Salesforce: Retailers To Spend $223B More in the Second Half of 2021

Tailor Brands, a branding platform and AI-powered logo-design company, has raised $50 million in Series C funding, as announced on Thursday, July 22. The company, headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York, aims to use the funds to create a one-stop SaaS Platform that will provide design, marketing, and branding services for small businesses. The platform will come bundled with everything aspiring entrepreneurs need to kick-start their business. “Users are looking for us to provide them with everything, so we are starting to incorporate more products with the goal of creating an ecosystem, like WeChat, where you don’t need to leave the platform at all to manage your business,” Yali Saar, co-founder and CEO of Tailor Brands, said. The investment round was led by web-hosting giant GoDaddy and backed up by investor firm Our Crowd, along with existing investors Armat Group, Disruptive VC, Mangrove Capital Partners, Pitango Growth, and Whip Media founder Richard Rosenblatt. Tailor Brands raised $15.5 million in Series B, which brings the Israeli company’s funding total to $70 million in the seven years since its 2014 launch. “GoDaddy is empowering everyday entrepreneurs around the world by providing all of the help and tools to succeed online. We are excited to invest in Tailor Brands — and its team — as we believe in their vision. Their platform truly helps entrepreneurs start their business quickly and easily with AI-powered logo design and branding services,” said Andrew Morbitzer, vice president of corporate development at GoDaddy. Small businesses are often in need of cost-effective solutions to start their entrepreneurial endeavors. Online services often prove to be less costly than brick-and-mortar counterparts, and Tailor Brands is a prime example of this. However, an online logo-builder that provides a unique brand identity is only the first step. Small businesses often need to seek online legal services to help them out with administration, online bookkeeping and accounting services, as well as an insurance provider. Because of all that, having a one-stop shop for marketing and branding such as Tailor Brands might make that journey to commercial success that much easier.

Starting a small business today looks more accessible than ever before, thanks to Internet development and online communications. However, many entrepreneurs face the same problem - how to find the money necessary to start a business. While opting for a business loan might be the fastest way to get funds, there are other things that you can do. And, what is more important, they will be less obstructive to your budget. CrowdfundingIf you have an original idea for your small business, you only need to find people who will support you. The best way to do that is via crowdfunding sites. In the last decade, crowdfunding became one of the most popular methods for getting funds to start a business. If you choose this option, make sure that your ideas are distributed through a reliable crowdfunding platform. Angel investorsYou might be surprised, but many people are ready to support people with good ideas. For example, Angel investors are also business people, so they know to recognize projects that are worth their money. They will support your business and give you funds in return for the shares of your company. Although it is not always easy to find an investor who will support your startup, don’t give up. Be ready to pitch your business confidently when the right opportunity comes. Friends and familyBorrowing money from family members and friends is a last-ditch solution for some business owners, but it definitely has its benefits. If you are not afraid that it can jeopardize your relationship, taking the money from a friend is a smart decision. Your friends and family will offer you better repayment terms, likely without any interest. For businesses that just entered the market, this is a more affordable option than getting a loan from a bank or a lender. Credit CardsCredit cards are another way to fund your business. With hundreds of options available on the market, you should choose your credit card issuers wisely. Top credit card providers should offer you affordable rates and 0% APR in the first year and additional benefits, like sign-up bonuses, rewards, and points. LoansIf none of the aforementioned funding solutions are available to you, traditional business loans are always an option. Luckily, some banks offer loans for small and mid-sized businesses, so shopping for the right loan shouldn’t be too much of a headache. 

The future is in your neighborhood: face-recognition technology is coming to retail stores if it’s not already there. Since the pandemic started, facial recognition tech has been utilized in retail shops to scan workers’ and employees’ faces. The purpose of using face recognition is to prevent fraud, measure foot traffic, and offer contactless payments to customers. The usage of the technology was met with disapproval by the advocacy groups that launched a campaign in order to stop stores from using facial recognition. "Facial recognition vendors are taking advantage of the pandemic to promote the technology to offer hands-free payments or monitor the distance between people, and stores are promoting them as features for safety and convenience," said Caitlin Seeley George, Fight for the Future’s campaign director. Many major retailers make ample use of this technology, including Apple Stores, Albertson’s, and Macy’s. According to the companies’ policies, the tech is used for security reasons and to prevent fraud. That being said, there are some big names on the advocacy group’s list that won’t use facial recognition tech. These include industry giants such as Walmart, CVS, and Verizon, for example. Like identity theft products, facial recognition is primarily used for security reasons, without connecting faces to personal information, said Brenda Leong, Senior Counsel and Director for Artificial Intelligence and Ethics at the Future of Privacy Foundation. Still, retailers found the tech beneficial for many reasons, such as faster identification of people who spend a lot of money at the store so that they can get easier and quicker access to loyalty perks. The advanced tech also enabled JD and Alibaba to open stores where automated carts follow customers while payments are made with facial recognition support. The idea is to improve customers’ experience, retailers say, not to use the system to capture and store photos to identify them. However, in some states, biometric information, including that obtained through facial recognition, is protected by privacy laws. Portland, Oregon, is the first American city that banned the usage of facial recognition by the police, government, and retailers. The technology is better accepted in places like amusement parks and stadiums, where it is used for detecting problematic guests, for example. In places like these, visitors can easily see the benefits of face recognition, so they are more likely to accept it. In retail stores, however, things are different, and Brenda Leong is definitely not convinced: "If someone walks into a drug store and they can intuit that they are anxious or worried, are they going to try to market them a sleep aid?" she asks, adding that "some retailer could take advantage of someone’s emotional state without that person's knowledge”. According to her, this imbalance of power is the real problem behind the facial recognition tech.