Hi Shopifreaks
I hope you had a great week! I just arrived home from Alibaba's CoCreate 2025 event in Las Vegas. It was a great event, with speeches from Shark Tank's Lori Greiner and Daymond John, as well as speakers from Alibaba (of course), Kickstarter, Fast Company, and other notable platforms and publications.
However the highlight of the event for me was the CoCreate Pitch Finals, where twenty entrepreneurs had 90 seconds each to rapid-fire pitch their companies in an attempt to win part of a $1M prize pool. A few of my favorite brands to pitch included:
- Birdie Blue – sustainable bags made from repurposed ski gear. I'm a big fan of upcycle startups, especially ones like Birdie Blue that offer flexible employment opportunities for work-from-home manufacturers.
- Joe & Bella – stylish apparel designed to help elderly and disabled adults dress independently. I was impressed with some of the innovations involved with creating functional apparel like their magnetic buttons and pants with multiple zippers that make it easier for caretakers to help dress the wearer.
- Club Girl Golf – a startup that exclusively makes golf clubs for women via steel and polymer 3D printing. The impressive young woman who launched the company hasn't even graduated college yet!
- Never Have I Ever Shop – a beauty brand that licenses art for press-on nails and temporary tattoos. I love how they crafted a business model that can adapt so quickly to fashion and art trends.
- The Better Tool Company – maker of a garden hoe with a retractable rake. I had actually seen their videos on TikTok before attending the event.
The pitch competition was very inspirational for me to watch because of some upcoming plans that I'll reveal more about soon. It was like watching a LIVE Mini Shark Tank — which made sense given that Daymond John hosted the competition and Lori Greiner was one of the judges. I look forward to attending future CoCreate events in the coming years.
And now, let's dive into e-commerce news!
In this week's edition I cover:
- Nvidia's tiny customer base
- Google avoids a break up
- Amazon ends sharing Prime shipping
- Amazon likely overcharged you
- Google & TikTok hit with massive fines
- Walmart's OnePay launches a mobile network
- So might MrBeast!
- Amazon's abhorrent DSP policies
- Costco's secret weapon is… gold?
- Nepal bans Facebook & YouTube
- OpenAI launches a job platform
- Shein's unlikely fashion model
- Mark Zuckerberg's hot mic blunder
All this and more in this week's 242nd Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
Stat of the Week
85% of Nvidia's $46.7B revenue came from just six mystery customers during Q2, according to TechCrunch. The company didn't disclose the names of the companies, but indicated that they were all “direct” customers, including OEMs, system integrators, or distributors, which are then purchased by “indirect” customers such as cloud service providers and consumer Internet companies.
1. Google avoids being broken up, but must share its secret sauce
Google won't have to sell its Chrome browser, according to U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta — the same judge who ruled last year that Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising.
Instead of breaking up the company, Judge Mehta barred Google from signing exclusive search distribution deals and required it to share some search data with rivals, though he allowed ongoing payments like its $20B Safari deal with Apple to continue.
Quick Backstory: Several years ago, the U.S. Justice Department brought two cases against Google.
- The first was filed in 2020 and targeted the company’s dominance in online search and search advertising, accusing it of using default agreements and other exclusionary tactics to maintain its monopoly. That's the case that Judge Mehta ruled on in August 2024, declaring Google a monopoly in those areas, and just now issued remedies barring exclusive search deals and requiring Google to share certain data with rivals. More details on that below.
- The second DOJ case was filed in January 2023 and targets Google’s digital advertising technology business (the “ad tech stack”), alleging that Google monopolized the tools publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell ads, and asking the court to consider forcing Google to divest parts of that business. This case is being heard by a different judge, Leonie Brinkema and is still ongoing. Google is scheduled to go to trial later this month to determine remedies for this case, so stay tuned.
Back to Judge Mehta's new ruling on the first case:
- Google won't have to divest its Chrome browser, much to the dismay of Perplexity, OpenAI, and other hungry buyers.
- Google can also keep its Android operating system and won't have to divest that either.
- Google is barred from entering into exclusive contracts with mobile device makers and other software providers, however, it can continue making $20B annual payments to Apple to remain Safari's default search engine, as long as the deal isn't exclusive.
- Google has to share data with certain rivals to open up competition in online search. That includes a snapshot of its search index and some user-interaction data, like queries and clicks, so competitors can improve the quality of their own search results. This one is 100% going to get challenged by Google, as it should, because it doesn't make much sense to force Google to share the recipe to its secret sauce with competitors. How does that do more to curb monopoly power than simply breaking up the company? Google already said in a blog post that it was worried the data sharing requirement “will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely.”
