ECOMMERCE

Amazon isn’t wasting any time in entering the booming meal kit category.  

Amazon Prime is getting more social as the online giant looks for yet more ways to entice shoppers to buy.    On Wednesday, the online giant launched Amazon Spark, a new shoppable social media feed for its Prime members. Described as “a place to discover things from people who share your interests,” Spark will help Prime users discover — and shop for -- merchandise found across followers’ stories and ideas, according to Amazon’s website.  

Digitally-savvy customers will be contributing to a high volume of holiday traffic — and they have high expectations for retailers.    Seventy-six percent of U.S. consumers expect their interactions with a brand to be easy, according to “The Holiday in July 2017 Holiday Retail Outlook” report from Alliance Data  This will be a mantra this holiday season, regardless of the channel shoppers use to connect with their favorite retailers.  

West Elm is upping the ante on how it recommends merchandise to customers.    The company, a division of Williams-Sonoma, introduced a new online tool that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to detect customers’ style patterns and connect them with products they can buy at West Elm stores and online. Called the Pinterest Style Finder, the tool is powered by Clarifai’s image and video recognition AI technology.  

Pizza Hut is making big moves to improve the accuracy and reliability of its delivery experience.   The subsidiary of Yum! Brands plans to hire nearly 3,000 new drivers a month through the end of the year. The hiring effort, which will include full and part-time positions, will add approximately 14,000 new drivers across its delivery fleet, according to the company.   

The newest batch of start-ups are making their way to Minneapolis for the second annual Target + Techstars retail accelerator program.   After receiving applications from more than 3,000 technology start-ups — 70% of which had a co-founder who is either female or comes from an ethnically diverse background — Target whittled the list down to 10 finalists for this year’s tech accelerator. Companies range from online advertising to rebates to clothing alterations, and hail from Minneapolis to as far as Belgium.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has stepped up its efforts to combine physical retail with online in the supermarket space.