Latest E-commerce News & Updates
Last updated October 6, 2026
Google is quietly paying some publishers through a Search Console pilot when their content shapes AI Overviews and Gemini answers
StackAdapt adds Shopify President Harley Finkelstein as a strategic advisor as the ad platform expands beyond programmatic buying
AIUC raises a $40M Series A led by Ribbit Capital to audit and certify AI agents against its own SOC 2-style safety standard
India’s UPI network will charge merchants 0.4% on payments above ₹2,000 starting October 15, ending six years of free processing
Google adds experimental ad-load metrics to Chrome’s CrUX report that track how many ads a page shows and the data they use
Amazon cuts the share of North American packages shipped in single-use plastic from 65% to 37% by switching to stretchy paper
Amazon sets Prime Big Deal Days for October 6-7 and lets Alexa for Shopping auto-buy deals once they hit a shopper’s price
Instinct’s maker is in talks to raise $1B at a $10B valuation, less than a month after raising at $2.25B for its AI assistant
ByteDance’s first-half profit slips to $20B on AI spending even as TikTok helps push its revenue up about 30% to $120B
Anthropic adds Shopify, Stripe, and Zoom plugins to Claude for Small Business and starts training people to run workshops
Radical Ventures raises over $1B for Breakouts, the largest venture fund ever raised in Canada, to back late-stage AI startups
ZuckOff, a free app from a Polish developer, uses Bluetooth to warn people when Ray-Ban Meta or other smart glasses are nearby
Enova drops its bid to buy Grasshopper Bank after consumer groups warned a charter would let it make 100% APR loans nationwide
Meta launches Meta One subscriptions, with AI plans at $7.99 and $19.99 a month and business tiers that run up to $499
Meta launches a WhatsApp Business MCP server that lets AI agents like Claude and Codex set up and manage business messaging
OpenAI’s fast-growing ad business draws complaints from advertisers over weak results, limited targeting, and buggy tools
eBay promotes Germany chief Saskia Meier-Andrae to lead its EU marketplaces as it works to make cross-border selling easier
Target schedules its Target Circle Deal Days for October 6 and 7, the same two days as Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale
Meta launches its Creator Marketing Hub globally and brings live video partnership ads to Instagram starting September 29
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