The company said its Biometric Checkout Program would let a shopper scan their face using a retailer’s smartphone app and assign their likeness to a bank card stored on file. The technology is comparable to how Apple Inc.’s iPhone uses FaceID to approve payments or unlock a device. A pilot program began this week inside supermarkets in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Mastercard Inc. has begun to trial a biometric payment system for brick-and-mortar stores, using facial recognition rather than contactless cards, smartphones or memorable PINs.

According to Mastercard Cyber & Intelligence President Ajay Bhalla, when the pandemic happened, the company saw that everybody went digital and consumers all over the world embraced new technologies asking Mastercard for that for shopping, for their retail experiences.

A pilot program began this week inside five St. Marche supermarkets in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Mastercard said in a statement. The stores will use an app that Brazilian startup Payface developed. It’s one of the small businesses Mastercard promotes as part of its Start Path engagement program.

On the hardware side, Mastercard is working with companies including NEC Corp. and Fujitsu General Ltd. It has plans to roll out internationally soon.

Mastercard team are really looking forward to bringing this solution everywhere. The Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America are in the nearest plans with even more features. Age verification for purchasing restricted store items is one that the company is beginning to explore and that they are really excited about.

Facial recognition is just one of many technologies that retailers, banks and payments firms use to try to eliminate cash and reduce fraud.

Amazon.com Inc. has a system that uses in-store cameras to track what shoppers put in a basket. It charges them on exiting its physical stores in the United States and United Kingdom. It won interest from Britain’s J Sainsbury Plc., which installed it at a trial store. Starbucks Corp. has a café in New York using it, too.

Eurora, which offers compliance solutions for cross-border ecommerce businesses, has raised 40 million dollars (37.94 million euros) in a Series A round. The capital injection will be used to accelerate the Estonian company’s international expansion.

Estonian company Eurora uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically manage cross-border VAT, compliance and customs services for customers. Its b2b platform is used by online sellers, marketplaces, logistics providers, as well as tax and customs authorities. According to the company, it serves over 200 clients worldwide.

As of July last year, the VAT rules within the EU changed. The previous 22 euros import VAT exemption ended, while regulations to create a level playing field with local European manufacturers and manufacturers worldwide came into effect. Cross-border sellers from the UK, the US and China have had to adjust to these new rules.

Eurora’s software simplifies VAT, compliance and customs for these cross-border sellers. The platform is claimed to have a 96 percent accuracy for parcels and handles 5.000 requests per second. It automatically calculates the applicable VAT and duty amounts. At the same time, it also creates electronic declarations for EU duties and taxes with an API integration.

In July 2021, Eurora raised 2.5 million euros, which allowed the company to expand the coverage of its customs compliance tools across 193 countries. Just 9 months later, the company held a Series A round led by Connected Capital. Existing investors such as Change Ventures, Equity United and founder Marko Lasik participated in the round that raised almost 38 million euros.

The software provider will use the capital injection to expand geographically into the UK, the US and the Middle East. Its current team of 150 people is expected to double by the end of this year. The company also wants to boost product development and add-on acquisitions.

Leading ecommerce platform Shopify has acquired Dovetale, an influencer marketing startup from New York, ecommercenews.eu reports. It is part of Shopify’s move into the influencer market. Creator marketing is on the rise in Europe, one of the software platform’s biggest growth markets.

Dovetale helps companies manage their influencer marketing campaigns. The platform connects businesses and social media influencers, making it easier to partner with influencers and track the brand’s sales. In 2021, the startup grew its revenue with 100 percent month-on-month.

The price of the takeover was not disclosed. Dovetale shared the news in its blog post, announcing it will continue under the name ‘Dovetale by Shopify’. However, Dovetale’s users will experience ‘minimal changes’, according to the startup. Moreover, Dovetale will be free to use for all Shopify users. The service used to cost over 90 euros per month.

