Today's Ecommerce Pulse
Target launches Circle Deal Days to challenge Amazon Prime Day
Target is launching its Target Circle Deal Days from June 23‑26, positioning the free‑to‑join program as a direct rival to Amazon Prime Day. New members who enroll between June 14‑22 receive a 15% discount on their first purchase, plus a free Starbucks coffee or Bullseye cookie on launch day, and a 50% discount on the first year of Target Circle 360.
Also developing:
By the numbers: FirstClub raises $55M Series B
Why Your ESP Alone Won’t Carry You Into 2026
Retail marketers still rely heavily on email and SMS, but traditional ESPs only reach customers they already know. With up to 95% of website traffic remaining anonymous, the gap between known and unknown shoppers is widening and eroding engagement. Adding identity resolution and real‑time AI decisioning to the ESP stack can turn anonymous intent into addressable profiles, expanding reach three‑to‑sixfold. Brands that layer an intelligence platform over their ESP will be better positioned for 2026 without discarding existing investments.
Digital Wallets vs Traditional Payments: Which Drives Faster Checkouts?
UK payment habits in 2026 show digital wallets now used by 57% of adults, overtaking cash for everyday purchases. Contactless and mobile payments account for over half of in‑store card transactions, delivering faster checkout through biometric and tokenised authentication. Traditional...
Nexi Joins Agentic Commerce Alliance
Nexi Group announced its membership in the Agentic Commerce Alliance, a global initiative focused on establishing open standards for autonomous, AI‑driven commerce. The alliance aims to create vendor‑neutral protocols that enable agents to operate securely and interoperably across platforms. Nexi...
Data Beats Confidence: Test Everything, Scale Fast
I've run 300+ ad campaigns. Here's the pattern: Campaigns I thought would 'crush' died day 2. Campaigns I 'threw together' scaled to 6 figures. Your confidence doesn't matter. The data does. Test everything. Trust nothing.
SportsShoes.com to Open Flagship Experiential Store in Shoreditch
SportsShoes.com will launch its flagship experiential store, House of SportsShoes, on Shoreditch High Street in early March. The 5,000‑square‑foot venue blends digital‑first retail with a “no bags, no hassle” model, allowing shoppers to try over 100 running shoes and complete...
Beauty Bay Appoints Advisors to Undertake Strategic Review
UK‑based online beauty retailer Beauty Bay has engaged advisory firm Interpath to conduct a strategic review. The review aims to explore fresh capital options, including attracting an investment partner or pursuing a sale. Sources say the process to secure new...
French Connection Announces New US Licensing Partnership
French Connection Group has signed a long‑term licensing agreement with G‑III Apparel Group to develop and distribute its menswear, womenswear and accessories across North America, effective 1 February 2026. The partnership leverages G‑III’s design, sourcing and distribution capabilities and its established retail...
ClearScore Enters Mortgage Market with Acquisition of Acre Platforms
ClearScore, the UK fintech known for free credit‑score checks, announced its entry into the residential mortgage market by acquiring Acre Platforms. The undisclosed deal equips ClearScore with Acre’s underwriting engine and cloud‑native loan‑origination system, enabling instant mortgage offers after a...
N Brown Group Chief Customer Operations Officer Leaves the Business
N Brown Group’s chief customer operations officer, Clare Empson, announced her departure after two years in the role. Empson, who previously spent 24 years at Ted Baker, oversaw the launch of a new distribution centre and an enterprise‑wide efficiency system during her tenure. Her...
How To Develop and Market Your Product Range
The episode explains what a product range is and how small e‑commerce businesses can strategically develop and market it. It outlines steps for aligning a range with brand goals, audience needs, and operational capacity, while weighing the pros and cons...
Gen Z Fuels Resurgence of Physical Music in Canada as Vinyl and K-Pop Sales Surge
Physical music sales in Canada have rebounded, with overall record sales rising 19.1% YoY and physical‑media purchases climbing 34% between 2021 and 2023. The surge is driven largely by Gen Z, who value tangible collectibles such as limited‑edition vinyl and...
