“We’ll do it live.”

It's the direction some shoppers went this holiday shopping season after TikTok Shop was introduced in September. And as Retail Brew previously reported, the platform, which currently generates a $3 billion run rate in the United States, has room to become increasingly more successful.

CommentSold, a live-shopping e-commerce platform, sees this as good news since it inked a partnership with the social media platform in August that integrates its live-selling platform into TikTok Shop. Now, CommentSold’s merchants can host live shopping events on TikTok from CommentSold’s platform.

But Dan Dan Li, chief innovation officer at CommentSold, said TikTok Shops’s foray into the live-shopping ecosystem is not only good for the platform, but also live shopping broadly—a market that’s projected to reach $67.8 billion by 2026, according to Coresight Research.

• CommentSold’s entry into DTC e-commerce started days after its partnership with TikTok and after the company acquired mobile live-streaming marketplace Popshoplive.

“Especially after TikTok coming to the space, I think all of the businesses in the live streaming space…have to also adjust themselves,” Li told Retail Brew.

Keep reading here.—KM

Here’s a cold, hard truth to start your week: Pure DTC might help you reach retail customers directly, but it doesn’t mean you’re reaching more customers overall.

Okay, now for some good news. The most practical solution to diversifying your sales channels is actually a simple one: barcodes. Need more deets? The not-for-profit org GS1 US is here to help.

Once you get an official barcode on your products, you can manage, track, and uniquely identify your inventory. GS1 Standards include UPCs and 2D barcodes to assist with everything from identification within the supply chain to helping customers breeze through checkout.

If your pure DTC is lagging, read all about how barcodes can become your biz’s BFF.

It will come as no surprise that, like resolutions, many more Americans vow to participate in Dry January than end up doing so, or at least fall off the wagon before February arrives:

• In 2023, 41% of alcohol drinkers said they were somewhat or very likely to participate in Dry January, but only 16% did, according to a CivicScience survey.

Now Cann, which makes beverages that contain both the THC and the CBD found in marijuana and hemp, is promoting itself as a way to keep the party going while abstaining from alcohol.

Jack pot: “I Cann shut up about doing Dry January,” a post from the brand’s Instagram account proclaimed on January 3. The brand has also promoted the monthlong alcohol-free pledge as “Cannuary.”

Cann co-founder Jake Bullock told Retail Brew that while his product is “not a vitamin” and that cannabis is verboten in many addiction programs including Alcoholics Anonymous, “we are an alcohol alternative.”

Keep reading here.—AAN

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

David Weissman is co-founder and CEO of Humankind, a conversational commerce SaaS platform used by brands like Olaplex, Murad, and Love Wellness.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? As a CEO, it’s up to me to lead the vision and operations of the Humankind business, but my North Star is the end customer. If we start with them in mind, it becomes easier to work backward to make sure our platform delivers amazing experiences with ease and scale. E-commerce is innately do-it-yourself shopping, and it can be challenging and overwhelming for shoppers to make purchase decisions with so many options in front of them. You’d never build a store without salespeople to help your customers, but we do it online without batting an eye. So at Humankind, we allow brands to connect customers 1:1 with expert brand associates to provide a personal shopping experience via text, allowing those experts to help curate, educate, and ultimately drive sales.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? I’m customer obsessed. So often retailers fall into the trap of thinking customer centricity is accomplished with a lenient return policy, but I’ve always wanted to go much further. In my view, loyalty is driven by exceptional experiences, and that usually means over-the-top service. I’m a fan of over the top, because it’s memorable.

Keep reading here.—EC

This must-read for decision-makers in the retail sector delivers a daily dose of data, news, and insights on the rapid transformation of retail and e-commerce. As customer behaviors change, you need to stay up to date on the trends in order to capture their attention.