New Ecommerce Tools: January 14, 2026

Our rundown this week of new products and services for ecommerce merchants includes updates on agentic commerce, product reviews, A/B testing, post-purchase experiences, cryptocurrency payments, fulfillment, analytics, personalization, and packaging.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Google launches an open standard for agentic commerce. Google is launching the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for agentic commerce, establishing a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers. UCP is compatible with existing industry protocols, such as Agent2Agent, Agent Payments Protocol, and Model Context Protocol. Google co-developed UCP with industry leaders, including Shopify, Etsy, and Walmart. More than 20 others across the payment ecosystem have endorsed UCP, including Adyen, Flipkart, Mastercard, Visa, and Stripe.

Universal Commerce Protocol

PayPal powers Microsoft’s launch of Copilot Checkout. PayPal is partnering with Microsoft in support of Checkout, enabling shoppers to discover, decide, and pay without leaving the Copilot experience. PayPal will surface merchant inventory, branded checkout, guest checkout, and credit card payments, starting with Copilot.com. Copilot uses AI to bring context and intent into the shopping journey. Users can now browse curated, shoppable results and complete their purchase with PayPal.

Amazon to limit reviews across product variations. Amazon is changing how reviews are shared across products. Amazon has heretofore shared reviews across all variations of a product, even when they differ significantly. Now, to improve accuracy and help shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions, Amazon will share only reviews between variations with minor differences that don’t affect functionality.

Kibo Commerce announces Connect Hub and MCP. Kibo Commerce, a platform for composable commerce, has launched two product offerings. The new Connect Hub helps scale pre-built integrations to platforms across various product categories, including ecommerce and marketplaces. Merchants gain access to a network of 3,300 trading partners and hundreds of payment and shipping adapters. The new Kibo MCP integrates enterprise commerce logic and generative AI tools.

Fluent Commerce launches order sourcing logic with A/B testing. Fluent Commerce, an order management system, has announced the launch of AI-powered order sourcing logic with A/B testing. Users can compare the outcomes of two sets of order sourcing logic run in parallel to see the impact on net margin, fulfillment and delivery costs, split shipment rate, order-to-door time, and average delivery distance, and to calculate carbon impact. The capability enables retailers to continuously learn from their fulfillment network, according to Fluent Commerce.

Fluent Commerce

Route acquires Frate Returns for ecommerce post-purchase experiences. Route, a post-purchase platform for ecommerce brands, has acquired Frate Returns, a returns-and-exchanges platform. By integrating Frate’s returns-and-exchanges software, Route now offers merchants a single integrated platform to manage the customer journey after checkout. According to Route, Frate’s capabilities (exchange-first optimization, AI image verification, and flexible shipping, refund, and payment options) allow brands to reduce refund rates and operational costs while retaining revenue and increasing loyalty.

Crypto.com partners with Stripe. Crypto.com, a global cryptocurrency platform, is partnering with Stripe to expand payment options. The collaboration will allow Crypto.com users to pay for everyday goods and services using their crypto balances at Stripe-powered merchants across the U.S. The integration will appear as a new payment option on the checkout pages of participating merchants that use Stripe’s Optimized Checkout Suite.

UCanPack launches tall ecommerce boxes. UCanPack, a provider of packaging and shipping supplies, has introduced a line of engineered tall boxes for ecommerce merchants. According to UCanPack, the line features impact resistance and crush protection and is right-sized for elongated and narrow goods, such as lamps, tripods, sports gear, decor, and rolled materials. UCanPack aims to help brands reduce transit damage and streamline pack bench workflows.

Shoplazza launches fulfillment option. Shoplazza, a global commerce platform serving direct-to-consumer brands, has launched Fulfillment by Shoplazza to help merchants navigate global logistics. Shoplazza says its new fulfillment service integrates global warehousing, last-mile delivery, financial automation, and real-time risk controls to provide merchants with a predictable and scalable logistics engine. Key capabilities include zero-prepayment logistics, revenue-aligned billing, embedded financial tools, global and localized fulfillment options, and a compliant logistics network, per Shoplazza.

Shoplazza

Stackline unveils analytics for AI-powered commerce platforms. Stackline, a provider of retail analytics and connected commerce, has launched AI Visibility, offering insights into how shoppers discover and interact with products via conversational and agentic shopping platforms. According to Stackline, participating merchants can (i) measure the volume of real shopping questions across leading AI platforms, (ii) bring results from ChatGPT, Amazon Rufus, and more into a unified analytical environment, (iii) view detailed product competitive insights, and (iv) analyze which products frequently appear in recommendations together.

Blue Yonder launches AI-related updates to its planning platform. Blue Yonder, a supply chain platform, has released AI updates aimed at increasing agility and optimizing customer experiences. The updates, per Blue Yonder, strengthen its supply chain network of 172,000 global trading partners, improving efficiency and responsiveness.

Lightspeed Commerce launches AI assistants. Lightspeed Commerce, an omnichannel platform powering businesses in over 100 countries, has launched Lightspeed AI for agent-driven workflows, including conversational assistants for retail and restaurants. The assistants help merchants ask questions, get answers quickly, and make smarter decisions without navigating dashboards or reports.

Bloomreach’s AI-powered search now available on AWS Marketplace. Bloomreach, an ecommerce personalization provider, announced its AI-powered search tool is now available on Amazon Web Services Marketplace. Loomi AI, Bloomreach’s intelligence platform, brings personalization across email, SMS, web, app, search, and more. Via the AWS Marketplace, businesses can now discover and deploy Loomi AI-powered tools to capture first-party customer and product data and add context and decision-making in customer journeys, per Bloomreach.

Bloomreach

New Ecommerce Tools: January 7, 2026

This week’s installment of new products and services for merchants includes marketing and advertising platforms, livestream tools, pop-up and form builders, fulfillment networks, AI voice agents, agentic commerce, and reverse logistics.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Orca launches LiveMax to book a shoppable livestream in minutes. Orca, a livestream and social commerce provider, has launched LiveMax, a self-serve tool that empowers brands and retailers to book and execute shoppable livestreams on TikTok Shop and Amazon Live. According to Orca, LiveMax enables any brand to schedule a produced livestream quickly. Orca’s production resources include professional hosts and producers.

Orca

PayPal Ads launches Transaction Graph Insights and Measurement. PayPal Ads has launched its Transaction Graph Insights and Measurement Program, providing merchants and advertisers with a view into shopper behavior, campaign effectiveness, and data-driven recommendations. The tools help understand cross-merchant, cross-surface shopper journeys to deliver brand-specific recommendations and independent campaign validation with third-party partners.

