Latest news with #onlineShopping
BBC News
3 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
River Island to close 33 shops
River Island plans to close 33 shops in the UK in a move which puts hundreds of jobs at clothing retailer said more people shopping online and higher costs to run stores were behind its proposals to also wants its landlords to cut rents at a further 71 stores which are at family-owned retailer currently has 230 shops and employs about 5,500 people, but has suffered heavy financial losses. Ben Lewis, chief executive of River Island, said that although River Island is "a much-loved" British high street retailer, more online shopping means it has "a large portfolio of stores that is no longer aligned to our customers' needs".He added that a "sharp rise in the cost of doing business over the last few years has only added to the financial burden".He said a turnaround plan was in place, but restructuring was also necessary."We regret any job losses as a result of store closures, and we will try to keep these to a minimum," he Island made a £33.2m loss in 2023 after sales fell 19%, according to its most recent set of accounts. The chain said it intends to consult employees over the possible job losses, and will redeploy staff where head office staff will be directly affected by the proposed closures, a company source will start to vote on the plan on 4 August, and a court will decide whether to approve the plan on 7 Island was founded in 1948 under the Lewis and Chelsea Girl brand before being renamed in the 1980s.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Labubu Envy: Fluffy Collectibles Steal the Show During China's 618 Online Shopping Festival
SHANGHAI —This year's 618, China's largest midyear online shopping festival, had a noticeably subdued tone as shoppers continued to sober up from splurging and stockpiling due to an uncertain economic outlook and a softer growth prospect following April's tariff agreements with the U.S. However, that sentiment was offset by a wave of Labubu frenzy that pushed limited-edition collectibles to sell out within minutes. More from WWD Alibaba Shares Dip Despite E-commerce, AI growth in Q4 Taobao and Tmall Deepen Ties With Xiaohongshu Via Cross-platform Shopping Function Alibaba Makes AI-driven Comeback, Revenue Jumps 8% On June 18, Labubu's parent company, Popmart, launched its first livestream on the Alibaba-owned cross-border e-commerce platform AliExpress, which attracted over 220,000 viewers. All 500 items, including the company's most recognizable fluffy creatures — Labubu, Cry Baby, Baby Molly, and Skullpanda — sold out in a flash. According to Tmall, the 'toys and trendy collectibles' category saw six brands — including Paper Presented, Popmart, MiHoYo, Disney Store, Jellycat, and Lego — exceed the 600 million renminbi, or $83.4 million, sales mark. Dubbed 'sneakers for the Gen-Z generation,' the broader 'fandom goods' category has created 17 stock keeping units that exceeded 10 million renminbi, or $1.39 million, during the 618 period. According to data from Statista, China's trendy toys market is expected to reach 110 billion yuan, or over $15 billion, by 2026. A recent report by Zhongtai Securities revealed that homegrown character-based toys — fueled by a booming subculture — have already outsold Japanese anime toys during this year's 618 shopping festival. 'Over 60 Chinese and foreign films are set to hit theaters this summer, which is bound to create fresh momentum for IP-related merchandise,' the report added. 'It's over-the-top, 'proclaimed Tmall's star livestreamer Austin Li during a recent broadcast, urging shoppers to steer clear of the hype. 'It's overpriced, it's a no, the prices will come down,' he added. Still, it was up to Li and the platform he lives on to revive enthusiasm around 618 amid waning consumer confidence. This year, major e-commerce players such as and Tmall simply canceled complicated sales mechanisms and began offering straightforward discounts and a wide array of coupons. According to data from Syntun, this year's 618 sales totaled 855.6 billion renminbi, or $119 billion, an increase of 15.2 percent year-on-year. However, the data took into account a week's extension compared to 2024. Two years ago, Chinese e-commerce players stopped unveiling official 618 sales results. Instead, touted the 'explosive increase' in the number of purchasing users, which more than doubled year-over-year. At Taobao and Tmall, sales 'remained resilient,' with 453 brands surpassing the 100 million renminbi, or $13.9 million, mark in terms of gross merchandise value. 'The unusually early campaign start on May 13 caught many consumers off guard, leading to a first wave that some missed entirely, which may have temporarily dampened engagement. That may contribute to a feeling that this year's 618 felt more subdued, but we're still expecting solid GMV growth for the festival,' said Jacob Cooke, chief executive officer and founder at WPIC, a Beijing-based e-commerce consulting agency. Cooke expects this year's Singles' Day to follow a similar path as 618, with an extended timeline and consistent discount mechanisms. 'We're seeing a shift away from flash sales and gimmicks toward simplified pricing, loyalty-driven engagement, and full-funnel marketing strategies,' said Cooke. 'Tmall's emphasis on its 88VIP program, for example, shows a clear pivot toward retaining high-value consumers,' said Cooke of its membership program that also spans other platforms within the Alibaba ecosystem, such as the food delivery app Eleme, the travel booking site Fliggy, and the video streaming platform Youku. With governmental subsidies that cover categories such as home appliances and digital products, sales of these categories rose 283 percent year-over-year during the the first leg of the promotional period, which ran from early May to May 30, according to data from Moojing Market Intelligence. The apparel segment, which contributed around 50 percent of total 618 sales, rose 7.2 percent during the May period, trailing by 6.8 percent year-over-year growth in the beauty category, according to Moojing. Best of WWD Macy's Is Closing 66 Stores in 2025 — Here's the List, Live Updates Inside the Demise of Lord & Taylor COVID-19 Spikes Elevate Retail Concerns
