Ahead of fall's biggest sales, Minty launches Prompt to Save(TM) to help shoppers find the best deals with AI. Free Minty AI tool helps shoppers effectively generate AI prompts to compare prices, find dupes, validate sales, get personalized gift ideas and find better value at Walmart, Target, Amazon and other major retailers. Fall sales and holiday shopping are almost here, and shoppers will soon be sorting through a flood of offers to figure out whether to buy now or wait, whether a price is really the lowest they'll find, and whether a better option exists. Prompt to Save gives people a better starting point to understand what something should actually cost, whether a sale is really a good one and when it makes sense to buy. Minty, the AI shopping companion, today launched Prompt to Save(TM), a free AI shopping tool that helps consumers build the right prompt for exactly what they're trying to buy or save on from more than 250 retailers and counting. Shoppers can start with popular prompts designed to "find a dupe," "buy a gift," "plan groceries," "book a trip," and more. Shoppers can also browse hundreds of popular shopping prompts or tailor one to their specific product, retailer, budget or deal question, then use it to compare prices, evaluate sales and make smarter purchase decisions. Shoppers can find a store, copy a prompt and paste it into Minty Chat, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Grok. Hundreds of ready-to-use prompts help consumers go beyond basic searches like "Target deals" or "Walmart sales" and ask AI more useful questions, like: * "Is this Aritzia deal worth it? Use Aritzia's real price history for this piece and weigh the best time to buy against my size selling out." * "Is this Abercrombie promotion actually a good value once everything is factored in? Can you find out whether this item is excluded because it's new, denim or a collaboration, and what comes later?" * "Compare this Amazon deal with the Amazon Basics version on materials, reviews, and warranty, and tell me what I'd lose." * "Is this Costco deal worth it? Compare the all-in Costco price with two other stores, and say if the membership and return policy earn it. " * "Find out if this brand is left out of the Sephora sale, whether buying it as a set works out cheaper per ounce, and if a Sephora sales event is coming up soon." "AI can be an incredibly powerful shopping tool, but the answer is only as useful as the question you ask," said Rodney Mason, Chief Marketing Officer at Minty. "We're heading into a period when shoppers will see thousands of promotions competing for their attention. Prompt to Save gives people a better starting point to understand what something should actually cost, whether a sale is really a good one and when it makes sense to buy." For a growing number of shoppers, checking with AI is becoming another step before hitting "buy." In fact, this holiday season, 54% plan to use AI to shop, with finding the best price and comparing products, brands and retailers among the top uses. Nearly half (44%) are already using AI to shop more than they did last year. Unlike a traditional search query, AI allows shoppers to provide a detailed brief that includes their budget, priorities and where they are willing to compromise. A shopper could ask: "Find me the best laptop under $1,000 for everyday work and travel. Compare battery life, weight, performance and overall value, check current prices across major retailers and tell me whether I should buy now or wait for a better sale." With that context, AI can weigh tradeoffs, prices and timing against what each shopper needs. Prompt to Save is free and works across major AI platforms. Shoppers who create or sign in to a Minty account can also earn available cashback and access coupons on their purchases. New members get $10 just for joining, adding even more savings on top of what they find using Prompt to Save. "The goal isn't always to find the cheapest product," added Mason. "It's to make sure you're getting the best overall value for what you actually need. The more context you give AI about what matters to you, the more useful it can become as a shopping tool." Prompt to Save also launches ahead of Minty's Prompt to Save Sales Event, October 5-12, when shoppers can use the prompts to research products, compare prices and validate deals while accessing elevated cashback opportunities from participating brands and retailers.

