Walmart x Target Go Head-to-Head With Prime Day 🛒

The next few days are drenched in buying fever, and ecommerce merchants? They’re strapping in for the ride 💸.

Hey there! It’s the start of H2 and another sizzling edition of The Ecom Press 🗞️!

To keep things spicy 🥵, Amazon’s Prime Day is sparking a retail chain reaction, with Walmart and Target rolling out their own mega deals. Meanwhile, a Boston startup just raised $16M to bring a more human touch to AI in ecommerce, and Alibaba is handing businesses a 90-day runway with its new BNPL rollout.

Let’s dive into the action, shall we? 🚀

In a rush? Here's the juice🤭:

🛒 Walmart x Target go head-to-head with Amazon’s Prime Day.

🤑 Remark raises $16M to make ecommerce feel more human.

💳 Alibaba launches BNPL for small U.S. businesses.

🚀 Ecom Strategies: How to Prep for the Summer Sales Rush

⚡️Worthy Mentions

🛒 Walmart x Target go head-to-head with Amazon’s Prime Day.

With Prime Day now running for four days (July 8–11), Walmart and Target are responding with weeklong events of their own—Walmart Deals (July 8–13) and Target Circle Week (July 6–12). Both retailers are leaning into early access for loyalty members and focusing heavily on back-to-school offers.

Here’s the lowdown ⬇️:

🛍 Walmart Deals (July 8–13): This year’s event moves beyond digital to include in-store deals. Early access begins July 7 at 7 p.m. ET for Walmart+ members. Discounts range from large electronics and home goods to early holiday buys like a $159 75-inch nutcracker. Back-to-school essentials are a key focus, with expanded picks in wellness and daily use categories.

🎯 Target Circle Week (July 6–12): Circle 360 members get early access on July 5. Target is holding last year’s prices on select school supplies and offering a 20% off storewide discount for teachers and students. Expect curated bundles, a 50% Circle 360 membership discount, and new collections from Champion, Lego, and Herschel.

🔁 Loyalty vs. Exclusivity: Unlike Amazon’s Prime-only access ($14.99/month), both Walmart and Target keep deals open to all while rewarding their members with early access and extra perks.

Why it matters 🤷‍♂️

This year’s summer sales feel less like a showdown and more like a shopper’s buffet. While retailers battle for attention, consumers benefit either way. And as tariffs begin to weigh on supply chains and product pricing, these extended deals offer both savings and early planning advantages, especially for back-to-school. It’s definitely a win-win situation for every party.

🤑 Remark raises $16M to make ecommerce feel more human.

Remark, a Boston-based startup, has raised $16 million in Series A funding to scale its AI shopping assistant platform, powered by real human expertise. Rather than rely on scraped data or scripted bots, Remark trains AI personas using insights from a 60,000-strong network of verified experts across verticals like skincare, fitness, and cookware.

Now it’s betting that personalized advice, not more automation, is the key to closing the conversion gap in ecommerce.

Here’s the scoop 🍨:

💬 How it Works: When shoppers browse a site using Remark, they’re prompted with smart questions like “What type of stovetop do you use?” Clicking opens a live chat with a product expert. If no expert is available, an AI trained on expert chats steps in, offering personalized guidance.

🧠 Human Trained, AI Delivered: Experts are verified, matched by niche and location, and paid per session. Their conversations are used to train AI personas, so even when offline, their knowledge is still in use. These AI agents also dynamically update site content and are soon expanding into blog posts and email follow-ups.

📈 Results So Far: Clients saw an average 10% lift in net revenue and 28% shopper conversion (vs. 1–2% typical online). The model also helped brands cut customer service costs by $3.2 million. Revenue grew 4x YoY, with 100% client retention and 130% dollar retention.

💵 Business Shift: Remark has moved from a sales-cut model to a SaaS-based plan, charging based on site traffic, a change aimed at improving stability and predictability.

Why it matters 🤨

Frankly, shoppers want real answers, not just AI blurbs. With how saturated the market is with chatbot clones, training AI on actual human insight is quite strategic, as it will certainly help bring fresh perspectives for shoppers. Remark’s model brings that consultative, in-store experience to ecommerce, but at scale, which is definitely “remarkable.”

💳 Alibaba launches BNPL for small U.S. businesses.

Alibaba.com is making a strategic move to ease financing stress for small U.S. businesses. Through a partnership with fintech startup Balance, the global marketplace has introduced “Pay Later for Business,” an embedded buy now, pay later option that gives eligible customers up to 90 days to pay after their shipment. 

This is part of Alibaba’s broader push to support SMBs with tools that make global sourcing more accessible and less cash-intensive.