Mehta wrote in his ruling, “The money flowing into this space, and how quickly it has arrived, is astonishing.” — adding that currently AI companies are already better placed to compete with Google than any search engine has been in decades.
Google plans to file an appeal, which means it could take years before the company is required to act on the ruling, as the case is likely to end up in the Supreme Court. A lot can change in the market in the meantime, which would impact the merits of the case.
2. Amazon is ending its Prime Invitee Program
Amazon is putting an end to its Prime Invitee Program, which let Prime members share their free shipping benefits with friends and family from a different household.
The program is ending at the end of this month, and customers will roll into the Amazon Family program, which lets Prime members share benefits with one other adult and up to four kids in their home. Family members can also share Amazon Music, audiobooks, e-books, and access to Grubhub+ with the Family program.
New signups for Prime Invitee have been closed for several years, but users in the program have been grandfathered in until now. However to soften the blow, Amazon is letting affected users sign up for Amazon Prime for just $14.99 for a whole year, before it jumps up to the normal $14.99/month, which is kind of nice.
One big change, however, is that Prime Invitee didn't require users to share a wallet, whereas Prime Family does to ensure that all members are in the same house, which is extremely dumb. Do husbands, wives, and older kids not pay for things with their own money? This requirement to share a wallet is a bit out of touch with how many households work in regards to sharing finances.
The change comes as Prime signups in the U.S. in the run-up to this year's Prime Day fell short of last year's total and the company's target.
How long do you think it'll be before Amazon removes “free Prime shipping” as a perk for sending gifts to other households too? “Sorry, free Prime shipping is just for sending orders to your house. However try our ‘Amazon Prime Gift Delivery' for $5.99 to ship to additional locations.”
3. Amazon may have violated antitrust law by forcing sellers to offer their products cheapest on its marketplace
Amazon.com must face a class action lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers over claims that it overcharged for products sold by third-party sellers, a federal judged in Seattle ruled. Guilty! Next!
U.S. District Judge John Chun certified the nationwide class-action involving 288M customers and billions of transactions, marking one of the largest-ever cases of its kind in the United States. The suit includes buyers in the United States who purchased five or more new goods from third-party sellers on Amazon since May 26, 2017.
The lawsuit claims that Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on competing platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. (Yes, Amazon does this by threatening to take away the seller's Buy Box, which ultimately kills their sales.)
The lawsuit alleges that these policies have allowed Amazon to impose inflated fees on sellers, which resulted in shoppers paying higher prices for items.
Amazon, of course, denies all wrongdoing, argues that the lawsuit is too large to be manageable, and alleges that the plaintiffs failed to show the company's conduct had a widespread effect. Amazon also said that since 2019, it hasn't used the pricing program that the plaintiffs are challenging.
However Judge Chun found no evidence that the size of the class was too big, noting that other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members.
This could be a big one for Amazon!
4. Big Tech is having an expensive week
European Union regulators hit Google with a €2.95B ($3.5B) fine for breaching its competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services and ordered the company to ends its “self-preferencing practices” as well as take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.
The decision comes more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google, at the time saying that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google's digital add business was to sell off parts of its business. However this recent decision marks a retreat from that earlier position, aligning with Judge Mehta's decision in the U.S. last week (from story #1 above).
Simultaneously across the ocean, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled that Google must pay $425M for unlawfully tracking millions of users who believed they had disabled data collection on their accounts, concluding a trial in which plaintiffs argued that Google violated its own privacy assurances through the Web & App Activity setting, which lets users manage whether their searches, location history, and interactions with Google or partner websites and apps are stored.
But wait, there's more…
The Irish EU Data Protection Commission fined TikTok €530M ($600M) for illegally sending European's data to China, where its parent company ByteDance is located. Specifically TikTok was found in breach of two articles of GDPR for not fulfilling its obligations concerning data transfer to China and transparency. The company now has six months to brings it data processing into compliance or suspend any transfers to China. TikTok rejects the regulator's decision and plans to appeal.
5. Everybody wants to be Ryan Reynolds
Mobile Virtual Network Operators — aka: MVNOs — the new belle of the ball. Launching them have gotten easier than ever, and as a result, more companies are jumping on the MNVO bandwagon.
Quick Reminder: If you're unfamiliar, MVNOs are wireless companies that don't own their own network infrastructure. Instead they lease access from major carriers like AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile and resell mobile service under their own brand, oftentimes with lower prices or niche plans.
