Know What's Happening in Ecommerce
Know What's Happening in Ecommerce
Ecommerce Pulse
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EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
Pandemic cemented e‑commerce’s share and boosted contactless payments
The COVID‑19 shock locked e‑commerce at 16.6% of U.S. retail sales and set online grocery sales on a path to $250 billion by 2025. Two‑thirds of shoppers now use contactless payments, with 74% planning to keep the habit post‑pandemic.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Grab acquires Foodpanda Taiwan for $600M
Geekplus is sponsoring the world’s first AI‑driven, immersive shoppable runway hosted by THG Studios and Topshop on Feb. 26, 2026 in Manchester. The event blends a fashion catwalk with a live Fulfilment Zone where Geekplus’ autonomous P‑series mobile robots perform real‑time picking and warehouse operations. Backed by PayPal and Google Cloud, the showcase aims to set a new benchmark for end‑to‑end e‑commerce experiences and will be certified by the World Record Certification Agency. Over 850 global brands already use Geekplus technology to accelerate fulfillment speed and accuracy.
In this episode Hannah Storrs breaks down the distinct yet overlapping worlds of web design and graphic design, outlining each discipline’s core principles, essential tools, and typical responsibilities. She highlights that web design focuses on UI/UX, responsive layouts, accessibility, and...
In this episode, Steve Hutt discusses how Windsor, a major women’s fashion retailer, leveraged Happy Returns’ BORIS solution and Return Bars® to turn product returns into a driver of in‑store traffic and loyalty. By shifting 74% of returns to physical...
Privy announced the acquisition of Sendlane, an email and SMS marketing platform, to strengthen its unified ecommerce growth solution. The deal follows Privy’s 2023 purchase of Emotive and builds on a client base of more than 6,000 brands. Privy reports...
In this episode, Hanna Cabessa introduces the new Loox‑Tapcart integration that lets Shopify merchants display photo, video, and text reviews directly within their mobile apps. She walks listeners through a three‑step setup process and explains how the sync works automatically,...
A Brussels Enterprise Court ordered Ryanair to halt "pressure selling" tactics on its website, including scarcity alerts, fake discounts, bundled pricing, and hidden baggage fees. The airline has three months to comply or face daily fines of €5,000, up to...
PayPal announced that board member and former HP chief executive Enrique Lores will become its new CEO and president effective March 1, replacing Alex Chriss, who has led the firm since September 2023. The board said the change reflects dissatisfaction with the company’s...
Walmart Connect Canada has launched the Walmart Connect Canada Academy Ad Certification, a free, self‑paced program designed to teach advertisers and partners the fundamentals of retail media and Sponsored Products on its platform. The certification includes two initial courses—Retail Media...
In this episode Zane Bratuskina breaks down the massive commercial opportunity of the Super Bowl, highlighting that 127.7 million U.S. viewers generate roughly $20 billion in game‑day spending, with food, apparel and tech leading purchases. He outlines a step‑by‑step marketing playbook—from copyright‑safe...
Widdop & Co has launched WiddopDropship.co.uk, a dropship platform that lets independent retailers list its full product range without holding inventory. The service was demonstrated at Spring Fair’s Hall 4 Village stand, highlighting a low‑risk growth model where Widdop fulfills orders...
Comic Relief launched its first Design‑Your‑Own Red Nose on Amazon, letting the public customize the iconic red nose with personal artwork. Prices start at £2.50 and the range includes a collector pack, multipacks for groups, and Mr Doodle‑styled bucket hats...
Visa and UnionPay have signed an agreement to connect Visa Direct with UnionPay’s MoneyExpress platform, allowing Visa’s global clients to send cross‑border remittances and payouts to more than 95% of debit cardholders in mainland China. The service, slated for a...
A recent IDC study, sponsored by Diebold Nixdorf, shows that over two‑thirds of Australian shoppers prefer self‑checkout, especially when alone or in a hurry. However, checkout delays, trust concerns, and rigid systems frustrate many consumers. Retailers are responding by investing in...
French Connection Group announced a long‑term licensing partnership with G‑III Apparel Group to design, source, and distribute men’s and women’s apparel and accessories across North America. The deal leverages G‑III’s extensive retail relationships and supply‑chain infrastructure, giving French Connection a...