Gentle Fawn Leans on Longevity over Trends as Vancouver Fashion Brand Marks More than Two Decades
Gentle Fawn, a Vancouver‑based fashion label founded in 2003, has shifted its focus from wholesale‑only to a balanced omnichannel model, with its e‑commerce site now the largest sales channel. The brand serves roughly 600 retail partners across Canada and the...
Retail’s Busiest Streets Are Booming with New Investment, Flagships
Transaction volume in North America’s high‑traffic urban retail corridors jumped 82% from 2024 to 2025, signaling renewed investor confidence. Major retailers such as Uniqlo, H&M and luxury houses are opening flagship stores, with New York, Los Angeles and Miami accounting for 60%...
The $42.8B Retail Media Playbook
Retail media generated $42.8 billion for Amazon in Q1 2025, driven by a server‑side ad serving architecture that delivers native ads without latency or privacy trade‑offs. The eBook outlines a modern retail media stack featuring sponsored products, zero‑impact loading, full reach, built‑in...
The Future of Delivery: Key Trends Shaping 2026
Delivery logistics face a convergence of pressures in 2026, including AI-driven automation, stricter CO₂ emissions regulations, rising cross‑border demand, and the shift to zero‑emission fleets. Retailers and carriers must adapt to consumers who will abandon orders if delivery options are...
Subdued Goes Bold with Global Expansion
Italian fashion brand Subdued is teaming up with its tech partner for international expansion
Uber and DoorDash Lose Bid to Quash NYC Tipping Law
Uber and DoorDash lost a federal bid to block New York City’s new tipping law, which forces delivery apps to present a tip option and a suggested minimum of 10% at checkout. U.S. District Judge George Daniels rejected the companies’...
6 Best Employer of Record Companies in Norway
The episode outlines the top six Employer of Record (EOR) providers for hiring in Norway—INS Global, Remote, Deel, Oyster, Globalization Partners, and Papaya Global—explaining how each service handles local contracts, payroll, tax, and compliance while letting companies retain operational control....
B2BKing: A Powerful B2B & Wholesale Plugin for WooCommerce
The episode explores B2BKing, a comprehensive WooCommerce plugin that adds enterprise‑grade wholesale capabilities to WordPress stores. It walks through core features such as granular guest access restriction, tiered pricing tables, and a customizable business registration workflow that together enable hybrid...
How Health and Wellness DTC Brands Are Navigating the GLP-1 Medication Boom
The episode explores how direct‑to‑consumer health and wellness brands can thrive amid the rapid adoption of GLP‑1 weight‑loss drugs. It advises brands to shift from competing on weight‑loss results to addressing medication‑specific pain points such as protein shortfalls, dehydration, and...
The Hidden Cost of Website Downtime That’s Quietly Crushing Shopify Stores
The episode reveals how even brief Shopify downtime can devastate revenue, with shoppers three times more likely to defect to competitors and conversion rates dropping 10‑20% after an outage. It breaks down the hidden costs—lost sales, wasted ad spend, ineffective...
How Businesses Are Successfully Integrating AI With Legacy Systems in 2026
The episode explores how businesses are moving from merely adopting AI to tightly integrating it with decades‑old legacy systems such as ERPs, CRMs, and custom databases. It outlines three proven approaches—building an API middleware layer, creating a centralized data lake,...
Creative Mastery Replaces Media Buyers in Modern Ecom
Hiring technical media buyers is completely outdated now. The ecom world has moved on from having that as a dedicated role. When you're hiring for paid acquisition, you should only focus on the following: - Creative management - Understanding why something...
Stop Excuses, Start Authentic Storytelling for Your Brand
You are the interesting “part” stop 🛑 with the excuses of equipment or lighting ot all the other stuff u come up with that’s an excuse to authenticity & consistency .. Start telling your story Start telling your company’s story Start making...