63 cents of every new marketing dollar for e-commerce is going to AI and cashback apps - not ads. New research from Northwestern University's Retail Analytics Council and Minty finds e-commerce marketing leaders are redirecting budgets to keep pace with value-driven, AI-assisted shoppers. Consumers are increasingly using AI to find cashback, lower prices, promotions, and better alternatives, and that behavior is rapidly pulling e-commerce marketing budgets away from traditional digital advertising channels. Cashback apps, deal platforms and price-comparison tools now outrank advertising, loyalty programs, retail media, and creator marketing as the most helpful channels for shoppers. New research from Northwestern University's Retail Analytics Council and Minty, shared at EMARKETER's The Future of Digital summit yesterday in New York City, found e-commerce marketers plan to put 63 cents of every new marketing dollar toward AI commerce tools and cashback and savings apps rather than traditional digital advertising. The Proactive Commerce Index surveyed 150 senior commerce decision-makers, 98% of them from companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue. The study found the distribution layer of commerce is being replaced by AI and savings ecosystems. Seventy nine percent of those surveyed expect their primary customer to be assisted by AI in 2027. Cashback apps, deal platforms and price-comparison tools now outrank advertising, loyalty programs, retail media, and creator marketing as the most helpful channels for shoppers. The majority (81%) of respondents agree that cashback and savings tools are the most helpful form of marketing for shoppers making purchase decisions. Two thirds of marketers believe AI will be their primary shopping gateway for reaching shoppers in 2027, and more than half of them are pairing AI with savings ecosystems. Only 18% believe traditional search will be their primary way to reach shoppers and just 13% see social in that role in 2027. Half are prepared to market to AI agents and 38% are running proactive commerce, total value messaging delivered to shoppers before their behavior triggers traditional marketing messaging. Another 36% are moving toward proactive commerce. Among those who see the shift to AI and proactive commerce, 61% are increasing investment or reallocating budget toward cashback and savings apps. Internally, across brands, these channels are being promoted from tactic to infrastructure with 16% of leaders calling it "core or strategic" in marketing today, but 41% expect it to be so by 2027. They are also elevating cashback and savings apps in performance marketing budgets from 18% today to 30% in 2027. "This isn't marketers tweaking a line item," said Frank Dudley, Associate Director of the Retail Analytics Council at Northwestern University. "They're responding to a fundamental shift in how products are discovered and chosen. As consumers increasingly rely on AI to compare prices, evaluate alternatives, and maximize value, brands are reallocating investment toward the channels and capabilities that influence those decisions." "Buying decisions are moving earlier in the e-commerce purchase funnel," noted Rodney Mason, Chief Marketing Officer of Minty. "Proactive commerce, delivering total-value-messaging to shoppers and their AI agents before they search, click or abandon a cart," is already being practiced by the largest market leaders and the majority of respondents intend to do so in 2027."

New ecommerce tools: August 12, 2026. Every week I handpick and feature new services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on live-shopping platforms, ecommerce carts, product listing generators, social commerce, fulfillment, cross-border deliveries, autonomous marketing, and more. Got an ecommerce product release? Email [email protected]. New tools for merchants. WooCommerce releases version 11.0. WooCommerce 11.0 has launched with updates to order screens, checkout recovery, and more. Order-screen optimization makes it faster to query orders, reducing timeouts and empty search counts. Checkout Recovery tests sellers' abandoned-cart messaging to gauge shoppers' responses. Adobe Commerce introduces Catalog Agent for AI product discovery. Adobe Commerce, a platform built on Magento, now features Catalog Agent to enrich product detail pages with structured product data. Catalog Agent leverages existing Commerce services, including product attributes, inventory, pricing, and relationships. This enhancement is delivered in a machine-readable layer intended for AI crawlers and LLM-powered discovery systems. Cainiao launches 3-day cross-border ecommerce delivery. Cainiao Group, a global logistics and supply chain company owned by Alibaba, has launched a 3-day door-to-door parcel delivery service across 15 international trade lanes. The new service leverages Cainiao Group's global logistics network spanning air cargo, ground transportation, customs clearance, and fulfillment. AI Bulk Listing Generator launches. AI Bulk Listing Generator has launched its platform to automate product listings at scale. Instead of writing every listing individually, users can import structured product information from spreadsheets and generate content in bulk. The platform aims to help businesses accelerate catalog creation while maintaining consistent branding across thousands of items. The platform supports Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, BigCommerce, Wix, and other ecommerce ecosystems that rely on structured product catalogs. ShipBob