Here are the deets ⬇️:

🧾 Flexible Terms at Checkout: Qualified buyers can now choose “Pay Later for Business” during checkout to defer payment for 90 days post-shipment. No need to apply through third-party lenders or step outside the platform.

⚡️ Instant Credit Decisions: A one-time, digital application takes seconds to complete, with approvals returned in real-time. Once approved, a revolving credit line is assigned and automatically appears as a payment option in future checkouts.

💳 Smart Credit That Grows with You: Credit limits increase over time based on order history and repayment behavior. The credit is specific to Alibaba.com, ensuring usage is directly tied to procurement activity.

🔗 Fully Embedded Payment Portal: Buyers can manage their balances, view due dates, and make payments through a self-service dashboard, which is accessible directly from their Alibaba.com account.

🧠 AI-Powered Underwriting by Balance: Behind the scenes, Balance uses bank-level data and real-time transaction insights to approve more businesses, including those typically overlooked by traditional lenders.

🧩 No Risk for Sellers: Alibaba and its suppliers are paid upfront. Balance takes on the credit risk and manages the full credit and repayment infrastructure, with no delays or extra overhead for merchants.

Why it matters 🤔

This directly addresses the cash flow squeeze that many ecommerce operators face, especially with increasing tariffs and supply chain difficulties. When your customers can spread out payments without applying for external loans, they’re more likely to place larger orders, more frequently. That’s a direct lift to average order value, repeat business, and even customer loyalty.

🛎️ The Ecom Press Insider

Ecom Fact: In a recent study of 1,000 consumers, products labeled as “AI-powered” were consistently less likely to be purchased than identical ones labeled simply as “new technology.” (Source: Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management).

The reason? A drop in emotional trust. People didn’t reject the product’s utility; they distrusted the idea of AI being in charge. The effect was strongest for high-risk purchases like cars or medical services, and even more pronounced among older, wealthier shoppers.

💡 Takeaway: As ecommerce brands race to slap AI on everything, it’s worth slowing down. Your customers care more about outcomes than the tech you used to get there. Instead of leading with “AI-powered,” lead with the benefit: faster service, better recommendations, or smoother returns.

🚀 Ecom Strategies: How to Prep for the Summer Sales Rush

Between Prime Day, Target Circle Week, Walmart Deals, and the July 4th flash sale frenzy, the next few weeks are stacked with buyer intent. But these are selling opportunities, not just shopping holidays. Here’s how to get your store, strategy, and spend in shape for the summer sales season:

🕛 1. Duplicate and Schedule Your Top Campaigns: Take your highest-performing campaigns and duplicate them with boosted budgets. Schedule them to go live right at midnight. Early shoppers are ready to buy before the sun’s up.

🎯 2. Shift to 1-Day Click Optimization: Speed is everything during sales spikes. Shorten your attribution window to 1-day click so your ads prioritize fast conversions, not long-game leads. Set higher cost caps to stay competitive in peak hours.

🎨 3. Refresh Your Creative Stack: It’s a noisy feed out there. Use bold UGC, product demos, static + motion formats, and time-sensitive overlays like “Today Only” or “Ends at Midnight.” The goal: scroll-stopping clarity.

🧠 4. Let Meta’s Automation Do the Heavy Lifting: Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are made for this moment. Run broad, performance-focused campaigns that scale automatically and pull in both new and returning customers.

📦 5. Retarget the Surge: Don’t let that spike in traffic go to waste. Retarget post-sale visitors with bundles, urgency-driven offers, or restock reminders. Ride the wave beyond the promo window.

🧪 6. Use These Micro-Moments to Test Ahead of Q4: Think of July as your prep lab. Test new copy angles, promo formats, or creatives now so you’re sharper come Cyber 5. What performs well now will likely scale later.

Needless to say: it’s a good time to be sale-ready. Let your marketing sprint today plant the seeds for growth tomorrow 📈.

⚡️Worthy Mentions

• PepsiCo adopts Salesforce’s AI-powered agents to streamline service and boost productivity.

• Google rolls out 1st Order Promotions for advertisers to reach new customers via Shopping ads.

• With customers moving away from Shein and Temu, Amazon aims to attract these online shoppers.

• Walmart tests dark stores to speed up online delivery and better compete with Amazon.

• Trump announces that a trade deal with China has been signed.

Wrapping up…

With summer sales heating up, there’s plenty for merchants to fine-tune, whether it’s your campaigns, product pages, or post-sale plays. It’s shaping up to be a solid runway into Q4 📈.

And as we’ve seen from Remark’s approach, AI works best when it supports, not replaces the human touch. So, enhance smartly, build trust, and meet your customers where they are.

Lots more to come, and of course, we’ll be back next week with more ecommerce buzz 🧃. If you haven’t subscribed yet, now’s a pretty good time to fix that 😉.