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
A Shopify Early Look and a Thank You Gift
The author announced the official launch of a new Shopify storefront this month, inviting newsletter subscribers to participate in a pre‑launch experience. The post emphasizes exclusive access and a thank‑you gift for early supporters. By embedding direct store links in newsletters, the author aims to drive traffic straight to the e‑commerce site. This move signals a shift toward creator‑owned retail channels beyond traditional publishing platforms.
How Amazon’s Artist Merch Operation Is Changing the Game for Fans
Amazon has turned concert merchandise into a frictionless, home‑delivery experience by pairing QR‑code ordering with its Just Walk Out technology. The service debuted with Doja Cat in 2023 and now powers pop‑up stores for Mariah Carey, LE SSERAFIM and Drake, letting fans grab...
Marketplaces Account for 61% of European Ecommerce
Marketplaces now account for 61% of European ecommerce gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2025, up from 56.2% in 2023. Globally, they captured 83.4% of ecommerce GMV last year, dwarfing the 16.6% share of first‑party stores. Amazon remains the dominant platform,...
How Prime And A Smarter Alexa Are Giving Amazon An AI Shopping Edge
Amazon launched Alexa+, an AI‑powered upgrade to its voice assistant, to all users in March 2025. The new assistant can handle complex conversations, place orders, manage smart‑home devices, and suggest recipes, all while leveraging Amazon’s 30‑year e‑commerce expertise. Early data show...
FTC Launches Nationwide Probe of Delivery-App Fees Amid $1 M NYC Settlement
The Federal Trade Commission opened a public comment period on “unfair or deceptive fee practices” in online food and grocery delivery, while New York City settled a nearly $1 million dispute with a delivery app. Regulators aim to force clearer pricing,...
Amazon Turns ‘Jury Duty’ Hot Sauce Fiction Into Real‑World Sale
Amazon has listed the fictional “Rockin’ Grandmas” hot sauce from the second season of its reality series “Jury Duty” for sale on its marketplace. The product moves from a scripted plot point to a real‑world SKU, illustrating how streaming content...
Why Fashion Brands Are Betting Big On Q-Commerce Ads
India’s quick‑commerce (q‑commerce) market surged to roughly ₹64,000 crore ($6.9 bn) in FY25, growing at a 142% CAGR and now serving 33 million monthly users across 150+ cities. Leading platforms—Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart—are turning advertising into a major revenue stream, with Blinkit...
The Home Depot Acquires Automation Firm
The Home Depot announced the acquisition of SIMPL Automation, a firm that combines advanced engineering with artificial‑intelligence to streamline distribution‑center operations. The deal, whose financial terms were not disclosed, adds AI‑driven robotics and real‑time analytics to Home Depot’s supply‑chain toolkit....
Winning Google Ads Campaign Structures For DTC Ecommerce via @Sejournal, @MenachemAni
The article stresses that Google Ads account structure is the linchpin for DTC ecommerce success because each search query is an explicit buying intent. It outlines three costly mistakes—launching every campaign type simultaneously, duplicating products across campaigns, and segmenting Performance...
Race Day Starts Before You Get to the Track: StubHub and New Era Team Up for F1’s North American Season...
StubHub and apparel brand New Era have announced a strategic partnership to sell bundled ticket and merchandise packages for Formula 1’s North American races. The collaboration will debut ahead of the 2024 season, covering the Miami Grand Prix, the United States...
Tier-2 and 3 Cities Drive Next Wave Of Growth For India’s D2C Sector
India’s tier‑2 and tier‑3 cities are now the primary engine of growth for the country’s direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) market, accounting for roughly two‑thirds of new orders in FY 2025‑26. Buyers in these regions contributed about 60% of incremental gross merchandise value (GMV)...
