Black Friday’s Shrinking Slice📉

🇨🇳 U.S.-TikTok Deal Nears, China Sets Red Lines. Washington is pushing for strict controls over TikTok’s data and algorithms, while Beijing demands the app keeps its “Chinese characteristics” and rejects forced tech sell-offs. The outcome could affect 170 million U.S. users and set a global standard for platform oversight. 👉 BBC

🇺🇸 OpenAI Teases ChatGPT Checkout Feature. Screenshots and code strings reveal OpenAI is preparing an in-app checkout called “ChatGPT Checkout,” possibly letting users buy digital goods and GPT add-ons right inside ChatGPT. No launch date yet, but this could shift purchases away from the web. 👉 Retailgentic

🇺🇸 Amazon Tests Virtual Multipack Pilot Program. Amazon will auto-generate “Virtual Multipacks” for some FBA sellers, letting shoppers buy 2- or 3-packs using existing single-unit inventory. The pilot runs from September 8–26, with customer rollout starting October 13, aiming to boost basket size and reduce prep costs. 👉 ChannelX

🇨🇳 Alibaba Lands $390M China Unicom AI Chip Deal. Alibaba’s in-house AI chips will power a massive China Unicom data center, part of a national push to replace U.S. chips like Nvidia. About 23,000 chips—nearly three-quarters from Alibaba—will support the new $390 million Xining site. Shares jumped on the news. 👉 CNBC

🇺🇸 Etsy Adds AI Writing and Search Tools for Sellers. Etsy rolled out optional AI-powered “Title Suggestions” and a “Writing Assistant” to help 7 million sellers sharpen product listings and replies. The tools aim to save time, boost relevance, and support merchants heading into the busy holiday season. 👉 PYMNTS

🇩🇪 Otto Replaces Fashion Model Photography with AI. German retailer OTTO will use its in-house AI tool to generate fashion images, ending most traditional model shoots. OTTO claims up to 60% cost savings and five times faster content creation, citing both efficiency and sustainability. 👉 OTTO Group

🇻🇳 Vietnamese Farmers Surge on E-Commerce Exports. Vietnamese farm producers used TikTok Shop and livestreams to sell over 26,000 specialty and OCOP orders in just a few days. Agri SKUs online jumped 30% in a year; Jan–Aug fruit and veg exports hit $4.6B, with the U.S. up 67%. 👉 VIR

🇿🇦 South Africa’s $7B E-Commerce Boom Raises Job Fears. Online retail in South Africa will reach $7–7.4 billion, about 10% of all retail, led by fashion and grocery. The growth puts over 34,000 jobs at risk by 2030, with local rules struggling to keep up with new global entrants. 👉 Business Insider Africa

🇫🇷 Shein and Pimkie sign digital growth deal. French chain Pimkie will sell on Shein before year-end, using Shein’s logistics and global reach in 160 countries. The partnership targets €150M revenue by 2025 and €300M by 2028, with digital sales aiming for 30%. The move faces criticism in Europe over ultra-fast fashion’s impact. 👉 RetailDetail

🇬🇧 Clarks to launch UK marketplace in 2026. Clarks will open a new digital marketplace in early 2026, adding brands like Hunter, Antler, and Frugi to its roster. The plan extends beyond shoes and celebrates the brand’s 200th anniversary, aiming to expand without inventory risk and drive new customer traffic. 👉 ChannelX

🇺🇸 Sephora unveils influencer storefront program. Sephora will let creators build shoppable storefronts in its app and website, starting October 2025. The “My Sephora Storefront” project lets influencers earn commissions and brands track performance, with checkout kept inside Sephora’s platform. 👉 CosmeticsBusiness

🇨🇭 Temu opens Swiss marketplace for local sellers. Temu now lets Swiss companies sell directly to Swiss buyers, aiming to localize supply and speed up deliveries. The “Local-to-Local” model launched in September 2025 and will expand to cross-border sales in the future. 👉 SWI Swissinfo

🇪🇺 EU textile groups fight ultra-fast fashion imports. European textile federations urge new EU action against fast-fashion imports, citing 4.5B parcels in 2024—5% of all clothing sales. They call for stricter customs, VAT enforcement, and an end to the €150 duty exemption for non-EU sellers. 👉 Fibre2Fashion

🇰🇷 K-pop fuels boom in Korean recommerce market. Bunjang Global’s users surged 260% year-on-year, topping 2 million in September 2025, with H1 GMV up 333% to track over ₩30B ($22M) for the year. Singapore ranks top-3 for cross-border K-pop and collectibles demand. 👉 KED Global

