E-COMMERCE

Trace

Imagine not even having bought the dress yet, but someone’s already asking to borrow it. While often, that’s your sister, now it could be a paying customer. Or at least that’s the idea behind Trace, a new online marketplace that lets shoppers line up an item’s next buyer or renter before they’ve even checked out at the store. The pitch? Knowing someone else wants that dress could make its price tag easier to justify.

The “presale” platform—which launched publicly on October 15 with a three-day pop-up at Shopify SoHo—grew out of Co-founder and CEO Katie Pfleger’s experience on both sides of the shopping equation.

Pfleger spent about five years as a software engineer at Etsy, working on its seller listing process, and also personally listed more than 700 items on Poshmark. Her co-founder and friend Ella Rubin, who she met at Harvard Business School, had a different approach to the problem: She justified new purchases by promising herself she’d resell them later without successfully following through.

But for Pfleger, the frustrations included the work of creating listings and the uncertainty afterward. “So even if you put in all the work, there’s no guarantee that you would sell something,” she told Retail Brew. “And even if you do sell something, it’s usually at a fraction of what you were hoping to get back.”

Dressed to resell: Trace’s answer was to move that uncertainty ahead of the original purchase. Shoppers essentially paste a product URL into the platform, which uses AI to generate a listing within seconds, while other users can place a “call”—proposing a price, a rental or resale arrangement, and a time frame, Pfleger explained.

Keep reading here.—JS

      

Sponsored By Salesforce

These customers ain’t loyal, but it’s up to retailers to handle that.

It’s harder to win shoppers’ loyalty than ever. Even worse, it’s easier to lose. That doesn’t make it any less critical to your success. As customer expectations grow and retailers don’t rise to meet them, they’re in danger of falling into the loyalty gap and ultimately losing them.

Salesforce’s new guide, The New Loyalty Landscape, provides information to help you win customers back. Get your guide to see how you can:

• Understand and meet customer needs.
• Build capabilities that define the shift from transactional to connected loyalty.
• Integrate aspects of your loyalty program across customer touchpoints.

Download the full guide here for all the details.

TECH

Marcello

AI is changing how personalization works in retail.

Retailers and brands trying to get closer to their customers are leaning on AI to speed things up. In some cases, that looks like using generative AI to quickly tailor content for different audiences. In others, it’s using predictive tools to determine what customers want at a given moment.

For instance, Walmart is using AI to personalize shopping by predicting what its grocery shoppers typically buy on a rotational basis—like lasagna ingredients or burger toppings and fillings—that land on a family’s dinner table every other week. The retailer is also optimizing for other household staples like milk, eggs, and bread for customers who buy them regularly.

“We finally have the technology to do things we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time,” Daniel Danker, EVP of AI acceleration, product and design, said during Walmart Associates’ Week in June.

Keep reading here.—VC

      

STORES

Jackf/Getty Images

Almost half (48%) of frontline retail workers have experienced some form of customer abuse over the last 12 months, and 27% have avoided particular shifts out of safety concerns, according to a new survey of US and UK workers commissioned by Halos, a workplace-safety technology company.

The most common type was verbal abuse, including shouting or swearing, which 34% of retail respondents experienced. Threats or intimidation followed at 17%. Another 16% experienced discriminatory comments or abuse, while 10% experienced physical aggression.

The company’s findings are in a new worker safety report; much of the retail-specific data in this article comes from the full questionnaire and detailed results tables the company shared with Retail Brew.

Keep reading here.—AAN

      

Sponsored By Shopify

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swapping skus

Today’s top retail reads.

Off the books: Why did Nestlé remove its Russian business from its financial accounts? (Financial Times)

Haute mess: Prada sales growth hit a slump as it weathers a wider luxury market downturn. (the Wall Street Journal)

Lager than life: A Dutch court has ordered Heineken to pay ~$125 million in damages to Macedonian Thrace Brewery. (Reuters)

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Jobs

Tired of one-size-fits-all job boards? CollabWORK highlights roles that reflect your interests and goals—delivered through communities like Retail Brew. Click here to explore the full job board.

• Retail Manager at AVI Foodsystems
• Retail Manager at Palm Beach Tan - Old Trinity Management Company
• Retail Manager at Ross Stores
• Retail Manager at MPANADAS
• Retail Manager at European Wax Center