“We really see creators as the next generation of entrepreneurs,” Shopify’s Director of Product Amir Kabbara told ModernRetail. “It is a top priority for us to really help these creators enter commerce and start monetizing.”

The acquisition is part of Shopify’s move into the influencer market. In 2020, Dovetale already created a Shopify app for influencer campaigns. And only last month, Shopify launched their own Linkpop-tool for influencers to provide links to their numerous projects.

While most of Shopify’s customers are from the United States, the European customer base has been growing rapidly. Shopify users in the United Kingdom (UK) and France have increased over 200 and 300 percent respectively over the last two years.

Meanwhile, the European influencer market is also on the rise. Influencer platform LTK experienced a growth spurt in Europe, their managing director told Econsultancy. European brands invested double the amount in creator partnerships in 2021. And in the UK, Shopify’s largest market after the United States, creator sales increased 45 percent.

Cross-border ecommerce in Europe was worth 171.2 billion euros in 2021. This is a growth of 17 percent when compared to the year before.

Cross-border ecommerce in Europe has grown significantly. Last year was the first time that European sellers were able to generate a cross-border revenue of 100 billion euros. When compared to 2020, this is year-on-year growth of 14.6 percent (87.2 billion euros). This is evident from Cross-Border Commerce Europe’s latest study.

UK no longer the biggest cross-border seller in Europe

The amount of cross-border sales originating from the UK has decreased by 12 percent, resulting in a revenue of 29 billion euros. In 2020, the cross-border sales generated a total of 33 billion euros. As a result, the UK is no longer the biggest cross-border seller in Europe. Germany has taken its place as the number one.

Increase in brand manufacturers in the top 500

Together, the top 500 biggest cross-border sellers in Europe generated 58.3 billion euros in turnover. The amount of brand manufacturers that sell through D2C-channels increased by 50 percent. Pure players, including marketplaces, hold 47 percent of the top 500.

The category fashion, jewelry and baby is still the largest category in the top 500, with a share of 41 percent.

Home, garden and DIY increased its share by 15 percent thanks to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The category personal care increased by 100 per cent.

The biggest 500 cross-border sellers had 1.4 million monthly visitors in total in 2021. When compared to the year before, this is an increase of 40 percent. Cross-Border Commerce Europe expects that this growth will continue in the years to come, according to ecommercenews.eu.

Top 10 cross-border sellers in Europe

The top 10 cross-border sellers in Europe are:

The top 10 generated 20.9 percent of the top 500’s revenue. In first place is Ikea, with a cross-border revenue of 5.5 billion euros. This is an increase of 8 percent when compared to 2020. Zalando, Lidl, About You, Jysk, Zara, Bauhaus and Euronics have entered the top 10 for the first time.

Bloomberg News

Apple Inc. is working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, a move that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app fee.

The service would be Apple’s biggest push yet into automatically recurring sales, allowing users to subscribe to hardware for the first time — rather than just digital services. But the project is still in development.

A push into hardware subscriptions, akin to an auto-leasing program, would be a major strategy shift for a company that has generally sold devices at full cost outright, sometimes through installments or with carrier subsidies. It could help Apple generate more revenue and make it easier for consumers to stomach spending thousands of dollars on new devices.

Already, the iPhone is Apple’s biggest source of sales, generating nearly $192 billion last year, it’s more than half the company’s revenue.

A spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment on the company’s plans.

The idea is to make the process of buying an iPhone or iPad on par with paying for iCloud storage or an Apple Music subscription each month. Apple is planning to let customers subscribe to hardware with the same Apple ID and App Store account they use to buy apps and subscribe to services today.

This program would differ from an installment program in that the monthly charge wouldn’t be the price of the device split across 12 or 24 months. Rather, it would be a yet-to-be-determined monthly fee that depends on which device the user chooses.

The company has discussed allowing users of the program to swap out their devices for new models when fresh hardware comes out. It historically releases new versions of its major devices, including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, once a year.

