Here is the top tech news to know this week.
SAP Unveils Commerce Cloud at Shoptalk
Timed for Shoptalk in Las Vegas, SAP made several announcements, including a new “composable payment solution” and fresh consumer research about returns.
SAP’s solution aims to help retailers and brands offer shoppers more flexible payment options, such as buy now, pay later. The third-party payment service providers SAP has teamed with include Adyen, Airwallex, Stripe and Worldpay.
The solution, called SAP Commerce Cloud, is an open payment framework that helps retailers and brands “become more agile as new payment options — such as buy now, pay later — gain popularity,” the company said, adding that its composable, headless architecture “allows retailers to cherry-pick payment partners tailored to their unique needs and international markets, enabling them to build at their own pace, scale their business faster and avoid being confined to a single provider.”
SAP also said its Commerce Cloud solution is built on a no-code, low-code framework.
Regarding SAP’s go-to-market strategy, Sven Denecken, senior vice president and global head of product marketing for SAP industries and customer engagement, said the company’s “unmatched industry expertise is the foundation of our strategy, as it enables us to deeply understand the complexities of delivering seamless and positive customer experiences that reinforce the brand promise with every interaction.”
Denecken said the company’s “unique, industry-led approach to composability places the retailer’s digital commerce needs front and center while we work with them to manage their digital transformation, navigate pathways to sustainable growth, and deliver on industry expectations.”
Bolt and Checkout Team Up in Major E-Commerce Move
In a move that is an e-commerce win for retailers, brands and consumers, Bolt and Checkout.com have teamed up where Bolt “will become Checkout.com’s exclusive one-click checkout provider and Checkout.com will become Bolt’s preferred payment partner,” the companies said in a statement.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Checkout.com will be focusing “on boosting its merchant’s conversion performance, and its partnership with Bolt provides enterprise retailers with a best-in-class one-click checkout solution,” the companies said, adding that Checkout.com “will also leverage Bolt’s massive shopper network of 80 million-plus U.S. shoppers and a growing merchant base.”
For its part, Bolt will integrate Checkout.com into its platform, thereby expanding payment options for new and existing retailers and brands. “By deepening its payment offerings with Checkout.com, Bolt is solidifying its standing as a merchant-first and payment-agnostic technology provider, giving its customers unrivaled flexibility,” the companies said.
For shoppers, the partnership makes for a smoother, more flexible shopping experience.
Maju Kuruvilla, chief executive officer of Bolt, said by integrating the company’s checkout technology with Checkout.com’s enterprise-grade payment solutions, “we are helping merchants deliver a better shopper experience and higher conversion by leveraging Bolt’s fast-growing shopper network. This partnership reflects our merchant-first and payment-agnostic approach, and we’re thrilled to add Checkout.com as a preferred payments partner.”
Jim Cho, head of commercial for North America at Checkout.com, said the company “always drives towards innovation and accelerated checkout is an important part of our holistic payments offering. Together with Bolt, we are unlocking friction-free checkout experiences that build upon our best-in-class payments infrastructure, empowering merchants to deliver seamless transactions and drive higher customer satisfaction.”
“This collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation, delivering exceptional value to all our retail partners,” Cho said.
Survey: U.S. Consumers Prioritize Sustainability Despite Inflation
Sustainability remains a top priority for consumers, according to Blue Yonder’s most recent “Consumer Sustainability Survey,” which was released at Shoptalk and is based on the sentiment of over 1,000 U.S. consumers polled last month.
The poll revealed that 78 percent of respondents report that sustainability concerns “are very or somewhat important to them when choosing to buy a product or shop at a retailer,” researchers at the company said.
The report also showed that 70 percent of consumers polled said they have shopped at a retailer promoting their products as sustainable at least once or more in the past six months, which closely matches the 74 percent who reported doing so in 2022 and 2023.
Blue Yonder said interest in sustainability is also growing at a steady pace with 47 percent of consumers reporting “that their interest in shopping sustainably has greatly or slightly increased in the last year.”
The report’s authors said that interest was underscored by consumers’ “willingness to spend more for sustainable products, with 40 percent of respondents saying they would pay up to an additional 5 percent, and 25 percent saying they would pay an additional 10 percent or more.”
Saskia van Gendt, chief sustainability officer at Blue Yonder, said the company is encouraged “to see that the majority of consumers take sustainability into account when making purchasing decisions. It’s especially promising that so many respondents are willing to spend more for sustainable products, given that price concerns, exacerbated by the ongoing challenge of inflation, have marked conversations around consumer behavior over the last year.”
Van Gendt also said consumers’ willingness to spend more “should send a clear message to brands and retailers that investing in sustainable solutions and practices is worthwhile, not only for the planet but also for maintaining consumer loyalty and trust.”
Other findings include that 83 percent of respondents said they are willing to delay deliveries “if an incentive is given to do so,” the report stated. “However, this flexibility has its limits. Only 23 percent of respondents said they were willing to delay a delivery by a week or more. Nearly half (47 percent) of consumers also said they would be likely or very likely to pay more for greener shipping options such as lower carbon footprint delivery and sustainable packaging.”
The survey also revealed mistrust among respondents. “Consumers are looking closely at exactly how brands are executing on their sustainability goals,” said van Gendt. “With more than one-third (35 percent) of respondents reporting that they don’t trust brands’ sustainability claims, it’s more important than ever for companies to have full visibility into their supply chain operations so they can back up their sustainability claims with tangible data to strengthen consumer trust.”
