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Retail
11 posts about Retail. Every summary links to the original.
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ShopGym: Realistic, reproducible sandboxes for shopping agents (2026) - Shopify
ShopGym converts live storefronts into self-contained, resettable sandbox shops for training and evaluating shopping agents, addressing challenges from changing products and bot detection. Its ShopArena layer separates exploration from generation using anonymized specifications and coding agents with execution-verification loops that repair failures without regenerating the whole shop. ShopGuru then synthesizes benchmark tasks across seven skill categories using rule-based and LLM generators grounded in each shop’s catalog, navigation, and policies. Validation over 224 tasks across six shops, three synthetic and three real, showed synthetic shops retain key structural properties and agent performance positively correlates with live storefronts when tested with BrowserGym and an internal system. The framework aims to provide reproducible environments for agents to fail and learn before interacting with live stores, with plans to expand to more retail domains and task types.
Best Delivery App to Work with in 2026 | Uber Uber
Choosing a delivery platform in 2026 depends on hourly earning potential, payout speed, vehicle requirements, scheduling flexibility, and extras beyond base fares. The guide compares six US apps—Uber Eats, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Flex, Grubhub, and Walmart Spark—across restaurant, convenience, grocery, retail, and package work. It describes Uber Eats features including per-delivery fares, 100% tip retention, Tip Guarantee, Uber Pro Card access to earnings after each delivery, promotions, vehicle flexibility, and scheduling options. Competitors use different models: Instacart shoppers pick groceries, Amazon Flex pays guaranteed block fares, and some services impose market-specific conditions. The guide cautions that earnings are market-dependent, figures may not be directly comparable, and net income must account for fuel, maintenance, phone data, and self-employment taxes.
Uber Advertising Launches New Solutions to Connect Brands On & Off Uber
Uber Advertising has launched new solutions that connect brands with consumers across Uber rides, Uber Eats, and external channels. Offers on Uber include Destination Offers, Homescreen Ride Offers, Ride Offers on Journey, and planned Sponsored Upgrades, combining trip context with incentives and premium ride upgrades. On Uber Eats, Brand Takeover, Item Showcase, and Offers Spotlight provide prominent placements, shoppable item features, and targeted offer visibility during discovery and ordering. Offsite Ads extends campaigns to Meta and Google Shopping, using observed Uber behaviors to target audiences and connect external engagement with orders and store visits; the program is being piloted with selected advertisers. Reported findings include 81% openness to offers while riding, a 45% higher click-through rate for one Miller Lite campaign, and double-digit item attachment after Item Showcase views, with results varying by campaign.
Uber Advertising Launches New APIs to Unified Campaigns & Workflows
Uber has launched Uber Ads APIs to reduce the need to manage advertising and performance across separate tools and systems. The APIs let POS systems, aggregators, agencies, and other partners create and manage campaigns programmatically while giving brands direct or integrated access to performance and sales data. They support onboarding, activation, and ongoing campaign management across a merchant base, including campaigns for restaurants and Sponsored Listings. Partners can embed Uber Ads in existing platforms so merchants can launch campaigns and increase visibility without navigating separate workflows. Documentation, representative contact, and an integration-planning process provide the stated starting points, with the broader aim of combining advertising and operations in a unified retail media system.
How Databricks Genie improves retail personalization
Retail personalization often stalls when CX leaders must wait for analysts to answer questions about segment behavior, loyalty performance, channel preference, or churn risk, narrowing the window for action. Databricks Genie addresses this access gap by letting business users query unified structured and unstructured enterprise data in plain English instead of SQL. Its retail differentiators include identity-resolved queries across channels and devices, lifecycle-stage awareness, campaign response and control-group data integration, and privacy controls enforced through Unity Catalog. The source says Genie reduces routine analyst requests rather than replacing data science teams, while enabling merchandisers, category managers, loyalty marketers, and CX leaders to self-serve operational questions. It cites 7-Eleven’s use of Databricks SQL, Unity Catalog, and AI/BI Genie to launch, refine, and measure personalized offers within a secure, unified platform.