🇺🇸 Depop makes resale shopping a trend machine. Depop, bought by Etsy for $1.6B in 2021, turned vintage resale into TikTok-fueled consumerism. While the app boosts circular fashion, its focus on style and speed can drain local thrifts and push prices higher. 👉 Tufts Daily

🇬🇧 Deliveroo CEO Will Shu to Step Down Post-DoorDash Deal. DoorDash is buying Deliveroo for £2.9B ($3.9B), with founder Will Shu leaving after 13 years. The deal gives a 44% premium to shareholders and is set to close in early October, after European regulators approved the merger. 👉 CNBC

🇺🇸 Uber Eats Restarts US Drone Delivery Pilot. Uber Eats is working with Flytrex to test drone deliveries in select US markets by year-end, after getting new FAA approvals. Drones will deliver small orders in minutes, with expansion plans depending on reliability, local approvals, and costs. 👉 Telegrafi

🇵🇱 Żabka Jush Joins Wolt for Unified Grocery and Meals. Żabka’s Jush quick-commerce now integrates with the Wolt app, offering full grocery assortments alongside meals in one basket and payment. The move expands reach and could boost q-commerce frequency and order size in Poland. 👉 HandelExtra

🇲🇦 Delivery Hero Pushes Glovo Takeover in Morocco. Delivery Hero seeks approval to take full control of Glovo Morocco, just months after Glovo settled a local antitrust probe. Authorities are reviewing the deal, with possible new conditions to ensure fair competition in meal delivery. 👉 Launchbase Africa

🇮🇳 Swiggy Rolls Out Toing, a Budget Food App in Pune. Swiggy launched “Toing” in Pune, targeting students and young professionals with meals under ₹250. The app aims to capture value-focused diners with low prices and lean menus, testing a new model before national expansion. 👉 Hindustan Times

🇺🇸 Instacart CEO: Price Parity Drives Online Grocery Growth. New CEO Chris Rogers says affordability is key for Instacart, urging grocers to match online and in-store prices. Instacart claims sales rose 10 percentage points faster at retailers with price parity and is adding new price features and loyalty programs. 👉 Grocery Dive

🇩🇪 Kaufland Grows Fast in Poland and Austria Marketplaces. Kaufland’s online marketplace hit up to 3M monthly visitors in Poland and 1M in Austria, with 106% YoY GMV growth. With 3,000+ sellers in Poland and recent expansion into France and Italy, Kaufland targets leadership in Austria and Poland. 👉 Kaufland Presse

🇺🇸 Amazon expands multi-channel fulfillment. Amazon now lets sellers use its fulfillment network for Walmart, Shopify, and soon Shein orders, in addition to eBay, Temu, TikTok, and others. Merchants can keep one inventory pool and benefit from fewer stockouts and faster turns. This move positions Amazon as a third-party logistics player even for rival marketplaces. 👉 Supply Chain Dive

🇦🇪 Amazon opens first Abu Dhabi fulfilment center. Amazon’s new center in KEZAD, launched with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, boosts same-day delivery for more products and helps SMEs access e-commerce nationwide. The site holds up to 8 million items, supports over 30 categories, and includes an Innovation Lab for logistics improvements. 👉 Gulf News

🇨🇳 SHEIN opens supply chain to outside brands. SHEIN is now offering its fast China-based manufacturing to other fashion brands that open a store on its marketplace. This move helps SHEIN earn new revenue as it faces U.S. tariffs and IPO delays, and gives brands access to its 5–7 day design-to-production model. 👉 Yahoo Finance

🇮🇳 iThink Logistics launches AI for cross-border. India’s iThink Logistics rolled out an AI-powered platform for SME exporters, giving all-in shipping rates, duty estimates, and automatic product classification. The tool links with Shopify, WooCommerce, and more, aiming to boost compliance and global sales for small brands. 👉 The Hindu Business Line

🇬🇧 ASOS adopts real-time supply chain tracking. ASOS is now using TrusTrace to map suppliers all the way to the farm, giving it end-to-end supply chain visibility and better ESG compliance. This adds to earlier investments in process intelligence to speed up fulfillment and returns and prepare for stricter EU and US rules. 👉 Retail Dive

🇩🇪 German court reviews DHL neighbor delivery clause. Germany’s vzbv is suing Deutsche Post over DHL’s rule that lets parcels be delivered to neighbors without consent. The case, filed in Hamm court, could change how missed deliveries work nationwide and impact e-commerce returns and customer control. 👉 Onlinehändler News

