#246 – Instant Checkout, Amazon Grocery, & Shopify’s WordPress plugin

by Paul Drecksler | Oct 6, 2025 | Recent Newsletters

Hi Shopifreaks

Holy cow I've got a big edition for you this week! This is one of the most exciting editions I've written in 2025 — covering everything from ChatGPT's new Instant Checkout and Shopify's WordPress plugin to Amazon's revamped grocery brand and Meta turning your AI conversations into advertisements.

Real Quick: Last week I shared that I'm launching a new channel to share your e-commerce apps and solutions with tens of thousands of merchants, and I asked you to hit ‘reply' and let me know if you wanted to learn more. Thank you for the HUNDREDS of replies! If you replied to my e-mail last week and haven't heard back from me — sorry about that — a reply is coming soon. I simply couldn't respond to everyone this past week, however I promise I'll be in touch shortly.

Now let's dive in to this week's edition where I cover:

OpenAI launches Instant Checkout with Etsy & Shopify
Amazon's new grocery brand
Shopify builds a WordPress plugin
Your Meta AI conversations will soon trigger ads
Squarespace Refresh 2025 updates
Spotify makes a deal with the devil
OpenAI releases a deepfake app
eBay launches a storytelling brand campaign
TikTok unveils Travel Ads
Opera wants $19.99 for its AI browser
DoorDash unleashes adorable autonomous robots

All this and more in this week's 246th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

PS: You can always click the link to the full edition above if you prefer to read these e-mails in your browser. Sometimes Gmail cuts my newsletter off because they're so long.

Stat of the Week

Stripe's one-click checkout solution “Link” surpassed 200M users worldwide. The milestone puts Link in the same arena of express checkout systems as Shop Pay, Amazon Pay, and Klarna in terms of number of users. However Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, who made the announcement, didn't get into specifics about how many of those users are active daily or monthly with the service, versus how many saved their payment info on a website once and never used Link again. Either way, a big milestone for a checkout solution that only launched in May 2021. Stripe plans on adding more functionality to Link soon including subscription management, support for additional payment methods (likely account-to-account payments), and stablecoin support.

1. OpenAI launches Instant Checkout in ChatGPT

It was hard to miss this news that broke last Monday, given that it not only hit the frontpage of industry publications, but also major news outlets like ABC and CNBC. However I'm going to pretend that you've not heard anything about it and start from the top…

OpenAI launched a feature called Instant Checkout, which allows users to make purchases directly within ChatGPT without linking out to external sites.

Here's what we know about the launch:

The feature is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which OpenAI developed with Stripe and major e-commerce platforms to let AI agents handle shopping and checkout directly inside conversations through standardized merchant integrations.
Etsy is the first platform to integrate with Instant Checkout.
Shopify is next and other platforms are on the way.
OpenAI is accepting applications from merchants outside of Etsy or Shopify who want to have their products available for purchase through ChatGPT.
Initially it supports single-item purchases, but in the future it will expand to multi-item carts. (From different merchants? TBD)
OpenAI will take a fee from transactions that are completed through ChatGPT, but no-one knows how much yet, and the fee could be different for each partner. Users will not be charged anything beyond their existing ChatGPT subscription (if they have one).
Etsy says there is no fee for sellers “at this time,” per a post on the Etsy forum.
OpenAI is open-sourcing Agentic Commerce Protocol so that merchants, developers, and even other AI platforms can begin building their integrations.
Amazon and Walmart aren’t currently using the protocol, which is positioned as a direct competitor to Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2). Actually, can we just take a pause right here, Google and OpenAI, and combine the two protocols before this becomes a VHS / Betamax scenario?

Here's how Instant Checkout works:

Users ask a shopping question like “What are the best Big Bird pajamas for women?”
ChatGPT shows the most relevant products from across the web in a product carousel.
OpenAI says that product results are organic and unsponsored, ranked purely on relevance to the user (for now).
If a product supports Instant Checkout, users can tap “Buy,” confirm their order, shipping, and payment details, and complete the purchase without ever leaving the chat.
ChatGPT users can pay with their card on file or other cards and express payment methods.
Orders, payments, and fulfillment are handled by the merchant using their existing systems, such as Etsy or Shopify.
ChatGPT simply acts as the user's AI agent, securely passing information between the user and merchant.

