07
July

Get The #MermaidCore Look With These Fashion And Beauty Pieces

By avi maxwel / in , , , /

Oceanic influences always make their way into summer attire, but Summer 2023 is officially the moment for #MermaidCore thanks to the release of the live-action The Little Mermaids starring Halle Bailey, along with other summer mermaid content like Dua Lipa as a Barbie mermaid in the upcoming Barbie movie and the animated film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken.

So what is #MermaidCore, you may find yourself asking? Essentially it is anything that a mermaid would find incredibly fashionable, in or out of the water. Think cool tones, shimmery finishes, pearlescent materials, and plenty of seashells.

So ready to hop on the #MermaidCore trend? Here are 10 pieces that will have you looking like the star of the sea.

First thing’s first, you are going to need mermaid-worthy hair, and what is a better tool to achieve such a look than the aptly-named Mermade Hair waver tool? This hairstyling tool allows you to create those beachy waves with ease, and it comes with multiple heat settings so it can work with a variety of hair textures and types.

Bring beach style wherever you go this summer with this shell-beaded linen crop top from PatBO. It will look incredibly stylish on a tropical vacation when paired with billowing wide-leg pants, but I also think it is a fun statement piece to wear in an urban setting with classic slacks and an oversized blazer for great contrast.

Mermaids are known for their shimmering scales, so channel that look with an all-over glitter product that will leave you shimmering like the sea. Use it as an eyeshadow, highlighter, or accent.

Diaphanous fabrics and dangling ruffles are staples of the #MermaidCore trend. The chiffon tendrils of this Mach & Mach top resemble the tentacles of an octopus, and when you move it will look like you are making your way through calm ocean waters.

Pearls are the jewels of the sea, so it is only fitting that a pearl necklace is part of this trend. This necklace from Merchants Of The Sun modernizes the traditional pearl necklace by featuring a half-pearl, half-silver chain strand.

Is this not what Ariel would rock if she washed up on the shores of Ibiza? This crochet sarong from Edikted is such a fun way to accessorize your swimsuit, with tiny shells embellished into the material.

Give your nails the mermaid treatment with this quadrant of nail polishes from Lights Lacquer.

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Photo: Collected




Strategies and trends for online retail success

Photo: Collected

In this fast-paced digital world, with everything moving to online platforms, it only makes sense that shopping does too. After all, why spend the whole day going out when you can just shop from the comfort of your home? Today, e-commerce has become an integral part of the global retail landscape, with billions of dollars in transactions occurring online each year. To survive in this landscape, retailers must understand the evolving trends and form effective strategies to capitalize on the ever-changing market. In this article, we will explore some strategies that are crucial to having a successful online retail business.

Mobile commerce

One of the more popular trends as of late in e-commerce is the introduction of mobile commerce or m-commerce. With the increasing rate of smartphone usage, more and more people prefer to shop on the go. Therefore, to capture this market, an e-commerce platform must have mobile friendly websites and optimize their platforms for smooth and seamless mobile transactions.

Personalized customer experience

In today’s competitive online retail landscape, it is crucial to stay ahead and stand out from the competition. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce platform, once said “If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering .” What this means is that retail owners must take customer feedback to provide them with a tailor-made experience while shopping on their platform. You can learn more from one customer feedback than tens of competitor innovations.

Social Commerce

Social media plays an important role in any e-commerce business’s success. Having an online presence allows you to directly sell your products to customers as they are browsing on social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram, without giving it much thought or effort. This method is ingenious and a viable strategy that many companies are adopting. Alternatively, sponsorships and collaborations with online celebrities and/or influencers provide a much-needed boost in sales provided the product being sold is targeted to that specific demographic

Omnichannel retailing

Omnichannel retailing primarily refers to the diversification of the shopping experience across multiple platforms such as online stores, physical stores and mobile applications. Once an e-commerce store has been taken off and is consistent with its profits, it’s a wise idea to expand into multiple channels to give consumers flexibility to choose how they want to shop, providing a seamless shopping experience. Retailers can also invest in technology that synchronizes all of these channels for smooth transitions between them ultimately boosting sales and customer satisfaction.