The Fraud Hiding in Email Signups
E‑commerce merchants are increasingly hit by fraud that begins with fake but technically valid email sign‑ups. Fraudsters use these accounts for low‑value card‑testing transactions and to harvest welcome coupons, driving chargebacks and an estimated $89 billion in annual coupon abuse losses....
Guest Posts Strategy: 12 Tips For AI Overviews
In this episode Reuben Mattinson explains how guest‑posting has shifted from a link‑building tactic to a reputation‑focused strategy in the age of AI Overviews. He outlines twelve actionable tips, emphasizing the need for topical relevance, the end of the “first‑party...
What Is Order Placement? How It Works + Best Practices
The episode breaks down the six‑step order placement process—from cart finalization and checkout initiation through payment authorization, inventory verification, order confirmation, and fulfillment—explaining how each stage works behind the scenes. It highlights the key benefits of a smooth checkout, such...
Mercuryo and Visa Partner to Expand Global Crypto-to-Fiat Off-Ramping via Visa Direct
Mercuryo announced a strategic partnership with Visa to embed Visa Direct into its crypto‑payment platform. The integration will let wallet, exchange and Web3 users convert digital assets to fiat and have funds pushed to Visa cards, bank accounts or digital...
ChatGPT Drives Shopify Sales, Adds 4% Fee for Merchants
so chatgpt can help you with buying Shopify products, but the merchant will pay 4% more, which goes to openai (edited an earlier mistake) given current user base, Shopify merchants should be happy to get additional traffic combined w ads, kinda feels...
Glossier Grew on Community, Not Ad Spend
Glossier spent $0 on ads for their first 2 years. Just UGC and community. Meanwhile you're burning budget on cold traffic. That's the gap.
Elariosso Digital Ltd Combines Human Expertise and Smart Processes to Modernize Customer Support Operations
Elariosso Digital Ltd is positioning itself as a modern customer‑support outsourcing partner for e‑commerce, SaaS, fintech and other digital businesses. The firm blends skilled human agents with structured, technology‑driven workflows to deliver 24/7, multichannel assistance. Its model emphasizes clear escalation...
Test, Don't Trust Theories: Real Market Wins
I lost $8k testing a pet product 'experts' said was saturated. It's now doing $40k/month. I spent $12k on a 'blue ocean' product. Dead in 3 weeks. The market doesn't care about theories. Test everything.
What Is A Website Crawler? 12 Bot Management Strategies
Ilya Grigorik explains that over half of web traffic now comes from bots, dividing them into good (search), grey (AI training/fetchers) and bad (malicious scrapers) and urging e‑commerce teams to treat this "post‑human" reality as a core business concern. He...
How BigTime Built the Business Behind the Builds
The episode chronicles how former Donut Media creators Jeremiah Burton, Andy Paz, and Zach Jobe launched BigTime, a fast‑growing automotive YouTube channel, leveraging full creative control to produce bold builds and connect authentically with fans. Their partnership with Shopify enabled...
12 Hot Pay-Per-Post Collabs For Influencers Going Into 2026
Natalie Weber outlines twelve lucrative pay‑per‑post influencer collaborations poised for 2026, highlighting four examples: Inktoss, a mobile printing service offering $50‑$200 per demo post and free printing; ShipShared, a SaaS launch marketplace rewarding $20‑$225 per performance‑driven post plus click bonuses;...
Understanding High-Value Buying Behaviour in Ecommerce
The episode explains how high‑value ecommerce shoppers behave differently—taking longer, revisiting sites, and demanding extensive reassurance—so merchants should prioritize trust signals, clear policies, and detailed product information over flash discounts or urgency cues. Mapping the multi‑device buying journey and providing...
Cheap AI Stack Enables New Millionaires This Year
Claude + Nano Banana is going to make multiple millionaires this year. This is the same as when people figured out Facebook ads in 2016-2017. People were making millions with terrible websites and average products just because they figured out the traffic...
