Latest news with #TechTactics
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tech Tactics: Vicci Eyewear Looks to Seek AI for Online Growth and a ‘Data-Driven Culture'
Tech Tactics is Sourcing Journal's series with brands and technology companies to discuss their latest innovations. Vicci Eyewear is on a mission to boost its e-commerce business with help from a new artificial intelligence (AI) partner. More from Sourcing Journal Upstream Focus: Do-Gree Fashions Ltd.'s Matthew Tock on Tariffs, Taking Risks and Transparency Chain Reaction: NuVizz CEO Guru Rao on Surviving Disruption with Smarter Delivery Tech Walmart US Nearly Doubled Deliveries Made in Three Hours or Less Last week, the Miami-based prescription eyewear brand announced a partnership with Seek AI, a multi-agent system designed to deliver accurate, understandable and secure autonomous analytics for both data teams and non-technical users. By leveraging Seek AI's agentic tools—an advanced form of AI that operates autonomously to make decisions and take action toward specific goals—Vicci Eyewear plans to enhance its data strategy and accelerate online growth. 'Seek gave me data I could confidently put in front of investors. Instead of rough estimates, I had real metrics—average order value, return rates [and] conversion data—all backed by our own sources,' said Steven Geduld, CEO at Vicci Eyewear. 'That level of detail saved me time and added credibility. I'm excited to have Seek help Vicci drive a data-driven culture.' To achieve these results, Vicci Eyewear is leveraging Seek's suite of solutions. This includes the Dialogue Agent, which allows both data teams and non-technical users to interact with structured data through natural language queries, and the Explanation Agent, which analyzes query results and provides clear, summarized insights. By combining Seek's managed services, brands like Vicci Eyewear can unlock more advanced reasoning and problem-solving capabilities tailored to their business goals, according to the New York-based company. 'We are excited to partner with Vicci Eyewear and implement our Seek AI agentic data platform to deliver faster speed to meaningful insights,' said Sarah Nagy, CEO at Seek AI. 'In today's world, the retailer with the best data-driven edge will be best equipped to navigate toward better business outcomes, and our Seek data agents are ready to meet that need.' While this marks the first collaboration between Vicci Eyewear and Seek AI, the software company has already helped several other retailers drive measurable improvements since its founding in 2021. One recent example is Welles, a sustainable clothing brand that used Seek AI's tools to transform its e-commerce operations. Within one month, Welles saved 30 minutes per day on data-related tasks, re-engaged over 4,000 dormant customers and reduced product returns by 50 percent. 'Seek AI has been transformative for our operations,' said Rachel Rothenberg-Saenz, co-founder and CEO of Welles. 'We saw measurable results almost immediately—recovering potential sales, reducing returns and gaining actionable insights that validate our marketing and operational decisions. It's the clarity and efficiency we needed to scale smarter.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tech Tactics: Bluecore Brings AI Shopping Assistant Alby to Shopify Retailers
Tech Tactics is Sourcing Journal's series with brands and technology companies to discuss their latest innovations. Bluecore is making its artificial intelligence-powered shopping assistant more accessible to retailers. More from Sourcing Journal 85% of Retailers Say The Store Is Primary Target for Company Growth Deda Stealth CEO Explains Why Tariffs Made This Year the Right Time for U.S. Expansion Amazon's Latest AI Feature Allows Sellers to Upgrade Old Listings On Thursday, the New York-headquartered retail technology company announced the expansion of Alby—which it acquired in 2024— its generative AI agent designed to answer shopper questions both in real time and preemptively. Via a new integration, retailers can now access Alby directly through global e-commerce enabler Shopify. Bluecore noted that this will enable any retailer—from small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to global enterprises like Tapestry, Express and Lenovo—to 'seamlessly power conversational AI shopping experiences that are unique to their brand and customers.' This expansion comes as the global AI chatbot market experiences rapid growth, with projections estimating it will reach $46.64 billion by 2029, according to Research and Markets. As part of this trend, 76 percent of online retailers have either implemented chatbots or plan to do so as part of their customer experience strategies. 'We have been addressing the unique needs of enterprise retailers for over 10 years with our technology—and we're now expanding our expertise to the thousands of SMB retailers on Shopify,' said Fayez Mohamood, CEO and co-founder of Bluecore. 'As all retailers navigate this new AI-powered landscape, we're offering them the tools to not only understand how AI is evolving consumer behavior but take action on it with Alby. We want every retailer to be able to openly experiment with AI and start to unlock a vast trove of new data that leads to higher engagement and conversion.' Shoppers can interact with Alby directly on a brand's website to ask questions about any product. Once activated, the AI agent will learn, make decisions and act on a brand's behalf—pulling from product data, brand assets and the company's tone of voice to ensure accurate responses. Instead of relying on lengthy natural language queries, the technology anticipates the kinds of questions consumers are likely to ask. For apparel, that might include inquiries like, 'What is this sweater made of?' or 'What's the warranty on this jacket?' 'People don't shop the way they use ChatGPT. When you go to ChatGPT, you have a long-form query in your head that you're trying to get help on, some complex task you're trying to accomplish,' Max Bennett, CEO and co-founder of Alby—also co-founded Bluecore—previously told Sourcing Journal. 'That's not how people shop. People shop in between things. People shop on the go. People shop when they're on the train, scrolling. The needs for the human being engaging in that activity are very different.' Alby also supports global, multilingual customer service and provides around-the-clock assistance, ensuring shoppers receive 'timely answers no matter where or when they're browsing.' One retailer already seeing success with Alby's new expansion is mattress company PlushBeds. 'Adding an AI shopping agent to our website to help guide shoppers from discovery to purchase was a priority for us, but it wasn't until Alby that it was actually possible,' said Michael Hughes, CEO of PlushBeds. 'We integrated Alby on Shopify to guide our shoppers to their perfect mattress based on their sleeping preferences. Now, Alby answers 6,000 product questions a month, engages 15 percent of website traffic and achieves a five-time higher conversion rate.'