Slingwave brings AI-powered unified measurement to ecommerce.  Slingwave has unveiled its AI-native marketing platform for ecommerce and direct-to-consumer brands. The system combines marketing mix modeling, agile marketing attribution, and experimentation with an intelligence layer and customized models that run millions of scenarios to deliver a clear plan for optimizing spend. According to Slingwave, the platform learns with every campaign, ensuring recommendations continuously improve.

Getsitecontrol updates widget builder for pop-ups and forms. Getsitecontrol, an email marketing platform for ecommerce, has released a redesigned widget editor that offers enhanced visual control when designing website pop-ups, forms, and teasers. The editor introduces a visual element tree that displays the complete structure of each widget in a sidebar. Getsitecontrol now allows users to fine-tune every visual aspect of their widgets, including margins, paddings, alignment, sizes, and colors. The result, says Getsitecontrol, is professional widgets that adapt to any screen size.

ReturnPro launches Shopify app. ReturnPro, a provider of returns management and reverse logistics, has launched its Returns Portal App on the Shopify App Store. The app combines returns initiation with a connected reverse supply chain and recommerce ecosystem. Shopify merchants gain access to ReturnPro’s infrastructure, including more than 1,000 partner drop-off locations. Merchants can resell refurbished inventory through their Shopify storefronts or distribute products across ReturnPro’s network of integrated marketplaces, creating secondary revenue streams and reducing write-offs.

ReturnPro

Stord acquires Shipwire to expand its fulfillment network. Stord, a logistics provider for pre-purchase, checkout, delivery, and returns, has acquired Shipwire, a subsidiary of Ceva Logistics. Stord says the acquisition continues its expansion of fulfillment networks by adding 12 locations, strengthening its presence in Europe, and maintaining access to Ceva’s global network of warehouses through Shipwire’s existing logistics agreements. Ceva manages 120 million square feet of warehouse space worldwide.

Amazon launches Alexa+ for users to chat with its assistant. Amazon has launched an Alexa+ website that lets select users chat with its assistant via their browser. Users can access Alexa.com to get quick answers, explore complex topics, create content, and more. Alexa.com combines information with real-world actions, offering integrations across devices for shopping, home control, cooking, and entertainment, per Amazon. Customers with early access to Alexa+ can visit Alexa.com while logged into their Amazon account and start chatting.

ITTRackNap launches marketplace and subscription commerce platform. ITTRackNap, an AI-powered marketplace and subscription automation platform for cloud and technology providers, announced its U.S. launch. The platform enables managed service providers, telecommunications and connectivity providers, and technology distributors to launch and scale cloud and digital commerce faster and cost-effectively. RackNap streamlines and lowers the cost of channel back-office operations through native integrations with hyperscalers and portals, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Acronis.

PubMatic launches AgenticOS for agent-to-agent advertising. PubMatic, an ad tech company, has launched AgenticOS, an operating system to orchestrate autonomous, agent-to-agent advertising across digital environments. AgenticOS deploys a three-layer framework to plan, transact, and optimize programmatic advertising: (i) an Nvidia-powered infrastructure layer, (ii) an application layer with embedded agentic capabilities to interpret intent through protocols such as the Ad Context and Model Context, and (iii) a transaction layer that connects agentic decisioning to PubMatic’s Activate buying platform.

PubMatic

eBay introduces credit notes for U.S. seller fees and tax reversals. eBay is issuing separate credit notes for all seller fees, charges, and tax reversals in the U.S. A credit note reduces or cancels an invoice. Each credit note will show the reduced amounts and reference to the original invoice. According to eBay, the update improves transparency and helps match charges with reversals.

Cloudhands launches cross-model AI platform. Cloudhands, a marketplace for AI tools, has announced a new unified platform that lets users move among leading models such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google while keeping their conversation history, documents, tasks, and creative work connected. Interested users can join the waitlist for the platform, which will launch early this year, per Cloudhands.

xAI launches Grok Business and Grok Enterprise. xAI, the chatbot natively integrated into X, has launched Grok Business and Grok Enterprise, two new tiers providing access to Grok 3, Grok 4, and Grok 4 Heavy. Grok Business offers a self-serve process for small-to-medium teams. For larger organizations, Grok Enterprise includes Grok Business plus Custom Single Sign-On, Directory Sync, and audit and security controls.

VoAgents launches enterprise voice AI platform for customer conversations. VoAgents, a provider of enterprise voice tools, has launched voice AI agents capable of handling inbound and outbound calls. The platform’s self-learning capability means voice agents improve with every interaction. Core platform features include customizable voice personalities and workflows tailored to brand requirements, calendar and customer-management integrations, real-time call recordings and transcripts, outbound campaign management, and more. VoAgents offers access to all leading language models, including OpenAI and Anthropic.

VoAgents

New Ecommerce Tools: December 31, 2025

Since 2016 I’ve published a weekly rundown of new services for ecommerce merchants. This final 2025 installment includes updates on mobile apps, hosting, ecommerce accelerators, avatars, review management, email marketing, agentic commerce, and video creation.

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

New Tools for Merchants

MobiLoud launches analytics dashboard for mobile apps. MobiLoud, a mobile app builder, has launched an AI-powered analytics dashboard. According to MobiLoud, the dashboard provides merchants with real-time, actionable insights into their mobile apps’ performance and incremental value. The dashboard centralizes data into a single view, including revenue, conversions, user engagement,  retention, app versus website, and more.

MobiLoud

Hosted.com launches infrastructure enhancements for WordPress. Hosted.com has updated its WordPress hosting platform. Per Hosted.com, the improvements include advanced server architecture, enhanced processing and resource allocation, and refined caching and database systems to maintain performance and uptime. The update also provides database configurations that support WordPress, handle content-heavy websites, and improve querying and page responsiveness.

Ecommerce accelerator CPGIO expands footprint with marketplace launches. CPGIO, an ecommerce accelerator for consumer brands, has announced new marketplace partnerships with Nordstrom, Chewy, Lowe’s, Faire, and Best Buy. CPGIO says these additions give brands access to more than 40 retail channels, reinforcing the company’s ecommerce position and enabling it to deliver actionable insights and performance controls.

