New ecommerce tools: july 22, 2026. July 22, 2026 - Sig Ueland. Every week we publish a rundown of new services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on release-based selling, quick deliveries, secure payments, managed social commerce, cross-border payments, automated marketing, and loyalty programs. Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected]. New tools for merchants. Squarespace releases selling tools for limited releases and drops. Squarespace, a website-building and hosting platform, has launched tools to support the sale of limited-release items. Badges and Email Campaigns help merchants build anticipation before a release. Reserved Cart holds items during checkout for a limited time and displays a countdown timer. Merchants can set quantity limits so that shoppers can purchase only a set number of items per release. And Mini Cart, Express Checkout, and Pay Links provide more direct transaction experiences, per Squarespace. Bluehost expands AI platform for small businesses. Bluehost, a hosting provider, has unveiled its AI suite for small businesses, featuring agents that can build websites, run online stores, capture leads, answer questions, and book appointments. In addition to Bluehost's AI Site, Store, and Front Desk, the suite includes a domain name generator, content and copywriting tools, AI agent hosting, an agent builder, and access to multiple AI models, according to Bluehost. DoorDash integrates with Shopify for on-demand delivery. DoorDash has announced an integration with Shopify via its App Store. U.S. Shopify merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence can add their product catalog to the DoorDash marketplace by enabling a new channel, with no separate onboarding process, manual catalog uploads, or disruption to existing operations. Merchants manage their catalog in Shopify, and it reflects on DoorDash in real time. TikTok Shop tests managed services program for merchants. TikTok Shop is testing a managed services program in the U.S. to improve seller performance. TikTok is seeking participants for a pilot program in which it will oversee almost all aspects of a merchant's Shop business, including marketing, automated advertising and testing through its GMV Max tool, optimizing product listings, hiring creators, and generating AI videos. Shirofune integrates with Walmart Connect to help brands automate campaigns. Shirofune, a digital advertising automation platform, has integrated with Walmart Connect, allowing advertisers and agencies to connect campaigns to Shirofune and manage them alongside other major advertising channels, including search, social, and retail media. Shirofune says its automation engine supports budget pacing and bid adjustments based on campaign performance, manages campaigns across multiple clients, and streamlines day-to-day advertising operations. Cytronic raises $13.5 million for automated ecommerce fulfillment. Cytronic, a fulfillment-as-a-service provider, has raised $13.5 million in seed funding to develop robotic fulfillment tools. Cytronic is initially focusing on direct-to-consumer, small-parcel fulfillment for apparel, beauty products, accessories, household goods, and other compact merchandise. Slow Ventures led the funding round. Mastercard to expand agentic AI in the U.K. for retailers and financial institutions. Mastercard is expanding its Agent Suite with Pronto to the U.K. Through Pronto, U.K. retailers and partners can test whether their products are discoverable by agents, how to scale the payment experience in a way that consumers can trust, whether their plan for handling disputes in this environment works at scale, and more. Spreedly launches a vault for storing payment credentials. Spreedly, an open payments provider, has launched a "vault" that lets merchants securely store and control their payment credentials. A merchant can adopt the vault while continuing to run a single provider per region, preserving control and optionality. Merchants can build their own orchestration on top of portable credentials, or adopt Spreedly's, without rebuilding their payments stack. Commercetools launches modular offerings. Commercetools, an autonomous commerce developer, has released standalone offerings for cart, order management, and product catalog. Core Commerce delivers cart, order management, and B2B-native capabilities. Product Catalog provides product modeling, pricing, inventory, and catalog management with built-in search and pricing, according to Commercetools. Dotdigital launches AI-powered loyalty platform. Dotdigital, a customer experience platform, has launched a tool that helps marketers build, manage, and optimize loyalty programs. Features include flexible points earning, tiers, rewards management, analytics, and native integrations with Dotdigital and Shopify. FinXP and Buckzy partner on real-time cross-border payments. FinXP, a Europe-based payment infrastructure provider, has partnered with Buckzy Payments, a global cross-border embedded finance platform. The partnership combines FinXP's regulated European infrastructure with Buckzy's real-time international payment network on the stablecoin infrastructure. Eligible Buckzy clients can access FinXP's Single Euro Payments Area capabilities. FinXP says its clients will benefit from Buckzy's international banking network and stablecoin infrastructure. Sprinklr introduces real-time AI customer engagement. Sprinklr has enhanced its customer experience management platform with real-time AI features. The update includes Voice AI, MCP integration, ViralMoment video analytics, and LLM Insights, which helps teams understand and improve how their brand appears across genAI answers. Sprinklr Copilot can now create and optimize social posts and campaigns. Flute partners with Jaris to provide working capital for merchants. Flute, a payments platform, has partnered with Jaris, an embedded finance service, to offer working capital and instant payouts. Merchants can apply for working capital from their Flute dashboard and receive approval from Jaris. Instant payouts enable merchants to receive a portion of their current day's sales, including weekends and holidays. Inventory platform Katana launches predictive components. Katana, a multichannel management tool, has announced a shift toward predictive inventory intelligence across sales channels, with four components. Katana MCP is a native integration connecting inventory operations to AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT. AI Replenishment is a demand forecasting and procurement tool. Assisted Import maps any spreadsheet to the platform. Custom Fields allows businesses to define their own records across every module. PayPal launches Pay in 30 Days for U.K. shoppers. PayPal has launched "Pay in 30 Days" in the U.K. Available to PayPal's nearly 30 million U.K. customers, Pay in 30 Days lets shoppers complete a purchase and pay the full amount up to 30 days later, with no interest, sign-up fees, or additional charges. For merchants, Pay in 30 Days integrates with the existing PayPal checkout experience with no new integration required. Instacart acquires Arpalus for real-time grocery shelf intel. Ecommerce grocery platform Instacart has acquired Arpalus, a video shelf-intelligence technology. Arpalus turns a quick video scan of a store shelf into an accurate, real-time picture. The tool runs on any smartphone or camera-equipped device. It also extends to Instacart's Caper Carts, external cameras that move through grocery store aisles, updating in-store on-shelf inventory in real-time. Sig Ueland Industry IQ

Katana, an inventory management platform used by over 1,500 companies across 70 countries, has announced a strategic shift towards predictive intelligence. The Estonia-based company is transitioning from recording past transactions to anticipating future needs. The platform now offers several new capabilities. Katana MCP connects inventory operations to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT, allowing merchants to manage orders through conversational prompts. Custom Fields enable businesses to define their own data structures, whilst Assisted Import automatically maps existing spreadsheets to the platform. AI Replenishment uses company data to generate 12-month demand forecasts and automatically set safety stock levels. The feature addresses a significant pain point, as stockouts cost typical brands an estimated $21,000 annually, rising to $268,000 for the worst affected. Katana also introduced a Solutions Engineering service for businesses requiring custom integrations and specialist solutions beyond standard software capabilities.