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3. Amazon begins rolling out Venmo payments ahead of Black Friday

Amazon will begin offering Venmo as a new payment option for orders placed online and through its mobile app.

Venmo, owned by PayPal, allows users to send money to each other. It has increasingly expanded beyond its peer-to-peer functionality, with more online players such as Shopify and Lululemon adding it to their offerings.

It will begin rolling out to select Amazon customers this week and will be available to US customers on Black Friday.

4. Get to stock cooperative products in a fast trade

Quick grocery delivery company Getir has announced it will be stocking a wide range of Co-op products.

From this week, it will trial the new offering, which consists of around 300 Co-op lines between ambient and fresh, in select London stores, expanding to additional locations in the coming months.

Getir will work with Nisa Retail, the wholesale division of The Co-op Group, which will supply its own-brand products.

The trial will take place in Battersea, Earls Court, Seven Sisters, Balham, Tottenham and Bethnal Green stores, leveraging Getir’s network to enable grocery delivery within minutes.

5. Walmart joins the FIS Premium Payback network

Walmart joins Premium Payback, a real-time rewards redemption network from major FinTech player FIS.

This will give consumers the opportunity to redeem their credit card rewards points for real-time discounts at more than 4,700 Walmart stores in the US.

Those using eligible cards will be prompted at checkout with the option to convert card rewards currency into discounts, which will be deducted from your purchase amount.

6. Marks and Spencer recruits Happy Finish for the launch of the first virtual influencer

M&S has announced an expansion of its Insider program with the arrival of five new Insiders, one of which is a virtual person called Mira (aka Marks & Spencer, Influencer, Reality, Augmented).

This has been developed using a combination of photography, CGI and computer vision.

Mira was created in collaboration with Happy Finish.

Jeremy Yates, director of strategic partnerships at Happy Finish, says: “It’s great to see our latest project with M&S launch today.”

“They are true leaders when it comes to strategically using cutting-edge technology to engage existing and new audiences. A large part of our work for M&S is focused on helping the brand unlock new ways to bring its product ranges to life products and enrich the customer experience”.

“Creating Mira to complement the existing Insiders team is designed to do both. We look forward to many more innovative projects with the incredible team at M&S.”