Lemon Slice launches platform for real-time interactive avatars. Lemon Slice, an AI research and product lab, has launched Lemon Slice-2, a real-time avatar model that turns any image into a live conversational video call. Lemon Slice-2 is launching in two forms: an API for developers building interactive avatars into products, and an embeddable widget for a video chat bubble.

Lemon Slice

Aarav Solutions launches AI-powered CPQ chatbot on Odoo. Aarav Solutions, specializing in AI-driven accelerators, has launched a configure, price, quote chatbot on Odoo. This new conversational tool enables customers to configure products, receive real-time pricing, apply eligible discounts, and complete orders through a guided experience. Per Aarav Solutions, the Odoo-native chatbot (i) helps businesses move beyond form-driven CPQ workflows and (ii) operates within product catalogs, customer-specific price lists, discount rules, and fulfillment constraints.

NewMedia.com launches agency services for ChatGPT. NewMedia.com, an ecommerce marketing agency, has announced its ChatGPT visibility services to help brands optimize for generative search and large-language-model discovery. NewMedia.com helps businesses improve visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, and conversational search systems.

GBPPromote launches Google reviews management software. GBPPromote, a platform focused on Google Business Profiles for agencies and businesses, has launched its Google reviews management software to help companies manage reviews, protect their online reputation, and build trust with consumers. Per GBPPromote, features include one-click review replies, custom QR codes to help customers easily leave reviews, automated review requests, negative-review flagging, sentiment analysis and insights, instant review alerts, multi-location management, and a central dashboard for reviews from all locations.

Joyz Cloudtech launches customer service chatbot for businesses. India-based Joyz Cloudtech has launched a custom AI chatbot that helps businesses manage customer queries and support across websites, WhatsApp, Instagram, and custom apps. JoyzAI aims to handle customer queries, reducing the operational load on human support teams by automating routine and repetitive tasks. Joyz states businesses can train the new tool on specific information to deliver responses aligned with their products, services, and policies.

JoyzAI

MuleRun launches Creator Studio for AI agent monetization. MuleRun, an AI agent marketplace, has launched a platform to help creators build, publish, and monetize AI agents. The new Creator Studio can develop agents using various tools or models and provide access to multiple LLMs and multimodal APIs. MuleRun also announced its upcoming agent builder, a natural-language-powered tool that enables users without coding experience to create agents using ideas and plain language and publish them directly on MuleRun.

Optimove updates email marketing tool. Optimove, an AI-powered marketing platform, has released an update to its email marketing tool. New features include an open data structure to sync templates with external data sources, AI content recommendation agents, an engine to trigger custom emails based on external events, interactive components via email widgets, and a Liquid-based syntax to insert data, apply logic, and structure dynamic content at scale.

TemVideo launches AI video creator for marketing. TemVideo has launched its platform to create marketing videos without requiring complex prompts. Users upload a product image, and TemVideo’s AI analyzes features, audience, and scenarios, then generates a story-driven 45-to-90-second marketing video.

Buzzy launches platform to generate video ideas from social trends. Buzzy, an AI video generator, has launched a platform to help creators and brands generate content ideas by analyzing social media trends. The platform’s goal is to structure creativity around real-time data, providing marketers with guidance on video content and publishing it directly on social media platforms through Buzzy.

Buzzy

New Ecommerce Tools: December 24, 2025

Every week we publish a rundown of new services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on answer engine optimization, agentic commerce, analytics, marketplaces, cryptocurrencies and alternative payments, AI marketing, fulfillment, fraud prevention, and creator-led commerce.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Contentsquare and Shopify partner to deliver customer-experience insights. Contentsquare, a provider of AI-first analytics, has partnered with Shopify to provide customer experience visibility across ecommerce. According to the companies, the combination of Shopify’s commerce platform and Contentsquare’s granular behavioral insights gives businesses a comprehensive view of the customer experience, from first interaction through post-purchase. The partnership enables participating merchants to (i) visualize how shoppers browse, search, and move across products and categories, (ii) use AI to detect obstacles and strengthen A/B testing, and (iii) analyze placement, merchandising, and cross-sell strategies.

Contentsquare

GoDaddy’s ANS Marketplace advises which AI Agents to trust. GoDaddy has announced the next phase of its Agent Name Service by launching the ANS Marketplace and related AI agents. According to GoDaddy, the ANS Marketplace lets users discover ANS-verified agents, understand how they work, and see them in action. The curated set of agents includes Brand Advisor, Home Page Advisor, Place Reviews Analyzer, Social Media Post Generator, and Business Information Snoopy.

Shift4 launches stablecoin settlement platform for merchants. Shift4, a developer of integrated payments and commerce technology, has launched its stablecoin settlement platform to receive and move money 24/7. According to Shift4, the platform will allow merchants to opt into being settled in popular stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, EURC, and DAI rather than receiving a bank transfer. It will also give merchants the flexibility to choose from popular networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Plasma, Stellar, Polygon, Ton, and Base.

Squarespace introduces Pay Links to help small businesses get paid. Squarespace, a website builder and hosting platform, has introduced Pay Links, dedicated URLs that collect payments online via text, social media, QR code, or embedded links. Pay Links offer a fast way to collect payments with a branded design, built-in security, and integrated tools for tracking and analytics. Unlimited use of Pay Links is included across all plans and can be accessed through Squarespace’s merchant dashboard once connected to a payment processor.

Squarespace Pay Links

Akii launches AI Engage to train genAI engines on brand content. Akii, a search intelligence tool for businesses and marketers, has launched AI Engage, a search engagement platform to help brands educate genAI engines at scale about their content, offerings, and positioning. The platform runs automated engagement campaigns that prompt AI search engines to fetch, analyze, and learn from a brand’s content using realistic user-style queries. The platform executes campaigns across four major AI search engines simultaneously.

BigCommerce partners with Stripe to support Agentic Commerce Suite. Commerce, parent company of BigCommerce, has announced BigCommerce’s integration with Stripe’s new Agentic Commerce Suite, which will enable BigCommerce merchants to leverage AI agent-driven shopping by making products more discoverable and purchasable. Through a single integration, BigCommerce merchants can connect their existing product catalogs to their chosen AI agents to power an agentic checkout experience, allowing merchants to scale while still maintaining control of their brand.

Teikametrics announces Artificial Retail Intelligence for marketplaces. Teikametrics, a marketplace optimization platform, has announced its AI-driven Artificial Retail Intelligence to scale across marketplaces such as Amazon, Walmart, and TikTok Shop. Users can unify campaigns and optimize inventory on one platform, which populates and edits listings based on performance data from ad campaigns and on what’s working in the marketplace.

