In partnership with
TODAY’S MAZE
Happy Thursday! The European Commission has drastically escalated its oversight of cross-border commerce by conducting an unannounced inspection at Temu’s European headquarters in Dublin. This major action targets potential violations of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR).
The looming threat of punitive fines—up to 10% of global turnover—establishes a powerful precedent for platforms relying on foreign state backing. Can global marketplaces truly recalibrate their sales models before the low-value shipment customs waiver ends?
In today’s MarketMaze focus:
EU raids Temu HQ
Fulfillment war escalates
Platform AI drives efficiency
Resale growth accelerates
Gemini Closes Gap
+Handpicked recent news you need to know
LET’S ENTER THE MAZE!
- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder
MAZE STORY
The Maze: The European Commission conducted an unannounced inspection at the premises of a company operating in the e-commerce sector in the EU, Temu's European headquarters in Dublin, intensifying scrutiny over whether the Chinese e-commerce giant leverages state subsidies to gain an unfair competitive edge in the market.
Violations of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), which targets unfair foreign aid like interest-free loans and tax breaks, can result in punitive fines reaching up to 10% of the company’s global annual turnover.
Temu’s rapid expansion across the continent has given it an estimated 116 million average monthly users in Europe, underscoring the scale of its disruption to established marketplaces.
This crackdown coincides with EU plans to end the customs waiver on low-value shipments under €150 by the end of 2026, significantly impacting low-cost import logistics.
Why it matters: Ecommerce operators must now calibrate pricing and competitive models for a new European reality where foreign state backing is strictly penalized and high-volume, low-value imports face higher compliance hurdles. This investigation establishes a powerful precedent under the FSR, forcing global platforms to rapidly adapt their sales tactics and product legality verification processes or risk massive financial penalties.
FROM OUR PARTNERS
Your competitors are already automating. Here's the data.
Retail and ecommerce teams using AI for customer service are resolving 40-60% more tickets without more staff, cutting cost-per-ticket by 30%+, and handling seasonal spikes 3x faster.
But here's what separates winners from everyone else: they started with the data, not the hype.
Gladly handles the predictable volume, FAQs, routing, returns, order status, while your team focuses on customers who need a human touch. The result? Better experiences. Lower costs. Real competitive advantage. Ready to see what's possible for your business?
DATA TREASURE
The Maze: Resale is no longer a side hustle. It is a global growth engine scaling from $197B to $317B by ’27, flipping margins from deep red to green as operators industrialise. Consumer behaviour shifts and brand adoption create a flywheel that pushes resale into the mainstream. The result is a category moving faster than traditional fashion and reshaping value flows.
Secondhand fashion jumps from $197B in ’23 to $317B in ’27, with Asia lifting its share to 41% and North America holding near 25%, showing global demand widening fast.
Resale platforms reverse years of losses as EBITDA margins swing from negative double digits in ’20 to 13% for ThredUp and 20% for Vinted in ’24, proving scale economics kick in.
US brands expand resale programs from 36 in ’21 to 147 by Sep ’25, a 4x jump that signals institutional adoption and new customer acquisition pressure.
Consumers in the US, UK and China use resale to explore aspirational brands, with rates ranging from 66% to 85%, turning resale into a discovery funnel.
Why it matters: Resale is becoming a strategic channel, not an afterthought. Platforms unlock profit with automation and logistics scale while brands capture new customers and extend product life. Consumers reward value and sustainability as economic uncertainty reshapes behaviour, reinforcing resale as a durable part of the commerce stack.
MAZE STORY
The Maze: The race for sub-hour delivery escalated sharply as Amazon developed a 'rush' pickup service, expected to pilot in 2026, which makes collecting unified online and physical store orders within 60 minutes the new competitive standard. These accelerated timelines confirm that the ultimate retail prize lies not in inventory, but in mastery of highly integrated, instantaneous fulfillment networks.
Amazon recently expanded same-day perishable grocery delivery to 2,300 U.S. markets, seeing customers who add groceries shop about twice as often as those who do not.
Walmart is expanding drone delivery to metro areas, including Atlanta, while leveraging its vast network to offer Express Delivery as late as 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Uber Direct integrated with Shopify Plus merchants allows them to offer one-hour and same-day delivery, eliminating the cost and complexity of building their own last-mile logistics operations.
Why it matters: E-commerce teams must now prioritize integrated physical and digital channels, as compressed delivery times drive customer loyalty and conversion across B2C and B2B segments.
FROM OUR PARTNERS
Wall Street Isn’t Warning You, But This Chart Might
Vanguard just projected public markets may return only 5% annually over the next decade. In a 2024 report, Goldman Sachs forecasted the S&P 500 may return just 3% annually for the same time frame—stats that put current valuations in the 7th percentile of history.
Translation? The gains we’ve seen over the past few years might not continue for quite a while.
Meanwhile, another asset class—almost entirely uncorrelated to the S&P 500 historically—has overall outpaced it for decades (1995-2024), according to Masterworks data.
Masterworks lets everyday investors invest in shares of multimillion-dollar artworks by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.
