The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
BENTONVILLE, United States — Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s ShippingPass e-commerce subscription program will begin offering delivery in two days rather than three, escalating competition with Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime.
The retailer also is cutting the price of the program by $1 to $49 a year, according to a statement on Thursday. Amazon’s Prime costs $99 annually, though it also offers other perks such as free movies and TV shows.
ShippingPass, still in a pilot phase, lets Walmart.com customers get free delivery of more than 1 million products on the site. The idea is to encourage frequent shopping and lock in customers — something Amazon’s Prime has achieved with its tens of millions of members. Despite being the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, Wal-Mart is still struggling to catch-up to Amazon online.
Wal-Mart’s strategy in e-commerce is to rely on its stores and distribution centers to support its online efforts. Over the holiday season, the company encouraged shoppers to place orders on its website and pick the products up in stores.
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With ShippingPass, Wal-Mart’s existing infrastructure is helping it lower delivery costs, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said on Thursday.
“We can offer faster and more affordable shipping because we have a unique fulfilment network that includes new large scale fulfilment centers, stores, distribution centers and our transportation network,” Wal-Mart said in the statement.
By Shannon Pettypiece; editors: Nick Turner and Kevin Orland.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely.
The app, owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, has been promising to help emerging US labels get started selling in China at the same time that TikTok stares down a ban by the US for its ties to China.
Zero10 offers digital solutions through AR mirrors, leveraged in-store and in window displays, to brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Coach. Co-founder and CEO George Yashin discusses the latest advancements in AR and how fashion companies can leverage the technology to boost consumer experiences via retail touchpoints and brand experiences.
Four years ago, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the US, its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. worked out a preliminary deal to sell the short video app’s business. Not this time.