eCommerce
- AMZN launches generative AI tools for sellers at Accelerate 2023 (LINK). At AMZN’s annual seller conference, Accelerate 2023, the company announced a new suite of tools for merchants powered by AI. AMZN believes that these updates will streamline listing creation and product management.
- AMZN announces Supply Chain by Amazon solution (LINK). On Tuesday, at AMZN’s annual seller conference, the company unveiled a new service: Supply Chain by Amazon. This service will enable third party sellers to use AMZN’s logistics arm to manage their supply chains and to ship goods directly from manufacturing facilities to fulfillment centers.
- AMZN adds Brad Smith to board (LINK). AMZN elected Brad Smith to its board of directors this week. Smith served as President and CEO at Intuit from 2008 to 2019 and Executive Chair for three years before moving into his current role as President of Marshall University in January 2022.
- AMZN announces updates to search features (LINK). AMZN announced several improvements to search features, aimed at making it easier for consumers to find products. In addition to its current visual search tool, AMZN has added an optional text query to complement the visual search. The company also highlighted Find-on-Amazon, where consumers can find products on AMZN using the share feature on mobile devices for products they see online.
- BABA CEO Daniel Zhang departs company, Eddie Wu assumes role (LINK). BABA announced that CEO and Chairman Daniel Zhang would depart the company on the day he was expected to take over as the CEO of Alibaba Cloud. Eddie Wu, the company’s new CEO, will serve as the acting CEO of Alibaba Cloud until new management is put in place. Additionally, Joseph Tsai has now assumed the role of BABA’s board chairman.
- BABA launches its new LLM to the public (LINK). BABA announced Wednesday that its AI model, Tongyi Qianwen, is now generally available. The Chinese government provided regulations on AI in August and soon after began approving LLMs for public use, such as BIDU’s Ernie Bot and Tencent’s Hunyuan.
- EBAY announces new luxury consignment service (LINK). EBAY announced the launch of a luxury consignment service that will allow users to utilize experienced consignment sellers to list their luxury items for them. Users can currently use EBAY Luxury Consignment to sell certain handbags from designer brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and others.
- Instacart sets valuation range for IPO (LINK). Instacart is targeting a valuation range between $8.6b-$9.3b for its upcoming IPO. Toward the higher end of the offer price range, Instacart is seeking to raise up to ~$616m.