News

Aug 10, 2023

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The Retail Times is a weekly newsletter covering retail tech news from Canada and around the globe. Subscribe to R|T using the form at the bottom of this page to ensure you don’t miss out on the most

The Retail Times is a weekly newsletter covering retail tech news from Canada and around the globe.

Subscribe to R|T using the form at the bottom of this page to ensure you don’t miss out on the most important retail tech news every week!

Satish Kanwar is leaving Shopify after 10 years.

The long-serving Shopify vice president of corporate development and head of product acceleration announced the news on Twitter and LinkedIn, noting that he intends to spend more time with his family, angel investing, and working on his family office.

Stitch Fix’s new CEO, Matt Baer, grew up in South Florida, working at his family’s chain of furniture stores. He studied business in college, worked for a hotshot lawyer, and kickstarted a decade of e-commerce work when he joined startup Fab in 2011.

Despite those experiences, Baer wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice to fix Stitch Fix, the once-hot tech firm which has slumped in recent years.

Elevate Festival, Canada’s premiere tech and innovation festival, takes place from Sept. 26-28 in the heart of Toronto. This year’s Main Stage speakers include Knix CEO & Founder, Joanna Griffiths; acclaimed journalist & broadcaster, Lisa LaFlamme; Astronaut & Elevate Co-Chair, Col. Chris Hadfield; Executive Director of Action Canada, Farrah Khan, and Chief Diversity Officer of Meta, Maxine Williams!

Highlights include 8 content tracks featuring important discussions in AI, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Future Societies, and more; a Tech Talent Zone for job seekers; Elevate Goes Late parties with live music & street eats; 1:1 meetings for Startups with Canada’s top investors; a dedicated Women+ in Tech stream, and infinite chances to network, cultivate community, and level up!

Grab your tickets now at elevatefestival.ca/tickets.

Earlier this month, Ottawa retail-tech giant Shopify unveiled its AI assistant for merchants, Sidekick, which the company claims can craft and complete administrative tasks such as responding to customer inquiries and making design changes to the online storefront.

Now, the company has unveiled several new products and updates for its merchants as part of its 2023 Summer Editions. This includes a business credit card for everyday expenses, created in partnership with Stripe, and dropshipping-like capabilities through its new Shopify Collective offering.

Seventy-five firms whose AI products could shake up e-commerce raised a record $503 million in venture capital investment in 2022, according to new research.

Wittington Ventures director Qasim Mohammad warns that fellow investors and retailers should be cautious amid the hype as many questions around how best to incorporate AI into services remain unanswered.

Montréal-based travel booking startup Hopper is partnering with Nubank, one of the largest digital banks in Latin America, to power its travel portal.

The travel portal is powered by Hopper's B2B Cloud offering and is expected to launch next year. Hopper launched its B2B initiative in 2021. Nubank is its latest new client and follows the likes ofCapital One and Uber.

The world’s most valuable private e-commerce company is coming for Amazon on its home turf.

Shein is pushing further into incumbents’ territory by trying to recruit U.S. brands that are already big on Amazon and Shopify, part of its plan to transform into an online “everything store” where shoppers can buy a wide range of goods from outside sellers and Shein alike.

New data from briefed.in gives an optimistic outlook on the venture health of Canada's biggest tech ecosystems in Q2 2023.

Following a sluggish start to the year, Toronto and British Columbia's tech ecosystems saw a resurgence in venture funding in the quarter, mostly due to larger deals between fewer companies.

Alberta tech is on pace to eclipse its 2022, with companies raising a lively $123.8M in Q2 2023. Québec followed suit, maintaining an upward trajectory in the quarter, growing 42 percent from Q1 2023 and 81 percent year-over-year.

Meanwhile, venture deal volume in the Waterloo Region reached a three-year low in the second quarter of 2023, but unreported deals could be shaping an unfair perception of the local tech sector.

TikTok is launching an e-commerce business in the U.S. to sell made-in-China goods to consumers, stepping up its rivalry with popular shopping platforms Shein and Temu.

Similar to Amazon.com’s “Sold by Amazon” program, TikTok will store and ship items—including clothes, electronics and kitchen gadgets—on behalf of manufacturers and merchants in China. It will also handle marketing, transactions, logistics and after-sale services.

Canadian tech unicorns Ada, Clio, and Lightspeed are among the eight businesses selected to take part in the first cohort of the Government of Canada’s Global Hypergrowth Project (GHP).

According to the federal government, GHP is meant to help its selection of businesses become “anchor firms,” which it defines as companies with annual revenues of over $1 billion and employees numbering more than 1,500 people.

SoftBank Group Corp. is setting up an artificial intelligence-oriented warehousing joint venture with Symbotic Inc. and buying more shares in the supply-chain-services company.

The Wilmington, Massachusetts-based company helps companies save money by using robots to help fulfill customer orders. Walmart Inc. is among its most important clients, with plans to implement Symbotic systems in all 42 of its regional distribution centers.

Though Canada's new H-1B visa program was only announced weeks ago, it’s already having a profound impact. In developing a visa program unapologetically piggybacking on America’s H-1B visa process—and in many ways, offering a clear contrast to its limitations—the IRCC appears to have struck a nerve.

When the program's online portal launched on July 16, its 10,000 application limit had been reached by the next evening.

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