Ethical consumerism

As the world is becoming more conscious about environmental and ethical issues, sustainability has emerged as an important trend in e-commerce. Companies are

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03
July

Klarna CEO on how AI will make online shopping more ’emotional’

By avi maxwel / in , , , , /

The Scenes

Swedish fintech firm Klarna has evolved from a buy now, pay later venture to an AI-powered payments and e-commerce company. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO, is leading the transformation, including talks on partnering with Perplexity, an online search engine enhanced by artificial intelligence. We talked to him about how the hot technology will shake up shopping in an edited conversation below.

The View From Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Q: Klarna has taken the AI ​​revolution seriously with a revamp to TikTok-style content that’s hyper-targeted based on user interests. But another vision of the AI-enabled future is almost the opposite, where people seem to ask large language models what they should buy. Instead of getting an influencer trying to sell them products, the AI ​​lays out the pros and cons of each option and just does the research. How to say Klarna fits in?

A: Both versions you describe are complementary to each other. Our recent Future of Retail report found that 26% of US Gen Zers and Millennials expect the shopping experience to be so customized that AI will eventually do the shopping for them. On the other hand, 85% of consumers still like it speaking with product experts when shopping online.

The future of shopping will include a combination of hyper-personalization based on users’ unique preferences, AI-shopping assistants, and content creators that connect people and products through entertaining experiences.

E-commerce has historically been very transactional and static, and the reality is that people miss the emotional element of shopping at the mall with their friends. Enhancing both the online shopping journey through curated, AI-driven content, while maintaining a meaningful, human touch will be very important. Perplexity is a fantastic company and we’re excited to collaborate with them and others on how we can make these experiences come to life.

Q: How do you see advertising and marketing changing in an AI-driven world? What happens if we’re just chatting with AI bots instead of browsing websites and TikTok?

A: Today in the Western world, 80% of e-commerce is search-driven, whereas in China we are seeing the opposite — 80% of e-commerce is driven by AI-powered recommendation engines, while 20% is through search. Marketers and advertisers benefit immensely when they can more accurately reach their target audience and tailor their content to meet consumer expectations.

One of Klarna’s biggest differentiators is our SKU-level data, which enables us to provide consumers with highly personalized shopping experiences with unmatched depth and detail, and better match them with new brands and offers that are relevant to them. With over 300 billion data points, we see the consumer’s product purchases, images, sizes and colors.

Q: Klarna is diversifying beyond payments and moving into advertising/marketing. But do you see any possibility that AI enables a commerce landscape that actually revolves around fees and commissions, rather than marketing and ads?

A: The creator economy is thriving and I don’t believe the model of affiliate marketing will go away any time soon; if anything it will

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01
July

The eternal style icon? Princess Diana’s legendary fashion sense explored

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , , /

The late, the great royal would have turned 62 on 1 July, had she lived. Euronews Culture looks into why she has always remained such an inspiration for designers and fashionistas across the globe.

As soon as she was caught into the public eye as a teenager, Princess Diana drew legions of fans, with many fixated on her impeccable style.

1 July marks what would have been her 62nd birthday and the legacy of her countless iconic outfits lives on, with Gen Z recreating the looks in millions of TikTok videos, often soundtracked with rapper Ice Spice’s hit tracksappropriately titled ‘Princess Diana’.

Nearly 26 years following her untimely death at the age of just 36, Diana has somehow managed to stay as arguably the most relevant style icon in history, with designers taking inspiration from her on a near constant basis.

Earlier this week, Jacquemus dedicated their latest collection, shown at Versailles Palace, to the late Princess. Called Le ChouChou, the show’s designs, headed up by Simon Porte Jacquemus, was described as a love letter to Diana.

