When you first put boots on dogs, it may take them some time to get their footing, which is fitting since that’s precisely what’s happened to the dog-boot category itself. Virtually unknown to pet owners a generation ago (unless they trained sled dogs), paw protection has gone mainstream, as evidenced by the sales surge for the products when Winter Storm Fern hit.

For the week in late January, when the storm pummeled much of the US, Chewy saw sales of dog boots more than double year over year, rising 110%. Even more dramatic was the sales lift over the previous week in January, with dog boot sales more than tripling, with a 215% increase, per Chewy.

“It’s a very triggered purchase by the weather, from what we can see,” Christopher Mohler, director of merchandising at Chewy, told Retail Brew.

It will come as no surprise that sales were highest in states where Rex had the hardest time finding fire hydrants in the snow drifts, with the most booty purchases coming from New York, followed by Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, and Virginia, per Chewy.

Keep reading here.—AAN

Shopify says it is ready for shopping that happens inside AI chats, but not without its popular payment tool.

Products from Shopify merchants will now get discovered and bought entirely within conversations taking place on ChatGPT or Claude. But the company said AI shopping will still have to go through Shopify’s checkout.

So far, Shopify has laid the groundwork for agentic commerce co-developed with Google. Plus, the tech giant that builds e-commerce stores, has invested and improved its AI agent Sidekick with deeper data insights and models. The throughline is a fundamental shift: commerce moving from website user interfaces that brands control to agent interfaces that, well, AI controls. The question is who wins when the storefront disappears.

Keep reading here.—VC

Retail brands often tout the environmental benefits of their trade-in programs, and not without cause, since consumers who trade in products might have thrown them away otherwise. But a new report touts strategic benefits of trade-in programs that have nothing to do with overburdened landfills—namely hooking new customers…and keeping them hooked.

Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) of consumers would replace their smartphones earlier than they would have otherwise if offered a good trade-in deal, according to a new report from Alchemy, a self-described circular solutions provider that’s launched trade-in programs for more than 30 companies. Even more consumers, 84%, said they’d stay loyal to brands (rather than falling into the arms of competitors) if they tendered competitive trade-in offers.

Sometimes a trade-in is the deciding factor for smartphone buyers, with 28% saying they would not have purchased a smartphone without a trade-in offer. Even more, 35%, said they wouldn’t have made a gaming or entertainment product purchase sans trade-in, while 27% said they wouldn’t have when it came to kitchen appliances.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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