. Using the Amazon Shopping app, consumers can send items to a fitting room, where they can use a touchscreen to browse more options, rate items, and request additional sizes or styles delivered directly to their room within minutes. The first Amazon Style store will open later this year at The Americana at Brand, a popular shopping destination in greater Los Angeles.

Nacelle expands data orchestration platform for headless commerce. Nacelle, a data orchestration platform for headless commerce, has announced that it supports out-of-the-box connectivity for all major ecommerce platforms, including Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce, and BigCommerce. With Nacelle, developers have one access point to all data from connected systems, including existing commerce platforms. Developers use a unified API to build a custom shopping experience using modern frameworks such as Vue or React. Nacelle’s managed, event-based system ensures that data flows consistently and timely among all the components of a merchant’s headless architecture.

Quiq adds Instagram and WhatsApp for conversational commerce and customer care. Quiq, an AI-powered conversational platform that enables enterprises to engage with customers across popular asynchronous messaging channels, has announced the addition of Instagram and WhatsApp. Quiq’s support for Instagram and WhatsApp gives ecommerce and customer care players additional tools without demanding a significant training or staffing.

Quip

Snapchat introduces catalog-powered Shopping Lenses. Brands can connect their product catalogs to their AR Lens experiences on Snapchat. The new augmented reality Shopping Lens format combines the scale and efficiency of commerce catalogs with the personalization and performance of AR try-on and product visualization, resulting in an experience built to present multiple items from a product catalog in a single lens. Shopping Lenses pull in product-level information, such as product name and price, from a catalog and visually present this information in the new Lens Product Cards, a new user interface built just for shopping. If the brand’s product catalog is updated through a feed or manual file update, the Shopping Lens will read this updated information and automatically present it in the Lens.

Mollie partners with Chargebee to deliver subscription payments. Mollie, an E.U. payment service provider, has announced a partnership with subscription management platform Chargebee. The integration simplifies subscription billing for merchants, providing an easy-to-install, out-of-the-box platform that offers all leading European payment methods, including iDEAL, SEPA Direct Debit, and credit cards. It also provides local, multilingual support, vital to Mollie’s customers operating throughout Europe.

ShipHero partners with Pipe17 to enable multichannel fulfillment. ShipHero, a shipping and logistics provider for ecommerce brands and fulfillment providers, has announced a strategic partnership with Pipe17, a SaaS platform to integrate ecommerce applications and streamline multichannel operations. ShipHero is now available to all Pipe17 customers as a new channel option for fulfillment and warehouse management software. ShipHero’s fulfillment and SaaS clients can use Pipe17’s growing base of ecommerce integrations and workflows to streamline their operations and incorporate backend admin, order management, and inventory management systems.

Cart.com acquires SellerActive, bolstering multichannel ecommerce software capabilities. Cart.com, an ecommerce-as-a-service provider, has acquired SellerActive, a SaaS provider of multichannel ecommerce tools. SellerActive also offers intelligent inventory management to eliminate overselling; customizable algorithmic pricing to maximize revenue and sync prices; and fulfillment automation for shipment splitting, Fulfillment by Amazon, and multiple fulfillment centers.

Cart.com

Rakuten Super Logistics launches Xparcel Priority. Rakuten Super Logistics, a third-party logistics provider, has announced the launch of its Xparcel Priority delivery service. RSL currently offers cost-saving order fulfillment, including kitting, returns, freight services, and pick, pack, and ship. Xparcel Priority offers ecommerce retailers a method of lowering shipping costs and increasing delivery speed. Xparcel Expedited offers 2-to-5-day transit shipping, while Xparcel Ground provides 3-to-8-day transit times.

Livestorm updates video platform with features to ease setup and promotion. Livestorm has added new features to help companies boost engagement during virtual meetings or events, combat screen fatigue, and ensure online event materials are aligned with messaging and branding. Users now have access to a plugin to customize the event room design, including colors, typography, and backgrounds for branding consistency. Also, users can now have up to 16 people speaking simultaneously at an event, chat privately with other participants, and access the event sidebar in full-screen mode for polls, Q&As, and conversations. Enterprise accounts can now host up to 3,000 participants.

SellersCommerce launches Catalog Builder, a B2B design tool to create catalogs and line sheets. SellersCommerce, a SaaS ecommerce company, has launched Catalog Builder, which lets sales reps of manufacturers and brands create visually compelling line sheets, catalogs, and flyers online without the help of designers. Sales reps can add products to Catalog Builder, choose a design template, and input relevant details to get a quality, print-ready line sheet in minutes. Catalog Builder (i) has an online order management system to enable reps to send prospects a unique link to place an order directly, and (ii) integrates with ecommerce platforms to track sold SKUs.

Meta introduces a self-supervised algorithm for speech, vision, and text. Meta has announced Data2vec, a high-performance self-supervised algorithm for speech, vision, and text. Data2vec is a unified way for models to predict their own representations of the input data, regardless of whether it’s speech, text, or audio. According to Meta, it paves the way for self-supervised learning and to a world where artificial intelligence uses videos, articles, and audio to learn about complicated subjects, such as the game of soccer or different ways to bake bread. Data2vec will also enable the development of more adaptable AI to perform tasks beyond what’s possible today. (Access the open-source code and release pre-trained models on GitHub.)

Meta blog: Data2vec algorithm.