Is Amazon stealing Shopify data?

Welcome back to Shop Pulse! Just like cherry blossoms in April, we're here to bring a fresh burst of Shopify and e-commerce news into your life. 🌸

Let’s dive into this week’s news:

• Is Amazon stealing Shopify data?

• B2B shopping gets personal

• 2 quick Shopify updates

Is Amazon stealing Shopify data?

Amazon is beta testing a program called Explore Brand Selection, aiming to make the product listing process more efficient for Shopify brands and agencies.

It is unclear whether this beta program needs access to the brand’s Shopify data or whether it just scrapes the product listing from the website.

Amazon insists that it doesn’t require sellers to connect Amazon with their Shopify backend and that it doesn’t get confidential data. But concerns remain over just how much access this functionality needs.

There have been countless reports and investigations over the years on whether Amazon has used data from independent sellers on its platform to launch competing products under its own private-label brands. Shopify brands could be right to fear this program.

Jon Elder, the founder of Black Label Advisor, issued a warning on Twitter:

Was this the right strategy for Amazon to appeal to Shopify sellers?

Only time will tell.

B2B shopping gets personal

Say hello to personalized B2B shopping with catalogs!

Shopify's latest update is all about leveling up the B2B experience by letting you create custom catalogs tailored to each company you sell to.

These custom catalogs allow you greater control over:

1. Pricing - You can apply overall percentage adjustments for all products in a catalog. To exclude certain products or variants from these price adjustments, you can set up fixed prices for those.

2. Quantity - Set minimum and maximum order quantities at the variant level, or specify quantity increments for products that come in specific multiples.

3. Company-specific catalogs - Each company location can be assigned up to 25 catalogs but there are no limits to the number of catalogs you can create. That means you can set different pricing and quantity rules for different companies.

Catalogs is now available in early access for Shopify Plus stores.

2 quick Shopify updates

1. Managing brand <> creator relationships just got easier.
   Shopify has integrated two of its products - Flow and Collabs - to automate repetitive tasks for your influencer marketing workflows.
   This integration comes with pre-built templates that can automate several Collabs activities like automatically approving applicants, following up on gifts, and congratulating creators on their first sale, among others.

2. New customer accounts get to sign in with Shop.
   Merchants with Shop Pay enabled on their store now have access to allow their new customers to sign in with Shop.
   Customers who have already verified their emails with Shop can enjoy a faster sign-in experience through SMS-based authentication. They also get a seamless one-tap checkout process through Shop Pay by getting their shipping information pre-filled.

Pulse Check ⚡️

1. WSJ reports that Klaviyo will IPO later this year. If this comes to pass, it could be one of the biggest IPOs of 2023 in an otherwise cooled market.

2. Ben Francis, who founded GymShark from his bedroom in 2012, is now one of the youngest billionaires as Forbes estimates his 70% stake in GymShark to be worth a whopping US $1.2 billion.

3. Staytuned, an app company on Shopify, has raised $34M to create the “Salesforce suite for e-commerce stores”

That's a wrap for this week! Join us over on Twitter to chat about all things e-commerce. It's like attending the coolest virtual shopping party – no long lines, pushy salespeople, or shopping cart collisions in sight (@theshoppulse)