Walmart has teamed with OpenAI to let Sam’s Club members shop and checkout directly inside ChatGPT, extending its Sparky AI assistant to a conversational platform. The move follows similar AI‑shopping collaborations by Shopify, Etsy, Amazon and Target, signaling a broader...
URway Holdings introduced its AI Connect Bar, a unified communications platform that harnesses conversational voice AI. The solution was demonstrated at the NRF 2026 Retail’s Big Show, highlighting its potential for contact centers. Chief engagement officer Ed Crowley and CRO...
Small retailers are replacing consumer tablets with purpose‑built POS terminals due to frequent downtime, durability issues, hidden costs, and security challenges. Internal analysis of over 10,000 merchants shows staff satisfaction rising, hardware replacements falling 41 %, and transaction completion improving after...
Weird Fish reported its strongest Christmas quarter, with November‑December sales up 18.4% to £13.5 million and comparable sales rising 6.6% over the 12‑week period to 28 December. Online revenue grew 12% year‑on‑year, and outlet performance was particularly strong. Full‑year revenue hit a...
British heritage brand Belstaff completed an end‑to‑end digital transformation by replacing its legacy stack with a headless Shopify e‑commerce platform backed by NetSuite as a single source of truth. Integration specialist Patchworks provides the middleware that synchronises inventory, orders and...
January is the busiest returns period in the UK, and new InPost research shows shoppers now demand returns that fit around their daily routines. Nearly two‑thirds of consumers choose return methods to avoid queues, and 64% find parcel lockers highly...
PostgreSQL materialized views create a physical snapshot of expensive query results, allowing fast, indexed reads while shifting computation to scheduled refreshes. The article demonstrates turning a 28‑second revenue aggregation into a 180‑millisecond lookup by building, indexing, and refreshing a materialized...
Banks are reexamining blanket merchant bans after regulators removed reputational risk from exam criteria in 2025, prompting a shift toward nuanced, data‑driven underwriting. Maverick Payments’ VP Kyle Becker explained that clear risk‑appetite statements combined with automated KYC/KYB, AI monitoring and...
I've tested 80+ email sequences. Here's the pattern: Emails I thought were 'too pushy' got 40% CTR. Emails I 'softened' to be nice got 5% CTR. Your comfort doesn't matter. Urgency does. Test everything. Trust nothing.
In this episode Lauren Ufford breaks down how retailers can successfully expand to multiple brick‑and‑mortar locations, outlining ten actionable strategies—from selecting a unified POS system and role‑based permissions to implementing multilocation inventory tracking and data‑driven performance dashboards. She highlights the...
In this episode Rachel Hand explains how ShipBob has built a pricing model that prioritizes transparency for merchants, detailing four key improvements: line‑item billing visible in a real‑time dashboard, publicly published fee structures, an all‑in fulfillment cost that bundles shipping,...
The Reserve Bank of Australia raised the cash rate to 3.85%, ending a brief period of monetary easing. The hike lifts borrowing costs for households and retailers, squeezing disposable income and prompting shoppers to trade down and chase promotions. Retailers,...
Briscoe Group posted record fourth‑quarter sales of $220.6 million and a full‑year total of $686.8 million, despite a challenging consumer environment. Online sales rose to 20 percent of revenue, up from 19.7 percent, following a migration to a new Adobe platform. Homeware sales grew...
Snif has launched two novelty fragrances—one evoking pizza and another inspired by Swedish candy—through Ulta Beauty’s nationwide stores. The brand frames the scents as part of an "experimental" consumer wave, targeting shoppers who seek playful, unconventional perfume experiences. By partnering...
Occasionwear brand Lulus, celebrating its 30th anniversary, is accelerating its wholesale expansion. After a 140% jump in wholesale sales last year, the brand now sells in all 350 Nordstrom locations and has more than doubled its presence at Dillard’s to...
Tree Hut, a bath‑and‑body brand under Naterra, has deployed an AI‑powered community‑management platform to mine comments, DMs and other social signals. The technology transformed routine engagement into a data engine that quantifies product demand, sentiment and collaboration ideas, enabling the...
Tree Hut integrated an AI tool into its social channels to automatically process community comments and direct messages, creating a searchable database of consumer requests. The system quantified demand for the Cinnamon Dolce scent, revealing thousands of mentions that justified expanding the...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it will modify its complaint system to make filing disputes against credit reporting agencies more difficult. The change follows a request from Experian to tighten identity verification and cap the number of complaints...