Retail markdown optimization: from reactive markdowns to proactive
Retail markdown optimization addresses the gap between changing demand signals and delayed merchandising action. The post defines it as strategically reducing prices on slow-moving or end-of-life inventory, using demand forecasts, sell-through rates, weeks of supply, and price-elasticity models to choose which SKUs to mark down, when to start, how deep to discount, and where to act. It presents Databricks Genie as a natural-language interface across e-commerce, store, and wholesale data, with supplier, margin, and historical-pattern context; one example is Coop’s Microsoft Teams assistant, AskCap, which reported a 30% retention rate among internal users. Earlier detection of sell-through deceleration can give merchants more time to protect margin, adjust open-to-buy, and reallocate capital, while Genie supports decisions rather than making them.
Faster and Local Shopping on eBay Just Got Simpler
eBay has introduced UX enhancements that make local listings, fast-shipping items, delivery estimates, and retail standards easier to find on Search item cards. Because its inventory comes from thousands of sellers in a global, decentralized network, eBay uses artificial intelligence that considers customer proximity, chosen shipping service, seller shipping history, and real-time data synchronization to improve estimate accuracy and coverage. Item cards now show delivery ranges for all fast-shipping items, whether delivery is paid or free, while the “Shipping and pickup” filter supports fast shipping, Free shipping, Local pickup, and Click & Collect options. For local pickup, cards display the exact distance between the buyer and item location. In Germany, the eBay Top-Service badge identifies items meeting standards including fast and free shipping, easy returns, and trusted sellers, simplifying overlapping retail signals.
How eBay’s AI Tools Helped This Seller ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’
Ashley Moulder, who runs Millennial Mouse, sells pre-loved and vintage fashion on eBay and uses the marketplace’s AI tools to streamline her workflow. After starting online sales for extra income in 2018, she reached full-time selling by the following April and now maintains thousands of active listings, with an emphasis on non-traditional sizes. One regular time-saver is eBay’s background removal tool, which can replace product-photo backgrounds with a clean white backdrop or AI-generated alternatives. Moulder also shares selling tips and how-to videos on Instagram, aiming to help other sellers succeed, and demonstrates the photo tool in the video referenced by the source.
eBay Advertising Unveils New Dashboard, Personalized Insights, and Intuitive Campaign Tools
eBay Advertising has introduced a redesigned experience centered on a new dashboard, a unified portfolio, and tools intended to simplify campaign management, increase listing visibility, and support seller growth. The dashboard, available through a new Seller Hub Advertising tab, combines campaign reporting with personalized recommendations, daily optimization tips, suggested campaigns based on historical data and best practices, and trend-based campaigns built using ebay.ai. Sellers can choose among Promoted Listings, Promoted Stores, and Promoted Offsite, with Promoted Listings offering priority or general strategies that differ in placement access, controls, and charging models. The announcement reports average gains of 50% in items sold for priority campaigns, 30% more sales for general-strategy listings, and 25% more sales from external channels with Promoted Offsite, while positioning real-time data and actionable insights as tools for adjusting advertising decisions.
eBay’s Christine Su Named to Fast Company’s 2024 Queer 50 List
eBay Head of Product Christine Su has been named to Fast Company’s 2024 Queer 50 list for the second consecutive year. The list recognizes LGBTQ leaders across industries, while Su’s role covers product work for AI Recommendations, Homepage, and My eBay. She describes using AI to personalize the eBay experience for buyers and sellers, aiming to connect people with products and communities aligned with their passions. Since her first inclusion in 2023, eBay has added AI-powered features including Shop the look, an immersive carousel that curates complementary fashion looks from a buyer’s past shopping history for fashion discovery within the marketplace. Su says the intended experience should feel personal, support discovery, and connect users with people who share their passions.
eBay’s Mobile App Offers a Goldmine of Insights for Sellers
eBay’s Product Research, formerly called Terapeak, brings three years of sold-items data into its mobile app so sellers can research products and create listings from anywhere. The service reports actual sold prices, including accepted Best Offer prices, along with average and range, free-shipping share, average shipping cost, and the number of sellers who sold a product. Sellers can search, sort, filter, inspect a price-trend graph, and use “Sell one like this” to start a listing pre-populated from a sold listing. Product Research is available in the latest eBay app for iOS and Android, while desktop sellers can use it through Seller Hub; planned additions include sell-through rate, more trend graphs, and active-listing views.
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