The Business And Technology Network

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Payments firm Orum has debuted a tool to help clients prevent failed payments.

No Code Verify, announced Thursday (May 2), lets businesses and institutions determine if a bank account is open and valid before initiating payments, Orum said in a news release.

It’s an extension of the company’s Verify solution, launched last year to help businesses and banks verify the status of any type of bank account. No Code Verify expands on this by letting financial institutions use the technology without integrating an API (application programming interface).

“Failed payments have plagued the industry for too long, and I’m excited to scale our impact with No Code Verify, which will help drive transformation in businesses and institutions not ready to connect to APIs,”  said Stephany Kirkpatrick, Orum’s founder and CEO.

“We’ve heard from so many that a button-click approach for account verification would enable in-house development teams to access the technology faster, and we’re thrilled to deliver on that promise. Verify gives businesses an edge, with instant verification that enables faster, more accurate transfers and guarantees payments arrive at the intended account, safely.”

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, research shows that 11% of transactions processed by the average eCommerce firm failed in the past year, although few merchants have a clear understanding of the underlying causes. 

According to “Fraud Management, False Declines and Improved Profitability,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and Nuvei, more than 80% of companies ranked difficulty in pinpointing the causes of failed payments as a major challenge, with nearly 64% saying this was their top challenge. 

“Other challenges include difficulty in recovering customers affected by failed payments and concerns about compromised reputation, noted by 67% and 63% of firms, respectively,” PYMNTS wrote. “Furthermore, nearly 60% report an increased staff workload due to failed payments, while 56% find them expensive to track and resolve.”

In all, more than 10% of online transactions processed by the average eCommerce firm failed in the last 12 months, according to the survey.

PYMNTS and Nuvei also collaborated on the report “The Role of Fraud Screening in Minimizing Failed Payments.” 

As noted here in March, that report found that — in spite of a prevalence of fraud in the payments ecosystem — “only about one-third of eCommerce merchants connect the dots between failed payments and potential fraud.”

To make matters worse, more than 40% of merchants said they simply ask customers to “try again” in the event of a failed payment rather than question if the unsuccessful transaction could actually be a sign of attempted fraud.

The post Orum Debuts ‘No Code Verify’ to Combat Failed Payments  appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

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London-based Tuza secured 4 million pounds (about $5 million) in seed funding for its platform that brings price comparison to card payments in the United Kingdom.

The company, which was formerly known as Statement, has compared 1.5 billion pounds (about $1.9 billion) in card turnover for small businesses since its launch in September, aiming to help these businesses save time and money, Tuza said in a Thursday (May 2) post on LinkedIn.

Investors participating in the seed round include Connect Ventures, Northzone, Entrepreneur First, Triple Point and a group of angel investors, according to the post.

Tuza will use the new funding to accelerate its growth in the U.K., Northzone said in a post on LinkedIn.

Northzone added that Tuza is “the first comparison site for business card payments” and that the investors aim to support the company as it brings “unprecedented transparency to the payments industry.”

“Tuza is revolutionizing payment processing for the 1.5 million small and medium businesses in the U.K. that accept in-person payments,” Northzone said in its post. “Their platform provides SMBs with instant, transparent comparisons of rates from top payment providers like Worldpay, Barclaycard and Revolut.”

Tuza allows SMBs to compare instant quotes, select a card machine and then go live when they’re ready, Tuza said on its website. Eighty-nine percent of businesses that search for a new card machine find better rates, the company said.

The seed funding comes 10 months after Tuza, then known as Statement, raised 1.5 million pounds (about $1.9 million) in a pre-seed funding round led by Northzone.

The company said at the time that it aimed to help SMBs save money on hidden card acceptance fees, give them control over unwanted fees and optimize their payment provider contracts.

Tuza was founded by Chief Technology Officer Olivia Stannah and CEO Ed Hardy.

“Olivia Stannah and I have been working hard over the last six months to bring comparison to payments,” Hardy said at the time in a LinkedIn post. “We all tap our card every day without a second thought, but for small businesses, accepting card payments is still incredibly painful — finding the right payments provider takes 10 days on average. We shrink that down to a few minutes.”

The post Tuza Raises $5 Million for Business Card Payments Comparison Site appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Shopify launched in 2006, rolling out its first secure shopping cart system a year later. Since it began, Shopify has processed a whopping $886 billion in eCommerce sales, and today, there are more than 4 million Shopify stores worldwide. 