Teikametrics

Salesforce to acquire Qualified. Salesforce has agreed to acquire Qualified, a provider of agentic AI marketing tools to engage and convert inbound buyers. Qualified says its flagship product transforms websites into multimodal conversational experiences to screen and nurture leads. According to Salesforce, bringing Qualified into the Salesforce ecosystem will enable customers to quickly deploy fully featured marketing agents that autonomously generate sales pipelines. Salesforce states the transaction will close in the February to April 2026 range.

Kibo Commerce announces advanced B2B and fulfillment innovations. Kibo Commerce, a provider of composable commerce tools, has announced product releases and enhancements, including expanded Agentic Commerce capabilities, streamlined order management processes, and extended B2B functionality. Kibo’s Merchandiser Agent empowers teams to generate and update product descriptions and search-engine metadata using natural language. Agentic Roadmap includes a suite of order management agents: Order Routing, Reverse Logistics, and Forecasting. B2B merchants can now define custom roles and permissions.

Intelo.ai launches on Microsoft Marketplace for retail operations. Intelo.ai, a provider of retail technology, has announced the availability of its specialized AI agent network on the Microsoft Marketplace. Microsoft customers can now access Intelo.ai’s retail agents that automate workflows across planning, allocation, and replenishment. The agents include Strategic Planning, Core Planning, Assortment Planning, In-Season Management, Pricing & Promotion, and Vendor Management.

Intelo.ai

Shopline partners with Hive Analytics. Global commerce platform Shopline has partnered with Hive Analytics, a performance marketing and growth agency that builds custom fractional marketing teams. Shopline says the partnership enables consumer brands to launch or migrate onto its platform with an optimized, “growth-ready” setup supported by Hive Analytics’ dedicated fractional teams. This includes streamlined store execution, conversion rate optimization, user-experience setup, full-funnel performance marketing, scalable retention strategies, and regional market insights.

Amenexia launches AI shopping assistant for ecommerce. Amenexia, an AI-powered digital shopping assistant, is entering the U.S. ecommerce market. According to Amenexia, its AI assistant provides seamless, human-like interaction for customers at every step of their journey, from product inquiries to checkout. Available 24/7, Amenexia ensures that online stores can engage with customers in real-time, offering personalized assistance and boosting conversion rates without additional human staff.

Pattern acquires NextWave, expanding TikTok Shop and creator-led commerce. Pattern Group, a marketplace accelerator for brands, has acquired NextWave, an agency specializing in creator-led product discovery, TikTok Shop operations, live selling, and affiliate acceleration. According to Pattern, the acquisition enhances the platform’s ability to help brands reach customers through TikTok Shop and social commerce.

Pattern

Shopify Integrates AI Product Discovery

Shopify’s forthcoming Agentic Storefronts will feed structured product data to generative AI platforms and enable shoppers to complete purchases in the chats.

The direct connection means that even the smallest merchants on Shopify can sell via ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and similar AI solutions.

Introduced as part of Shopify’s Winter ’26 Edition — which included about 150 new features and concepts — Agentic Storefronts is a natural response to agent-driven commerce. It also signals that familiar shopper discovery channels such as search engines and product feeds will have AI equivalents.

Agentic Storefronts

Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts aims to be simple for merchants and scalable for AI platforms.

At a high level, the process looks like this.

• Merchants enable Agentic Storefronts inside Shopify.
• Shopify structures product, pricing, inventory, and brand data.
• That data passes to partner AI platforms.
• Shoppers discover, evaluate, and purchase products inside AI chats.
• Order details flow back to the merchants’ Shopify backend.

Shopify describes the workflow as a “configure once, distribute everywhere” model. It’s similar to how merchants already use product feeds for search engines and marketplaces.

Agentic Commerce

Agentic commerce refers to AI-driven software agents that perform common shopping tasks on behalf of consumers.

Rather than manually searching, clicking, filtering, and comparing items, a shopper can ask, say, ChatGPT to find the best option. A virtual agent can then compare alternatives, apply preferences, recommend a product, and facilitate the transaction. Effectively, the platform becomes the ecommerce catalog and checkout.

This model is already visible in early forms. AI chats recommend products, summarize reviews, and answer follow-up questions. Some can initiate checkout flows.

Thousands of holiday shoppers have likely used generative AI to find gift ideas. Agentic commerce goes further, enabling shoppers to buy goods from the AI chat window.

AI commerce requires structured, reliable product data; no one wants hallucinated products or features. Agentic Storefronts provides that data and ensures Shopify merchants remain visible and relevant.

Discovery Shift

Agentic commerce and storefronts are leading-edge technology, yet the way merchants interact with them feels oddly familiar.

For three decades, ecommerce product discovery has involved organic search optimization, advertising, and product feeds.

With AI, discovery begins with answers, not links. Shoppers ask product questions. AI recommends. The experience is conversational, contextual, and even personal.

Depending on the context, answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) each aim to raise visibility in AI answers and recommendations.

Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts include tools for both. As agentic commerce becomes widespread, sellers will find that SEO skills and procedures will carry over to AEO and GEO.

Advertising

Not surprisingly, advertising remains the most reliable and predictable way to generate ecommerce traffic and sales.

Most merchants can fine-tune customer acquisition costs and drive profitable sales through Google, Meta, and other advertising channels.

Even ads on marketplaces such as Amazon provide predictable revenue. Advertising is essential for most ecommerce businesses, and agentic commerce probably won’t change that.

Ads are coming to genAI platforms. Ecommerce marketers will soon buy AI chat ads in a similar manner to search ads.

Product Feeds

Finally, Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts will generate product data feeds for genAI platforms, much like feeds to Google Merchant Center, marketplaces, and other sales channels.

Don’t be surprised when more and similar AI-focused product feed tools become available. Shopify is leading the way, but it will most certainly have many excellent competitors.

New Ecommerce Tools: December 17, 2025

This week’s rundown of new products and services for ecommerce merchants includes updates on agentic commerce, marketplaces, crowdfunding, creator partnerships, rush pickups, analytics, and fraud prevention.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Shopify introduces Agentic Storefronts. Shopify has released Agentic Storefronts to help brands get discovered on platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Merchants can (i) define their schema and then group products by standard attributes and metafields so agents accurately present their products in searches and (ii) track policies, FAQs, and brand voice via the Knowledge Base App.

