Commerce News | TechCrunch

Pinstripe wants to redefine the way online sellers sell secondhand clothing

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:58:57 +0000

Pinstripe aims to reimagine the secondhand market by offering sellers the opportunity to have both a digital storefront and a physical retail presence. Launched in June, the platform offers an alternative approach compared with other marketplaces like Archive, Depop, Facebook Marketplace, and Poshmark. With Pinstripe, sellers take their clothes to local consignment stores, vintage shops, […]

Printful and Printify ink a merger deal

Natasha Lomas — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 15:30:00 +0000

Two veteran European companies in the world of on-demand printing are merging, and you may have not even realized they were separate companies to begin with. Printful and Printify, both startups with Latvian roots providing custom printing services, are coming together as a single company. They are framing the move as a natural fit to […]

Flash, founded by ex-Flipkart exec, launches in the US to help shoppers juggle multiple online orders

Lauren Forristal — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Flash, the payment management service that tracks all your online purchases, announced Tuesday its entry into the U.S. market, giving American customers the ability to manage all of their spending in one place while also earning rewards, such as gift cards and cash back. The U.S. is home to many big spenders, making it a […]

Amazon begins delivering select products via drone in Phoenix

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:01:03 +0000

A few months after ending its drone-based delivery program, Prime Air, in California, Amazon says that it’s begun making deliveries to select customers via drone in Phoenix, Arizona. Starting today, Amazon customers in the West Valley Phoenix Metro Area have access to a drone-deliverable selection from Amazon’s catalog, including household, beauty, office, health, and tech […]

MealMe, the startup integrating food ordering tech into apps, picks up $8M

Lauren Forristal — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:30:00 +0000

MealMe, a unified API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced on Thursday that it secured $8 million in Series A funding. The newly raised capital brings the total amount raised to $16 million. Since its launch in 2019, MealMe has undergone several changes. Initially, it was a consumer app designed […]

Temu’s low-cost marketplace faces formal probe in EU over raft of DSA compliance concerns

Natasha Lomas — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:13:23 +0000

The European Union has expanded its scrutiny of online marketplaces by opening a formal proceeding on Chinese low-cost e-commerce platform, Temu, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Commission announced Thursday. Enforcers of the online governance framework will now dial up their oversight of Temu. The bloc’s suspicions are focused on concerns about the sale […]

Matt Mullenweg talks about Automattic’s staffing issues and financials at TechCrunch Disrupt

Ivan Mehta — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:21:01 +0000

WordPress co-creator and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg talked about his fight with WP Engine, Automattic’s staffing issues, and the company’s financials at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday. Mullenweg repeated a lot of stuff from the past month about the trademark fight, WP Engine not contributing to the community, and misleading customers to believe it was associated with […]

Meesho claims Indian e-commerce first with positive cash flow

Manish Singh — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 06:10:39 +0000

Meesho has become India’s first horizontal e-commerce firm to generate positive cash flow, marking a significant shift in a market where profitability has long remained elusive even as new competitive threats emerge. The SoftBank and Prosus-backed startup, which serves customers in smaller Indian cities and towns, reported positive operating cash flow of ₹232 crores ($27.6 […]

Amazon brings its Rufus AI shopping assistant to more international markets

Paul Sawers — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:43:48 +0000

Amazon is extending the availability of its AI-enabled shopping assistant, Rufus, to more markets in Europe and the Americas. The e-commerce giant has been widely considered to be playing catch-up with its Big Tech brethren in the AI sphere, particularly against the backdrop of the generative AI hype these past couple of years. Rufus is […]

YouTube brings its affilate program to India, partners with Flipkart

Ivan Mehta — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 06:33:00 +0000

Just ahead of the local festive season, YouTube has brought its affiliate program to India, letting uploaders tag products in their videos and earn referrals.

Amazon adds gasoline discounts for Prime members, EV charging savings to follow

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 13:38:35 +0000

Amazon is challenging Walmart+ by offering Prime members a discount on fuel to combat high gas prices. The company announced on Wednesday that Prime members will receive a 10 cents per gallon discount at around 7,000 Amoco, AM/PM, and BP gas stations across the U.S., potentially saving them about $70 annually on fuel. To access […]

Sensei reels in $16M to expand its contactless store platform in Europe

Mike Butcher — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

While Amazon Go helped popularize the concept of completely contactless stores, the arena is growing with others like 7-Eleven and Walmart entering the category, as well as several startups such as Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, and Trigo. In Europe, Portuguese startup Sensei has been capitalizing on this momentum to grow its contactless store platform, and […]

Paccurate helps companies ship in smaller boxes, saving them money while helping the earth

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Paccurate co-founder and CEO James Malley likes to joke that once you get into supply chain tech, the category doesn’t let you back out. Ten years ago, Malley and Patrick Powers were working together as consultants when they started getting asked the same question over and over. Their clients were asking for help reducing the […]

India’s Zomato to raise $1B ahead of rival Swiggy’s IPO

Manish Singh — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 10:08:45 +0000

Zomato on Tuesday said that its board has approved a plan to raise $1 billion via a share sale to institutional investors.

Tim Cook’s other job

Connie Loizos — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:37:58 +0000

In May, while unveiling the newest iPad at an Apple event, CEO Tim Cook wore a custom-made, one-of-a-kind pair of Nike sneakers whose decorative stitching included the words “Made on iPad.” It wasn’t just a collab between Apple and Nike. As Bloomberg reminds readers, Cook has been on Nike’s board since 2005, when Cook was […]

Passionfroot is a marketplace for business-focused content creators looking for brand partnerships — and vice versa

Ivan Mehta — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

As the creator economy is growing rapidly, brand partnerships remain one of the prime ways creators can earn money. Other services like link-in-bio apps with affiliate links or Patreon-like subscriptions become secondary ways to increase creators’ income. For platforms and startups, the biggest challenge remains to match brands and creators for collaboration. Berlin-based startup Passionfroot is […]

Poshmark reverses decision to lower selling fees after sellers experience a drop in sales

Lauren Forristal — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 17:42:51 +0000

Shortly after the social marketplace Poshmark announced it would lower selling fees and increase fees for buyers, the company decided to revert to its original fee structure following outrage among sellers. In an email to sellers sent on Monday (and viewed by TechCrunch), founder and CEO Manish Chandra wrote an apology about the fee change, […]

WP Engine files an injunction to get its WordPress.org access back

Ivan Mehta — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:19:49 +0000

Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed an injunction in a court in Northern California, asking it to intervene and restore its access to the WordPress.org open source repository. After WP Engine filed a lawsuit against WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and Automattic last month, Mullenweg — who also owns WordPress.org — blocked the company’s access […]

Automattic offered employees another chance to quit — this time with nine months’ severance

Ivan Mehta — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 23:41:28 +0000

Days after 159 people accepted Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s offer of a six-month severance package to employees who wanted to leave, the company floated a new offer late on October 16 of a nine-month severance package to anybody who quit immediately. Employees had four hours to decide whether they wanted to take the deal. In […]

Subscription management firm Zuora agrees to be acquired for $1.7B

Kyle Wiggers — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:57:08 +0000

Zuora, a company selling software to help businesses manage their subscription-based services, has agreed to be acquired by private equity firms GIC and Silver Lake for $1.7 billion. The all-cash deal is expected to close in Q1 2025, subject to approvals and customary closing conditions. It’ll take Zuora, which is currently publicly traded, private. Tien […]