The big opportunity here is that it's new.

Right now ChatGPT is a zero-cost discovery channel, and merchants are in desperate need of channels that don't charge them an arm and a leg to put their products in front of shoppers. Marketing and acquisition costs can easily exceed 50% on other platforms, but for now, it doesn't cost a penny to reach OpenAI's 700M users. Emphasis on the “for now.”

Might as well hop on the train early because the more merchants that begin selling their wares on ChatGPt, the more expensive it'll become to surface your products. At least that's how it's historically worked with discovery channels and marketplaces that have introduced advertising.

The downside of Instant Checkout is that the brand you worked so hard to cultivate through your website, photos, and videos, gets minimized to a text field that simply displays your brand name in the same font as every other company name to surface through ChatGPT. And forget about your upsell and cross-sell funnels!

Then there's Amazon, who are basically like “we're going to walk this path alone” when it comes to AI product discovery and agentic commerce. At least for now, while they figure out how to protect their $60B advertising empire along the way.

What are your thoughts on ChatGPT's new Instant Checkout? Game changer or nothing burger in the grand scheme of e-commerce? Hit reply and let me know.

2. Amazon launches a new private label grocery brand

Amazon unveiled a new grocery brand name creatively called Amazon Grocery, merging two of its private-label grocery brands, Amazon Fresh and Happy Belly, into one budget-friendly offering with simpler packaging.

Amazon Grocery offers more than 1,000 items that are mostly priced at less than $5, but “don't compromise on quality or taste.” LOL, they might as well call it Amazon Haul Grocery.

The brand features staple products like milk, olive oil, fresh produce, meat and seafood, while also introducing new items like cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, and refrigerated lemonade, with more items coming soon.

Amazon Grocery's packaging features a modern and bold design with easy-to-read typography to help customers quickly identify the brand and products when shopping. I've got to hand it to Amazon here — the design is fantastic — clean and functional. Additionally, the new packaging reduces plastic usage by 50% than its previous product packaging and emphasizes nutritional transparency with clear nutrition information and simple ingredient callouts. A+ on the packaging.

The Amazon Grocery brand positions itself between the company's ultra-budget Saver and premium Whole Foods 365 private label brands and is now available on Amazon.com and in-store in select U.S. markets.

Here's the future of your household:

“Baby, whatchu want for breakfast?”

“Amazon Toast Crunch, mama!”

“We ain't got none! How about Amazon Charms or Amazon Puffs?”

TikTok isn't letting Amazon have all the grocery fun though.

Mitchell Parton of ModernRetail reports that “TikTok is talking to brands like it's a grocery now.” He goes on to share that TikTok Shop is working to onboard a greater variety of grocery brands, mirroring traditional merchandising tactics used by grocers. The company says it can help CPG companies determine which products to sell on TikTok or where new product launches make the most sense, while helping guide food and beverage brands on how to work with creators or whether they should buy top-of-funnel ads. Maybe we'll see some Amazon Grocery products on there soon.

3. Shopify launched a dedicated WordPress plugin

Shopify launched an official WordPress plugin that gives you the best of both worlds — having a fully customizable WordPress website for content marketing and powering your e-commerce shop with Shopify.

Uh oh WooCommerce! Well, not quite…

Here's how the integration works:

The solution consists of two parts: the “Sell on WordPress” sales channel within Shopify and the “Shopify Plugin” that you install on your WordPress site.
Merchants add their products in Shopify through its traditional backend system that you're already familiar with.
From there you can either create pages in WordPress and embed Shopify product details in them via the Gutenberg Editor.
Or you can automatically sync your Shopify products and let the plugin create the pages.
From there you can start accepting orders through Shopify's checkout system and tracking sales through Shopify's analytics tools, as well as manage your e-commerce business with Shopify's inventory and analytics tools and take advantage of their integrations with other major discovery channels.

