New Ecommerce Tools: January 21, 2026

Every week we publish a list of new products and services for ecommerce merchants. This installment includes updates on post-purchase intelligence, inventory optimization, payments, agentic commerce, product recommendations, and chatbots and shopping assistants.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email updates@practicalecommerce.com.

New Tools for Merchants

PinchAI raises $5 million to help retailers defend against return fraud. PinchAI, a post-purchase intelligence platform that helps retailers reward loyal customers and prevent return fraud, has announced a $5 million seed round, co-led by Dynamo Ventures and Infinity Ventures with participation from Defined Capital and PayPal Ventures. With the funding, PinchAI will accelerate product development across its abuse prediction models, warehouse intelligence systems, and adaptive return engine.

ConverSight and Katana partner to forecast demand and optimize inventory. ConverSight, a provider of unified decision intelligence, has partnered with Katana Cloud Inventory, a cloud-native platform for product businesses. The collaboration will deliver AI foresight to manufacturing, ecommerce, wholesale, and retail companies, enabling them to plan inventory, anticipate demand shifts, and reduce carrying costs. As part of the launch, the companies are introducing QuickStart AI for Katana, a tool that claims to transform Katana’s data into proactive forecasting and inventory optimization.

Paysafe and Pay.com launch partnership. Payments platform Paysafe has announced a collaboration with Pay.com, a payments orchestrator. Pay.com’s technology enhances the checkout experience by leveraging advanced orchestration with a centralised risk engine to maximize acceptance and authorization rates. The platform now includes Paysafe’s credit and debit card processing. Pay.com has also integrated Paysafe’s Skrill and Neteller digital wallets, as well as PaysafeCard eCash tool, among other alternative payment methods.

Helcim launches Payment Extension for merchants. Helcim, a payments company, has launched Payment Extension, enabling merchants to “bring their own payments” to their favorite browser-based software. By installing a browser extension, businesses can connect their existing workflow directly to Helcim. This integration allows transaction data to flow from the software to Helcim’s payment interface and back again, ensuring invoices are marked paid and books are balanced without manual data entry.

Channelwill rebrands as Cwill, releases unified commerce platform. Channelwill, a Shopify app developer focused on post-purchase and retention tools, has announced its rebrand to Cwill. The company is integrating its five products into a single platform: Parcelwill post-purchase solution, Trustwill retention solution, Sendwill email marketing tool, Chatwill AI-powered customer-service assistant, and SEOwill for content and organic search.

AWS launches European Sovereign Cloud. Amazon Web Services has launched European Sovereign Cloud, located within the E.U. and providing an independently operated cloud with technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections for sensitive data. AWS will extend the cloud’s footprint from Germany across the E.U., starting with Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

Ballerine launches agentic commerce governance platform. Ballerine, an AI-native risk and compliance platform for financial institutions, fintechs, and marketplaces, has launched “Trusted Agentic Commerce Governance Platform,” a real-time operating tool to help payment service providers prepare and govern merchants for agent-driven commerce. The platform evaluates eligibility, enforces policies, and continuously monitors inventory and behavioral signals as catalogs evolve, according to Ballerine.

Lyxity launches API for content on WordPress, Wix, Drupal, Strapi. Lyxity, a provider of intelligent content technology for marketers, has launched its API, extending its AI to WordPress, Wix, Drupal, and Strapi-powered websites. Via its API, Lyxity says it enables (i) direct connection to a website’s content management system, (ii) retrieval of performance and query data from Google Search Console, (iii) production of publication-ready content, (iv) review and enhancement of existing legacy content, (v) expansion and organization of content for improved clarity, and (vi) manual review and editing before publishing.

Evertune tracks brand visibility in product recommendations. Evertune, a provider of generative engine optimization, has announced shopping intelligence to track how AI models recommend products and translate raw data into actionable optimization strategies. Evertune states its tool can (i) track shopping trigger rates to benchmark category purchase intent and identify opportunity size, (ii) monitor shopping visibility to measure competitive performance and prove optimization impact over time, (iii) identify which partnerships drive discovery and where distribution gaps exist, and (iv) see the price ranges and averages AI displays for your products versus competitors.

Tredence unveils agentic commerce accelerators. Tredence, a data science and AI tools provider, has launched five agentic commerce accelerators. “Cosmos Customer Intelligence Agent” predicts customer actions and models shopper preferences for real-time personalization. “Personalized Content Generation Agent” generates on-brand, multimodal personalized content (text, product descriptions, images, videos). “Contextual Search Agent” implements question-driven and contextual search for customers. “Shopper Concierge Agent” provides a genAI shopping assistant for relevant insights and product recommendations. “Customer Engagement Agent” orchestrates cross-channel messaging.

Knowband launches AI chatbot for PrestaShop and OpenCart stores. Knowband has released its AI chatbot for ecommerce stores on PrestaShop and OpenCart platforms. The chatbot supports real-time conversations and provides info such as product details, order status, shipping updates, and order tracking. Merchants can add the chatbot directly to their store’s frontend to help shoppers obtain instant assistance while browsing. Knowband says the chatbot works with multiple AI models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Claude.

​​​Insight and Stripe partner for enterprise commerce. ​Insight Enterprises has announced an expanded partnership with Stripe. The collaboration combines Stripe’s programmable financial services platform and Insight’s solutions integrator capabilities to accelerate how organizations launch digital revenue models and scale globally. The result, per Insight​ and Stripe,​ is tools for modern checkout and payments integrations, enabling purchases directly in genAI platforms.

Crescendo launches multimodal shopping assistant on Shopify. Crescendo, an AI-powered customer service platform, has launched its multimodal AI shopping assistant on the Shopify App Store. Crescendo says its AI assistants unify service and shopping into a single experience, answering service questions and guiding shoppers toward purchase.