🇺🇸 YouTube boosts creator earnings with new tools. YouTube will let creators sell, swap, and localize sponsored segments, track brand deals, and use new Shopping features that drove a 5x GMV jump year-over-year, with over 500,000 creators enrolled and $100B paid to creators since 2021. 👉 TechCrunch

🇺🇸 Amazon’s Google search visibility plunges 31%. Amazon disappeared from Google’s U.S. organic product grids after August 18, hitting categories like Apparel (down 56–60%), Home Goods (–45%), and Laptops (–36%), opening the door for rivals and changing the online product search landscape. 👉 Search Engine Journal

🇺🇸 Pinterest adds “where-to-buy” links in image ads. Brands can now route Pinterest ads to thousands of retailers at once using Pear Commerce or MikMak integrations, offering more purchase-intent signals and stronger lower-funnel actions for U.S. advertisers in coming weeks. 👉 Retail Dive

🇺🇸 Gmail launches “Purchases” tab for online orders. Google is rolling out a unified Purchases view and refreshed Promotions tab that helps users track packages, view deals, and organize receipts, all aimed at helping shoppers prep for the holiday rush. 👉 The Verge

🇺🇸 Amazon Ads debuts AI agent for ad creation. Amazon’s new agentic AI tool in Creative Studio uses Bedrock models to build pro-level multi-format ads across video and display for sellers, speeding creative work and collaboration at no extra cost while moving toward proactive, AI-powered ad automation. 👉 Search Engine Land

🇺🇸 Vroom teams up with Instacart for retail media. Vroom Delivery lets 3,500 U.S. c-stores activate sponsored products and display ads on their sites using Instacart’s Carrot Ads, giving smaller stores new self-serve marketing tools to compete with chains like 7-Eleven. 👉 C-Store Dive

🇺🇸 Condé Nast unveils Vette, a creator commerce platform. Launching in early 2026, Vette lets creators and editors open boutique-style storefronts without holding inventory, with brands drop-shipping and Condé Nast managing checkout—betting big on the $200B creator economy. 👉 FashionUnited

🇺🇸 Amazon unveils agentic AI for sellers. Amazon launched a free AI agent in U.S. Seller Central that plans campaigns, drafts ads, optimizes listings, forecasts demand, and manages inventory. Built on Bedrock with models like Nova and Claude, the tool gives sellers proactive, permission-based automation and has shown strong early results. 👉 TechCrunch

🇺🇸 Google and PayPal join forces on agentic commerce. Google and PayPal announced a multi-year deal to integrate PayPal’s payments and risk tools with Google Cloud and products. Their new Agent Payments Protocol is now backed by 60+ partners, including Mastercard, Amex, Coinbase, and Etsy, setting a new standard for agent-led online transactions. 👉 TechCrunch

🇺🇸 Rezolve Ai launches visual shopping search. Rezolve Ai launched Visual Search, letting shoppers snap or upload photos to search any retailer’s catalog instantly. The feature is part of Rezolve’s Brain Commerce suite, backed by partners like Microsoft and Google, and aims to make visual, conversational shopping the new standard. 👉 Yahoo Finance

🇺🇸 ReFiBuy launches Commerce Intelligence Engine. ReFiBuy, led by ChannelAdvisor co-founder Scot Wingo, released its AI-powered engine that benchmarks brands’ readiness for agentic shopping. The platform analyzes data to find gaps and offer fixes on content, pricing, and fulfillment for brands like Steve Madden. 👉 ChannelX

🇸🇬 SectionlyAI debuts product options app on Shopify. Singapore-based SectionlyAI launched the first AI-powered product-options app for Shopify, offering merchants tools to create advanced customization flows. The app features templates, an AI assistant, and a free plan with early 5-star reviews. 👉 PR Newswire

🇺🇸 Kibo rolls out reverse logistics and new AI agents. Kibo Commerce introduced a rules-based reverse logistics platform, B2B commerce upgrades, and new AI agents for customer service and shopping. The company says it reinvests about 40% of revenue into R&D, with 60+ platform updates this year. 👉 PRWeb

🇮🇱 Quack raises $7M for proactive AI support agents. Israeli startup Quack raised $7M from Hanaco, Storytime, and others to build AI agents for customer support that spot and solve problems before they escalate. Clients include Artlist, Yotpo, WalkMe, and Hologram; the company is led by Nadav Kemper and Aviram Roisman. 👉 Calcalist