Apple has been working on the subscription program for several months, but the project was recently delayed in an effort to launch a “buy now, pay later” service faster. Nonetheless, the subscription service is still expected to launch at the end of 2022, but could be delayed into 2023 or end up getting canceled, the people said.

Bloomberg reported last year that the company has been working on a “buy now, pay later” service for all Apple Pay transactions.

The company has had preliminary discussions internally about attaching the hardware subscription program to its Apple One bundles and AppleCare technical support plans. Apple launched the bundles in 2020 to let users subscribe to several services — including TV+, Arcade, Music, Fitness+ and iCloud storage — for a lower monthly fee.

The subscriptions would likely be managed through a user’s Apple account on their devices, through the App Store and on the company’s website. It would likely also be an option at checkout on Apple’s online store and at its physical retail locations. Apple accounts are typically tied to a user’s credit or debit card.

And Apple has offered several installment programs in the past to split up the cost of devices, though not with a subscription model.

In 2015, the company launched the iPhone Upgrade Program, financed through Citizens One Personal Loans, that lets users spread the cost of an iPhone over 24 months and upgrade to a new model every 12 months. It also lets Apple Card users divide the cost of an iPhone or Apple Watch over 24 months, or an iPad or Mac over 12 months. Wireless carriers offer several monthly installment programs as well.

The new approach could make existing services less appealing. A subscription program tied to an Apple account would likely be simpler to manage than a carrier program or even the installment plans for the Apple Card.

The iPhone maker wouldn’t be the first company to push hardware subscriptions. Peloton Interactive Inc. recently started testing a subscription service that lets consumers lease bikes and fitness content for between $60 and $100 per month. Google also has tried a similar approach with its Chromebook laptops, targeting corporate customers.

We are all used to working online with various devices and it is practical to have a digital tool to store and present identification and other documents.

The digital wallet was initially an app that allows for scanning physical cards and storing payment and other personal information on a device.

For instance, the iPhone is equipped with Apple Wallet, and Google has the Google Pay app which is compatible with both Android cell phones and iPhones.

Today’s digital wallets simply bind identity to the document presented for verification, such as an airline ticket. This is where identity proofing can be of utmost importance to make digital wallets more than just a convenient way to avoid flashing a paper document.

According to ecommercetimes.com, the digital wallet of the future is not about just storing the picture of a document, it’s also about ensuring that scanned documents are valid and provides assurances that it has been issued by a verified source. Therefore, identity proofing must be the cornerstone of any digital wallet.

Biometric support is a key requirement for digital wallets, including fingerprints, facial recognition and live selfies that require users to blink or make other movements to prevent stolen images from being used to hijack accounts and commit fraud.

Digital wallets need to verify and vet every attribute that’s associated with the user’s identity within the wallet, such as the name, address, and date of birth, so that when the user interacts with a service, they can selectively choose to present certain elements of their identity needed to complete a transaction.

The digital wallet should be able to store and encapsulate all identity attributes associated with an individual and present them on as-needed basis.

Security is another important characteristic of these new and improved digital wallets.

Apart from adopting security best practices to protect the data contained in a digital wallet, developers need to go through a series of certifications to assure consumers that the wallet is certified by one of the industry bodies that organizes identity authentication specifications, such as Fast ID Online (FIDO) or the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

A wallet should be attested and verified to comply with NIST identity assurance levels or the FIDO specifications of how signatures are validated and vetted.

Knowing that a wallet has been certified by a recognized standard body like FIDO or the Kantara Initiative gives consumers the assurance that the wallet they’re using complies with accepted security standards.

Digital wallets should also be compatible with one another. In an ideal world, one wallet should be able to meet all our needs, but the environment is still fragmented, as in the airline ticket example.

Developers need to work with organizations such as the Identity Foundation to ensure that all digital wallets are interoperable with each other. That way, they can give consumers a choice of using any wallet they want, as long as the identity documents that contain it can be shared and verified by other technology platforms.

