🌀Amazon Ads with #1 power rating. How massive can it become?

Insider Intelligence 

🛒 Mass merchant marketplaces

• 🌎 TikTok is ending support for Shopify’s storefronts. According to The Information, Shopify will integrate its vending platform into the TikTok Shop hub. Deep dive → TubeFilter

• 🇺🇸 Walmart ramps up efforts to grow a third-party marketplace. Walmart in its first-ever event for sellers in Las Vegas announced plans to attract and retain sellers, expansion to Chile, and fulfillment services for big and bulky items. Deep dive → CNBC

• 🇺🇸 Shopify and Amazon reached an agreement to integrate Amazon's Prime service into Shopify's app ecosystem, enabling merchants to access Prime's loyalty program and fast delivery options. Deep dive → CNBC

• 🇮🇳 Walmart pays $3.5 billion to increase its stake in India’s Flipkart. Walmart, which also owns the majority of PhonePe and has spent over $20 billion on the two businesses, is ramping up its investment in Indian e-commerce and payment platforms at a time when many other companies, including Amazon, have scaled back on their expenditures. Deep dive → TechCrunch

👗 Fashion marketplaces

•  🇺🇸 Shein deal with SPARC may be the start of acquisitions for rapid US expansion. The deal with Forever 21 comes as Shein is trying to manufacture fewer of its own goods and, instead, become more of an Amazon-like marketplace that sells not only clothing but also electronics and home goods Deep dive →  Just Style | ModernRetail

• 🇺🇸 Asos’s and Boohoo’s additional shares were recently purchased by Frasers Group. Some suggest that the end goal could be an online mega-merger between Frasers portfolio (Mulberry, ASOS, N Brown, Boohoo, Hugo Boss). Deep dive → TheindustryFashion

• 🇺🇸 Matches (Luxury retailer ) cuts headcount from departments including buying, merchandising, and personal shopping in recent months. Earlier this month, fellow luxury player Farfetch announced 800 job cuts as revenue fell 1.3% to $527m (£450m) in the three months to 30 June 2023. Deep dive → Drapersonline

• 🇫🇷 Zara launched a platform to sell second-hand clothes in the French market to cope with Vinted Expansion. Deep dive → Expresso

🍔 Food marketplaces

• 🌎 Uber Eats to develop an AI-powered chatbot that will offer recommendations and a quicker way to place orders. The chatbot will ask users about their budget, and food preferences and then help them place an order. It’s unknown when Uber plans to launch the chatbot publicly. Deep dive → TechCrunch

• 🇺🇸 Grubhub and Amazon to launch “Just Walk Out” tech on select college campuses. Through Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, Grubhub campus partners are able to give students, faculty, and staff a frictionless experience at on-campus convenience stores, a release explained. They are able to skip the checkout, avoiding lines and the need to scan products. Deep dive → Andnowuknow

• 🇺🇸 DoorDash is introducing AI-driven voice ordering tech to help restaurants increase sales by answering all incoming calls and providing personalized meal recommendations. This innovation addresses the issue of missed customer calls and aims to enhance the overall ordering experience, combining AI with live agents to ensure prompt responses and allowing restaurants to capture unmet customer demand. Deep dive → TechCrunch

• 🇮🇳 Zomato has unveiled Zomato AI, an innovative and interactive food assistant that goes beyond traditional chatbots. This AI, designed to align with users' food preferences, dietary needs, and moods, offers a natural texting experience and a multiple-agent framework to help users discover and order the perfect meal, exclusively available to Zomato Gold members, aiming to redefine the ordering experience. Deep dive → Zomato

• 🇬🇧 Gopuff ads launched in the UK. Brands can choose various marketing options, including promoted product placement, sponsored search, sponsored carousel, and in-app and email display ads. Deep dive → PYMTS

📦Various marketplaces

• 🇩🇪 Picnic (online-only supermarket), teams up with Edeka, a German supermarket chain, to diversify its offerings in Germany. It plans to incorporate drugstore products and transform into a full-fledged online drugstore in the country by the end of the year. Deep dive →  NewsRnd

• 🇵🇱 BlackRedWhite (Polish furniture retailer) launched its own marketplace in cooperation with Mirakl. BlackRedWhite partnered with around 70 new sellers to expand its product offering, including furniture, garden items, home accessories, decorations, and household appliances. The company aims to reach up to 100,000 new products by the end of the year. Deep dive → Wiadomościhandlowe

• 🇦🇪 Seez (Dubai-based car dealership platform) launched a ChatGPT-powered chatbot for the automotive industry in the Middle East and Europe. Deep dive → YahooFinance

• 🇪🇸 Leroy Merlin Marketplace in Spain is approaching 10% of online sales after a year of operations. Deep dive → Alimarket

🌟Funding/new marketplaces

• 🇺🇸 MakerPlace was launched by Michaels (1.165 chain of art and craft stores). MakerPlace is a handmade marketplace that will compete with Etsy. Deep dive → EcommerceBytes

• 🇳🇱 Valyuu (Rotterdam-based circular platform) raised €2.4 million to give a new life to the growing e-waste pile. Through Valyuu, consumers can easily buy or sell pre-owned electronics such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables. Deep dive → EU startups

• Starcart (Finnish e-commerce) raises €3.5M in a seed round. Starcart is an online store that offers a wide range of products and allows customers to compare prices. Starcart will use the funds to develop its product further, as well as accelerate its expansion into new European markets. Deep dive → Ain Capital