Here's what the plugin DOES NOT do:

It does not support hosted checkout on your domain. Checkout always redirects the customer to Shopify's hosted checkout, which you can't modify or add third-party scripts to unless you're on Shopify Plus.
Shopify's product blocks currently have limited styling controls like changing the layout or button colors. The plugin does not automatically inherit your WordPress theme's typography, buttons, or containers, so custom CSS is required for brand consistency.
The plugin doesn't support Shopify app integrations like reviews, upsells, or subscriptions.
It doesn't support localization features like multi-currency or multi-languages.
It does not currently sync your product Meta Titles and Descriptions from Shopify over to your WordPress site, instead it displays your site's default home page SEO title on every product page.

There have already been existing solutions on the market for integrating your Shopify store with your WordPress website — including Shopify's own Buy Buttons, which have existed for years. The new plugin adds the ability to sync your product catalog to your WordPress site without having to manually, however it still lacks basic features that would make it a viable WooCommerce alternative in my opinion.

Did I get all the information above correct? Forgive me if not, as there is very limited documentation about this plugin. If I got anything wrong, or you have additional information to add about the new Shopify-WordPress solution, please drop a comment on my LinkedIn post.

It's great that Shopify is bringing its e-commerce checkout to WordPress — but truthfully, what I really want, is to bring WordPress's powerful and customizable blogging tools to my Shopify store! Not the other way around.

Check out my post on 10 Reasons Why Shopify Should Spend $1B Completely Revamping Their Blogging Platform — and let me know if you agree.

4. Meta will soon target ads based on your AI chatbot convos

Meta will soon use the conversations you have with its AI chatbots to target you with even more personalized ads, beginning on Dec 16th.

Well, that didn't take long!

The company already targets users with ads based on what they post, view, and click on, which websites they visit, where they go in real life, who they are connected to, how often they poop, etc. However targeting AI chat conversations takes that personalization a step further because oftentimes in chats, users are directly telling the company what they're shopping for, where they'll be traveling to, or what problems they have, giving Meta an unprecedented ability to target their most intimate desires.

In other words, Meta no longer has to infer based on your browsing activity that you'll be traveling to Cuenca, Ecuador next month, because likely you would have asked it for advice about hotels, flights, and what to do while there.

Meta will also use data from your chatbot conversations to help decide what type of content to view on its social platforms. Remember when Meta used to listen to your in-person conversations through your microphone (story #4)? Well now it doesn't have to, because you're having the conversations directly with its AI. (Although rest assured, it still will listen to your phone calls.)

Meta says that it will target ads & content to users if, for example, they talk to their chatbot about hiking, traveling, or shopping. However it will avoid using personal or difficult conversations you have with its AI, such as about a relationship or depression, to serve ad content.

2026 Headline Prediction: “Meta takes heat for using intimate conversations that users have with its AI chatbot to serve ads”

It's somewhat respectable that Meta is being insanely open about the fact that they're going to serve you ads based on your chatbot conversations. Whereas Sam Altman has previously spoken about how merging ads with AI is “sort of uniquely unsettling to me” and would be considered a “last resort” for ChatGPT, while simultaneously creating e-commerce integrations and likely building an ad network.

I also don't necessarily think that it's a bad thing for my AI research to later surface relevant content in Facebook or Instagram. For example, if I'm talking to Meta's chatbot about traveling to Buenos Aires, it could be valuable for Facebook to later surface groups or pages related to traveling in Argentina. Research and discovery can go hand in hand.

What are your thoughts? Hit reply and let me know or join the conversation on LinkedIn.