Digital wallet technology is clearly the future for transacting business online and in the physical world, and for enabling users to take control of their privacy and the information they want to share with service providers.

The current single purpose digital wallet apps need to evolve to support multiple use cases and be interconnected with more than just one or a select group of companies.

Sales via Target’s same-day fulfillment services grew 45% in fiscal 2021. Overall digital sales grew 20.8% for the year and 9.2% in Q4.

Target Corp.’s digital sales grew 20.8% for the fiscal year ended January 29 and 9.2% in fiscal Q4 of fiscal 2021, up from comparable periods the year before, the retailer reported.

Contributing to the retailer’s digital growth increase was a 45% year-over-year growth in sales made via the retail chain’s same-day omnichannel services, which includes in-store pickup, same-day delivery via Target’s Shipt service and curbside pickup, dubbed Drive Up by Target. That growth was on top of 235% year-over-year growth in same-day services in fiscal 2020.

Drive Up was its fastest-growing same-day service. Sales fulfilled via Drive Up grew more than 70% in its 2021 fiscal year, on top of a 600% increase in 2020, Target reported. For Q4, digital sales represented 21.8% of total sales, down slightly from 22.1% for the year-ago quarter.

Target says digital sales represented 18.9% of its $106.01 billion in total revenue for the year, up from 17.9% for the previous fiscal year. For the quarter, digital sales represented 21.8% of its $31.00 billion in total revenue, down slightly from 22.1% for the year-ago quarter.

During a March 1 meeting with analysts, Target CEO Brian Cornell said Target believes stores are vital to growing its digital business.

“The way we run our stores is the secret to why digital is now 19% of sales,” Cornell said. “So, as we look at the next five years, we are going to continue to build on our strengths. Inflation and the war in Ukraine adds more uncertainty about the state of the economy, higher prices across the country, supply-chain constraints, as consumers continue grappling with the effects of COVID-19.

Target currently has 40 million customers who shop across sales channels. Omnichannel guests spend four times as much as stores-only guests and digital-only guests.

B2B marketplaces are becoming part of mainstream ecommerce. Collective sales on them grew 130% year over year in 2021 to $56 billion, according to an estimate by Digital Commerce 360.

Marketplaces have been in existence for more than 20 years, but the commercial and vertical marketplace platforms that bring together groups of buyers and sellers in a digital sales channel have played only a minor role in ecommerce—until now.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic marches into its third year and continues to produce major supply chain trouble for many manufacturers, distributors, and others, more organizations are latching on to marketplaces to buy and sell goods and services.

Today, B2B marketplaces, driven by the dominating presence of Amazon Business and the proliferation of scores of marketplaces springing up to serve numerous vertical markets from healthcare and automotive to chemicals and agriculture, are part of the mainstream of ecommerce.  To say more, B2B marketplaces are red hot and getting hotter.

B2B marketplaces also are the fastest-growing digital sales channel. For 2021, Digital Commerce 360 projects that the collective sales on B2B marketplaces grew 130% and totaled $56.0 billion, compared with a projected $24.34 billion in 2020. Last year, B2B marketplaces sales grew 7.3 times faster than total B2B ecommerce sales.

Market players

Amazon Business remains the dominant force in driving B2B marketplace sales higher and is moving quickly to become a more dominant company in B2B ecommerce.

Amazon Business could generate $31 billion in gross merchandise volume this year, and accelerate to as high as $83 billion as soon as 2025. Today, Amazon Business accounts for about 1.9% of U.S. B2B ecommerce sales which could amount to 10% by 2025. Last year, the gross merchandise volume on Amazon Business represented 55.4% of all B2B marketplace sales of $56.0 billion.

But even with the big shadow cast by Amazon Business, vertical marketplaces continue to proliferate and attract serious money from Wall Street investors.