Legacy providers like Cricket Wireless, Virgin Mobile, and Boost Mobile have existed for quite some time, and in recent years, celebrity-backed MVNOs like Mint Mobile (Ryan Reynolds), SmartLess Mobile (Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett), and Trump Mobile, are having their moment. Most recently, in June, I reported that Klarna was launching an MVNO in the U.S., soon to be followed by the UK, Germany, and other countries. (Anything to boost that revenue pre-IPO.)
So who's next to launch an MVNO? The answer is…
- MrBeast is rumored to be launching a mobile phone service in 2026, according to a leaked investor deck from early 2025 viewed by Business Insider. The move could help round out his portfolio of brands which now include Feastables (a chocolate bar brand), Lunchly (a Lunchables competitor), and a toy line, among others.
- OnePay, the fintech majority owned by Walmart is following in Klarna's footsteps and launching its own branded wireless plan called OnePay Wireless, which will cost $35/month for unlimited 5G data, talk, and text on the AT&T network. The plan can be activated through the OnePay app and is launching in partnership with Gigs, a software platform that provides “MVNO-as-a-Service.”
- Not quite a full blown MVNO, but Amazon introduced a new eero product at IFA 2025 that can provide users with connectivity in their home in case of Internet outages. The new eero Signal connects to any USB-C powered eero device on a network that supports WiFi 6 and up, detects outages, and automatically connects users to a cellular network with its multi-carrier eSIM in the device. Once it detects your home Internet is back, it switches back to your WiFi.
Here's my dream MVNO — designed for Americans like myself who are rarely in their own country anymore, but need to keep an active plan for when they are home: $5/month for unlimited talk / text + 1GB of data. From there, pay-as-you-go data consumption at $3/GB. Right now I'm paying Mint Mobile $240/year (plus their bullshit hidden, unadvertised service fees) for 5GB/month — which I don't use for 10 months of the year. Then when I am back home, I blow through the 5GB and have to repeatedly pay $10 for 1GB or $20 for 3GB. I end up overspending throughout the year for data I don't use, and then overspending again when I'm home and actually need a reasonable amount of data. Whoever launches that MVNO first — I'm in. We'll call it the “Digital MVNOmad” plan.
6. Amazon screws over its delivery service partners
Amazon is pausing a controversial plan to redistribute its fleet of delivery vans after encountering widespread resistance from its delivery service partners that operate them. These partners lease the vans from a fleet manager selected by Amazon and are contractually obligated to pay for repairs before returning them to the company for redeployment (of which they have no option to say no), and participants say they have been hit with surprise bills totaling tens of thousands of dollars.
Some delivery service providers say the high repair bills have been impacting their profitability, but that they have no ability to challenge them without risking that Amazon cancel their contracts. Several company owners have chosen to close down or declare bankruptcy because they couldn't afford the repair costs.
So let's get this straight:
- Delivery service providers are independent operators.
- However they have to lease their vans from whoever Amazon tells them to.
- They have to pay for repairs themselves, even though they couldn't select more reliable vehicles.
- They have to use an Amazon-supplied app to receive repair estimates, which partners say are unreliable.
- Then they have to pay surprise bills after the estimates prove to have been wildly inaccurate because they have no ability to get repairs done at the facility of their choosing.
- And to make matters even worse, partners never know when Amazon will demand up to 10 of their vehicles be reassigned to another company or shifted into a rental fleet, while still leaving them responsible for the repair costs.
This one turned out to be so ridiculous that even Amazon recognized it! Well, partly…
In a forum post last week, an Amazon representative said the company would suspend all pickups of vehicles for repair prior to redeploying them while it examines the complaints. Nice move, but too little too late for the delivery service providers that already went out of business over the matter.
An Amazon spokesperson later told WSJ that the company encourages delivery service providers to dispute incorrect invoices and has identified issues with how the app made estimates that were incorrectly passed on to a partner, and later, Amazon said that delivery service providers would receive a temporary 20% discount for repairs.
How about instead you let them truly operate as independent service providers and buy / operate / repair / sell their vehicles as they see fit?
It's one thing to say, “Hey partners, your cars need to prominently display the Amazon logo, as well as be clean and presentable at all times on routes.”
It's another thing to say, “We can take your cars at a moment's notice, and you're responsible for repairs, and you have to use this shady mechanic who gives shitty estimates and then surprises you with huge bills.”
At this point, nothing Amazon does really surprises me anymore though.
7. Costco brilliantly uses gold to boost its e-commerce revenue
E-commerce sales through Costco.com grew 14.8% in Q3 YoY, on top of 20.7% growth in 2023, and it turns out that much of that growth can be attributed to the company's online gold sales.