5. Squarespace Refresh 2025: here's what you missed

Squarespace announced Refresh 2025, its annual release of new products, features, and updates to its platform. This year there was of course a major emphasis on AI tools. (The word “AI” is used literally dozens of times on the Refresh 2025 page.) Here are some highlights:

New Design Tools:

Blueprint AI Expansion: New designer-made templates and chat-based setup tools that instantly generate tailored imagery, copy, and layouts based on your business type.
Squarespace GPT: A ChatGPT Store integration that lets users start building personalized websites through guided prompts powered by Blueprint AI.
AI-Powered Image & Video Backgrounds: Premium libraries of AI-generated backgrounds designed to elevate site visuals and align with each brand’s creative vision.
Finish Layer: A suite of expressive design controls including animations, transforms, and advanced styling that turn websites into immersive, professional experiences.

New Business Tools:

Squarespace Beacon AI: An AI business partner that provides step-by-step guidance for setup, content creation, and business growth.
AIO Scanner: Tracks mentions of your business across AI platforms like ChatGPT and recommends ways to improve visibility.
SEO Scanner: Audits website content and suggests optimized titles, descriptions, and alt text for better search performance.
AI Site Scanner: Identifies broken links and site issues while offering actionable fixes to improve performance and user experience.
AI Product Composer: Automatically generates professional product or service listings from short descriptions or images.
AI Discount Composer: Delivers AI-powered discount recommendations to drive sales while protecting margins.
AI FAQ Composer: Builds personalized, design-friendly FAQ sections to improve customer support and AI search visibility.
Squarespace Domains: Adds advanced security, more TLD options, and collaborative editing for branded domain landing pages.
Financial Solutions: Expands Squarespace Balance, Capital, and Pay Links for faster payouts, flexible financing, and integrated spending tools.
Commerce Upgrades: Streamlines operations with smarter invoicing, automated tax handling, and customizable follow-up forms.
Marketing Tools: Introduces AI-generated campaigns, automation triggers, and personalized emails to engage customers more effectively.
Acuity Scheduling Updates: Adds a style editor for on-brand scheduling pages and enhanced point-of-sale options for deposits, balances, and tipping.
Bio Sites Monetization: Enables creators to sell premium content and offer bookable appointments directly through their bio pages.

Good stuff Squarespace! But do we have to put “AI” in front of feature name now? LOL. Sometimes I wish that AI simply existed silently in the background.

Some of these tools or features have already been announced or partially rolled out, others were announced for the first time at Refresh 2025, and some are still “coming soon.”

6. Spotify opens up its ad inventory to Amazon DSP

In September I reported that Amazon and Netflix entered into a partnership to allow advertisers to use Amazon DSP to buy ads on Netflix across 11 markets, following in the foot steps of Disney, HBO, Fox, and Peacock.

Last week Spotify made a similar deal that gives Amazon DSP programmatic access to its streaming audio and video inventory, which as of June reached 696M monthly users. As of Oct 1st, Spotify ad inventory is available on Amazon DSP in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, and Mexico, with additional countries to be added in 2026.

The deal gives Amazon a power house of audio advertising inventory between Amazon Music, Spotify, and SiriusXM, which signed with Amazon DSP in September.

Meredith Goldman, Director of Amazon DSP, said:

“By combining Amazon’s diverse audiences and first-party signals with Spotify’s high-quality content and engaged fan base, we’re creating new and meaningful ways for advertisers to amplify their omnichannel advertising strategies by leveraging a deeper level of insights only available through Amazon DSP. Amazon DSP now has unprecedented scale across Amazon owned and operated and open internet audio supply, allowing us to set new standards for holistic campaign planning and activation—all in one place.”

🎉 Let's offer Spotify a big congratulations on giving up their advertising data to their most aggressive and unscrupulous audio streaming competitor! I swear, these companies can't seem to stay away from Amazon, despite knowing EXACTLY how they operate and what's in store for the relationship. Amazon DSP will grow to be a dominant player in programmatic advertising and then control the narrative (and the fee structure) from there on out. Can't way I didn't warn ya!

