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Shopify Partners with Roblox to Expand E-Commerce

U.S. Regulators Call for Safety Investigation of Temu and Shein

PayPal Expands Partnership with Shopify for Unified Payments

Walmart and Amazon Strengthen Grip on Beauty Market

Google Expands AI-Powered Virtual Try-On to Dresses

ECOMMERCE NEWS

Shopify Partners with Roblox to Expand E-Commerce

Shopify has partnered with Roblox to open new e-commerce opportunities in immersive digital spaces. This marks Roblox’s first commercial integration, aligning with both companies’ mission to make commerce accessible everywhere, even within virtual environments.

This partnership allows developers, creators, and brands to sell physical items directly within Roblox games, providing a seamless shopping experience without leaving the platform. Shopify stated, “Creators and brands will engage with a global audience of nearly 80 million daily active Roblox users.”

In July 2024, GlobalData ranked Shopify fourth in the e-commerce sector, with high scores in AI, social media, and digital payments. However, Shopify was ranked 36th out of 60 in terms of risk, indicating room for improvement in operational and financial stability.

The pilot phase for Shopify’s Checkout on Roblox is set to begin soon, with a full launch planned for early 2025. This move offers a new avenue for entrepreneurship, allowing brands to tap into Roblox’s massive user base and leverage the growing digital economy.

The partnership represents a significant step in merging e-commerce with virtual experiences, providing innovative ways to engage customers.

ECOMMERCE TREND

U.S. Regulators Call for Safety Investigation of Temu and Shein

Two U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) members have called for an investigation into the safety practices of Temu, Shein, and other discount e-commerce platforms, citing concerns over the sale of “deadly baby and toddler products.”

CPSC Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak sent a letter urging the agency to examine these platforms’ safety and compliance controls, their relationships with third-party sellers, and how they manage product imports.

“We seek to better understand these firms, particularly their focus on low-value direct-to-consumer shipments,” the commissioners wrote, referencing a trade loophole called the de minimis exemption that allows packages from China valued under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free.

Last month, reports surfaced that Temu was selling padded crib bumpers, banned in the U.S. due to suffocation risks, while Shein offered children’s hoodies with hazardous drawstrings.

Both companies have responded, stating that they are committed to consumer safety and will cooperate fully with any investigation.

Temu and Shein have gained rapid popularity in the U.S. through aggressive marketing and ultra-cheap products, but their practices are now under intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

ECOMMERCE TECH

PayPal Expands Partnership with Shopify for Unified Payments

PayPal is expanding its partnership with Shopify, becoming an additional online credit and debit processor for Shopify Payments via the PayPal Complete Payments solution. This new integration will provide a streamlined experience for merchants, combining order management, payouts, reporting, and chargebacks into a single platform.

“PayPal wallet transactions will be integrated into Shopify Payments in the U.S.,” the companies announced, enhancing operational efficiency and offering innovative payment options for both PayPal and Shopify merchants.

This follows the companies’ collaboration two years ago to launch Shopify Payments in France and aligns with a broader push to optimize the eCommerce checkout experience. As noted by PYMNTS, checkout is the “last few feet” of eCommerce, where ease of transaction becomes crucial for conversion.

According to PYMNTS Intelligence, half of all consumers consider the ease of checkout when choosing where to shop, and 91% of shoppers say a smooth checkout experience impacts their likelihood of returning.

Meanwhile, Shopify is also expanding its digital features for in-store retailers, with its point-of-sale (POS) solution seeing 27% growth in offline gross merchandise volume (GMV) year-over-year, highlighting the ongoing evolution of omnichannel commerce.

ECOMMERCE DATA

Walmart and Amazon Strengthen Grip on Beauty Market

Insight: Walmart and Amazon are tightening their hold on the beauty and personal care market. According to MikMak’s Industry KPIs data, Walmart captures 45.9% of purchase intent clicks, while Amazon follows with 32.88%.

Why It Matters: Both retailers are expanding their market share through various strategies, such as offering premium brands and hosting beauty-specific sales events.

Amazon is making significant gains and is expected to overtake Walmart as the top beauty retailer in the U.S. by 2025, with a projected 14.5% market share compared to Walmart’s 13% (Morgan Stanley).

It is also wooing upscale brands like L’Oréal, Clinique, and Kiehl’s, narrowing its gap with specialty beauty retailers Ulta and Sephora.

Amazon’s prestige makeup offerings overlap with Ulta (16%) and Sephora (9%), per Jefferies’ estimates.

However, 57% of premium beauty customers prefer to buy from official brand storefronts rather than third-party sellers on Amazon.

Walmart isn’t staying still. The company has broadened its online beauty selection through marketplace expansion and is incubating exclusive brands via its accelerator program.

Unlike Amazon, Walmart’s premium beauty strategy focuses on a wide range of products across price points, appealing to both high-income and core customers.

ECOMMERCE TECH

Google Expands AI-Powered Virtual Try-On to Dresses

Google has expanded its AI-powered virtual try-on (VTO) tool to include dresses, enhancing one of its most-searched apparel categories. Announced on Thursday (Sept. 5), this update uses generative AI to create high-quality, realistic images of dresses on models.

Google’s AI technology is based on diffusion, which generates every pixel from scratch. However, adapting this for dresses presented challenges due to their intricate designs. Google addressed this with a “progressive training strategy,” starting with low-resolution images and gradually moving to higher resolutions to maintain detail.

Another issue was dresses covering more of the body than tops, which led to “smudging” or obscuring body features. Google solved this with the VTO-UNet Diffusion Transformer, a technique that preserves important body features while displaying the dress accurately.

The move comes as other retailers like Walmart are also enhancing their virtual try-on technologies to boost customer satisfaction. As Wayne Liu of Perfect Corp. noted, virtual try-ons can reduce returns by helping customers choose the right product the first time.

Signing off,

The Merchant @CartHustle