Brands using Shopify range from small ecommerce outlets to bigger and better-known businesses, including those fronted by celebrities. 

Interestingly, over half of Shopify stores enjoy repeat purchases, with the average customer buying 3.8 times from the same store. Perhaps that’s just one of the many reasons it’s such a popular choice among ecommerce merchants.

Given its phenomenal success, I thought we’d look at some bigger brands using Shopify.

Interested? Great! Keep reading.

But first, let me caveat what this review is and isn’t:  

What this review is: A glance at some of the biggest companies using Shopify to sell their products online. 

What this review isn’t: An analysis of each store’s design.

Now that’s cleared up, let’s dive in.

1. Kylie Cosmetics

Revenue: 36.2 million in 2022 and an anticipated 29 million in 2024.

Founded by Kylie Jenner and launched using Shopify Plus in 2015, Kylie Cosmetics’ first collection of three lip kits sold out in just one minute. The media personality and influencer has over 400 million Instagram followers.

Since then, Shopify has facilitated the brand’s flash sales, with over 672.8k shoppers visiting the store in March 2024 alone.

Due to its fast sell-out rates, the brand sends back-in-stock alerts via email and SMS to keen customers. 

Jenner sold a 51% stake in the enterprise in 2020 to cosmetics giant Coty. However, she’s reportedly in talks about buying her share back, unhappy at the company’s direction. 

2. Skims

Revenue: $500 million in 2022 and $750 million in 2023. 

Also from the Kardashian empire is the shapewear and underwear store Skims, fronted by media personality and influencer Kim Kardashian, who has 363 million Instagram followers. 

Skims also uses Shopify Plus to fuel its store. The Skims Shopify store received 10.4 million visitors in March 2024 alone. It ran several popup stores in 2023 in London, Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. Its retail expansion is such that its first permanent flagship store will open on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles this year.

In addition to Skims, Kim Kardashian’s new venture, Skkn, by Kim, is also available on Shopify. 

3. Gymshark

Revenue: £556.2 million in 2023

Founded in 2012, Gymshark is a leading UK fitness clothing and accessories store. It sells its products in 131 countries and attracted 9 million visitors to its online store in March 2024 alone. 

Founder and CEO Ben Francis announced this year that the company is entering its first wholesale partnership with the Selfridges store in London. 

The brand also runs in-person events to boost customer engagement and has 6.9 million followers on Instagram. 

Gymshark initially used Adobe Commerce for its online store. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and months to build, and by that time, Gymshark had doubled in size and outgrown the site. A Good Friday site crash lasting 8 hours and an estimated $100,000 loss led them to switch to Shopify Plus.

4. Fashion Nova

Revenue: $38.97million in 2024

This fashion brand was founded in 2006. Although it operates primarily online, it also has five physical retail outlets in the US. It sells clothing for women, including a Plus + Curve range, apparel for men and children, and beauty products via its Shopify Plus store. 

In March 2024, Fashion Nova received 24 million visitors to its online store, and in 2018, alongside Louis Vuitton and Gucci, it was one of the most searched-for brands in the world. 

Since its launch, many celebrities have endorsed the brand, including Cardi B, Kylie Jenner, and Arienne Baillon. 

The brand also uses Instagram to promote its products to its 21.4 million followers. 

5. Allbirds

Allbirds launched in the US in 2015, selling shoes and clothing made using natural materials. 

Its 500,000 Instagram followers are directed to the brand’s Shopify Plus store, which received 2 million visitors in March 2024 alone!

Although Allbirds turned to Shopify Plus to facilitate its online sales, it also uses Shopify POS for its 11 US and global locations, including New Zealand, Japan, and the UK. 

Allbird’s Head of Global Retail Operations, Travis Boyce, is quoted as saying: 

“With Shopify Plus, we have our point-of-sale and ecommerce systems under one umbrella, which serves our ultimate purpose of being an omnichannel retailer and viewing the customer as one customer—no matter where they shop with us.”

6. Sephora

Revenue: $10 billion in 2023

This worldwide brand sells makeup, skincare, body care, fragrances, hair care, beauty tools, nail color, and so on. 

It was founded in 1970 and launched online in 1999 in the US. It has 2,700 physical stores across 35 countries. 

Sephora’s eCommerce site is powered by Shopify Plus and received 49.9 million visitors in March 2024. 