Alongside the Amazon partnership, Spotify also made several other announcements including:

ID5 Partnership – advertisers can now reach music and podcast fans across Europe more effectively via ID5's digital identity solution.
Yahoo DSP Integration – poor Yahoo, getting a footnote in the same article after offering the same integration as Amazon DSP.
Private Marketplace Deals For Publishers – via the Spotify Ad Exchange, empowering publishers to set up non-guaranteed deals with multiple advertisers and expand their revenue opportunities.
Smartly Partnership – to expand access to Spotify's ad inventory to more advertisers supported by Smartly's AI-powered creative, automation, and measurement.
Split Testing Tool – to run controlled experiments to see which creative elements resonate most with audiences.

7. OpenAI releases Sora 2 for making accurate deepfakes

OpenAI introduced Sora 2, its new AI model capable of generating lifelike clips of real people speaking in multiple languages. The release includes a TikTok-style iOS app called Sora, which lets users create and remix “cameos” using their own likenesses, which The Verge's Hayden Field describes as “essentially an app full of deepfakes, on purpose.”

Currently the Sora app is available to users on iOS in the U.S. and Canada on an invite-only basis, with more countries and invitations coming soon.

The team behind Sora 2 said that they had been working on the model for over 20 months and that the new version:

is way more accurate when it comes to following user prompts.
introduces the ability to synchronize audio and video.
is “moving us closer to useful world simulators.”
brings much smarter physics, introducing the ability to accurately do backflips on top of a paddleboard with all of the fluid dynamics and buoyancy accurately modeled.

The Sora app also introduces the ability for users to remix your videos into “Cameos” using your AI-generated likenesses. After recording a short head-movement video in the iOS app, users can authorize others to generate clips featuring them.

“Hey everyone in my life, make videos of me saying ridiculous thing and publish them on the Internet!”

OpenAI employees said they now use Sora 2 internally for communication in lieu of text messages, emojis, and voice notes.

Some people criticized the new Sora as a cash grab by OpenAI that's going to be responsible for creating an endless amount of AI slop on the web, to which Sam Altman replied:

“We do mostly need the capital for build[ing] AI that can do science, and for sure we are focused on AGI with almost all of our research effort. It is also nice to show people cool new tech/products along the way, make them smile, and hopefully make some money given all that compute need.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that prior to Sora's launch last week, OpenAI had been telling Hollywood studios and agencies that they needed to explicitly opt out if they didn't want their IP to be included in Sora-generated videos. However now the company has changed its tune and said that it is planning to give copyright holders “more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls.”

Holy shit, OpenAI — pay people for their copyrighted IP! First our books and website content; now our copyrighted characters and personal likeness?

I guess why wouldn't they ask for forgiveness instead of permission. They've effectively gotten away with every other copyright violation thus far.

8. eBay launches brand campaign focused on product stories

eBay is launching a fall marketing campaign with the theme ~~“We're Still Relevant”~~ “eBay Stories,” aiming to build on last year's theme “Things. People. Love.” which was its first global campaign in nearly a decade.

The company describes the campaign as “a celebration of the unique stories, passions, and connections that make every purchase on its marketplace meaningful” and invites people to “rediscover the joy of shopping by spotlighting the moments when buyers and sellers find exactly what they’re looking for — and the stories behind those finds.”

Emily O’Hara, eBay’s Global Head of Brand & Media, said:

“This campaign answers the question, ‘Why eBay?’ by celebrating the fun of shopping on our marketplace. It’s about that winning feeling — when you score a deal, find exactly what you were looking for, or successfully sell an item you no longer need. The insight comes to life through stories of people’s wins: What you buy and sell on eBay means more because it comes with a story that makes it more special, rare and personal.”

Well, the last thing I bought on eBay was an ink cartridge, so I don't know about that.

Plus, where are sellers supposed to share these stories? Are sellers supposed to craft these masterpiece narratives or is eBay's generative AI simply going to hallucinate the stories?