NIQ Brandbank and Prodx Unite to Advance Retail Personalization
NielsenIQ announced a strategic collaboration between its Brandbank product‑content service and Prodx, a provider of enriched, structured data. The partnership creates a unified, real‑time data foundation that lets U.S. retailers activate high‑quality product information across search, discovery and retail media...
Nearly Half of UK Shoppers Experience Payment Failures at Checkout, Research Finds
Nearly half of UK shoppers—46%—reported a payment failure at checkout in the past year, according to Transaction Network Services (TNS). The study links most breakdowns to fragmented network connectivity rather than the payment software itself, especially in POS systems, kiosks...
Casely Expands Recall to 429,000 Power Banks After Fatal Fire and Plane Incident
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Casely have broadened a recall to about 429,000 MagSafe‑compatible power banks following a fatal fire and a separate onboard airplane fire. The move spotlights safety risks in online retail and could reshape liability...
Brands Falling Short on Emotional Drivers
A new Phaedon research report reveals that U.S. consumer brands are overestimating loyalty, as customers note a persistent gap between valued emotional drivers and brand delivery. While companies score well on reliability, data security and program clarity, they fall short...
Hookflash Hits the Bullseye with Darts’ Giant Digital Brief
Nodor Group, the maker of Winmau and Red Dragon darts, has hired digital agency Hookflash to overhaul its e‑commerce platform and drive direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) growth. The agency will apply a data‑driven conversion‑rate‑optimization (CRO) and experimentation framework to increase website value....
Commerce Announces Winners of EMEA Region Customer and Partner Awards
Commerce announced the 2026 EMEA Customer and Partner Award winners at its Wembley Stadium Commerce Live event, celebrating top performers on the BigCommerce and Feedonomics platforms. Customer categories highlighted growth, AI‑driven experiences, connected commerce, emerging innovation and B2B excellence, with...
Maximizing the Transaction Moment: Why the Point of Purchase Is Retail’s Most Undervalued Growth Lever
Retailers are rethinking the point of purchase, labeling it the Transaction Moment—a window where trust, attention, and intent peak. By embedding relevant, brand‑controlled offers into checkout and confirmation pages, companies like Backcountry generate $0.25‑$0.35 incremental revenue per transaction without new...
Tapping Into the Latest Emerging Payment Solution Trends
Consumers now expect a broad menu of payment options, with 61% using digital wallets and 35% trying buy‑now‑pay‑later services in the last 90 days, according to Discover’s 2025 Payments State of the Union research. Adoption of account‑to‑account (A2A) rails is...
Unified Commerce: Why It’s the Next Evolution of Retail
Unified commerce is emerging as the next evolution of retail, moving beyond omnichannel by consolidating all sales channels onto a single, real‑time architecture. This model eliminates data latency, ensuring inventory, orders, and customer information are instantly consistent across online, in‑store,...
Smarter Stores Start Behind the Scenes
Retailers are re‑thinking the hype around customer‑facing AI and realizing that the true value of artificial intelligence lies in behind‑the‑scenes operations. Large language models work best when tightly tailored to interpret and act on internal data, turning fragmented information into...
Loyalty Isn’t a Program Anymore. It’s a Payment Experience.
Retailers are moving loyalty from separate programs to the payment experience, using Marqeta’s Flexible Credentials to embed rewards, debit, credit and installment options in a single card. The platform lets shoppers choose payment modes and redeem points instantly at checkout,...
U.S.-based Commonplace Marketplace Eyes Expansion Into Canada
Commonplace, a U.S. marketplace that bundles payments, delivery and item inspections, is weighing entry into Canada. The platform specializes in bulky, high‑value second‑hand goods such as fitness equipment, appliances and furniture, and currently serves sellers within a 1,000‑mile radius across...
Mountain Warehouse Launches Composable Ecommerce Platform with BigCommerce
Mountain Warehouse, a global outdoor retailer with over 400 stores, has replaced its decade‑old custom ecommerce system with a composable platform powered by BigCommerce. The headless architecture integrates best‑of‑breed SaaS tools such as Contentful, Algolia, and Stripe, allowing faster feature...