Analysts estimate that Costco sells over $200M a month in gold, which hit a record high of more than $3,600 per ounce on Wednesday. Although precious metal sales have thin margins, they do wonders at boosting Costco's bottom line e-commerce revenue growth.
Costco didn't share exact sales figures for gold on its Q3 earnings call, but former CFO Richard Galanti has previously said that the supply usually sells out “within hours” of its release, especially when its spot price rises faster than the retail price.
Costco's super low markup on gold is a big appeal for first-time gold buyers who trust the product they're receiving since it comes from Costco versus a shady pawn shop or local gold dealer, and the appeal is helping to drive hundreds of millions of dollars in sales through its website, allowing Costco to show strong e-commerce growth with relatively low risk or long-term capital investment.
The buzz around its gold and silver are also helping to attract new membership sign-ups, since the precious metals are member exclusives.
A pretty brilliant strategy Costco! Is Target going to copy it? Next week we'll read a press release from Target, “Well, we can't afford gold right now, but, introducing Sterling Silver Bars!”
8. Nepal bans 26 social media platforms for not following their new rules
Nepal's government shut off access to 26 major social media and messaging platforms including Facebook, X, YouTube, WeChat, and LinkedIn after they failed to comply with its registration requirements by providing a local contact, grievance handler, and person responsible for self-regulation.
This doesn't surprise me about Meta after reading Careless People earlier this year, a memoir that showcased how little the company cares about complying with regulation on foreign markets, but it does surprise me about Google and Microsoft, which are traditionally more responsible when it comes to foreign regulation.
A spokesperson for the ministry said, “We requested them to enlist with us five times. What to do when they don't listen to us?”
Honestly, I don't blame Nepal one bit. What good are rules if you don't enforce them?
However there have been consequences…
The ban has caused confusion across the country and ignited fears about how it could affect press freedom and the tourism industry, as well as how families can continue to communicate with relatives working abroad as migrant laborers. About 7.5% of Nepal’s 29M population was living abroad in 2021, according to most recent census figures.
Many users have switched to Viber and TikTok, the only major platforms that have complied with the registration.
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
OpenAI is launching the OpenAI Jobs Platform, a new AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses with AI-savvy employees and freelancers, putting it in closer competition with Microsoft-owned LinkedIn. The platform, which is expected to launch in mid-2026, “will use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need and what workers can offer,” offering a dedicated track for small businesses and local governments to access top AI talent. So AI will write the job posts and the resumes, and then connect the two? LOL. OpenAI is also introducing AI certifications via OpenAI Academy, a program designed to validate AI fluency from basic workplace use to prompt engineering, aiming to certify 10M Americans by 2030.
Whaleco Inc, the U.S. subsidiary of PDD Holdings that's responsible for Temu's operations within the U.S. and other international markets, will pay $2M to resolve allegations that it violated the INFORM Consumers Act by failing to provide consumers with required information and tools to help them avoid and report stolen, counterfeit, or unsafe goods while shopping on the website. This is the first action taken to enforce the INFORM Act, which requires online marketplaces to provide a way for consumers to report suspicious activity and to disclose identifying information for high-volume sellers. The proposed consent order would also require Temu to add clear telephonic reporting tools and disclose mandated seller information across all marketplace versions to comply with the INFORM Act.
Shein took heat for using an AI-generated image of Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, to sell a floral button-down shirt — which he looks great in, but it's not actually him! The listing was created by the third-party brand, Manfinity, and was removed after discovery, although it had already sold out in most sizes. Shein told Newsweek that it was “conducting a thorough investigation, strengthening our monitoring processes, and will take appropriate action against the vendor in line with our policies.”
Zalando, Europe's biggest online fashion retailer, sued the European Commission after it was designated a very large online platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act, arguing that it differs from other online giants because it's a hybrid service, selling its own products as well as those from 3rd party sellers. However the courts rejected Zalando's lawsuit and confirmed the company as a VLOP, citing its 83M monthly active users, not the 30M it claimed on the basis of its gross value of sales generated under its Partner Programme, because Zalando itself could not distinguish which of its monthly active users were or were not exposed to information provided by 3rd party sellers. The Commission said that the ruling sent a message to U.S. critics (*cough*, Donald Trump) that the judgement “confirms once again that the DSA is a non-discriminatory tool” and “applies to all online platforms in the EU.”
Amazon is testing new AI-powered agentic workplace software called Quick Suite that lets companies design custom agents for business and team needs, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Several companies have been given a private preview of the new technology including BMW, Intuit, and Koch Industries, and Amazon recently sent out invitations for an internal beta test. Quick Suite will merge some of AWS's existing products, such as its data analysis platform QuickSight and its AI chatbot Q Business, while adding a new product called Quick Flows that provides pre-built workflows that let customers automate tasks through natural language prompts.