Shopify Agentic Storefronts

Klarna launches Agentic Product Protocol. Klarna, a buy-now-pay-later payment provider, has launched Agentic Product Protocol, an open standard that makes goods discoverable and understandable by AI agents. Klarna says its new protocol gives AI systems access to a live, structured feed of more than 100 million products and 400 million prices standardized across 12 markets. The protocol establishes a structured foundation that allows agents to find, compare, and recommend real products with live prices and availability, according to Klarna.

Uber Direct partners with India’s ONDC. Uber has launched a foray into B2B logistics in India through Uber Direct, powered by the country’s Open Network for Digital Commerce protocol. Uber Direct operates as a logistics engine for businesses. Buyers place orders on a B2B seller’s app or website, and Uber Direct fulfills the delivery without the buyer interacting with Uber until the delivery partner arrives. Uber Direct is now live in Bangalore on the ONDC.

Uber Direct brings same-day delivery to Shopify. Uber Direct is now available to Shopify Plus merchants across the U.S., Canada, and France. The integration brings Uber Direct’s one-hour, same-day, and scheduled delivery network into the Shopify ecosystem. Merchants can get started through the Shopify App Store and embed delivery options into Shopify checkout and point of sale. Merchants can then decide whether to pass delivery costs to customers.

Shopline partners with LaunchBoom for ecommerce crowdfunding. Shopline, a global commerce platform, has partnered with LaunchBoom, a crowdfunding consultancy. LaunchBoom’s LaunchKit will integrate with Shopline, providing a transition from crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo into scalable ecommerce businesses. Founders can automatically sync their pre-launch and crowdfunding data, including reservation signups, customers, and product details, into Shopline the moment their campaigns end. Shopline’s checkout, payment processing, and SmartPush tools will embed into LaunchKit.

Shopline

Meta releases AI-powered tools to scale creator and brand partnerships. Meta has introduced tools to turn organic content on Facebook and Instagram into partnership ads. Advertisers can create ads from Facebook-branded or user-generated content with Facebook’s Partnership Ads API. Brands can discover relevant organic user-generated and affiliate content within the “All” tab and check how organic is performing in Partnership Ads Hub. Plus, creators can now share an ad code with an advertiser to speed up content permissions.

Amazon plans one-hour pickup service in stores. Amazon is developing a rush pickup service that will let shoppers collect their orders at Amazon-owned stores within an hour. Shoppers can place a unified order from Amazon’s online marketplace and its own stores, including Whole Foods, Fresh grocery stores, and Go convenience stores. The tech giant plans to launch a pilot in at least one metro area by Q1 2026.

Analytic platform Decile launches Luma AI for ecommerce. Decile, an analytics platform, has launched Luma, a conversational AI analysis tool for ecommerce brands. Decile says Luma combines ecommerce experience with a data foundation to interpret results, identify causes, and recommend next steps. Luma users can generate brand-specific, multi-step analyses of real-time data, prompted by plain-language inquiries, per Decile, in which every result includes visible reasoning and data context.

Spreetail unveils True Ads to maximize incremental sales. Spreetail, an ecommerce marketplace accelerator, has launched True Ads, an AI incrementality engine that quantifies the impact of ad spend using causal inference. Per Spreetail, users can (i) distinguish incremental lift from cannibalized sales across targeting, including keywords, (ii) identify non-productive ad spend and reallocate towards profitable campaigns, and (iii) discover how paid media influences long-term brand momentum, including organic visibility and market share. True Ads is part of Spreetail’s Smart Shelf suite, which includes Price Pulse, Listing Doctor, and Promise Pro.

Spreetail

Stripe launches Agentic Commerce Suite. Stripe has introduced the Agentic Commerce Suite to help businesses sell through multiple AI agents, with the goal of making products discoverable, simplifying checkout, and allowing merchants to accept agentic payments via a single integration. The Agentic Commerce Suite will launch via the Stripe Dashboard and Stripe APIs; through ecommerce platforms such as Wix, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Commercetools; and via omnichannel commerce platforms such as Akeneo, Cymbio, Logicbroker, Mirakl, Pipe17, and Rithum.

Temu expands marketplace access for small businesses via Shopify app. Temu has launched an app for Shopify merchants to list and manage products on Temu directly from Shopify accounts. The app is available on the Shopify App Store and enables merchants to access Temu’s Local Seller Program in more than 30 countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Spain, and Australia. Via the app, Shopify merchants can manage product listings, inventory, and fulfillment.

Blox launches fraud prevention with identity linking for Shopify. Blox has launched Chargeback Blacklist on the Shopify App Store, with a customer deduplication engine to stop repeat offenders. Smart Identity Linking connects emails, credit cards, and addresses to block fraudulent data at inception. Customers blocked on other Shopify stores using Blox (or who have issued chargebacks elsewhere) are automatically flagged. The automated order cancellation detects and deletes bad orders.

Zoovu launches MCP Server to give AI agents access to product intelligence. Zoovu, an AI product search and discovery platform, has launched MCP Server, a Model Context Protocol server that gives AI agents governed access to product data. Zoovu says its new server allows enterprises (i) to connect any MCP-compatible agent to enriched and standardized product data, (ii) compatibility and configuration logic, and (iii) genAI product and shopping experts, providing consistent and trustworthy product information for scalable agentic commerce.

Zoovu

New Ecommerce Tools: December 10, 2025

Every week we curate a list of new services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on live-streaming, agentic commerce, ecommerce insurance, returns management, analytics, product customizations, dispute resolution, and digital identity verification.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Assureful and Threecolts announce Lost Inbound Insurance for ecommerce. Assureful, a provider of product liability insurance for digital businesses, and Threecolts, a cloud suite for marketplace management, have launched Lost Inbound Insurance to protect Fulfillment by Amazon sellers when inventory goes missing en route to distribution centers. ​Assureful says the collaboration combines its specialist InsurTech platform with Threecolts’ data and inventory visibility, enabling merchants to manage supply chain risk within the ecommerce workflow.

Assureful

Amazon Europe updates referral and Fulfillment by Amazon fees for 2026. Amazon announced that it will lower fees in 2026 by an average of €0.17 ($0.20) per unit sold across Europe. Changes include FBA fee reductions for parcels, expanded Low-Price FBA eligibility, and referral fee reductions in high-volume categories. According to Amazon, the reductions align European fees with its changes in other countries, including in the U.S.

