Solutions & Innovations (January 2025)
In December, Carlsbad, California-based Aira.io’s on-demand visual-interpreting service went nationwide at Walmart. First noted two years ago in this column at Meijer, the service successfully completed pilots in California, Florida and Texas. It will be available 24/7/365 through the Aira app. Aira.io enables users to shop independently by connecting them with an Aira visual interpreter. These professionals are essentially video conferencing with users as they shop, helping to: locate carts or restrooms; describe products and look for the best prices; read numbers from gift cards; find the shortest check-out line; navigate Walmart.com and place online orders. Aira.io can also help users navigate outside the store on surrounding sidewalks, near bus lanes or in the parking lot.
WISEcode, a Reno, Nevada-based “foodtech” company that claims to have the world’s largest food database, recently launched the WISEcode app. The company says the app can give consumers data that is missing from today's "Nutrition Facts Panels," which it says show only 15 attributes or about 1% of what’s actually in food. After scanning a product's bar code with the WISEcode, the app accesses WISEdata, an information resource that is said to contain more than 15,000 attributes on each of 650,000 foods. Utilizing AI, machine learning, lab research and cloud computing, the app can then answer common questions such as: Is a food ultra-processed? Does it have seed oils? Are there other potentially harmful ingredients?
Oakland, California-based E.l.f. Cosmetics and New York-based Obsess, a digital e-commerce company, have launched the "Virtual Luxe Lounge." It is an interactive 3-D virtual "speakeasy" for the most loyal members of E.l.f.'s "Beauty Squad" in the U.S. and U.K. A gated, digital shopping experience, the Lounge lets members log in via a mobile browser for early access to new products and exclusive coupons, housed in various "glittery," speakeasy-themed, 3D rooms. The campaign initially launched with a room full of holiday gift sets; each subsequent product drop will unlock a new room and corresponding member-exclusive reward.
Phoenix-based GyftPro recently launched an app that aims to simplify gift shopping through the use of an "intuitive, AI-driven solution." GyftPro's core functionality is rooted in personalization, enabling users to access an interface said to be powered by advanced recommendation algorithms. Users can search by recipient, occasion or category, and the system will then curate gift ideas based on the user's preferences and their intended recipients' tastes. The developer also says that GyftPro can aggregate products from multiple stores through brand links and offer a centralized experience when shopping across categories.
If you are a regular user of TikTok, in late December you may have started receiving messages to hop on over to its sister app, Lemon8. With a ban on TikTok and its Chinese-government-owned parent ByteDance potentially imminent by the Trump administration, the Supreme Court and/or Congress, there was speculation that Lemon8 was being positioned to slip through the cracks and remain active. It has an estimated 1 million users already, and many are very active posters of shopping tips. If you decide to move over to Lemon8, your TikTok log-in, bio and followers are automatically transferred.
Beamble, an on-demand personal shopper app from creative consultant Sophia Elizabeth, launched in January via the Parisian department store Printemps. U.S. expansion (i.e., New York) is slated for the second quarter of 2025, with a Los Angeles rollout in the second half. As you may have guessed, this app is for very high-end clients who will be able to "summon" personal shoppers, stylists and other helpers via a one-on-one video interface. Basically, Beamble is attempting to digitalize the in-store human experience (sometimes called “phygital” shopping), take it upscale and globalize it for fashion, home decor direction and buying, and ultimately celebrity-level styling and VIP services with access to private showrooms. Its backers say that "AI instant translation" will break down language barriers and that its partnership with Uber Direct will offer "lightning-fast delivery to your doorstep."
In a world where commerce keeps breaking down national barriers, politics becomes unavoidable. Developers behind the iOS/Android "No Thanks" app claim that more than 7 million shoppers are using it to identify brands and corporations that have been listed for the boycott movement. The key is that the app is said to be able to quickly scan bar codes using a smartphone camera and then tell users which products to avoid. They can also search for products or items by entering serial numbers. The developers claim that all data is kept secure.
In January, Robesonia, Pennsylvania-based Blaqclouds, a blockchain technology company, launched ShopwithCrypto.io, a web platform that lets shoppers purchase retailers' digital gift cards using 250 cryptocurrencies. However, in view of crypto's pricing volatility, during the rollout's initial phase, Blaqclouds is implementing purchase limits to ensure platform stability. To qualify as a "Tier 1" user, a shopper must pay for the gift cards using either PayPal USD, Tether, USD Coin, Wrapped Ether or Wrapped Bitcoin in order to make unlimited gift card purchases within a 24-hour period. Tier 2 users can make a maximum of $200 in gift card purchases per 24-hour period.
In December, Syracuse, New York-based, Preferabli, a maker of wine/spirits/food recommendation software, began partnering with Albertsons' direct-to-consumer wine shipping platform Vine & Cellar Reserve. Initially to be available only in California, Safeway, Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions shoppers can access Preferabli's "Sensorial AI" to select wines from Vine & Cellar Reserve’s collection. Said to be a first inside the grocery industry, shoppers can sort through a proprietary database with hundreds of characteristics for each wine. Using a form of machine learning that's said to be protected by 12 Preferabli patents, the software makes taste-based recommendations based on the individual’s preferences, not crowdsourcing. The software also provides food pairing recommendations.
Late last year, AI-search-engine Perplexity launched new shopping capabilities for users who want to research and purchase products. The San Francisco-based company has integrated a number of shopping platforms such as Shopify while adding features to both its free and its Pro User ($20 per month) bases. "Snap to Shop" is a visual search tool that shows relevant products based on a user-submitted photo. "Product Reviews" are presented in easy-to-read "product cards" and framed comparisons rather than "endlessly" scrollable lists. "One-click checkout" is available to all Perplexity users. "Buy with Pro" is being offered to U.S.-based Perplexity Pro users, enabling them to check out directly from the Perplexity website or app for select products from select merchants. Perplexity also is offering free shipping on all Buy with Pro orders as a thank-you. The company is also hoping to scale up its shopping capabilities through a "Perplexity Merchant Program," said to be a free, "straightforward" process for large retailers to share product specs with the AI-search engine.
In December, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched the Explore Credit Cards comparison tool. This web-based tool enables consumers to compare the annual percentage rates (APRs), fees and rewards of 500 credit cards from 150 companies. The site accepts no paid advertising, uses unbiased public data that the CFPB collects voluntarily from major credit card companies and some smaller ones, and the interest rates are all rated to help consumers compare. The CFPB's future is in some doubt in light of the Trump administration's criticism of its regulatory powers.
Last summer, Walmart introduced WalmartRealm.com, an immersive shopping experience co-created with the experience-design agency Sawhorse and Emperia, an e-commerce/gaming platform. Three of Walmart's key product categories — beauty, home and fashion — are showcased, with a focus in the fall on back-to-school concepts and, in mid-winter, holiday gifting. To date, 12 different rooms have been conceptualized by various digital creators, playing off of social trends charted by Pinterest Predicts. Room themes have ranged from the fairly conventional (Mountain Chalet or Hosting Holiday) to the fairly trippy (i.e., Y’allternative, "a land where the wild wild west meets gothic glam.") Gamification elements (mainly capturing little Walmart Sparks) are sprinkled around the rooms.