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
How AI Is Reviving Customer Trust In E‑Commerce
As shoppers demand speed, clarity and confidence, AI-powered infrastructure is helping brands reduce ... More friction and rebuild trust — one checkout at a time. When generative AI exploded into public view just over two years ago, few industries embraced it faster than e-commerce. From customer support chatbots to automated fulfillment tools, retailers rushed to integrate AI anywhere it could speed up decisions or reduce friction. And it's easy to see why. In today's crowded online marketplace, trust doesn't come from flashy chatbots or even catchy marketing. It's earned when a customer clicks 'buy' and then receives exactly what they were promised — on time, intact and without confusing emails or hidden fees. When that promise is kept, trust grows. When it's broken, everything can change overnight. In fact, according to data from global research firm Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts before completing a purchase, often because of slow checkouts, surprise shipping costs, or technical glitches. That means three out of every five buyers leave right when brands are closest to sealing the deal. But now, a host of AI-powered infrastructure tools — largely invisible to customers — are helping to eliminate customer distrust. In dropshipping, it's one thing to list trending products, but inventory mishaps or pricing mistakes can ruin a customer's experience. That's where AI engines like those used by dropshipping platform company Autods come in. They monitor supplier stock in real time, recommend hot products before others jump in and even generate UGC-style product videos to help sellers promote items, all without costly video shoots. Perhaps most critical are the built‑in guardrails to pause listings when data seems off. As Lior Pozin, CEO of Autods and recent Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, told me, 'automation without fallback logic, alert systems and customizable guardrails is a disaster waiting to happen.' With such guardrails in place, Pozin explained sellers only offer what's actually available, avoid mispriced items and sidestep poor reviews caused by avoidable shipping delays. Lior Pozin, Autods CEO While platforms like Autods aim to reduce risk before the sale ever happens, the exact moment of purchase — where a slow payment field, or payment integration issue, or even a broken coupon code can make a shopper leave the checkout page even if everything was working perfectly until they got there — presents another challenge. For instance, the report by Baymard Institute estimated that 48% of shoppers abandon carts when shipping costs are added late in the process. Enter companies like checkout optimization platform provider PrettyDamnQuick, which use real‑time signals, including cart total, shopper location and past behavior, to dynamically adjust shipping options, upsells and delivery promises. PrettyDamnQuick's CEO, Avi Moskowitz, explained that 'the moment of purchase is where trust is either cemented or lost,' adding that 'every glitch avoided is a sale saved and, over time, builds confidence.' He noted that the company's clients report higher average order value and reduced churn, proving the point that protecting checkout infrastructure actually boosts revenue. Even when the checkout succeeds, fulfillment introduces its own risks and often, frustrations. Free shipping has become a baseline expectation: 80% of consumers look for it, and 66% expect it on every order, according to Baymard Institute's cart abandonment rate statistics. The stats also further showed that nearly half abandon their cart if extra delivery costs appear at checkout. And even free shipping only works if it arrives when it's supposed to. As a report by McKinsey revealed, most consumers are willing to wait four to seven days for free shipping, as long as it's reliable. If deliveries duck out of promised windows, dissatisfaction, purchase returns and refund requests often follow. That's where AI logistics tools like Shipium come into play. The company optimizes delivery routes, warehouse assignment and carrier choices — all in service of on-time, low-cost fulfillment. The payoff is fewer late deliveries, more predictable costs, and, most importantly, happier repeat customers. Baymard Institute estimates $260 billion in lost orders across the U.S. and EU could be recovered by improving checkout flows alone. Free shipping — even with slightly slower delivery — can push cart completion rates and boost average order values by more than 10%. And it's in areas like this that automation and AI can decisively turn things around. As Moskowitz noted, AI and automation are becoming essential allies for teams facing the chaos of modern digital retail. 'Today's environments are too complex and too fast-moving for manual rule-setting or reactive troubleshooting,' he told me. 