President Trump hosted CEOs and executives from major tech companies at the White House on Thursday evening including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, and Sundar Pichai, where one by one, he asked each executive how much they were investing in the United States, all while broadcasting the event on C-SPAN. Noticeably absent from the event was Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Jensen Huang, but it's unclear if they weren't invited or if they had a scheduling conflict. At one point, Zuckerberg was asked by Trump how much he was spending, to which Zuckerberg replied, “Oh gosh, um, I mean, I think it's probably going to be something like, at least $600B through '28 in the US, yeah.” However later he leaned over to Trump to privately admit that the president caught him off guard, saying, “I'm sorry I wasn't ready… I wasn't sure what number you wanted to go with” — not realizing that the moment was caught on a hot mic.
Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5B to authors for pirating their work for its AI training and destroy all copies of the books that the company pirated to train its models, covering 500k works and marking the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of U.S. copyright litigation. If the court approves the settlement, each author will receive $3,000 per work that Anthropic stole, however that figure could be much higher depending on the final number of claims submitted. The settlement would set an incredible precedent for similar cases moving forward.
BestBuy named FedEx its primary national parcel carrier, choosing the company over competitors for its Sunday delivery capabilities. To cement the partnership, Best Buy added FedEx real-time tracking data into customer order communications to provide “more timely and accurate updates” and “reduce support calls, cancellations and reship costs.” Best Buy still uses USPS, OnTrac, Shipt, DoorDash and Roadie in some regions, while marketplace sellers can ship with UPS or the courier of their choosing.
Wix introduced Email Assistant, a generative AI tool that drafts and designs marketing emails while helping merchants refine layout, visuals, and messaging. Users can chat with the tool to explain campaign goals, share ideas, and set tone of voice, and the Assistant will pull relevant business data from the Wix business manager to generate a draft with copy and visuals. The email can then be edited manually or refined further through the Assistant.
Meta updated its Ads Manager to include incremental attribution, an AI-powered option that aims to show a clearer link between ads and conversions. Standard attribution credits conversions within set time windows, while incremental attribution predicts whether a conversion was caused by an ad using machine learning models. The approach considers more data points to reflect modern consumer behavior, aiming to provide broader performance insights. Meta’s documentation has been refreshed to explain the differences, and the option now appears to be available to more advertisers.
Chinese e-commerce and logistics companies are rapidly leasing warehouse space in Europe as U.S. tariffs under President Trump push them to seek alternative markets. In the UK alone, Chinese firms have taken more than 2M square feet this year, led by JD.com’s 900k sq.ft. expansion and launch of its Joybuy platform. Other players like Shein, Super Smart Service, Top Cloud Logistics, and Daals are also expanding across the continent, with Poland and the UK their top choice for hubs. Europe's largest publicly traded industrial property developer, CTP, said that Asian manufacturing tenants typically account for just over 10% of its leasing activity, however they've accounted for 20% of activity in the prior 18 months, with over half of those occupiers from China.
Singapore police ordered Meta to introduce anti-scam measures on Facebook after a rise in impersonation scams involving government officials. Meta faces a possible fine of up to S$1M if it fails to comply, under Singapore's Online Criminal Harms Act, which began in February 2024. Police data showed cases of impersonation scams involving government officials tripling to 1,762 in the first half of 2025, with losses reaching S$126.5M, marking an 88% rise YoY.
In education initiatives this week… TikTok added new courses and guides to help creators and merchants build their presence on TikTok Shop, including a “Creator Pilot Program,” content policy quizzes, and scores for Shop guideline compliance. eBay unofficially relaunched its Education Specialist program, which it killed in 2016, making available in-house advisors who can offer tailored guidance to sellers during free 45-minute clinics, offering one-on-one advice on topics like selling basics, growth strategies, and seller standards. Eligible business sellers are entitled to three sessions per year, with the program ideally suited for those with under $100k in GMV in the past 12 months.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to rewrite Biden-era rules in the next year on small business lending, personal data rights, and nonbank oversight, as well as potentially eliminate existing rules on mortgage servicing, loan officer compensation, and payday lending. Great idea! Who needs consumer protection laws? The 2008 crisis proved that banks and lenders can act responsibly in safeguarding consumers from predatory lending practices, right? What a joke. It's unclear at the moment how the CFPB will achieve its deregulatory goals given that the Trump Administration wants to fire up to 90% of the bureau's staff, and employees are currently being paid not to work while the agency fights a legal battle with the National Treasury Employees Union. So the potential outcomes are currently either — deregulate or gut the agency so that enforcement becomes impossible — a loss for American consumers either way.