For instance, Xometry, which raised more than $300 million in an initial public offering of stock in July 2021 is ready for mammoth growth by acquiring for $300 million the B2B marketplace company Thomas, which operates Thomasnet.com with more than 1.3 million registered users. Thomas’s client base includes such organizations as manufacturers General Electric Co., Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, and Eaton Corp.; distributor W.W. Grainger Inc.; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the U.S. departments of defense, transportation, and homeland security. Thomasnet hosts more than 500,000 commercial and industrial sellers.

Xometry and Thomas share a common mission of championing the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry, one of the largest sectors of the global economy and the foundation for innovation everywhere. Thomas will help Xometry “introduce new services, cross-sell to our combined base and expand our suite of products, particularly in fintech and digital marketing.”

Another example is Bay Supply, an industrial distributor from Farmingdale, New York, selling a wide array of fasteners to big and small companies since 1961. The company is rolling out a new marketplace on BaySupply.com to bring together buyers and sellers in rather fragmented and outdated fastener industry.

Sourcing fasteners requires an incredible amount of time and research online, and the current process just doesn’t make sense for anyone in the supply chain anymore.

The marketplace was designed and launched in conjunction with McFadyen Digital, an ecommerce and marketplace consulting firm. The marketplace was a new extension of Bay Supply’s Magento ecommerce platform. Bay Supply will collect 9% of each completed transaction on the marketplace.

The timing is right to launch a B2B marketplace and there are companies uniquely positioned to do so.

Payment methods are an integral component to the success of ecommerce businesses. Knowing which payment methods are preferred by customers can increase conversion for online stores. Below is a list of the current trends and most popular methods in Europe made by Genome, a Lithuania-based financial platform.

The payments industry is always moving forward, and the pandemic itself boosted payments trends. Businesses had to adapt and move online when the lockdowns hit across nations in 2020.

The trends are electronic payments becoming more common, an increase in mobile payments and digital wallets use, the implementation of contactless payments in non-retail settings. In countries where cash-on-delivery remained popular, customers had to use payment terminals the delivery agents bring or order delivery to lockers to avoid using physical money.

Ecommerce payment methods on the rise

Financial services turn more digital day-by-day, allowing for quicker, more user-friendly features for customers and new players to arise. In Europe, the Payment Services Directive Two (PSD2) implementation contributed to this significantly. The Directive prompted the adoption of Online Banking tools and strengthened online shopping security. With these, clients can now utilize third-party providers for more convenient and safe banking services.

For merchants, this can be an efficient way of running their business, as companies offer the tools necessary for accepting payments across Europe in different currencies. All the major payment methods are available within one financial system. That way, the ecommerce business doesn’t need to connect each of them separately, connecting with different acquirers in search of more options.

Current popular payment methods in Europe

It is expected that more third-party payment services will appear after PSD2 enabled the Payment Initiation Services (PIS) to simplify electronic transactions.

UK. Customers from Great Britain still prefer using debit and credit cards when making online payments as 69% of adults own credit cards. Ecommerce merchants also push cards as the payment methods of choice hard: 99% of them offer clients to use either Visa or Mastercard. Over 60% accept American Express, too. The usage of digital wallets has also grown in popularity recently. Digital wallets are even predicted to rival cards on the payment methods market in the future. For now, the most common options are PayPal, Google Pay.

Germany. Open invoices are prevalent, its popularity is only expected to increase to 35% by 2023. Companies that sell online also frequently offer clients to pay with Visa, Mastercard, the cash in advance option (66%), digital wallets, and Sofort payment service.

Spain. Debit and credit cards remain the payment method of choice for most of the population in Spain as well, although digital wallets come in second. It is expected that by 2023 the cards’ popularity will start decreasing, with digital wallets and bank transfers starting to take over. Among notable digital wallets are PayPal and Apple Pay, as well as local options BBVA Wallet and CaixaBank Wallet.

