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🌀TODAY’S MAZE
Happy Sunday! Europe is cracking down on bargain-basement imports just as Amazon finds new ways to speed up cross-border delivery and pull more sellers into its orbit. Singles Day shows what happens when hype turns into a subsidy marathon and growth loses its shine. Walmart keeps shifting power from shelf to screen as ecommerce becomes its real engine.
Maze Focus🌀
🛒 China’s Giant Slowdown
🏬 Walmart’s Digital Flip
🚚 Amazon’s New Speed Play
📦 Europe Ends Free Rides
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Last week handpicked news you need to know
🛒 General Ecommerce
👗 Vertical Ecommerce
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- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder
🌀 MAZE STORY
The Maze: The EU just moved to shut the door on cheap imports and will charge customs duties from the first euro. Ministers want to stop the flood of low value parcels that undercut local sellers and swamp border controls. A temporary fix lands in 2026 and the full regime kicks in once the new customs data hub goes live in 2028.
The details:
In 2024 Europe received about 4.6 billion parcels under 150 euros and roughly nine in ten came from China often shipped one by one to avoid duties.
Up to sixty five percent of small packages were undervalued to slip under the old limit and ministers agreed on 13 November 2025 to remove the threshold for good.
A new EU data platform will calculate item level duties by 2028 while governments explore a simple charge per parcel or product band as a bridge solution.
Why it matters: The age of untaxed fast fashion drops is ending. When duties hit every item the ultra cheap model loses air and European merchants regain ground. For ecommerce players this is a reset where margins logistics and customer promises need a fresh playbook.
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🌀 MAZE STORY
The Maze: Amazon just hit the accelerator on cross border shipping with FBM Ship+ and gives seller fulfilled orders a near Prime delivery promise without Prime level fees. China based merchants ship to Europe faster while keeping full control of stock. Cashback sweetens the deal and tests show meaningfully higher sales once faster dates appear on listings.
The details:
In November 2025 Amazon launched FBM Ship+ in France, Germany, Italy Spain and the UK and tied it to a strict one day handover rule for China origin parcels.
Early pilots showed around nine days faster delivery as partner carriers like YunExpress cut transit time and Amazon recalculated more realistic delivery dates.
Sellers in the program reported roughly one third higher sales after listings displayed verified quicker delivery dates and received extra account health protection.
Why it matters: Amazon is spreading Prime level speed without building more warehouses. It turns thousands of FBM sellers into a lightweight delivery network run by Amazon data and carrier deals. As ecommerce leans into fast and cheap cross border shipping this model forces marketplaces to balance speed with margin and keep sellers competitive.
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💎 DATA TREASURE
The Maze: Singles Day is still huge but the festival is clearly ageing. Growth looks strong on paper yet it depends on longer promo windows and heavy subsidies. Shoppers swap excitement for caution and the event now feels more like an extended clearance than a cultural moment.
The details:
In 2025 Singles Day rose roughly 17 percent after a 26 percent jump the year before while platforms stretched campaigns from early October into mid November.
Alibaba pushed billions in stacked vouchers to VIP shoppers and JD grew orders by leaning on a sale window that ran for more than five weeks.
Chinese consumers cut back on big ticket items as a weak property market and high youth joblessness pushed them toward cheaper brands and daily essentials.
Why it matters: The biggest shopping holiday on earth is turning into a margin drain. When a tentpole event runs too long it loses urgency and price wars take over. Marketplaces everywhere face the same trap as customers chase low prices and routine shopping instead of hype driven buying.
💎 DATA TREASURE
The Maze: Walmart is quietly rewiring its business and the real growth engine is online. Stores still move the volume but the profit pool shifts to marketplace fees and retail media. By 2030 Walmart starts to look less like a classic retailer and more like a logistics grid wrapped around a digital ad machine.
The details:
Ecommerce climbed from about 10 percent of US sales in 2020 to around 18 percent today and is tracking above 30 percent by 2030 as marketplace growth stays above 30 percent.
Walmart turned more than four thousand locations into fulfillment hubs and online sales grow in the mid twenties percent with third party sellers driving the mix.
Retail media grows faster than ecommerce with sponsored listings in nearly every search while guidance signals a cautious US consumer and tough competition.
Why it matters: Shelf power is moving from aisle to algorithm. Brands now win when product pages and on site ads outrun rivals. As Walmart leans into digital margin the real fight for visibility moves online and stores become the last mile engine that feeds it.
📰 BRIEFING
🛒Last week in General Ecommerce
🇬🇧 Amazon turns Black Friday into twelve days. Deals run from 20 November to 1 December so shoppers spread spending across the month and Amazon grabs wallet share before rivals react.
🇺🇸 Amazon rebrands Kuiper as Leo network. A constellation of more than three thousand low orbit satellites aims to bring low latency internet to remote users and power future logistics and cloud services.
🇸🇬 Shopee lifts GMV target for 2025. The platform now expects more than one hundred twenty five billion dollars in merchandise value this year as it scales profitable growth across Southeast Asia and Brazil.
🇺🇸 AliExpress pushes local sellers in US. New AI listing tools and integrations promise faster three to five day domestic delivery and lower entry barriers for American merchants fighting for budget driven shoppers.
🇩🇪 Platform Group plans forty thousand partners. A vision to expand from about sixteen thousand sellers to more than forty thousand by 2030 would turn its multi vertical marketplace stack into serious European infrastructure.
🇬🇧 UK shoppers sharpen Black Friday tactics. Consumers research offers early split buying across channels and still flock to stores which forces brands to combine real value with smarter online promotion.
🇵🇱 Allegro unlocks seller financing. Partnering with PKO Bank Polski the marketplace plans up to three hundred fifty million euros of funding and a cashback payment method over three years to grow and lock in merchants.
📰 BRIEFING
👗Last week in Vertical Ecommerce
🇩🇪 Zalando grows profit and leans into sports. Earnings and GMV rise over twenty percent as a new sports deal with the German football association signals a push into athletic fashion.
🇫🇷 Shein avoids French ban but stays under pressure. Paris backed off an immediate shutdown after Shein pulled illegal items but new French rules on fast fashion mean any further misstep could bring harsh penalties.
🇨🇳 Loreal China bets big on Alibaba Cloud AI. The beauty giant will use Qwen models and cloud tools to power personalised service faster product design and smarter planning across its China portfolio.
🇺🇸 Newegg opens shop on Shein in the US. The tie up brings more than one thousand tech items to Shein shoppers and turns the fashion app into a wider marketplace while Newegg taps Gen Z demand.
🇺🇸 TikTok Shop becomes beauty growth test lab. Beauty brands test bundles creator launches and live selling as they chase conversion rates that now look closer to China style content commerce than classic retail.
🇬🇧 Lyst finds new owner in Japans Zozo. The one hundred fifty four million dollar deal gives Zozo a stronger entry into European and US fashion search while keeping the Lyst brand and app running.
🇬🇧 Vinted chases growth and triggers sizing revolt. The resale leader plans moves into North America while angry UK users fix listings after new size rules changed item labels without clear warning.
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