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David’s Bridal Builds a Platform for Life Before and After ‘I Do’ | PYMNTS.com

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David’s Bridal isn’t just selling gowns anymore. It’s reinventing itself as a platform.

The company that built its reputation helping brides find the perfect dress now wants to help them navigate everything that comes after, from showers and bachelorette weekends to anniversaries and family milestones.

The wedding becomes the entry point into a long-term relationship, one that positions David’s as a partner to the newly married woman in her role as household chief financial officer.

From Aisle to Algorithm

David’s “aisle to algorithm” reinvention is already visible. Just weeks after announcing a bridal and special occasion storefront on Amazon, the company revealed a foundational replatforming on Shopify, designed to unify its in-store and online systems into a single operating model. That step enables David’s to lean into an asset-light future, one where digital screens create an “endless aisle” inside its over 190 stores, real-time inventory keeps shoppers from hitting dead ends, and its own site supports faster, more flexible checkout options.

But technology is just the scaffolding. The real story is how David’s plans to transform its role in the $70 billion global bridal market.

“We dominate this market, but we can help her even more,” President and Chief Business Officer Elina Vilk told Karen Webster. “We have the data, we have the partners, and we can start to think about this as a platform.”

The goal is not just to future-proof the business but to build something “so much greater” than the gown, she said.

Beyond the Dress

What used to orbit around a single gown now spans every touchpoint along a bride’s 18-month journey.

The average bride cycles through eight to 30 outfits before the big day. Each event, from the engagement party to the shower to the rehearsal dinner to the honeymoon, creates demand for new looks, services and inspiration. David’s launched its Pro Planner AI to help manage those decisions, breaking down 300 tasks into a timeline paced to the wedding date. It’s an answer to what Vilk called the “unparalleled anxiety magnified by social media,” where every moment is visible, and every photo lives forever.

That constant churn of decisions is where David’s sees its future.

The gown is just one of many purchases. The company’s marketplace, fueled by partner products, allows it to serve brides across budgets and aesthetics without relying solely on its own design pipeline. As Vilk put it, David’s will have “done our job right when we have so much more inventory from our partners than we do from ourselves.”

Media, Marketplace and Moments

The marketplace is one piece of a broader flywheel. Last year’s acquisition of Love Stories TV gave David’s a media platform for brides. Layering a retail media network on top lets David’s surface products at the right moments, tied to event timelines and customer signals captured through its Diamond loyalty CRM.

The result is a connected system. Media fuels discovery, the CRM personalizes offers, and the marketplace turns intent into purchase. Because bridal decisions are “high involvement,” the content-to-commerce loop keeps brides coming back, Vilk said.

The Store Reimagined

If the marketplace is the digital brain, Diamonds & Pearls is the experience layer. The new boutique format blends curated physical retail with interactive technology. Digital screens let brides and stylists mix and match from thousands of dresses across David’s and its partners, pulling up inspiration reels on demand.

The goal is to augment the in-store experience with technology that solves problems in real time, showing how a hand-beaded gown might work in a rustic barn wedding, or how a silhouette could be adapted for a beach ceremony.

The Florida pilot proved the concept, and more locations are on the way. The “sexiest tech” is not flashy, but functional, Vilk said. It’s about helping brides see what’s possible and making decisions easier in a process defined by complexity.

The Bride as Household CFO

Underneath the romance is a strategy to use the wedding as the launchpad to a longer relationship. Brides already think like CFOs of their households, managing budgets and trade-offs for one of the biggest spending events of their lives. David’s wants to keep that relationship alive after the wedding, extending into anniversaries, family celebrations and beyond.

The loyalty program is the connective tissue, Vilk said. Diamonds not only personalizes shopping in the moment; it lays the groundwork for future extensions into payments, wallets and financial tools.

The bigger ambition is for the bride to be more than just a one-time customer. She’s the foundation of a lifetime platform.

Everyone Deserves the Moment

At its core, David’s mission hasn’t changed. It’s still about making sure every customer, from the bride to the mother of the bride to the bridal party, feels good in the moment, no matter their budget.

What has changed is the scale of the vision.

With its “aisle to algorithm” strategy, Vilk said that David’s isn’t competing with bridal shops. It’s reinventing what it means to be in the bridal business. By weaving together media, marketplace, stores and loyalty into a single platform, David’s is making the wedding not the end of a transaction but the beginning of a relationship.

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HappyRobot Raises $44 Million for AI Supply Chain Workers | PYMNTS.com

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HappyRobot, an artificial intelligence startup focused on supply chain operations, raised $44 million.

The Series B funding will help the company with hiring, product development and expansion into more enterprise deployments, according to a Wednesday (Sept. 3) press release.

While the company did not share its valuation, a report by Reuters cited unnamed sources who said HappyRobot is now valued at $500 million.

A wave of venture investment into AI firms has raised concerns about possible saturation and increased competition for the companies, the report said.

HappyRobot is hoping its in-house tech and logistics expertise help separate it from general-purpose AI voice startups such as ElevenLabs, according to the report.

“Being verticalized” gives the company an advantage over more general-purpose competitors who might be “clueless about the operations and the intricacies of these industries,” said HappyRobot co-founder and CEO Pablo Palafox, per the report.

Launched 18 months ago, the company has more than 70 enterprise customers, including DHL, Ryder, Schneider and Werner, which use HappyRobot for tasks such as appointment scheduling, collections and outbound sales, according to the press release.

“The early results are clear: AI workers aren’t just cutting costs — they’re unlocking new revenue opportunities, increasing visibility and freeing teams to focus on strategic, relationship-driven work,” the release said.