Nielsen Audience Segments available in Amazon Ads. Nielsen, a provider of audience data and measurement, has announced that its Marketing Cloud Audience Segments is available across the Amazon Ads marketplace. The collaboration allows advertisers to access Nielsen’s data to target audiences, deliver ads across multiple platforms and formats, and measure performance within Amazon’s ecosystem. Audience Segments provides targeting across industries, including consumer package goods, autos, and finance, and includes demographics, shopping behaviors, and media consumption.

TikTok Shop partners with ReBound for social commerce returns. TikTok Shop has partnered with ReBound, a global returns management specialist from Reconomy. Brands on TikTok’s ecommerce platform can now access ReBound’s omnichannel returns management tools, including a library of carriers, processing capabilities, and international warehouses, all from within the TikTok Shop Seller Center. End customers can initiate returns within TikTok Shop; ReBound will then manage the process.

TikTok Shop

Retner launches tool to recover missed voice calls. Retner, an India-based AI-powered, voice-first omnichannel customer intelligence platform, has launched AI Voice Call Engine to help ecommerce brands recover missed voice calls. AI Voice is commerce-focused, including inbound call recovery, cash-on-delivery order confirmation and verification, abandoned checkout callbacks, automated call qualification before human escalation, and inquiries via voice. The tool logs voice interactions, allowing brands to personalize subsequent communications across WhatsApp, Instagram, web chat, and voice.

eBay brings real-time streaming auctions to Australia. eBay has launched its live-stream shopping feature, eBay Live, in Australia, beginning with trading cards and collectables. Featuring interactive product demonstrations, instant purchases, and timed offers, the format allows buyers to interact directly with sellers through real-time streaming, chat, and auctions on eBay’s platform. eBay Live already operates in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.

Artifi launches Automated Product Setup for customization-ready ecommerce. Artifi, a product customization platform from Amla Commerce, has launched Automated Product Setup using AI and computer vision to make products customization-ready. Artifi connects directly to supplier data feeds to retrieve structured product information and media content. A trained AI model analyzes and defines product images, generating configuration rules to create customization-ready products automatically. Distributors can subscribe to multiple supplier feeds within Artifi.

Artifi

Cimulate updates CommerceGPT to bridge old and new eras of digital commerce. Cimulate, developer of the AI-native CommerceGPT platform, has released an update that unites old and new modalities of digital shopping. New features include Human Feedback, Commerce AEO, and Co-Pilot Analytics. Human Feedback allows merchants to tune AI’s understanding of relevance. Commerce AEO helps brands to understand and improve how their products appear within agentic systems. Co-Pilot Analytics showcases what customers are asking, which interactions convert and why, and how to improve AI shopping assistant conversions.

Digital identity verification platform Socure acquires Qlarifi for BNPL credit system. Socure, an AI-powered platform for identity verification, compliance, and fraud prevention, has acquired Qlarifi, a real-time buy-now-pay-later consumer credit database. Qlarifi aims to give BNPL providers the insight needed to expand services for trusted customers while pinpointing high-risk behavior such as loan stacking and first-party fraud. According to Socure, integrating Qlarifi’s capabilities with Socure’s Identity Graph intelligence and RiskOS decisioning engine establishes a unified identity, anti-fraud, and BNPL credit infrastructure for lenders.

Gradial raises $35 million for enterprise marketing through AI agents. Gradial, an enterprise software developer of agentic marketing tools, has raised $35 million led by VMG Partners, with participation from existing investors Madrona and Pruven Capital. Gradial states that its agents automate the execution layer of marketing operations across existing systems and workflows. The company will use the funding to accelerate development of its platform and expand its Seattle-based team across engineering, product, and go-to-market.

Fi911 launches ResolveLab, a white-label disputes platform for resellers. Fi911, a provider of automation technologies for financial institutions, has launched ResolveLab, a smart-connection hub for payment facilitators. Leveraging Ethoca’s Consumer Clarity and Ethoca Alerts by Mastercard, ResolveLab allows payment facilitators to deploy and resell tools for chargeback prevention, subscription management, and risk mitigation. Facilitators can deliver enterprise-level tools, including Ethoca Consumer Clarity, Ethoca Alerts, and Smart Subscription from Mastercard, empowering consumers to manage, pause, and amend multiple subscriptions in one place.

ResolveLab

New Ecommerce Tools: December 3, 2025

This week’s rundown of new services for ecommerce merchants includes updates on fraud prevention, agentic commerce, automated customer support, fulfillment, payments, and generative advertising.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Bolt launches ID to help merchants prevent fraud during checkout. Bolt, a checkout, identity, and payments platform, has introduced ID, a feature that helps merchants and shoppers reduce synthetic identity fraud and account takeover attacks. The system operates across Bolt’s checkout network and strengthens the integrity of shopper identity without requiring users to create an account or opt into a marketing program. It functions as a security control that verifies key identity elements during checkout, per Bolt

Bolt

Visa and AWS partner on agentic commerce capabilities. Visa and Amazon Web Services have partnered to help developers and enterprises build agentic commerce tools. Visa will list its Intelligence Commerce platform in AWS Marketplace, helping businesses and developers connect to agentic commerce providers for next-generation secure payment experiences. AWS and Visa will also publish blueprints on the public Amazon Bedrock AgentCore repository, enabling developers to create and connect complex workflows.

Miyai.ai launches AI conversational agents for leads and customer support. Miyai.ai, an Australia-based provider of smart conversational agents, has launched a platform to help small and mid-sized businesses convert website visitors into leads while automating customer support. The tool attaches to websites with a single snippet, delivering human-like conversations powered by advanced AI reasoning rather than scripted chatbots. Businesses can customize tone, upload their knowledge, capture leads, answer questions, and guide customers 24/7 through an intuitive backend.

Loud Echo launches real-time generative advertising platform. Loud Echo, an advertising platform from AI lab Teza, has launched a tool that uses generative models to create and serve hyper-contextual ads in real time. The AI reads the page, analyzes audience signals, and delivers tailored creative at scale. Loud Echo integrates real-time creative generation, targeting, and bidding into one system. According to Loud Echo, ads can now adapt to every audience, context, and placement, so that campaigns improve over time.

Loud Echo

Amazon releases Fulfillment by Merchant features. Amazon has introduced Fulfillment by Merchant tools to help sellers manage delivery dates and keep products visible to shoppers when a business is closed. The Locations tab in shipping settings lets sellers customize operations for each location. FBM reports now show the handling and transit times for each order. The Fulfillment by Merchant inventory manager in Seller Central manages multi-location items.