Online customers can source products via the site’s search bar, with a wide selection from Sephora’s own collection of a range of other brands, including Charlotte Tilbury, bareMinerals, and many more. 

7. Steve Madden

Revenue: $519.7 million in 2023.

The Steve Madden store sells to customers online and via its 232 global stores. Customers can buy men’s, women’s, and kid’s shoes. You’ll also find bags in its catalog, including totes and backpacks. 

The brand formerly had a custom-built website powered by Oracle. However, it moved across to Shopify to meet its growing product demand. In March 2024, a staggering 14.86 million people visited its online store! 

In addition, Shopify also made it possible for them to build their own mobile app. To date, the Steve Madden online store generates 70% of its eCommerce sales via its mobile app. 

8. Rebecca Minkoff

Revenue: $91 million in 2023

The Rebecca Minkoff eCommerce store sells designer handbags, clothes, shoes, fragrances, accessories, and home goods. 

This online store was initially powered by rival eCommerce platform Magento Enterprise. However, it has since migrated to Shopify Plus.

The brand was founded in 2005. In addition to its Shopify store, it has 900+ physical stores worldwide, including in Bangkok, Dubai, Los Angeles, and Venice. 

The Rebecca Minkoff eCommerce store uses 3D models and augmented reality to showcase its products on desktop and mobile. 

Co-founder and CEO Uri Minkoff said: 

“We’re always looking for exciting ways to connect and inspire shoppers with our new designs. Now, with a video on our Shopify Plus ecommerce store, Rebecca Minkoff shoppers will see our collections brought to life.”

9. Simba Sleep

Revenue: $100+ million

This UK-based company sells sleep-related products, including mattresses, beds, bedding, and pillows. Simba Sleep launched in 2015 and is known as the “mattress in a box” brand. 

The company uses Shopify Plus’s tools to run analyses on its target countries. For example, it found that couples often sleep on two separate mattresses pushed together in Germany. 

This kind of research influenced how each Simba Sleep Shopify store was built for each country it serves. I.e., these findings shaped the store’s messaging, product images, and recommendations. 

It’s also worth highlighting that each Shopify Plus store has its own checkout, with Simba, Co-founder, and Co-CEO, noting that: 

“A lot of the benefits of Shopify Plus are in and around checkout, standardized payments, etc. The backend is known and understood in one market, so that we can use different logins, different things in new markets.”

10. Red Bull Shop

Revenue: 10.55 billion EUR

Although Red Bull is the highest-selling energy drinks brand worldwide, selling 12.1 billion cans in 2022, representing a 43% market share, it can’t legally sell its drink products online. 

Therefore, its eCommerce focus is on selling men’s, women’s, and unisex apparel and a range of accessories, including drinkware, lanyards, eyewear, headwear, bags, and many more products. In addition, Red Bull uses its Shopify Plus store to showcase products connected to the sporting events it sponsors. 

Red Bull has been using Shopify since 2015.  

The Biggest Companies That Use Shopify: My Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you’ve found our round-up of some of the biggest brands that use Shopify interesting. It’s worth noting that in each case, the biggest companies using Shopify all opt for Shopify Plus. Bespoke plans start from $2,300/month on a 3-year term. At the time of writing, 48k+ brands use this package worldwide. 

If this is a route you’re considering, I recommend looking at each eCommerce store listed above to identify which Shopify Plus features they’re using, such as fully customizable checkouts, omnichannel solutions, and more. Hopefully, this will serve as inspiration for your own store. 

That’s all from me! Are there any other well-known brands using Shopify that you think we could feature? Let us know in the comments below. 

The post 10 of the Biggest Brands That Use Shopify in 2024 appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images

My breaking point with promotional emails and desktop alerts finally happened a few weeks ago. I woke up at 7AM to an automated Legacy.com email with my friend’s death-a-versary in the subject line. The email itself was annoying enough, but what it said made it a cold, thoughtless annoyance: “Being remembered matters. The flowers you sent last year were a comforting gesture of sympathy and support.”

I didn’t send flowers. I planted a tree. That’s what my friend wanted. It was right there on the obituary guestbook Legacy.com was asking me to sign again.

Actually, the Legacy.com email was just the last straw. Things were kicked off a few months earlier by a Microsoft OneDrive notification. I had just switched from Google Drive, and…

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