#shopify

#shopify

Successful founders are comfortable being uncomfortable. Forging a new path as an entrepreneur isn't easy work. There may be times when you're the only person who believes in your idea, or where you're the only person who looks like you do in a meeting room.

"We had about four people asking to purchase the product before we had any validity through a name, branding, or website reviews," says Sandher.

As a content creator, she immediately clocked the platform as a game-changer because of a feature that allowed users to add products from disparate brands to one shareable, shoppable page. But she could see why they consulted her: The colors of their prototype were turquoise and pink. 'Like, what a man thought a woman would want,' Lopinsky says, laughing.

Unlike AI tools that generate content or automate replies in isolation, Echo-Me operates across the entire creator business. It identifies revenue opportunities, engages fans in the creator's own voice, generates visual and text content, and executes monetization autonomously.

Riskified, a platform for ecommerce fraud prevention, has expanded its AI agent intelligence tool, wherein Riskified retrieves associated risk indicators and resolves an identity programmatically. Riskified acts as a trust agent, providing real-time risk intelligence directly into the shopping experience.

DHL Group and JD.com, China's largest retailer, have partnered to support German brands' growth in China and throughout European markets through JD.com's retail platform, Joybuy. Also, by engaging JD.com's cross-border Jingdong Logistics, German brands can sell directly to more than 700 million Chinese consumers on JD.com.

Shopify is an incredible platform for Beardbrand. It gives us the flexibility to quickly test and implement major site changes, such as restructuring our product pages. For example, we replaced multiple fragrance variants on a single product page with individual pages for each fragrance, supported by a collection page. We can now tell the story of each scent, showcase fragrance-specific reviews, and recommend matching products. The result? A faster site and improved conversions (about 4.6%). For performance, storytelling, and scalability, Shopify dominates.

A digital product is any non-physical item sold online and delivered electronically. This category encompasses a wide range of offerings: ebooks that teach specific skills, online courses that provide comprehensive training, design templates that save creators hours of work, stock media libraries offering photography and video, printables like planners and checklists, software tools that automate tasks, and audio files ranging from music to guided meditations.

At a time when digital channels increasingly define commercial success, online marketplaces have become essential tools for small and medium-sized enterprises to reach customers and drive revenue. For many SMEs, marketplaces offer a ready-made audience without the significant acquisition costs of standalone ecommerce sites, but the simple act of listing product ranges isn't enough to guarantee results. To succeed, businesses must approach their marketplace presence strategically, optimising every element of their listings for discovery, relevance and conversion.

If checkout happens inside AI conversations, retailers risk losing direct customer relationships - while platforms like Microsoft gain leverage. Driving the news: Microsoft unveiled new agentic AI tools for retailers at the NRF 2026 retail conference, including Copilot Checkout, which lets shoppers complete purchases inside Copilot without being redirected to a retailer's website. The checkout feature is live in the U.S. with Shopify, PayPal, Stripe and Etsy integrations.

where I worked in the early 2000s in its rather pioneering e-commerce business (which launched, among other things, the first click and collect service). Argos was jostling with Tesco for first place at Christmas, and I've found myself reflecting on why DTC has become such a major issue for several sectors that have not traditionally had a direct path to purchase over the last few years.