AWS CEO Matt Garman is restructuring the AI division to focus on software agents that act on users' behalf. The cloud giant hired a former Microsoft executive to head enterprise search tools and reinstated a former AWS leader to run...
India is in negotiations with Ant International to connect its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with the Alipay+ platform, creating a seamless cross‑border payment channel. Officials are scrutinising security protocols as part of the deal, reflecting a softening of economic ties...
Canada’s Grocery Code of Conduct became fully effective on Jan. 1, 2026, establishing an independent framework for retailer‑supplier relations among the nation’s five largest grocers. The code emphasizes transparency, dispute‑resolution and fair dealing, but it does not contain any mechanisms to cap...
FuturePay Global Limited announced the integration of Paysafe’s SafetyPay suite to accelerate its entry into Latin America. The partnership adds more than 175 banking partners across nine countries, along with SafetyPay’s eCash and Brazil’s Pix instant payment options. By embedding...
Bain & Company’s 2025 China luxury market report shows the mainland personal luxury segment contracted 3‑5% in 2023 after a sharper decline in 2022. Growth is now limited to affordable‑luxury and ultra‑premium categories, while mid‑priced items lag. Beauty products posted...
Victoria has introduced tougher penalties for assaults on retail staff, including up to five years in prison and reclassifying ram raids as aggravated burglary with sentences up to 25 years. Retail crime incidents rose over 20% in 2025, making the...
Amazon is launching a beta feature that adds section-level performance metrics to Brand Store insights, letting advertisers see renders, viewable impressions, clicks, and CTR for each hero image, video, or banner. The data can be filtered by traffic source, revealing...
In this episode Bill Widmer explains what a shipping manifest is, why it matters for bulk and international ecommerce shipments, and how it differs from a bill of lading. He walks listeners through the essential elements—goods description, packaging, parties, carrier,...
TikTok Shop announced that, by March 31, it will require all U.S. sellers to use its own fulfillment network or approved third‑party integrations, ending independent seller shipping. Small and mid‑size brands like August’s founder Nadya Okamoto are exiting the platform...
Gumtree announced a strategic onboarding partnership aimed at accelerating its entry into the home‑services market. The collaboration introduces automated verification, streamlined listing creation, and promotional placement tools for service providers. Gumtree projects a 30% increase in home‑services listings within the...
Meta announced testing of premium subscription bundles on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, offering exclusive tools such as the AI agent Manus, tiered access to the Vibes video generator, unlimited audience lists, and anonymous story viewing. The initiative differs from the...
OpenAI announced a beta advertising program that charges roughly $60 CPM, far above the industry average. The program requires a minimum spend of $200,000, though some advertisers have been asked for as little as $100,000‑$125,000. Participants will only receive basic...
Eddie Bauer's North American retail arm, owned by Catalyst Brands, is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that could shutter nearly 200 U.S. and Canadian stores. The filing would not impact the brand's manufacturing, wholesale or e‑commerce operations, nor its stores...
NymCard and Visa have launched USDC stablecoin settlement for Visa‑card transactions across the Gulf Cooperation Council, enabling 24/7, near‑instant processing. The model promises lower operational costs, reduced collateral and prefunding needs, and a foundation for multicurrency settlement. Visa disclosed a...
Millennials and Gen Z are fueling earnings growth for financial services and retailers as their spending fully migrates to digital channels. Gen Z averages 425 digital activity days per month, shops on Amazon at triple the rate of older cohorts,...
The episode breaks down the practical and stylistic differences between hoodies and crew‑neck sweatshirts, covering design elements, fabric choices, warmth, fit, and layering potential. It highlights how hoodies, with their hoods and pockets, offer extra insulation and a casual, street‑wear...
AI-driven search is redefining brand discovery as generative engine optimization (GEO) replaces traditional SEO. By 2026, consumers will phrase queries conversationally, prompting retailers to craft natural language content. AI chatbots already influenced 17% of Cyber Week 2025 orders and will...
Investors poured billions into AI startups this week, treating artificial intelligence as core operating infrastructure. Ricursive Intelligence secured $300 million Series A at a $4 billion valuation to accelerate AI‑driven semiconductor design, while Waabi raised $1 billion to scale autonomous trucking and robotaxi fleets....
