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TODAY’S MAZE
Happy Friday! Microsoft just enabled native shopping inside its AI chatbot via Copilot Checkout. This feature allows shoppers to buy items directly within the chat interface.
By partnering with payment platforms, Microsoft acts as a neutral ally. Will brands trade direct traffic for the promise of higher conversions?
In today’s MarketMaze focus:
Microsoft launches Copilot Checkout
Advent Moves On InPost
Walmart scales agentic commerce
EU China Platforms Surge
UK fashion industry shifts
+Handpicked recent news you need to know
LET’S ENTER THE MAZE!
- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder
MAZE STORY
The Maze: Microsoft is transforming its AI chatbot into a transactional engine by launching Copilot Checkout at NRF 2026. This new feature enables finalizing purchases natively within the interface, positioning the tech giant as a neutral partner for retailers.
The platform integrates with payment leaders like PayPal and Stripe to makes processing transactions easy for Etsy sellers without forcing users to navigate away from the chat.
Shopify stores will join the ecosystem through an automatic enrollment process that includes an opt-out window, a strategy that allows scaling the shopping network quickly despite potential brand concerns.
Retailers maintain control over fulfillment and customer data, which Microsoft highlights as a key advantage over competitors that often act as the merchant of record for AI-driven sales.
Why it matters: By removing friction from the path to purchase, Microsoft seeks to monetize its enterprise relationships while clawing back consumer market share. This shift toward agentic commerce forces brands to decide if increased conversion outweighs the risk of losing direct traffic to their owned web properties.
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MAZE STORY
The Maze: Private equity smells mispricing. A consortium led by Advent International is exploring a full takeover of InPost at a valuation above €6bn, well below its 2021 peak. This is a classic take-private logic: patient capital betting that logistics infrastructure compounds quietly while public markets get distracted.
In January 2026, InPost confirmed an indicative proposal for 100% of shares, formed a special committee, and saw its stock jump as markets priced in a credible path to a deal after months of weaker sentiment.
The shareholder math matters: PPF holds ~28.8%, Rafał Brzoska via A&R about 12.5%, and Advent ~6.5%, meaning nearly half the register already sits with potential deal insiders.
Banks are ready to provide up to €4.5bn in financing, a strong signal that lenders view parcel lockers as stable infrastructure with predictable cash flows, not fragile growth tech.
Why it matters: Ecommerce lives and dies on delivery economics. Parcel lockers cut last-mile costs and scale with volume. When private equity leans in, it is saying this boring asset still wins.
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MAZE STORY
The Maze: Walmart is aggressively scaling its agentic commerce strategy as incoming CEO John Furner prepares to lead the retailer’s push into automated job functions and improved product discovery. The retail giant now integrates AI across all operations, from internal merchant tools to consumer-facing checkout.
The company recently expanded its OpenAI partnership which enables purchasing products directly through ChatGPT’s instant checkout interface to capture more off-platform holiday sales.
Internal teams utilize a generative assistant named Wally which enables completing complex merchandising tasks while building a robust internal repository of institutional knowledge.
Global CTO Suresh Kumar describes a system of super agents that orchestrates smaller targeted units to manage various aspects of the business at scale across multiple cloud-based contexts.
Why it matters: Walmart’s pivot from simple chatbots to autonomous agents marks a fundamental shift in how retail behemoths manage inventory and customer intent. This strategy lowers operational overhead while setting a new standard for frictionless, platform-agnostic shopping.
DATA TREASURE
EU China Platforms Surge 🚀
The Maze: Europe’s bargain giants just crossed a scale milestone. New consumer data shows how AliExpress, Shein and Temu grew fast, why shoppers pick them, and what that says about value, baskets and product life cycles.
AliExpress, Shein and Temu passed 455 M monthly users across Europe by mid ’25, implying near 60% reach if users did not overlap.
In Poland, the same trio reached 36.7 M users by mid ’25, with growth rates diverging sharply by platform and period.
Price dominates purchase decisions, but most orders stay below €25 and half of clothing is worn less than one season.
Why it matters: China platforms are winning on scale, not depth. They trade high frequency for low baskets and short product lives. That model reshapes pricing power, margins and sustainability across European ecommerce.
DATA TREASURE
The Maze: UK online fashion is being hollowed out from both ends. Ultra-cheap global platforms and resale players are taking share while mid-market incumbents bleed. Growth is no longer about trends, but about who controls price, discovery, and attention.
In 2024, Temu grew 285% to $1.38B GMV, TikTok Shop grew 66%, Vinted hit $2.21B with 54% growth, while Shein reached $2.43B growing 36%, proving scale and velocity now coexist.
Legacy UK brands lost ground fast, with Asos down 13%, Boohoo down 20%, and River Island down 18%, trapped between rising costs and falling relevance.
Uniqlo grew 16% on smaller scale, showing disciplined product, pricing, and trust can still win without racing to the bottom.
Why it matters: Fashion ecommerce is now a distribution game. Social feeds, resale loops, and ultra-low pricing reset expectations. Brands that do not own either value or loyalty get squeezed out of the middle.
BRIEFING
🏬 Everything else in Ecommerce & Big Tech
🇺🇸 Instacart faced a probe from New York's Attorney General regarding its use of algorithmic pricing experiments and potential state law violations.
🌍 Amazon targets streaming ad dominance by leveraging its Marketing Cloud and viewer data, despite buyer concerns over inventory and new market rivals.
🌍 Google advised through John Mueller that brands should prioritize actual audience engagement over semantics in the ongoing SEO vs. GEO debate.
🇺🇸 Spangle AI secured $15 million in funding to scale its "agentic commerce" infrastructure that generates real-time, custom storefronts.
🇺🇸 USPS proposed a new rule requiring exact dimensions for all commercial parcels, impacting marketplace sellers on eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.
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