#e-commerce

#e-commerce

"Our organization has become slow and inefficient," Heaf said. "Unnecessary complexity has reduced our speed and dampened our innovation."

The world's largest online retailer says this amounts to "computer fraud" when not disclosed. The clash between the two companies offers "an early glimpse into a looming debate" over "agentic artificial intelligence." Perplexity is among several tech firms, including Google and OpenAI, racing "to rethink the traditional web browser around AI," with automated agents that can complete tasks like emailing or shopping.

European Union finance ministers have agreed to impose customs duties on low-value parcels entering the bloc at some point next year, scrapping the long-standing "de minimis" exemption for goods under €150 (or $175). The move is seen as a way to slow the flood of cheap Chinese imports from platforms such as Shein and Temu. These goods now account for the bulk of the EU's 4.6 billion small parcels a year, more than 90% of which came from China.

Amazon's e-commerce business, which was shaky for several quarters, has made a major comeback. Revenue at its core North American business rose to $106 billion from $96 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Operating income dipped slightly to $5 billion. Revenue in its cloud business, which is considered its growth engine, rose from $27 billion to $33 billion year over year.

This growing exposure to foreign pricing, product range and service standards is subtly rewriting what people expect when buying locally. You now have instant access to global benchmarks, sometimes without even realising it. The simplicity of comparing multiple international sites in one place has normalised the idea that every transaction should be transparent, fast and competitively priced. The result is that British shoppers, once content with familiar high-street names, are beginning to demand the same level of choice and speed they experience from abroad.

While Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ) has delivered almost 1,200% over the past three years, and Palantir Technologies ( NASDAQ:PLTR ) has outperformed even that, with gains of 2,370%. Yet one stock has surpassed both of them - combined. AppLovin ( ) has posted a jaw-dropping 3,980% return over the same period, and there is no reason to believe it won't keep on growing going forward.

When Chinese fast-fashion online retailer Shein opened its first boutique last week there were both protests and a crowd of shoppers. The brick-and-mortar shop inside the BHV Marais department store in central Paris hit a nerve and not just because it is in the home of haute couture. It was a love-hate response to company seen in many other areas.

On Friday, Amazon announced the debut of Amazon Bazaar, a new low-cost shopping destination for Asia, Africa and Latin America that will be available separately from the main Amazon shopping app. On Bazaar, most products are available under $10, and some are as low as $2, the retailer says. Amazon says more markets will gain access to the app in the months ahead.

"It's very clear that live shopping in the US is going to be a huge, huge, huge market," Lafontaine told me. "And it's definitely going to be one of those shifts we see in e-commerce over the next 5 to 10 years. It's sort of been happening in Asia over the past decade or so, where upwards of $1 trillion worth of products are being sold through live video in China."

The e-commerce shift saw shoppers move over to Amazon and Walmart online for office supplies, while less demand saw remote and hybrid work sharply reduce office supply needs. There's also a foot traffic drop, where in-store visits and small-business purchasing both declined.

MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) will report third-quarter results after the bell Tuesday. Last quarter, MELI posted revenue of $6.79 billion, up 30% year-on-year, but missed EPS forecasts as normalized earnings came in at $10.31 versus consensus of $11.75, a 12% downside surprise. Despite the margin pressure from free-shipping and marketing campaigns, management reiterated confidence that these initiatives will accelerate user engagement and long-term monetization.

Absorb LMS is a well-known name in the corporate learning world. It gets a lot of attention for its deep e-commerce engine, making it a common choice for businesses that sell training. The learning platform also efficiently manages complex external training programs for customers, franchises, or partners. But no single learning management system, even a very capable one, can be the perfect tool for every company.

VeJa is a company that creates guitar plugins simulating amplifiers for music production. They were selling exclusively on the MOD Devices platform but wanted to expand their reach with their own online store. The challenge? They had great products, a loyal niche following, but no website. Just a logo. And us. The brief was simple: Our bootcamp team of three had just 8 days to prototype a e-commerce platform that would help VeJa compete

While there are plenty of brands that knock traditional retail out of the park (Sephora, Drunk Elephant, Huda Beauty), the throughline is the understanding that every channel needs to connect, ensuring customers can find your brand wherever they are in the shopping journey. That means ensuring brands are searchable on Google, discoverable on TikTok, reinforced with reviews on Amazon, tangible at Sephora, and community-led with engaging content on YouTube.

OpenAI brings ChatGPT Go plan to 16 more Asian countries OpenAI is expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan, priced under $5, to 16 new countries across Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan. In some of these countries, users can pay in local currencies, while in others, payments are required in USD, with final costs varying due to local taxes.

This summer, POKS Spices announced a somber business update on Instagram: After nine years of building a dedicated following on its own website, the West African seasoning company had decided to shift all product sales to Amazon. The choice is one many small entrepreneurs must make to survive-either stake their entire future on the e-commerce giant or shut down entirely.

Sam's Club shoppers are getting a perk their Costco friends don't have: more time to shop on Sundays. The Walmart-owned warehouse club said Friday that its stores will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily starting this weekend. The biggest shift is on Sundays, which previously had operating hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Costco locations open for executive members at 9 a.m. each day.

The move will give more than 200,000 UK-based TikTok Shop sellers access to Royal Mail's full range of services - from parcel collections and tracked delivery to drop-off points and compensation cover - through a seamless integration designed to make online selling easier, faster, and more reliable.