E-COMMERCE

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In the last few months, TikTok Shop has made some significant changes to prioritize shopping. One has been to get big names onboard to sell on its platform, and another to monetize shopping the way Amazon does.

In July, TikTok Shop rolled out a paid membership program called TikTok Shop Plus that’s similar to Amazon Prime, with price tiers ranging from $6–$15 a month. The service offers paid members perks like free shipping, member discounts, and other coupons.

This week, TikTok Shop started selling items from retailer Best Buy.

“Social media isn’t just influencing what people buy anymore,” Jonathan Greer, VP of e-commerce at Best Buy, said in a statement. “It’s shaping how they discover products, with creators playing an increasingly important role in what people notice, consider, and want to try.”

Best Buy’s addition comes after Sephora joined TikTok Shop earlier in the month. Meanwhile, Ulta started selling via TikTok Shop in March. TikTok first started courting established brands as part of Project Horizon, The Information reported in January. Under Project Horizon, TikTok offered e-commerce agencies incentives to go after established brands that are doing a steady business of $10 million in annual sales on rival platforms.

Ultimately, TikTok Shop is pivoting from being a heavily discounted social commerce channel to a mainstream marketplace.

Keep reading here.—VC

      

Sponsored By Algolia

AI fundamentally changed how shoppers search, browse, ask, compare, and choose. To keep up with these shifting behaviors, commerce experiences need to become more helpful, more contextual, and more guided.

Algolia’s Agent Studio is designed to do just that. It turns trusted commerce data into guided, AI-powered discovery experiences that understand shopper intent, retrieve relevant products and context, and help customers make confident product decisions.

This is not some generic chatbot or standalone shopping assistant. It brings agentic discovery into the commerce journey when shoppers need help choosing the right product.

See Agent Studio in action.

STORES

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Boll & Branch will soon have 19 stores across the US, and the luxury bedding maker says the expansion trajectory is based on people’s preference for making home and bed decisions with a hands-on, in-store experience.

“We tested it out first in department stores; we did partnerships with Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s,” Katia Unlu, chief commercial officer at Boll & Branch, said during a panel on service-oriented retail experiences at industry conference eTail Boston. “We had some idea what this was going to look like before we ventured out to opening our own stores.”

Boll & Branch opened its first store in Short Hills, New Jersey, in 2017 and thinks of stores as a “repeat and lifetime value accelerator,” Unlu said. The home goods brand has shops in Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas, among other cities. “Service and building a relationship with the customer was at the core of why we opened these stores.”

Keep reading here.—VC

      

Sponsored By Strava

Breaking from tradition. Customers don’t engage with traditional advertising the way they used to, but marketers keep investing in the same old, same old. We teamed up with Strava for Business to learn why brands are still spending on traditional advertising and what new channels could provide. Check it out.

LABOR

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Whole Foods has been part of the Amazon family since 2017, but up until now employees of the grocery chain haven’t had access to the same benefits as employees of their parent company.

That’s changing, according to a recent announcement from Jason Buechel, VP of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and CEO of Whole Foods Market.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2027, Whole Foods employees “will gain access to Amazon’s comprehensive benefits,” including health plans with coverage for fertility and other types of specialty care (like cancer support and mental health resources), as well as access to the e-commerce giant’s career development platform.

Keep reading here on HR Brew.—CV

      

Sponsored By Storyblok

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Today’s top retail reads.

Bagging it: Some fashion retailers are finding new customers not at luxury boutiques, but in the aisles of high-end grocers like Erewhon and Happier Grocery. (Business of Fashion)

Closing time: Why Starbucks is shuttering 250 of its stores. (Business Insider)

Slowing down: Darden Restaurants earnings took a hit as growth weakens for Olive Garden. (CNBC)

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