GoDaddy expands Airo with new AI agents. GoDaddy is expanding Airo with six AI agents. Conversations Inbox organizes communication across email, chat, and social channels. Marketing Calendar and Social Posts Agents help plan and launch campaigns and social content. Online Appointments Agent streamlines scheduling for service-based businesses. Domain Activation Agent simplifies connecting GoDaddy domains to websites, online stores, and email providers. Domain Protection Agent checks domain protection levels. DIFY Agent (Do-It-For-You) connects entrepreneurs with humans.

Mexico-based digital commerce platform Clip introduces Pin Pad terminal. Clip, a Mexico-based digital commerce platform, has launched Pin Pad, a fixed card-payments terminal designed for counter sales, connecting to a merchant’s point-of-sale system through API integration. Businesses can keep their current tools while taking advantage of Clip’s benefits, such as immediate payment and personalized customer service.

Checkout adopts Agentic Commerce Protocol. Checkout.com, a digital payments firm, has announced its support for the Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open standard that lets AI agents, people, and businesses work together to complete purchases. Checkout.com will support ACP, allowing merchants to offer secure checkout directly within AI platforms such as OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. Checkout.com is building secure agent experiences through a suite of tools covering verified onboarding, identity management, and fraud prevention.

Checkout.com

Cross-border shipping provider Asendia partners with delivery platform HubBox. Asendia, a cross-border shipping provider, has partnered with HubBox, an out-of-home delivery platform. Through the partnership, Asendia can empower retailers with a logistics solution and seamless checkout integration. By adding HubBox’s online checkout platform, retailers allow shoppers to select a preferred out-of-home location, including lockers, convenience stores, and collection points. This functionality combines with Asendia’s multi-carrier and global out-of-home delivery network.

Newegg integrates with PayPal agentic commerce services. Online retailer Newegg has announced the integration of PayPal’s agentic commerce services, enabling shoppers to discover and purchase products directly inside AI-powered shopping environments, including Perplexity. With PayPal store sync and agent-ready tools, Newegg product catalogs and order fulfillment will connect to AI-driven shopping platforms. Shoppers who interact with AI agents and seek help finding products will receive real-time recommendations that include Newegg listings.

Debenhams Group launches retail media with Mirakl Ads for marketplace growth. Debenhams Group, a marketplace for fashion, home, and beauty products, has announced the renewal of its strategic partnership with Mirakl, a provider of ecommerce software solutions. The renewed agreement includes a new retail media platform, powered by Mirakl Ads. The integration with Mirakl provides brands selling on the marketplace with access to self-service advertising tools to promote their products to the platform’s 300 million annual visitors, according to Debenhams.

AI startup Onton raises $7.5 million to help shoppers decide what to buy. Onton, a search and discovery engine for products, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Footwork with participation from Liquid 2 and Parable Ventures. Onton says its AI foundation allows users to search with natural language, images, or both. It aggregates information from across the web into a single product listing. Users can envision products they want and instantly see shoppable versions of those ideas.

Onton

New Ecommerce Tools: November 26, 2025

Every week we publish a handpicked list of new products and services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on product experience management, agentic commerce, AI-powered payment integration, fulfillment, alternative payments, customer support, website builders, and cross-platform ad campaigns.

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

New Tools for Merchants

Brandfuel launches AI-native Product Experience Management platform. Brandfuel has announced the availability (out of beta) of its AI-native Product Experience Management platform for ecommerce brands and agencies. According to Brandfuel, the platform can capture a brand’s personas, competitors, and keywords — to guide personalized content creation — as well as automate image analysis, alt tags, and per-product competitor tracking. The platform features product content scoring, multi-language and multichannel support, automated A/B content testing, Klaviyo and Meta integrations, and more.

Brandfuel

OpenAI introduces shopping research in ChatGPT. OpenAI‘s new shopping research feature in ChatGPT helps consumers find the right products. Per OpenAI, the tool asks clarifying questions, reviews quality sources, and builds on ChatGPT’s understanding of a user from past conversations to deliver a personalized buyer’s guide. Shopping research is currently rolling out on mobile and web for logged-in ChatGPT users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans.

Worldpay accelerates agentic commerce with Model Context Protocol. Worldpay, a financial technology and payment processing company, has launched Worldpay Model Context Protocol, a set of server specifications and tools designed to accelerate AI-powered payment integration and agentic commerce. Developers and merchants can download, modify, and deploy the protocol immediately to enable the rapid creation of AI agents and direct payment integrations with Worldpay’s API. Worldpay MCP is available on its Developer Hub and on GitHub.

Perplexity announces free tool to streamline online shopping. Perplexity, in partnership with PayPal, is rolling out a free agentic shopping product for U.S. users, who can purchase items from more than 5,000 merchants through the search engine. Perplexity says the new free product will be better than its paid shopping subscription at detecting shopping intent, resulting in more personalized results.

NIQ and Amazon Marketing Cloud partner on cross-platform ad campaigns in Italy. NIQ, a consumer intelligence company, and Amazon Marketing Cloud have announced a collaboration to study the effectiveness in Italy of cross-platform advertising across linear television and Amazon Ads inventory. Advertisers and agencies will gain actionable insights into the relative performance of ad placements across digital, linear TV, and streaming environments, including how each contributes to incremental reach and influences product purchases on Amazon’s ecommerce platforms. The project is part of Amazon Marketing Cloud’s Global Strategic Initiative.

NIQ

Ecommerce accelerator Pattern expands fulfillment solutions. Pattern Group, which accelerates brands on global ecommerce marketplaces, has expanded its portfolio of fulfillment and logistics services. Pattern now offers inbound transportation services, leveraging the company’s carrier relationships and transportation infrastructure. Pattern has expanded its reverse logistics capabilities to help businesses recover more value from returns. Pattern has also launched Reimbursements, an automated service that handles filing and tracking marketplace reimbursement claims, particularly on Amazon.

Integrated E.U. payment solution Unzer enables Wero for merchants. Unzer, a payments and software provider serving small and mid-sized businesses across Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and the Nordics, has gone live with Wero, a new alternative payment solution for Europe-based consumers and merchants. Unzer and the European Payments Initiative, a service backed by 16 European banks and providers, are now inviting merchants to be among the first to adopt the digital payment method through Unzer’s integrated platform, UnzerOne.