France. Cards dominate the French online payment methods market. Customers often use the national Carte Bleue. Other card types are less popular, but still there, like American Express and Visa. Digital wallets are mainly utilized in mobile commerce. Among popular options are PayPal, Paylib, Lydia, Amazon Pay.

Italy. Credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, local CartaSi) and digital wallets (PayPal) share the top of the rating. Before the pandemic, Italians used cash pretty often, but now they have to use a more digital approach. Cash on delivery ecommerce payment method stil features on the country’s websites. Bank transfers are forecasted to become more common for online shopping in 2 years.

Romania. It is one of the countries where the pandemic had a massive effect on cash usage. The number of people paying physical money decreased from 45% to 21%. Meanwhile, the popularity of contactless cards reached 59%. Prepaid cards are the most common ecommerce payment method, with mobile payments following quite behind, but in the second place nonetheless. Cash-on-delivery remains one of the popular payment methods, while residents of the above mentioned countries don’t use it as eagerly.

The Netherlands. Most customers prefer the local online payment solution iDeal, which has spread all over the country in recent years. Digital wallets and cards take second place – Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal are people’s favorites. The Netherlands is very diverse when it comes to the type of ecommerce payment methods. Direct bank payments, invoices, post-payment options (Klarna, AfterPay), and cash on delivery are available.

Poland. Direct bank transfers via Przelewy24, BLIK, PayU are what multiple customers from Poland choose when shopping online. Debit and cards (Mastercard, Visa) are less favorable. Digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and a local YetiPay are a bit less common, but prevalent nonetheless. As in the case of Romania, cash-on-delivery remains one of the options people tend to come back to. Online payment methods such as Paybynet and BLIK have their demographic here too.

Sweden. The Swedes are open to multiple ecommerce payment methods. It’s Klarna BNPL, of course, followed by invoices and cards (Visa, Mastercard, Eurocard). And overall, online shopping is extremely common in the country, some of the relevant payment methods are Trustly, Swish, Tink, Qliro, Neteller, Skrill, Klarna, etc.

Finland. Here the survey data shows various results as well. All the main options are used commonly: bank transfers, digital wallets, and cards. Some of the main payment methods used are Trustly, Klarna, Zimpler, and MobilePay. The number of online payments made via bank transfers is expected to only increase by 2023, not without the help of local Verkkopankki.

SkillSetz, an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of business and technology services, expects to grow its number of service providers by more than tenfold over the next few months, according to their CEO Mike McCarrick.

SkillSetz, an Illinois-based software start-up specializing in matching consultants, technology professionals and other self-employed service providers with companies looking for help, is making a name for itself in a crowded field. The team’s target is $100 million in project work in 2022.

Matt McCarrick founded SkillSetz in 2018 and launched the online marketplace in January 2021. So far they have three full-time employees and 22 subcontractors, as well as 40 service providers as customers but McCarrick predicts the company will have 500 to 600 by March as well as “a couple thousand” buyers.

SkillSetz has also attracted investment from a bigger company in the same industry, MBO Partners Inc. What attracted MBO to SkillSetz was among other things the open architecture, “streamlined approach” of its system, and SkillSetz’s ability to execute development really fast.

Founded in 1996, MBO Partners says it has served 60,000 independent professionals and 4,000 companies.

There is no lack of platform providers aiming to match independent professionals with organizations that might want their services, including Catalant, Upwork, and Fiverr.

What makes SkillSetz different, according to McCarrick, is that it takes cues from the procurement sector on the one hand and people-oriented services such as the LinkedIn social network on the other. Most competitors, he adds, aim for serving “less-skilled rather than higher-skilled clients.”

Besides a B2B marketplace for service buyers, SkillSetz provides ecommerce storefronts for service providers, and enables direct communication and collaboration between buyers and sellers. Its system manages workflows and generates automated work orders, invoices, receipts, payments, and handles tax and regulatory compliance.

Service buyers typically pay fees starting at $2,500 a month for a basic account, while SkillSetz takes a 5% cut of payments to providers.