The campaign seems completely out of touch with how their platform actually works and how customers shop in 2025. eBay wants buyers to feel an emotional connection to a shopping journey that's currently purely transactional. It's a feel good campaign that doesn't live in the same reality as the actual buying experience currently offered by eBay.

9. Other e-commerce news of interest

Early shopping events have begun! Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days run October 7–8, offering early holiday discounts for Prime members across electronics, home, and fashion. Target Circle Week is live October 5–11 with up to 50% off for Circle members, while Walmart Deals run October 7–12 with early access for Walmart+ subscribers. Best Buy’s Member Deals Days and Wayfair’s Holiday Deal Week also kick off this week, featuring major markdowns on tech, furniture, and décor ahead of the Black Friday rush. Happy shopping!

TikTok rolled out Travel Ads, its first ad format built specifically for travel brands, letting hotels, airlines, and destinations automatically promote offerings through catalog-based, AI-generated creatives. Powered by TikTok’s Smart+ optimization models, the ads match high-intent users with relevant travel options and include clickable “travel cards” displaying prices, ratings, and flight details that appear after 2-seconds of the video playing. The new ad format comes a few weeks after TikTok launched its “TikTok Go” creator monetization tool that allows creators to earn commission and sponsored perks when promoting hotels, restaurants, and local experiences.

Opera unveiled Neon, an AI browser that lets users perform tasks through natural-language prompts, build mini-apps using repeatable “Cards,” and organize browsing sessions into workspaces called Tasks. The browser can summarize articles, post updates to Slack, generate visual reports, write code, and pull details from a user’s past browsing history. All this for the monthly price of $19.99! Because paying a subscription for a browser is a thing now? Opera first announced the browser in May and is currently dishing out early access to its waitlist. Oddly the original announcement mentioned that the browser would be able to shop for you, but that was left off of the release announcement.

PayPal added AI product capabilities to its Honey browser extension, enhancing your AI conversations with ChatGPT and other chatbots into shoppable experiences with real-time pricing, merchant comparisons, and cashback offers. When users ask AI chatbots for recommendations like “best TVs over 55 inches,” Honey will now display live product listings directly on top of the conversation, in the same window where it typically displays coupon codes, helping shoppers compare across retailers. It would've been a cool feature a year ago, but now it seems a bit redundant given that ChatGPT and the other AI companies are building checkout into their own chatbots.

Poshmark is teaming up with Google and Perplexity to expand its AI-powered shopping capabilities. Google is testing a new “Ask Stores” feature in Google Shopping that currently favors Poshmark listings when users seek product or styling advice, while a separate Perplexity partnership offers free shipping on first purchases made through their new Comet browser. The partnerships are designed to drive new traffic to Poshmark sellers and make the platform more discoverable within conversational AI and search environments.

Online sellers in Washington and Texas are now being charged sales tax on digital advertising, marketplace fees, and data processing services as of October 1, after both states expanded sales tax laws to drive new tax revenue. In Washington, Senate Bill 5814 now requires sales tax on advertising, custom software, and IT services, leading Amazon to start charging tax on its own ad products for sellers in the state. Texas’ new rule similarly taxes marketplace data processing fees, meaning eBay sellers are now seeing taxes added to their final value and store subscription fees. The changes have left many small businesses confused, with tax experts warning to “expect compliance chaos for the next year.”

Amazon now lets Prime members add items to upcoming deliveries with one click, instead of having to create a new order. Members can tap a bright blue button that reads “Add to today's delivery” on a product page, which appears right below the “Add to cart” button and replaces the “Buy Now” one-click checkout option when there's already a pending order. If you change your mind, or accidentally click the button, there's an Undo option that will allow you to remove the item immediately, assuming Amazon hasn't delivered it already during that 5 second window. The feature has been tested with customers for a while, but is now seeing a broader rollout.