And they’re not just buying. They’re exiting—with net annualized returns like 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5% among their 23 sales.*
Wall Street won’t talk about this. But the wealthy already are. Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…
*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.
DATA TREASURE
The Maze: The search gap between the two AI giants is shrinking fast and Gemini has moved from understudy to real contender. A year ago users searched for ChatGPT seven times more often. Today that ratio is just over four. The shift is fueled by Google pushing Gemini into every default surface while OpenAI doubles down on model quality after its internal code red. This is mindshare compounding at scale.
In Dec 2024 ChatGPT held about 88 percent of combined searches but slipped to 81 percent by Nov 2025 while Gemini rose from 12 percent to 19 percent and cut its search deficit from 7x to 4.3x as curiosity surged across mainstream users.
Weekly active users for ChatGPT sit near 800 million while Gemini’s monthly users range from the mid hundreds of millions to well above that after rapid growth and reach inside Android, Chrome, Maps and other daily surfaces.
Google’s AI features now appear in core products used by billions which drives organic adoption without conscious switching while OpenAI leans on paid plans, enterprise tools and its app store to hold engagement among high value users.
Why it matters: AI is no longer about the best model but the best distribution and Google owns the default entry points of the internet. OpenAI must win on depth rather than ubiquity because Gemini is becoming invisible infrastructure. The real battle will be fought where attention starts which increasingly happens inside products users already open hundreds of times a day.
MAZE STORY
The Maze: Shopify’s Winter 26 “Renaissance” ships over 150 AI driven updates that turn the platform into a full operating system for merchants, with Sidekick acting as a co pilot, products pushed into AI shopping assistants, and a Product Network that lets brands expand assortment without owning the stock. Sidekick stops being a toy chatbot and starts running real work. The platform becomes less app store and more command center for digital retail.
In Winter 26 Shopify bundles more than 150 new features across Sidekick, Agentic experiences and Product Network, moving from a website tool to a commerce backbone that helps merchants decide what to do next, not just where to click, inside a single admin.
Sidekick evolves into an operator that can propose actions, write and edit code, generate custom apps, automate flows, build analytics reports and segments, and even refine design and content, giving smaller teams access to the kind of digital muscle usually reserved for big enterprise stacks.
The Shopify Product Network and agentic storefronts let merchants sell complementary products from other stores for a fee, and surface their own catalog inside AI assistants such as shopping chats, creating new distribution without paid clicks, extra inventory or working capital locked in slow moving stock.
Why it matters: This push makes AI the default interface for running a Shopify business, not a side feature you toggle on and off. Merchants can offload grunt work in operations, analytics and creative to Sidekick while using Product Network and AI shopping channels to reach buyers who may never visit their site. Over time the winners will be brands that treat Shopify as an AI powered control room for ecommerce, using it to scale assortment, speed, and margin discipline at the same time.
BRIEFING
🏬 Everything else in Ecommerce
🇰🇷 Coupang announced the resignation of its CEO following a massive data breach at Farfetch that compromised 33.7 million customers and prompted multiple class-action lawsuits.
🇺🇸 Wall Street is preparing for a potential gusher of high-valuation IPOs in 2026, including Databricks, Anthropic, and SpaceX, fueled by early AI investor success.
🇺🇸 Walmart is maintaining its proprietary payment strategy, remaining one of the last major retailers to reject NFC-based payments like Apple Pay in favor of its own app-based features.
🇺🇸 Home Depot and Lowe’s are tapping AI to streamline the consumer renovation journey, aiming to capture spending early in the planning stage from initial idea to project completion.
🇬🇧 Sustainability experts predict that the 2026 fashion market will be defined by accelerating growth in branded resale models and increased investment in data infrastructure for textile-to-textile recycling.
🇦🇺 Australia has implemented a law banning social media accounts for children under 16, escalating pressure on US senators to pass similar legislation that would drastically affect platform audience reach.
🇺🇸 eBay Ventures invested $4 million in Azoma, an AI search optimization startup dedicated to helping brands and sellers increase their visibility within emerging AI overviews and chatbot results.
🇺🇸 Amazon Business rolled out its first dedicated branded delivery fleet for commercial customers in select US markets, signaling a major expansion into specialized B2B logistics.
🇺🇸 Moddule is challenging the "analog culture" of global shipping by deploying artificial intelligence to move the logistics industry beyond inefficient manual processes.
SHARE THE MAZE
Your network thinks you’re as smart as the content you share. Share smarter stuff and help us grow. Win–win. Here’s what you get when friends join the Maze:
Here is your unique referral link to share with friends:
and link to the hub to check your progress.
THAT’S IT FOR TODAY!
You’re the reason our team spends hundreds of hours every week researching and writing this email. Please let us know what you thought of today’s email to help us create better emails for you.
What do you think of this issue?
If you enjoyed it please share it with a friend, or share it on LinkedIn and tag me (Artur Stańczuk), I’d love to engage and amplify!
If this was forwarded by a friend you can subscribe below for $0 👇
See you next time in the maze!
MarketMaze team
