BRAND: In Saturday, Tesla Motors, Elon Musk’s Palo Alto-based manufacturer of electric vehicles, will open one of its "galleries" in Nordstrom at The Grove, the Los Angeles retail multiplex owned by billionaire real-estate magnate Rick Caruso. Tesla will feature its Model X SUV inside the boutique-ish, 400-sq. foot outpost, and try to entice Nordstrom shoppers with mix-and-match interior car panel displays, as well as on-site test drives with Tesla employees.

ECOMMERCE: The largest failure point in any web based shopping experience is during the payment and address information request. The address information and to some degree the payment card information was a feature of iCloud Keychains. This has improved many web shopping experiences. However this was not a perfect solution. With Apple Pay on Safari the entire process will be mediated by the system.

ECOMMERCE: Retailers should think of them as complementary channels, according to panelists speaking at Fashion-Culture-Design. During the “Who Owns the Future of Retail?” session June 9, insiders weighed in on everything from the state of the mall to the engagement opportunities that exist for brands within the physical store. Consumers today have practically unlimited options, giving them the control in the retail relationship, and making a point-of-view and differentiation all the more important.

BRAND: Founded in 2003 by Julian Dunkerton and James Holder (also founder of Bench for all you ex-skater boys), Superdry began with just 5 t-shirt designs. Within a short space of time everyone from David Beckham to Zac Effron were seen rocking it. Dunkerton stepped down as CEO in 2014 to allow him to refocus on the brand’s image and product range. He hired Euan Sutherland, former CEO of the Co-Operative Group, to take the company to the next level.

ECOMMERCE: A source familiar with the Echo project says Amazon’s researchers are looking at ways to stay ahead of the competition, primarily through a better understanding of a user’s intent. Researchers are exploring new natural-language processing techniques, but also ways to sense the emotion in a person’s voice. “How human affect is recognized and then reflected by [Alexa’s] voice will be a key area of [Amazon’s] R&D,” the source says.

DATA: Apple’s iMessage instant messenger service hasn’t seen a significant update in years, though with an average of 28,000 messages delivered per second it is the company’s most-used software by far. This year, Apple will finally give it one — a massive upgrade that recasts iMessage as a platform for developers and in the process raises the table stakes in an increasingly crowded instant messenger service game. Facebook is pushing Messenger hard and at its I/O developers conference last month.

ECOMMERCE: Yotpo has closed $22 million in funding for its platform to help businesses ramp up user engagement through contributions such as user-generated videos. The startup has built a marketing platform that makes it easy for companies to enable such content. The whole idea is to let your customers do your advertising for you. As businesses struggle to compete in an increasingly noisy landscape and on a growing number of consumer platforms, user-generated content has become a necessity for enterprise marketing teams, Yotpo argues.

BRAND: New York-based L2 researches emerging social platforms, and we asked the company to pull numbers for our June 13 cover story about Snapchat. Due to its extensive study, we weren't able to include all of the stats in that piece, so we are now offering a more in-depth look at the report. These 9 slides compare Snapchat to Instagram and also look at how specific companies are using Snapchat. Not shockingly, marketers are largely already on Instagram.

ECOMMERCE: Retailers should not depend on a continued ecommerce boom, according to a survey from Boston Consulting Group. Across product categories and age groups, United States consumers are not anticipating spending more money online. Ecommerce is often viewed as the prime growth channel in the luxury world, and while the international arena poses such opportunities, the revenue will likely start plateauing in the U.S.

ECOMMERCE: eCommerce giant Branding Brand announced today that it acquired Waysay, a company specializing in customer engagement tech like marketing automation, in-app messaging and other technologies to help big brands engage and communicate with its customers. Examples of the assistance include offering shopping advice and post-transaction support.You may never have heard of Branding Brand; but chances are good you’ve used one of its products.