Ordoro partners with ShipBob on ecommerce fulfillment. Ordoro, a provider of multichannel ecommerce operations software, has teamed up with ShipBob, a supply chain and fulfillment platform, to help small and mid-market omnichannel merchants find the proper fulfillment setup for their growth stage. According to the companies, merchants using Ordoro benefit from advanced inventory and shipping automation, while brands ready to scale can either outsource to ShipBob’s global fulfillment network or run their own U.S. warehouse using ShipBob’s warehouse management software.

Website builder Jimdo releases AI-powered Companion for small businesses. Jimdo, a Germany-based website builder specializing in solopreneurs, microbusinesses, and small ecommerce ventures, has launched Companion, an AI agent. Built into the Jimdo architecture, Companion provides personalized recommendations that drive visibility and transactions by analyzing each business’s performance history, industry benchmarks, and competitive landscape. Companion is available for Jimdo’s website customers at no extra cost across the U.S., U.K., Ireland, as well as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Jimdo

Fermàt launches AI Search Commerce Engine. Fermàt Commerce, an AI-powered commerce platform for personalized shopping experiences, has launched AI Search Commerce Engine to help measure visibility, generate shoppable content, and drive transactions from answer engines, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. “Monitor Prompts” identifies high-value AI prompts using search engine data, marketing signals, product catalogs, and customer reviews. “Generate First-Party Content” automatically creates shoppable content optimized for large-language-model indexing. “Measure Visibility” tracks results with citation-level attribution, competitor benchmarking, and prompt expansion.

Znode announces enhanced Commerce Connector for B2B ecommerce. Znode, a B2B ecommerce platform, has announced an update to its Commerce Connector. The new release introduces Data Exchanges, expanding Znode’s native integration capabilities for connecting to enterprise systems. Data Exchanges handles real-time or scheduled data flows for products, pricing, inventory, customers, and orders. The update allows manufacturers and distributors to integrate Znode with ERP, CRM, PIM, and other business systems. Administrators gain visibility through configurable mapping and monitoring tools to reduce integration risk, according to Znode.

OpenAI and Target partner to bring AI-powered experiences across retail. Through its partnership with OpenAI, omnichannel retailer Target has announced that consumers can discover and shop Target products inside ChatGPT as a curated, conversational experience. Target is offering its shopping experience through an app in ChatGPT, allowing users to purchase multiple items in a single transaction, shop for fresh food products, and select drive-up, pickup, or shipping fulfillment options.

HappyFox launches Autopilot agentic AI platform for customer support teams. HappyFox, a customer service software provider, has launched Autopilot, an agentic AI platform that delivers pre-built agents for quick deployment. “Shopify Delivery Dispute Analyzer” investigates ecommerce delivery discrepancies between fulfillment status and customer claims. “Ticket Triage Agent” automatically categorizes and tags tickets. “Churn Risk Detector” analyzes SaaS customer conversations for signals of dissatisfaction. “Duplicate Ticket Notifier” identifies and flags potential duplicate tickets. Users can access outcome-based pricing and pay only when agents complete tasks, per HappyFox.

HappyFox

‘Automate First’ for AI Commerce Success

Artificial intelligence is changing ecommerce so quickly that keeping up is daunting.

Consider the prominent payment processors, platforms, and marketplaces that collaborated with OpenAI and Perplexity in the past year.

• Perplexity and Shopify in November 2024.
• OpenAI with Shopify in April 2025.
• Perplexity and PayPal in May 2025.
• OpenAI and Shopify again in September 2025.
• Perplexity and Stripe in September 2025.
• OpenAI and Walmart in October 2025.
• Perplexity and PayPal again in November 2025.
• OpenAI and Target in November 2025.

Each of these partnerships and integrations pushes the industry toward various forms of AI search, AI-assisted shopping, and agentic commerce. Consumers will shop differently very soon.

How consumers shop online is quickly changing.

Marketplaces

Many mid-market businesses will benefit.

Mark Simon, vice president of strategy at Celigo, an automation platform, told me recently that direct-to-consumer brands are now selling on the Walmart Marketplace and could greatly benefit if it pushes their products into the emerging AI shopping ecosystem.

Yet the product data feeds to those marketplaces, for even a moderate number of SKUs, work only when automated. And not all data-feed integrations are the same.

“There is definitely a way to obtain a competitive advantage,” said Simon. “If you choose a modern technique…a modern method [of integration], you can move quickly. You can shift to an automation-first approach.”

Simon’s perspective is notable given that Celigo is an infrastructure-as-a-service company that connects and automates business systems, including Walmart Marketplace integrations.

An automation-first mindset could help ecommerce businesses more broadly as the race to keep up with AI shopping intensifies.

Automation First

Imagine a repetitive but essential task, such as a workflow for creating AI-generated product descriptions. The workflow can start manually. A marketing specialist develops a prompt, pastes it into an AI, provides feedback on the output, re-generates it, and so on.

An automation-first mindset prioritizes how the workflow functions at scale. It seeks to make automation the default process for most operational, marketing, and business tasks.

For product descriptions, an automation would integrate the catalog, AI, and ecommerce platform. Once connected, it could run a series of tests to improve the output. When launched, the automation works at scale.

Getting Started

To implement an automation-first mindset:

• Become proactive. Simon said it like this, “Instead of being reactive around everything that’s changing, think differently and become proactive.” Automate repetitive, time-sensitive, and error-prone operations from the start.

• Invest the time. Building an automated process or workflow can take more up-front work and collaboration. Invest the time.

• Build for multiple applications. Modern integrations and automations should be mostly agnostic toward companies and software tools. The integration that feeds data to the Walmart Marketplace should easily adapt to Amazon, eBay, and even Mercado Libre.

• Find repeatable and scalable tasks. Automation, after all, is the idea of doing something over and over again. So design processes and workflows flexible enough to grow with the business.

• Monitor outcomes consistently. Good automations should include feedback loops and regular reports, not a “set and forget” approach.

• Adopt strategic alignment and common sense. Finally, automation first does not mean automation always. Ensure it makes sense for the business and passes a common-sense test.

Keeping Up

Given these characteristics, an automation-first mindset could help merchants:

• Absorb rapid change.
• Add operational margin and flexibility.

Absorbing change

If Walmart or any other marketplace alters how it ingests product data or modifies its discovery algorithm, a good integration takes those changes in stride.

Certainly change is inevitable, but automation makes adoption relatively easier.

Operational margin

The automation-first mindset can create something akin to operational margin — the space and time needed to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively.

When the integrations, workflows, and connections run automatically and reliably, managers reclaim hours each week for revenue-generating projects, avoiding manual updates, error chasing, or feed maintenance.