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tech Tactics: Psycho Bunny Leverages In-Store Inventory with Fluent Commerce
Tech Tactics is Sourcing Journal's series with brands and technology companies to discuss their latest innovations. A couple years ago, fashion brand Psycho Bunny was experiencing significant growth, with a double-digit rise in e-commerce sales and a rapidly expanding store footprint. But amid this success, the label discovered its technology stack couldn't meet the demands of the ballooning business. More from Sourcing Journal Denim Brands Find Balance Between Caution and Innovation for Spring/Summer 2026 Fabrics NRF '25: These Five AI Trends Could Shape Retail's Future Byte-Sized AI: SAP Plans to Release Retention-Focused Retail Systems; Alo Yoga Links with Remedying this, Psycho Bunny decided to undergo a large-scale technology transformation just a couple weeks before Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2022, which included launching on Fluent Commerce's order management system as well as replacing its warehouse management system. In a session at the National Retail Federation's Big Show, the brand's vice president of IT, data and analytics and PMO Jean-Aymeri de Magistris noted that while he does not suggest following suit with a widespread change all at once, for Psycho Bunny, the venture worked out. 'We saw value immediately,' he said. 'We were able to leverage the store inventory, catch up to our sales, beat our plans, tremendous success.' One of the issues that Psycho Bunny was looking to solve was a lack of inventory accuracy, which caused multiple fulfillment hiccups. In some cases, the brand was taking orders for merchandise that was not available. Inventory errors also led to split shipments, which raised shipping costs. Fluent Commerce specializes in distributed order management, with solutions that help companies improve their inventory accuracy and optimize fulfillment. After adopting this OMS, Psycho Bunny has been able to reduce canceled orders by 93 percent. Per a case study on their partnership, if an order was canceled incorrectly and the merchandise existed in the system, the customer service team previously needed to manually re-enter the order for the consumer. Now, this process is automated, freeing up customer service team's time. Additionally, Psycho Bunny's split shipments rates have halved from 35 to 40 percent to just 17 percent. The brand is also getting orders to consumers faster, at an average of four days instead of six. Although the label is based in Canada, it does not have a distribution center in its home country. Because of this, Psycho Bunny wanted to be able to better leverage the inventory sitting in its Canadian stores for online fulfillment, which it has been able to do with Fluent. Fulfilling from stores has been a 'huge asset,' and De Magistris said it is helping Psycho Bunny catch up to the competition. The store teams are on board, and the brand has established an 'in-store fulfillment culture.' Unlocking omnichannel fulfillment has been a boon for the company, leading to a 30 percent sales boost. As De Magistris explained, Psycho Bunny is too big for an 'off-the-shelf' technology solution, but too small for something completely custom. It needed an in-between offering that allowed for some tweaks. With Fluent Commerce, the brand has been able to make adjustments that fit its operations, such as creating fulfillment logic rules that default to shipping 100 percent of Canadian orders from a store. Psycho Bunny can modify and test different rules as demand fluctuates. For instance, it can put more emphasis on allocating toward the stores during a shopping event like Black Friday or focus more on e-commerce in other times. Although Fluent Commerce's capabilities were an attraction, De Magistris stressed the importance of also finding a cultural fit with a technology partner. 'We really aligned a lot with the philosophy, the way we develop and the way we push out software or we ship products, and that's ultimately what led us to Fluent,' said De Magistris.