Payment Sovereignty Debate Accelerates: What CB Payments Network in France Has to Say Against Visa and Mastercard
France’s Cartes Bancaires (CB) network is positioning itself as a sovereign alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing political pressure to curb reliance on foreign payment schemes. The Financial Times reported that French officials are urging the CB system to...
Debenhams Group Appoints Paul Aspden as CTO to Scale Marketplace Tech and AI Push
British retailer Debenhams Group has promoted Paul Aspden to chief technology officer as it accelerates its AI and marketplace strategy. Aspden, who helped build the company’s Mirakl‑based marketplace and AI pricing tools, will now oversee platform scaling, faster brand‑partner onboarding,...
Meet Jere Calmes: The Iconic CEO Who Turned Reset Into Momentum
Jere Calmes, CEO of The Iconic since 2023, was named #8 in Inside Retail’s Top 50 People in E‑Commerce. He led a strategic reset that trimmed an unsustainable cost base built during the pandemic and refocused the business on technology, logistics...
CBP 5H Hold: What Amazon FBA Sellers Need to Know in 2026
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has rolled out the 5H (Entry Processing Hold) program to crack down on under‑declared values in China‑to‑U.S. shipments. The automated ACE system flags mismatches, freezing containers at Los Angeles and Long Beach until paperwork is verified, which...
Why Mondelez Is Hiring a Global Lead to Solve for AI-Driven Shopping Bots
Mondelez International is creating a global lead role to shape its emerging agentic commerce strategy, targeting AI‑driven shopping bots that could handle a sizable share of online traffic. Retail partners expect 30% of site visits to come from such bots...
Lowe’s Aims to Make Mulch Buying Easier with AI
Lowe’s has introduced “Mulch Me Now,” an AI‑driven feature within its Mylow assistant that asks customers yard dimensions and desired depth to calculate exact mulch quantities, then suggests products and adds them to the cart. Launched in spring, the tool...
Sam’s Club Hires ‘Experts’ to Make Video Reviews for Product Pages
Sam’s Club is rolling out a new "expert review" video feature on product pages, hiring niche specialists—such as chefs, tech gurus, or health professionals—to create short, brand‑specific videos. The initiative, announced on April 16 as part of the Member Access Platform,...
My Joyful Duo
Amazon has launched its first Global Warehousing and Distribution centre in China, shifting focus from consumer sales to supporting Chinese manufacturers. The hub lets sellers store inventory near factories, move goods in bulk, and clear customs before shipping to the...
Kobe’s AI Platform and Visa/Mastercard Agents Redefine Brazil’s Retail Experience
Kobe unveiled Nodo, an AI‑driven platform that personalizes e‑commerce and app experiences in real time, while Visa and Mastercard completed the first autonomous AI‑agent purchases in Brazil. The moves illustrate how retailers and payment networks are racing to embed intelligent...
Mandatory Spinning Wheel Ruins Temu's Checkout Experience
Who’s the UX designer at @temu who thought, “nah, let’s put a mandatory fixed spinning wheel as a hurdle instead of letting people actually buy things.”
AI Assistants Are Evolving Into Subtle Sales Channels
AI assistants are starting to become sales channels. Sponsored responses and integrated recommendations are turning conversations into opportunities for advertising and commerce. The shift is subtle. When advice and promotion blend together, the role of AI becomes harder to separate from influence....
Google and Shopify Launch Universal Commerce Protocol, Redefining E‑commerce Journeys
Google and Shopify introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at the NRF event, creating a single conversational transaction flow managed by AI agents. The new standard collapses traditional discovery, cart and checkout steps, forcing marketers to rethink funnel metrics and...
Founders Trade Meetings for Profit‑driving Supplier Calls
Everyone at 10am: In a pointless meeting that could have been an email. Ecom founders at 10am: On a call with a supplier in China negotiating a 15% cost reduction. Different leverage. Different outcomes.