Roblox introduced Roblox Moments, a short-form video feed that lets users capture, edit, and share gameplay clips directly on the platform via a familiar TikTok-style feed. Players can watch highlights like wins or fails and tap “join” to instantly try out the featured experience themselves. The company plans to release APIs to let creators build their own in-experience content creation and sharing tools, aimed at boosting creativity, social interaction, and monetization. Love it!
Facebook is bringing its poke back! Technically it never went away, but now Facebook is once again trying to bring more attention to the legacy feature by making it a more central part of the Facebook experience. Now users are able to poke their friends from a new, dedicated button directly on their Facebook profile, which will alert the recipient through their notifications. Recipients can also see who poked them in a new Pokes Dashboard, as well as view their “poke count” with friends. $10 says Facebook tries to monetize the poke in 2026?
P.Louise, a UK-based beauty brand, broke its own TikTok Shop Live sales record with $2.7M in revenue during a 14-hour Christmas collection launch. The event featured two new advent calendars and lifted the brand's AOV to $80 compared to $20 in last year's sessions. P. Louise now holds the top two TikTok Shop Live Records in the UK and EU and ranks as the platform's leading brand overall.
Instagram released an official app for the iPad, just a short 15 years after the device first launched in 2010. For almost a decade, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri repeatedly dodged questions about whether the iPad would get a dedicated app, claiming the company didn't have the resources or that it wasn't a priority, despite the demand from iPad users. The new app opens to a Reels feed with Stories and Following tabs, shows comments beside full-size videos, and displays DMs with the inbox alongside chats, similar to Messenger desktop. Meta says a tablet version for Android is coming soon.
Klarna expanded its debit-first card to users across Europe following a successful launch in the U.S. in July, where 685k Americans signed up within two months. The Klarna Card is debit by default, allowing users to pay instantly with their own funds at more than 150M locations that accept Visa, but following the transaction, cardholders can choose to pay upfront or choose from various BNPL payment options. The card is available in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden with plans to expand to additional European countries soon.
In corporate shakeups this week… Dilip Kumar, VP of AWS Applications who led its Quick Suite AI project and previously launched Amazon's Just Walk Out store technology, is “just walking out” of his role later this month, but it's currently unknown whether he's leaving Amazon entirely or simply stepping into a new position within the company. Nick Daniel is stepping down from his role as Chief Product Officer of Etsy. Oracle is laying off 101 employees in Seattle, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he's cut 4,000 customer service jobs, bringing in AI agents to do the work.
Speaking of AI and hiring… Amazon’s strict return-to-office policy, which requires employees to work in-office five days a week and relocate to hub offices, is making it harder for the company to recruit top tech talent, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Recruiters say candidates with in-demand skills like generative AI expertise are turning down offers in favor of competitors offering remote flexibility. Amazon's rigid RTO policy, combined with its pay structure and weaker AI reputation, has also led to attrition, with Oracle hiring away more than 600 employees in two years.
Klarna has been reassigning employees in other divisions like engineering and marketing to customer support roles after its CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski acknowledged that earlier cost-cutting went too far, according to three employees who spoke to Business Insider. The fintech, which recently unveiled its plans to go public (more on that below), laid off around 700 customer support positions in 2022, or around 10% of its workforce, and Siemiatkowski has since been a vocal proponent of replacing human workers with AI, even going as far as creating an AI avatar of himself earlier this year. So is it possible that Klarna's meager $21M net profit last year isn’t indicative of future profits, given that it now needs to rehire real people?
Tesla's board of directors asked investors to approve a pay package for Elon Musk that would be worth up to $1 trillion over the next decade if he meets several ambitious goals. The proposal would lift Musk's stake in the company to 28.8%, up from his current 12% ownership. For the new stocks to vest, Tesla would have to reach $400B in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization annually, as well as reach an $8.5 trillion market cap. The company had less than $17B in EBITDA last year and is on track to report a lower figure for 2025, and currently sits around a $1 trillion market cap.
🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… Mark S. Zuckerberg, an Indiana bankruptcy lawyer, is suing Meta for repeatedly disabling his personal and commercial Facebook account — a total of nine times in eight years — for “impersonating a celebrity” due to the fact that he has the same first and last name as the company's CEO Mark E. Zuckerberg. Meanwhile he says that Meta kept the $11,000 he spent advertising his law firm on the platform and that his defunct account puts his law practice at a competitive disadvantage. Attorney Zuckerberg has a long history of being mistaken for the Meta CEO. In 2020, the state of Washington accidentally sued him for endangering an adult in need of protective services.