Featuring iconic 1980s motifs, such as puff sleeves, tutu-inspired pieces and bubble hems, throughout, there were explicit references to her style drip fed through the entire duration of the runway.

Kendall Jenner stalked down the catwalk in a romper resembling a cloud, which resembled Diana’s wedding dress. The ensemble was teemed with a pearl and sapphire choker-style necklace, a clear reference to a piece worn by the Princess as a complement to her iconic revenge dress.

That outfit is often cited by fashion and royal experts as the ultimate piece in Diana’s extensive wardrobe as well as one of the most recognized by the public.

Celebrity stylist and royal commentator Leroy Dawkins agrees with that analysis, saying it has the ‘wow factor’ thanks to the timing of when she wore it as well as the message it sent out.

“Diana wore the dress in June 1994 to the Serpentine Gallery, the same night (then) Prince Charles admitted his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles”, Dawkins tells Euronews Culture, adding, “It was not her first choice of dress to wear that night; she was going to wear Valentino, but it was leaked what she would be wearing, so Diana chose to wear the now notorious revenge dress, which was designed by Christina Stambolian.”

The dress had the desired effect, landing on the front pages of newspapers, taking the news of Charles’ affair off the spot.

The look has long been recreated by many, including Queen Camilla. In 1995, she showed up to a party at The Ritz in London – her first outing as Charles’ official girlfriend – in an almost identical dress to Diana’s.

While Camilla even chose to style it in a similar way, with a pearl choker and Diana’s signature sheer black tights, the attempt was universally panned by fashion critics and criticized as a poor imitation of Diana’s style.

It isn’t just her taste in formal dresses, though,

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30
June

Shopify brings its Shop Pay checkout service to external e-commerce websites

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , , /

Shopify Inc. today announced plans to make its Shop Pay service available for online stores not hosted on its namesake cloud platform.

Shopify’s platform is used by retailers to build and manage e-commerce websites. It helped process $49.6 billion worth of online purchases last quarter, a 15% increase from the same time a year earlier. Shopify says its installed base includes millions of merchants.

Retailers with Shopify-hosted websites use its Shop Pay service to process customer purchases. It powers the checkout pages where users enter their payment information. Thanks to today’s update, large retailers will gain the ability to embed the service into e-commerce websites that are hosted not on Shopify’s platform but rather third-party infrastructure.

Shopify says the service can help retailers generate more sales. According to market research cited by the company, Shop Pay increases the number of website visitors who turn into paying customers by up to 50%. It does so by significantly speeding up the online buying experience.

Users can save their payment information, shipping preferences and related details in Shop Pay to avoid re-entering the data during every purchase. From there onwards, the service automatically inputs the data into supported websites. When making a purchase, shoppers must only enter a one-time code or use a passkey, which is faster than manually filling out checkout forms.

Shopify Pay also offers other features. If consumers make a purchase on an e-commerce website where they shopped recently, the service removes the need to enter a one-time code or use a passkey. That further speeds up the buying experience.

Shopify is making Shop Pay available to e-commerce websites not hosted on its platform through a toolkit called Commerce Components. Introduced earlier this year, the toolkit enables large retailers to integrate key features of Shopify’s platform into their existing websites. Those embedded features ease tasks such as managing product catalogs and offering discounts.

“In an economy where big brands are competing more fiercely than ever to acquire customers, they need to pick and choose what they need to boost the top-line, without the compromise of a complete platform overhaul,” said Kaz Nejatian, chief operating officer and vice president of product at Shopify.

Shopify announced the update to Shop Pay today alongside an expanded partnership with a company called Adyen NV. Netherlands-based Adyen provides a popular payment processing platform for online retailers. According to Shopify, its expanded partnership with the company seeks to make it easier for merchants to process customer purchases.

As part of their collaboration, Shopify and Ayden plan to roll out a new integration between their platforms later this year. The integration will help online retailers process purchases made using international financial services such as iDEAL, an e-commerce payments platform popular in the Netherlands.

Photo: Shopify

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