HappyRobot’s AI operating system combines “real-time truth,” specialized AI workers, and an orchestrating intelligence to manage “complex, mission-critical work,” starting with supply chain and industrial-scale operations, per the release.

The goal is to help enterprises operate with speed and ongoing improvement, “while humans focus on higher-value work,” the release said

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Agentic Trust Gap: Enterprise CFOs Push Pause on Agentic AI” found that 15% of chief financial officers surveyed are even considering putting agentic AI to work, with most still in the early evaluation stage.

“This contrasts with the surging adoption of generative AI, which CFOs are increasingly using for tasks like content creation, customer service, coding and data analysis,” PYMNTS wrote Aug. 15. “The report shows generative AI’s deployment for product and service innovation up 21% and for spotting fraud and errors up 31% since March 2024.”

For all PYMNTS AI and B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily AI and B2B Newsletters.

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Kraken Brings Tokenized Equities to Ethereum Blockchain | PYMNTS.com

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The effort is designed to offer new opportunities to integrate tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) “across the world’s most widely adopted smart contract network,” according to a Tuesday (Sept. 2) Kraken blog post.

“Ethereum’s vibrant developer community, deep liquidity and global user base make it a natural home for the next phase of xStocks’ expansion,” the post said. “By extending Kraken’s support of xStocks to Ethereum, we’re enabling millions of Ethereum users and thousands of live applications to source the industry standard for tokenized equities liquidity.”

In the weeks ahead, eligible Kraken clients will be permitted to deposit and withdraw xStocks directly on Ethereum, which offers investors greater choice and flexibility to transfer assets between Kraken and self-custodial wallets for on-chain activity, per the post.

Kraken announced in late June that it started offering tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs on its platform for eligible non-U.S. clients, thanks to xStocks.

Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in the blog post that xStocks is a key component in Kraken’s efforts to bring traditional assets “onto trust-minimized infrastructure” while integrating public markets with the internet’s base layer.

“Our multi-chain strategy is deliberate,” he said in the post. “It ensures tokenized equities are accessible across ecosystems, portable between wallets and protocols, and composable within the applications users already trust. Ethereum is the next logical step. It is the center of gravity for smart contract innovation, on-chain liquidity and decentralized finance. By launching xStocks on Ethereum, we are making tokenized equities programmable, interoperable and continuously accessible to builders and institutions worldwide.”

PYMNTS explored the world of tokenized stocks earlier this summer following Kraken’s initial launch of xStocks and Robinhood’s tokenized stock announcement. Soon after, the news broke that JPMorgan Chase was developing a new service to tokenize carbon credits.

“While the initiatives may appear distinct, ranging from environmental credits to fractionalized equity exposure, the connective tissue is the same,” PYMNTS wrote July 3. “Moving traditional financial services onto the blockchain.”

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PYMNTS’ Summer of Big Quotes, From Tariffs to Trust Codes | PYMNTS.com

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Summer is over. Time for PYMNTS to look back on the season’s best quotes from PYMNTS Intelligence and our news and feature stories.

“They have white labeled premium products or materials for highly purchased categories like athletic wear. They also have established exclusive partnerships with athletic companies to carry products on online storefronts like Nike. This has enabled Amazon to be the easiest platform for customers to buy and return products. More and more customers are using Amazon as a one-stop search engine versus going to each of their brand’s websites individually.”
Amrita Bhasin, CEO of reverse logistics company Sotira on Amazon’s dominance in apparel

“Over 90% of U.S. adults use debit, yet most brands don’t reward that spend. Galileo’s Co-branded Debit Card changes that. Our API-first platform simplifies the tech stack and accelerates time to market
Derek White, CEO of Galileo, from “Rethinking Rewards With a Loyalty Platform for the Debit Generation

“Instead of click to buy, we are moving to ‘code to buy.’ Agents are nothing more than lines of code. Making sure that code is tied to the right consumer, with clear consent parameters, is essential to building trust.”
Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra on his firm’s new agentic AI collaboration with Worldpay

“Strip away the digital tools (which are mostly mobile), and what you find underneath is remarkably familiar: Young people want to build credit, save money, buy things with the least amount of friction, stay healthy, go to concerts and watch movies, and connect with friends.”
—From July’s “The Gen Z Decoder Ring,” by PYMNTS Intelligence

“Obviously, 0% transactions are somewhat less profitable for us. They’re still profitable … but the interest income that comes in interest-bearing loans is obviously more profitable … the experience using Affirm is so positive, they do convert to interest-bearing users just fine, and come back to us for many other things than just ‘zeroes.’”
Affirm CEO Max Levchin on whether consumers embracing the 0% APR offerings shift to repeat usage

“Some firms attempt to absorb the costs, reducing profitability to preserve customer loyalty. Others trim product assortments, cutting lower-margin items from shelves. A few attempt to differentiate with premium offerings that justify higher prices. Even those face resistance as those who serve the consumer find middle-income consumers cutting back. This strategy is not sustainable. Businesses cannot lose money indefinitely. At some point, they must either raise prices more aggressively or thin product selection. Both choices carry risks. Higher prices may further dampen demand. Fewer products may reduce consumer choice and weaken competitive positioning.”
PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster on tariffs from “Tariffs. Who Really Pays.

“This isn’t a world where you can go and say, ‘I have a North Star in mind. I’m going to take the next four years to get there,’ because in four years, the landscape will look radically different than it does today in terms of consumer behavior and consumer expectations.”
Matt Swatzell, head of Solutions, North American Acceptance at Visa, commenting on the “Rise of the Mobile-First Shopper” series.

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