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
OpenAI acquired Statsig, a product experimentation and feature management platform that helps companies run A/B tests, feature rollouts, and analyze product impact to make data-driven decisions, in an all-stock deal worth $1.1B under its current $300B valuation, marking one of its largest acquisitions to date. As part of the deal, Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji is joining OpenAI as technology chief in the applications unit, its division focused on building consumer and developer-facing products on top of its AI models. Statsig will continue to operate independently and serve customers out of its Seattle office. Does that mean they paid $1.1B to acqui-hire Vijaye Raji?
In other OpenAI deals… The company is increasing the size of its secondary share sale from $6B to $10.3B at a $500B valuation, with Thrive Capital, SoftBank, and Dragoneer Investment Group among the firms expected to buy the shares. I first reported the $6B employee share sale three weeks ago. Staffers who have held shares for more than two years have until the end of September to decide whether to participate in the transaction, which is expected to close in October. Last November, OpenAI allowed employees to sell about $1.5B worth of shares as part of a tender offer with SoftBank.
Anthropic raised $13B in a Series F round led by ICONIQ and Fidelity Management at a $183B valuation, over twice as much as its $61.5B valuation earlier this year in March when it raised $3.5B. The company says that the investment will be used to expand its capacity to meet growing enterprise demand, deepen its safety research, and support international expansion. (As well as pay authors $1.5B for stealing their works. LOL) Anthropic's run-rate revenue increased from $1B to $5B so far in 2025
Amazon completed its acquisition of Axio, an Indian BNPL firm that previously powered installments payments for Amazon Pay in the country, after receiving approval from the Reserve Bank of India, in a deal rumored to be valued at around $200M. Axio, which serves 10M customers, will now be a fully owned subsidiary of Amazon, helping it enhance the reach of Amazon Pay, which has struggled to gain significant traction in India.
Augment, an AI logistics startup founded by Deliverr co-founder Harish Abbott that builds autonomous software to optimize freight operations and supply chain efficiency, raised $85M in a Series A round led by Redpoint, just five months after launching out of stealth with a $25M seed round. The company's AI assistant “Augie” automates freight tasks like pricing bids, shipment tracking, load building, and invoicing across voice, email, SMS, and Slack. Augment currently serves the trucking industry, but its long term vision is to expand into international shipping and other logistics services.
Flex, a New York City-based health spending platform that helps employees spend, manage, and optimize their healthcare benefits, raised $15M in a Series A round led by First Round and Core VC, bringing its total amount raised to $18M. By integrating directly into the checkout experience, Flex lets shoppers apply their HSA/FSA funds as a payment method, which translates into higher conversion rates and larger AOV for merchants.
Klarna plans to raise up to $1.27B in its upcoming IPO at a $14B valuation, a significant decrease from its peak valuation of $45.6B in 2021, by offering 34.3M ordinary shares at a price ranging between $35 and $37, according to a recent filing with the SEC. The company intends to list its shares on the NYSE under the ticker symbol KLAR, however no listing date was mentioned in the filing. So is that like a 667 price-to-earnings ratio? I would buy Klarna stock for $6-8, but only if current leadership weren't in the picture. Good luck with that one.
Zopa Group, a London-based digital bank offering savings, loans, and credit products, acquired Rvvup, a London-based multichannel payments platform that helps merchants consolidate and manage payment methods across e-commerce and in-store channels, for an undisclosed amount. The move is expected to 3x Rvvup's embedded finance business over the next two years and boost its POS credit services. The acquisition marks Zopa's second in two years, following its acquisition of DivideBuy, a POS finance technology and lending platform, in 2023.
Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based global fintech and payments company, acquired CardFree, a California-based mobile commerce platform that provides restaurants and retailers with solutions for mobile ordering, payments, loyalty, and engagement, for an undisclosed amount. The addition of CardFree's solutions to Fiserv's Clover POS for small businesses and its Commerce Hub ecosystem will enhance the company's ability to support small businesses as they grow and add locations, positioning Fiserv to expand Clover's capabilities for the hospitality, restaurant, and lodging industries.
Syndigo, a product content and syndication platform that helps brands manage, enrich, and distribute product data across commerce channels, acquired 1WorldSync, a product content management and syndication platform that enables brands and retailers to share accurate product information across global commerce channels, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition creates a $3.5B enterprise serving 18,000 customers and 3,500 retailers across 60 countries, including 90% of the top 20 U.S. retailers, with expanded AI-first product experience management tools and user-generated content integration.