fulfillment introduces an AI suite. ShipBob, a supply chain and fulfillment service, has introduced an AI suite across its entire tech stack, from the software a merchant operates to the robots on the warehouse floor. ShipBob's MCP anchors the suite, connects AI tools to a merchant's live operations, whether through a connector in Claude or via Bobby, ShipBob's in-dashboard agent. Kibo Commerce unifies agentic platform. Kibo Commerce, a developer of composable commerce and order management tools, has launched its next iteration of agentic AI. The new framework can connect to any large language model and is organized around five functions - configure, explain, analyze, engage, and optimize - that cover use cases across commerce operations and order management. Al shopping companion Minty launches Shopify app. Minty, an AI tool that delivers cashback and rewards to shoppers, has launched a Shopify app that enables merchants to connect their stores to Minty's network of shoppers. Minty surfaces cashback offers at the moment of purchase intent, across AI chats, mobile, and Chrome and Safari browsers. The new app allows Shopify merchants to connect with shoppers who visit and leave without making a purchase. Knowband launches customer engagement tools for PrestaShop. Knowband, an ecommerce plugin developer, has expanded its PrestaShop offerings with three new tools. Form Studio lets store owners create unlimited contact, feedback, and survey forms. The WhatsApp CRM Module connects a store to the WhatsApp Business API for automatic order confirmations, status alerts, and a storefront chat widget. The Blog Module provides a publishing system optimized for search engines. RepSpark secures $22 million to scale its B2B platform across specialty retail. RepSpark, a B2B ecommerce platform serving brands and specialty retailers, has announced a strategic investment of $22 million from Headlight Partners, a software growth equity firm. RepSpark powers wholesale commerce for brands across golf, swim, fitness, tactical, footwear, and more. RepSpark will use the funds to expand its enterprise product suite, grow its integration ecosystem, and improve AI-powered tools. Wunderkind partners with Cordial on autonomous marketing and customer engagement. Wunderkind, a platform to transform anonymous traffic into revenue, has partnered with Cordial, a cross-channel messaging tool. By combining Wunderkind's proprietary identity graph and AI-powered decisioning for unknown traffic with Cordial's orchestration and AI predictive models, brands can expand audience reach within existing workflows, according to Wunderkind. Wayy.ai raises $2 million and launches an AI-powered selling tool. Wayy.ai has closed a $2 million pre-seed funding round led by Zero to One Ventures and has launched a tool that functions as a virtual salesperson for solopreneurs and small business owners. The new tool automates sales workflow, identifies prospects, and facilitates outreach to potential investors and partners, allowing founders to focus on building core products and services. Wayy.ai says it will use the funding to grow sales and accelerate product development. Eyeota and Zeotap Data integrate audience solutions for advertisers into Amazon DSP. Eyeota, an audience data service, and Zeotap Data, a provider of identity and data tools, have partnered to make Eyeota's global audience ecosystem available in Amazon DSP. Through the integration, advertisers can reach qualified audiences in a privacy-compliant way across channels including Prime Video, Twitch, and more, using intent, interest, and behavioral signals, per Eyeota and Zeotap Data. Whatnot raises $545 million to expand its live shopping platform. Whatnot has closed a $545 million Series G funding round, led by ICONIQ, Lightspeed, and Avra. The capital will support new seller tools, expanded use of AI, and market expansion. Whatnot states that, in August 2026, it eclipsed its full-year 2025 gross merchandise volume. Adobe launches a plugin for ChatGPT. Adobe has introduced a creativity and productivity plugin in ChatGPT. Drawing on more than 70 tools across its creative and productivity suites, Adobe says the plugin supports multiple workflows, from editing photos and creating campaign videos to designing marketing assets and generating polished PDFs. Users can now activate the plugin and describe what they want. Rokt introduces Brain V4 for real-time checkout decisioning. Rokt, a post-purchase ecommerce platform, has launched Brain V4, an AI tool that determines what a customer sees during checkout. Rokt Brain draws on consumer, partner, advertiser, creative, transaction, and contextual data in real time, then applies machine learning, auctions, ranking, and guardrails to decide what content, offer, product recommendation, or experience to show a customer. Markable launches tools for social commerce. Markable, a platform for creators to find products to promote, has announced two new tools: an advanced video editor and 3D visual collages. With the AI-powered video editor, creators can quickly convert raw footage to shoppable video, automatically enhancing creator appearance and backgrounds, and generating scripts and voiceovers. The 3D visuals tool leverages AI to turn products into collages and realistic photos. Smart shopping starts here. Post Views: 6 Listen on Dralys Audio version of this article 0:00 / 0:00 Live Weather, sports, markets, deals, and shopping tools updated daily on Dralys. Daily updates. Weather, sports, markets, currency, deals, and shopping tools. Live Updated 8:29 PM