Free Gifts Outperform Discounts without Eroding Margins
Discounts are often the lazy promo. They train customers to wait, hand away margin, and once you start, they're hard to stop. A free gift can move the same needle without any of that baggage.
Fortidia's VP of Marketing Stephanie Johnson Drives Growth Across 450 Franchise Sites
Stephanie Johnson, vice president of marketing at Fortidia U.S., is steering enterprise marketing for three franchise brands—AlphaGraphics, PostNet and World Options—across more than 450 locations. Her focus on integrated strategy, digital commerce and team culture has delivered measurable revenue growth...
Coupang's Growth Uncertain as Shoppers Stick with Department Stores
Hmm. You’d think Coupang will take market share over time. People still go to department stores?
TikTok Shops Lean on Fake Discounts for Bottom‑F
How much of TikTok Shops performance is just capturing the bottom of the bottom of the funnel with fake discounts? https://t.co/Nt1HqKxfgL
Yassir Launches North Africa’s First Retail Media Network, Tapping 10 Million Users
Algeria’s Yassir has announced the rollout of North Africa’s first retail media network, leveraging data from 10 million users across rides, delivery, payments and physical stores. The platform, built after acquiring Paris‑based ad‑tech firm Kawarizmi and hypermarket chain UNO, aims at...
Why Your E-Commerce Dev Team Ships Slower than Your Competitors (and How to Fix It)
E‑commerce development teams often ship slower not because of headcount but due to hidden infrastructure friction such as shared staging, manual pipelines, and fragmented compliance. These bottlenecks turn week‑long feature cycles into month‑long projects, causing missed campaign windows. Upsun’s platform...
Colombia’s Bre-B Surpasses 600 Million Transactions: What the Milestone Means for Latin American Instant Payments
Colombia’s central‑bank‑backed instant payment system Bre‑B has processed 638.7 million transactions and registered over 34 million users in its first six months. The average transaction value is roughly $43, and the platform has created 103.38 million payment keys since its October 2025 launch. By...
Digital.Marketing Unveils Report on Merging Commerce and Marketing Strategies
Digital.Marketing released a research report that argues marketing has become the primary engine of digital commerce. The study calls for a unified, data‑driven framework that aligns SEO, paid media and content across the buyer journey.
BigBasket Hires Ex-Google Pay Exec Arpit Jaiswal as Chief Growth Officer to Drive Expansion
Tata-owned online grocery platform BigBasket has appointed Arpit Jaiswal, former Head of Growth at Google Pay, as its new Chief Growth Officer. Jaiswal will steer the retailer’s push for profitable growth, deeper category leadership and AI‑driven user acquisition. The hire...
AI‑Driven Trend Analytics Enable Fully Autonomous E‑Commerce
I think one of the next trends in e-commerce will be to use trend analytics and take that information and generate 3D products with AI. then you can mark those products through influencers and ads and ship them out. This...
Loop Secures $95 Million to Deploy AI That Predicts Supply‑Chain Disruptions for E‑commerce
Loop announced a $95 million financing round to accelerate its AI platform that predicts supply‑chain disruptions. The capital will be used to expand the service for e‑commerce merchants seeking more reliable fulfillment and inventory management.
Build a Branded Dropshipping Store with AI
How To Build A Branded Dropshipping Store With AI Using Shopify In 2026 (Using Claude code) WATCH HERE 👉 https://t.co/0vOsYVvpHS Shopify’s new AI Toolkit is changing how stores get built. In this video, I show you how to use AI agents like...
Launch Pages 10× Faster, Boost Conversions 21%
Cuts Clothing boosted conversions 21% and AOV 9% by switching to a CMS that let them launch pages 10x faster. Meanwhile you're stuck with a clunky setup that takes weeks to push one landing page live. That's the gap.