'But with AI,' he continued, 'we can dynamically segment shoppers, personalize the checkout in real time and test dozens of hypotheses simultaneously, all without bogging down dev resources. That means less reliance on hard-coded logic and more adaptability to what's actually working.' However, Pozin cautioned that automation can go too far, creating risk rather than value for users. This, he said, often happens especially early on, when some sellers blindly automate everything without understanding how it works — a sentiment that Moskowitz also agrees with. 'Automation handles scale and speed — humans bring the strategy. That's the balance,' Pozin noted. The truth, according to these ecommerce experts, is that customers don't care whether you use AI or not. They care about whether you can deliver on your promise. And if you're able to use AI to do that more effectively, then they'll feel it when everything works. If you're a retailer thinking about AI, the advice from Moskowitz is that you shouldn't start with chatbots or fancy front-ends. Start by asking: Do we catch inventory or pricing errors before they go live? Does our checkout experience crash-proof your sale? Can we guarantee delivery within promised windows, whether cheap or free? If the answer is no, that's where your ROI truly lives; in reliability and simplicity that actually make trust stick. The point isn't blind automation. It's building systems so dependable, the customer barely notices until something goes wrong. 'When you automate — but add guardrails, monitoring and adaptability — you do more than save time. You build a brand that delivers, every time. And in the end, trust is what turns one-time buyers into lifelong customers,' said Pozin.
The Independent
8 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- The Independent
Help… I can't stop ‘heatwave shopping' at night!
We're plum in the middle of a British summer heatwave – that blissful time when my overseas friends briefly stop complaining about the cold and recline, lizard-like, in contentment. As a redhead, this is not my time to shine. I should really be hiding in a cave for the duration. Yet while I'm prepared for the sheer stickiness of it all, and the temperatures, I'd forgotten the deathly combination of late-night sleeplessness and heat-induced shopping delirium. As the heatwave began on Wednesday, I headed home to pass out in the muggy heat of my south London bedroom. Instead, by half-midnight and for the next two hours, I was scrolling the internet. On Thursday morning, I discovered that I had bought two balls for the dog, a cotton shirt for myself, and a diaphanous white dress from John Lewis that looked like an audition costume for Star Wars. The screenwriter Mollie Goodfellow, similarly compelled to while away her sleepless hours by online shopping, had bought 'a vintage bomber jacket for an American country club I've never been to'. Here's the important thing: mad heatwave shopping is not about sensible things like portable air con or linen clothing. It's doing what one friend did and buying £150 of smoked fish on the basis that 'we won't be able to eat hot food for months'. It's the friend who opened her door one month later to take delivery of a three-foot-long stuffed panda, at which point the completely forgotten memory of ordering it pinged back to life. Another has simply come to terms with the fact that she will end up wallpapering in summer, as she ends up ordering rolls of it in the middle of the night every time. And for sheer tombola value, credit to my friend who has bought 'secateurs, running sunglasses, vermouth and a leaf blower.' (All of these are real, by the way. If they were made up, they'd all be something sensible but unreachably out-of-stock, like tower fans.) It's not the same as parasomnia, the disruptive umbrella sleep disorder, which can see people genuinely shopping while they are asleep. It's more that the stifling heat and the usual small hours weirdness combine to seemingly short-circuit your brain into buying the oddest things. If you're adding hormones on top, whether pregnancy, post-partum, or perimenopause, things can get even spicier. My friend Grace has form with small-hours shopping anyway, especially as the parent of a small baby, but her heatwave purchase of '200 superglues at 3am' is a personal best: 'I still to this day don't know what I had planned for them,' she said. Grace is usually my benchmark for insane shopping stories, but in heatwave terms, she is easily trounced by the comedian Liz Johnson: 'I once bought a horse, unseen, from Ireland. I regretted my decision when I had to collect it from a service station on the M6 at the crack of dawn two weeks later.' Fortunately, Liz is a vet by day, so her impulse purchase was at least in good hands. When I impulsively bought a horse, sight unseen off the internet – as if this is a common occurrence! – I didn't have a heatwave I could blame. While riding in 2019, I got a concussion. The next day, I bought a horse on Facebook. It was only while booking the transport that I came to my senses. It took me a month and some very strongly worded solicitors' letters to get my money back – and I am happy to say that the horse, very much the injured party in all this, soon found a very capable and non-concussed home. With that in mind, I wish you a very happy heatwave, and suggest those of us prone to small hours scrolling lock our phones away overnight until at least Monday, when the weather, in south London at least, should plummet to a sanity-restoring 23C.