Citymall, an Indian e-commerce startup that focuses on budget grocery delivery for tier 2 and tier 3 towns, raised $47M in a Series D round led by Accel at a $320M valuation, the same valuation it carried three years at during its $75M Series C round, bringing its total amount raised to $165M. The company targets value-conscious customers who make planned purchases of groceries instead of wealthier clients who order for their immediate needs through quick-commerce apps and plans to focus on building private labels and partnerships with manufacturers to offer goods at lower prices than competitors.
HappyRobot, a startup that builds AI agents to handle frontline operational tasks such as scheduling, collections, recruiting, and sales, raised $44M in a Series B led by Base10 Partners, bringing its total amount raised to $59.6M. The company will use the funds to expand its AI workforce platform, which already serves 70+ enterprise customers including DHL, Ryder, and Werner, and grow its engineering and deployment teams.
GameChanger Systems, a startup that's built a fully automate video game buyback kiosk that allows consumers to instantly sell their used video game discs for cash, raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A found led by a family office investor. The funds will be used to expand its kiosk fleet across the U.S., which now serves Houston, Dallas, and Metro DC, with plans to expand into grocery stores and major retailers. People still buy video games on discs? This would've been a great business idea in 1998.
Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce marketplace owned by Walmart, acquired a majority stake in Pinkvilla, a digital infotainment platform focused on entertainment, lifestyle, and celebrity news, for an undisclosed amount, rumored to be worth around $15M. The move is part of Flipkart's broader strategy of engaging with Gen Z shoppers, tapping into Pinkvilla's audience of over 60 users and its Instagram account with 7.2M followers.
LayerX, a Japanese SaaS company specializing in digital transformation, e-contracts, and corporate expense management solutions, raised $100M in a Series B round led by TCV, bringing its total amount raised to $192.2M. The company's key products include Bakuraku, a platform that automates corporate spending workflows for more than 15,000 companies, Alterna, a retail digital securities investment platform, and Ai Workforce, a generative AI solution designed to streamline workflows and hardness enterprise data.
Backcountry, a specialty retailer of outdoor gear and apparel, acquired Velotech Inc, an online cycling retailer operating BikeTireDirect, Western Bikeworks, an TriSports, for an undisclosed amount. Velotech will continue to operate its existing sites independently, but over time, the retailers will explore opportunities to collaborate on product assortment, rider education, content, and fulfillment to enhance its customer experience.
Logistics Plus Inc, a Pennsylvania-based global logistics and supply chain solutions provider offering freight forwarding, warehousing, and fulfillment, acquired LoadDelivered Logistics, a Chicago-based freight brokerage business, for an undisclosed amount. LoadDelivered will continue to operate under its legacy brand while working closely with the Logistics Plus teams to provide customers with holistic transportation management solutions and leveraging back-office synergies across both companies.
Flowbox, a Swedish visual marketing platform that helps brands collect and publish user-generated content, acquired Dreaminfluence, a Danish influencer marketing platform used by more than 200 companies including Estée Lauder, Mondelēz, and DK Company, for an undisclosed amount. The deal pushes Flowbox past 1,000 customers in Europe and brings its annual recurring revenue close to €9M, while aligning with its international growth strategy, following its merger with Photoslurp three years ago.
FirstClub Technology, an Indian quick-commerce platform that offers a curated shopping experience through “clubhouse” micro-warehouses that deliver everyday essentials, raised $23M in a Series A round led by Accel and RTP Global at a $120M valuation. The fresh capital will fund expansion with 35 new clubhouses in the next six months, alongside the launch of multiple fulfillment formats such as cafes and daily subscriptions, as well as expansion into new categories including kids food, pet food, home care, and gifts.
Bensussen Deutsch & Associates, LLC, a merchandise agency that designs, produces, and distributes branded merchandise and promotional products for global brands, sports leagues, and retailers, acquired Harper + Scott, a design and sourcing agency that creates custom branded merchandise, packaging, and private-label products for companies and retailers, for an undisclosed amount. Harper + Scott will retain its name while gaining scale through BDA’s global network, able to pair its high-touch creative campaigns with BDA’s global sourcing, logistics, and technology platform.
Thanks for being a Shopifreak!
If you found this newsletter valuable, please leave a review on Google and share the newsletter with your friends and colleagues to help us grow.
See you next Monday,
PAUL
Paul E. Drecksler
🌐 Shopifreaks.com
🧑💼 Add me on LinkedIn
📧 [email protected]
📱 +1-828-273-3031
⭐ Leave A Review
PS: This week's comic relief is brought to you by Datch Haven at this ecommerce life.
