Hi Shopifreaks Holy crap I've got a big issue for you today! There was so much e-commerce news this week that half of my feature stories are curations of multiple updates and announcements about a particular company or event. This is truly a jam-packed edition!...
#277 -WTO is deadlocked, Amazon opens its supply chain, & OpenAI launches an ads manager
Hi Shopifreaks I've got a BIG edition for you today with feature stories about Amazon's new Supply Chain Services, WTO deadlocks, ChatGPT ads managers, and more, so I'll keep this intro short. However, I did want to ask you a quick favor... Are you enjoying...
#276 – GameStop wants to buy eBay, Commerce pivots, & Shopify’s money transmitter license
Hi Shopifreaks Last week I had the pleasure of attending Commerce Live in Chicago and meeting several Commerce team members, including CEO Travis Hess, who was kind enough to do an AMA with me and answer reader-submitted questions. Watch the first video here and...
#275 – Blatant price fixing, BigCommerce transaction fees, & Streaming-as-a-Service
Hi Shopifreaks As you're reading this, I'm currently on a plane en route from Cuenca, Ecuador to Chicago, Illinois to attend Commerce Live, the annual BigCommerce event formerly known as BigSummit, to talk about the future of the industry with my fellow e-commerce...
#274 – X Money will destroy the world, UPS is RFID everywhere, & Amazon knew it was price-fixing
Hi Shopifreaks Help me out! Next week I'm interviewing Commerce CEO Travis Hess. What should I ask him? Hit reply and let me know what questions I should bring to the table about the future of BigCommerce, Feedonomics, and Makeswift. I'll curate the best questions and...
#273 – Rezolve’s hostile takeover, Shopify’s AI Toolkit, and PayPal’s big social commerce move
Hi Shopifreaks 🎉 Before we begin, I'm excited to present a new pitch from my video series 90 Second Pitches -- a channel that helps you discover innovative e-commerce technology from the most promising startups. You can subscribe to the channel on YouTube &...
#272 – Shopify B2B For All, Amazon Fuel Surcharges, & OpenAI’s Secret Coalition
Hi Shopifreaks The biggest news this week -- my daughter turned 3 years old on Sunday! Happy Birthday to Mia! How quickly time flies. It simultaneously feels like Mia just arrived, but also that she's been in our lives forever. She's growing into an amazing little...
#271 – 24/7 Amazon Delivery, Meta Tests AI Shopping, & Round Two For Shopify and ChatGPT
Hi Shopifreaks Lots of e-commerce news and big announcements from Shoptalk 2026 this week. The edition after Shoptalk each year is always a big one! The overall trend of this week's edition seems to be that Big Tech companies are learning from their past mistakes and...
#270 – Amazon vs USPS, Google updates UCP, & Walmart launches a ChatGPT app
Hi Shopifreaks Before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you for your readership. Many of you have been with me since the very beginning when I launched Shopifreaks in January 2021 -- which feels like a lifetime ago in the world of e-commerce! I'm sure it...
#269 – Amazon vs Perplexity, Trump’s $10B Commission, & Shop Direct’s Breakout
Hi Shopifreaks 🎉 Before we begin, I'm excited to present a new pitch from my video series 90 Second Pitches -- a channel that helps you discover innovative e-commerce technology from the most promising startups. You can subscribe to the channel on YouTube &...
#268 – Delayed Checkout, Meta AI Shopping, & Google’s patent to take your traffic
Hi Shopifreaks I've got a big edition today jam-packed with stories about AI commerce -- what it could've been, and what it actually is in 2026. Is agentic commerce a solution looking for a problem? Or was OpenAI simply too early with Instant Checkout? I'd love to...
#267 – The Stripe-PayPal Merger, Shopify Campaigns in ChatGPT, & 1000+ Tariff Lawsuits
Hi Shopifreaks Before we begin, I’d like to welcome DataFeedWatch to the Shopifreaks family as our newest official News Partner! 🎉🥳 DataFeedWatch is a product feed management platform that helps PPC teams at e-commerce merchants and agencies optimize and distribute...
#266 – Reddit Shopping, TikTok Gives In, & Perplexity Joins the Anti-Ad Movement
Hi Shopifreaks Big week in e-commerce! Some weeks are inevitably more exciting than others in our industry when it comes to product releases and company updates, and this week is a fun one. It's a fairly comprehensive edition, even more so than usual, so let's dive...
#265 – Google’s first agentic, TikTok Local, & OpenAI’s trouble with the basics
Hi Shopifreaks I'd like to give a quick shoutout to my sponsors before we get started, including Go Fish Digital, Doola, TaxCloud, Cloudways, Napster, and Seguno, as well as the companies that have participated in my new 90 Second Pitch series. Your financial support...
#264 – PayPal’s CEO, Shop App’s new feed, & TikTok’s Autopilot Mode
Hi Shopifreaks How'd your Super Bowl Sunday go? Did you bet your life savings on the Seattle Seahawks winning like that one TikToker did? Actually that didn't turn out to be such a bad idea... This week I've got an incredible edition for you covering everything from...
#263 – Meta goes agentic, OpenAI ads are expensive, & Amazon quits biometrics early
Hi Shopifreaks Have you seen my new video series 90 Second Pitches? If not, check it out on YouTube and LinkedIn. My goal for the channel is to help merchants discover innovative e-commerce technology from the industry's most promising startups, while giving those...
#262 – The 4% Rule, TikTok’s logistics push, & the future of Shopify Partnerships
Hi Shopifreaks, Before we begin, I’d like to welcome Seguno to the Shopifreaks family as our newest official News Partner! 🎉 Seguno offers an email marketing suite, a bulk discount code generator, and a seamless Canva integration made specifically for Shopify...
#261 – ChatGPT Ads, Google Siri, & Amazon objects, your honor!
Hi Shopifreaks Real Quick: Do you know of any cloud e-mail services that can consolidate multiple personal and work e-mails into one inbox? And actually store the e-mails in one place? Preferably in the cloud and not on my hard drive. I've learned that Google is...


