Motor 1
13 hours ago
- Automotive
- Motor 1
‘It Works:' Woman Shares How to Find Out if Furniture Fits in Your Car—Before You Buy From Facebook Marketplace
A woman says ChatGPT is your best friend for finding out whether an online furniture find will fit in your ride. Earlier this week, Gabriella Caruso (@gabxcaruso) revealed how she incorporates artificial intelligence in her online shopping ventures. Her advice could save you the trouble of having to phone a friend with a pickup truck or rent something to haul your purchase in. Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . As of this writing, Caruso's TikTok has accrued over 70,000 views. ChatGPT + Facebook Marketplace Online retail hubs like Facebook Marketplace can offer great secondhand deals. A pro tip is to set your location to areas where a lot of remodeling is going on, such as neighborhoods in the process of gentrification. But once you find that perfect office chair, you typically have to go pick it up. Even with measurements, it can be difficult to be absolutely certain it'll fit in your vehicle. Caruso says artificial intelligence (AI), specifically ChatGPT, offers a perfect solution. She claims that the popular AI software will tell you if that Herman Miller chair will fit in your brand new Suzuki Jimny . 'My most genius ChatGPT hack that I've never heard anyone talk about is when you're buying furniture on Facebook Marketplace,' Caruso says. 'Put the dimensions of the furniture, along with your car's make and model into ChatGPT.' She says that after a quick scan of available data pertaining to both the furniture and the specific vehicle, the AI 'will tell you whether it'll fit or not.' According to her, this method has saved her a lot of legwork trying to figure out if she needs a specialized vehicle to haul secondhand items she buys online. 'It works every single time,' she says. Best Vehicles for Hauling Furniture ChatGPT may offer a helpful solution to 'will it fit' woes, but there are some basic guidelines that can give you an idea of whether something will fit without resorting to AI. Certain vehicle types and styles simply fit things better. Obviously, pickup trucks are first on the list. Large SUVs come second, followed by smaller SUVs and crossovers. Taller vehicles also typically can fit larger items than their shorter counterparts. Similarly, hatchbacks and fastbacks are likely to fit more than many sedans. And a sedan that has a backseat you can lie down to make the passenger compartment and trunk a single space will logically fit more than one without this capability. If you're still not sure, you may want to ask ChatGPT . ChatGPT and Cars Car enthusiasts and average drivers alike are increasingly turning to ChatGPT for assistance. Yahoo reports that prospective buyers can use it to find the best automotive deals in their area with the program. The outlet recommends inputting a budget, car models, and necessary features in your query. You can also ask it to scan for any timely and pertinent incentives and rebates. And you can have it scan for dealerships within the vicinity of a specific area. Trending Now 'I Bet You Didn't Know This:' Woman Discovers This Little-Known Perk to Driving A Subaru. Then Her Order Comes in the Mail 'That's Not Normal:' Woman's 2014 Honda Civic Keeps Stalling at Red Lights. Then She Asks for Help Yahoo adds that you can use the AI to compare vehicles you're interested in and to find what the standard trade-in value of your vehicle might be. It also suggests using the software to consider finance rates. In a similar vein, USA Today reports that online car sellers like Edmunds and CarGurus have ChatGPT plugins. It assists potential customers with selecting vehicles that suit their needs. A Better Way Than Showing Up and Hoping for the Best Caruso's advice to use ChatGPT to see if something will fit in your car was met with widespread praise. 'I AUDIBLY GASPED AT HOW SMART THIS IS,' one wrote. Another laughingly compared her method to the way they pick up furniture, writing, 'This is so smart!! Personally, I just show up and hope for the best.' 'This is actually life changing advice thank you,' a third said. One person offered their own advice on getting furniture delivered in a pinch. 'If it doesn't fit, order an Uber XL to deliver it to you :) I've done this a few times!' Yet another said they tried it and it works. 'Dude I love doing this and I'm not even kidding it is so accurate,' they wrote. 'My desk fit in my man's car with ONE CENTIMETER TO SPARE. IT WAS SO CLOSE TO NOT FITTING.' Motor1 has reached out to Caruso via TikTok comment for further information. We'll be sure to update this if she responds. More From Motor1 Future Toyota Vehicles Could Be Partially Designed By AI Volkswagen Is Putting ChatGPT In Its Cars Yes, The Slate Truck Can Haul Plywood Sheets Man Arrested After Trying to Tow a Car Backwards on a Highway Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