Feb 18 Massive Drop: Grab a $99 Box
Feb 18th massive drop - who wants to get a box for $99 ? https://t.co/SD4EAUIWbq https://t.co/nBnCxaq8Q3
Small Business Financial Planning: How To Set Business Goals
In this episode, Jamil Bhuya and Jaz Fenton share hard‑won lessons from their past ventures and explain how a solid financial plan—covering a balance sheet, cash‑flow statement, and income statement—serves as a roadmap for small‑business growth and risk mitigation. They...
Ecom Founders Work Weekends, Chasing Ad Scaling
Everyone on Friday: Thank God it's the weekend. Ecom founders on Friday: Which ads scaled this week? Different mindset. Different life.
Why Ecommerce Businesses Fail Without Clear Cost Structures
E‑commerce brands often chase sales without a transparent cost structure, leading to shrinking margins and cash‑flow strain. Hidden expenses—shipping, platform fees, returns, taxes, and software—can turn seemingly profitable products into losses as order volume grows. Clear cost tracking converts revenue...
DAZN’s Hugh Cashmore on Unlocking the Power of Brand Milestones
DAZN’s global brand lead Hugh Cashmore explained how the streaming service turns brand milestones into growth engines. He emphasized selecting moments that genuinely reflect the brand, balancing scheduled sports events with agile, reactive activations, and grounding decisions in a strong...
![How Forest Ink and Groovy Things Co. Fulfill 2K+ SKUs & Reduce Peak Labor By 83% with ShipBob WMS [Case Study]](https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/1bf537d90cd379f900f0a28b0dc42c1b.webp)
How Forest Ink and Groovy Things Co. Fulfill 2K+ SKUs & Reduce Peak Labor By 83% with ShipBob WMS [Case Study]
Beth Welch and Maddie Crawford discuss how Forest Ink and Groovy Things Co. transformed their fulfillment of over 2,000 SKUs by adopting ShipBob’s WMS, cutting peak‑season labor by 83% and reclaiming 60+ hours weekly. They detail the chaotic manual processes...
Move Social Proof Above the Fold, Earn Millions
Gymshark made $2.1M from ONE homepage change: moving social proof above the fold. Meanwhile you're debating font sizes. That's the gap.
Top 10 Editing Tools for TikTok & IG Influencers in 2026
The episode outlines why polished short‑form video is essential for influencer marketing in 2026, noting that micro‑influencers achieve up to 60% higher engagement and that well‑edited UGC can dramatically boost e‑commerce conversions. It highlights the top editing tools for creators,...
BFCM Marketing Statistics: Ad Spend Trends For Black Friday & Cyber Monday
In this episode, Andy Taylor and Mark Ballard break down 2025 BFCM ad‑spend data from Tinuiti’s $4 billion portfolio, highlighting that Amazon Sponsored Products saw a 30% sales surge from Saturday to Cyber Monday and that Amazon DSP investment continued to...
Modern Retail Podcast: The High Cost of Free Returns
The Modern Retail podcast examines the escalating cost of free returns, noting that 72% of brands now impose return fees. Hosts Melissa Daniels, Samantha Gold of Motette, and Arin Schultz of Naturepedic discuss how retailers can redesign policies to protect...
Walmart Deploys AI to Pre‑Position Stock Before Storm
Walmart is using AI forecasting + simulation to reroute inventory ahead of a winter storm so essentials are in the right stores before roads turn into a mess. This is the future of retail ops. Not “supply chain resilience” as a slogan,...
Justice Department and Live Nation Clash Over Allegations of Illegal Monopoly
The U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that Live Nation has been pressuring venues to keep Ticketmaster as their ticketing platform, using the threat of withdrawing concerts as leverage. The DOJ cites eight alleged incidents over the past 15...
How Long Should a Blog Post Be? Blog Length Best Practices
The episode explores how blog post length impacts SEO, noting that top‑ranking articles typically range from 1,400 to 2,500 words but shorter 600‑800 word posts can also succeed if they deliver value. It advises writers to choose substantial topics, provide...