Snapchat and WooCommerce rolled out a new integration that lets merchants create dynamic, shoppable ads for Snapchat’s 932M users with auto-syncing catalogs and one-click conversion tracking. Merchants can now connect their WooCommerce stores to Snapchat Ads Manager to quickly launch campaigns, sync product feeds, and deploy Snap Pixel and Conversions API for improved targeting. The integration aims to simplify advertising workflows for small e-commerce businesses while broadening their reach to younger shoppers.

Amazon expanded its Creator Connections program to include sponsored content, letting brands pay creators on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for one-time collaborations, as spotted by Liran Hirschkorn, CEO of Incrementum Digital. Until now, the platform only allowed creators to request free product samples and earn commissions on sales, but now brands can now browse creators, view their pricing menus, and buy social media content with 90-day licensing rights for ad reuse. The new feature turns Creator Connections into Amazon’s version of TikTok’s Spark Ads.

Kroger is expanding its grocery delivery via DoorDash to now offer delivery of fresh foods, household goods, and other products from nearly 2,700 of its stores, building on a 2021 deal that was limited to the delivery of sushi and flowers from a small subset of locations. Customers will also be able to use DoorDash’s app to access Kroger's promotions and loyalty program discounts. The move comes as Kroger shifts more of its e-commerce fulfillment to individual stores instead of centralized warehouses and makes Kroger the largest grocer on DoorDash's platform to date.

Ready for even cooler DoorDash news? DoorDash unveiled an adorable autonomous delivery bot named Dot in the Phoenix area that can maneuver within bike lanes, roads, and sidewalks to help deliver small orders like food or household items that don’t require a full-sized vehicle. The red, wide-eyed robot — which looks like Wall-E made love to Thomas the Tank Engine and had a baby — stands five feet tall, can carry up to 30 pounds of merchandise, move up to 20 miles per hour, and is nimble enough to navigate doorways and driveways. And it won't shove your food and drink so close to your door that you can't open it without knocking your meal over!

Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $19.99 to $29.99 per month, marking one of the most substantial single price increases since the platform's debut in 2017, while simultaneously introducing new tiered plans that limit day-one game access to the highest tier. The move sparked mass cancellations and brought into question whether Microsoft’s “Netflix for games” model can sustain the costs of big-budget titles and rationalize its $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition. Former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who fought to block that deal, weighed in on X saying the price hikes and layoffs prove her warning that the merger would “harm both gamers and developers.” She added, “As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.”

Speaking of video games… Amazon's game streaming service, Luna, is absorbing Amazon's Prime Gaming brand and adding a new “GameNight” offer, featuring a collection of social party games that you can play with friends via your smartphone. Luna will serve as Amazon’s main gaming hub going forward, offering both casual party games for Prime members and premium titles like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Dave the Diver through add-on subscriptions. Amazon will also offer its own developed games including Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg, where players defend themselves before “Judge Snoop” — who better be getting high in a judge robe, or what's the point?

Meta inked a $14.2B contract with CoreWeave, a New Jersey-based cloud computing company, to supply it with AI cloud infrastructure, just days after the company expanded its agreement with OpenAI by $6.5B, bringing the total contract to $22.4B. CoreWeave primarily generates revenue by building and renting out data centers that are full of Nvidia GPUs and has become a crucial player in an the AI world. Meta has the option to expand its commitment for additional computing capacity through 2032.

OnePay, the Walmart-backed fintech that offers a digital wallet, debit and credit cards, BNPL services, HYSAs, and peer-to-peer payments, is now adding cryptocurrency trading to its app, beginning with Bitcoin and Ether by the end of this year. The offering comes via a partnership with Zerohash, a crypto infrastructure company that provides APIs for platforms to offer crypto trading, rewards, and custody services. OnePay's mobile app is gaining traction in recent months and now sits No.5 on Apple's app store ranking for free finance apps, behind OnePay, PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp and ahead of JPMorgan Chase, Robinhood, and Chime. Last month I reported that OnePay (along with Klarna and MrBeast) launched a mobile network, as it quietly builds what could be the U.S.'s closest thing to a super app.

Meta's Threads app is introducing a new feature called Communities for users to have casual conversations about topics like basketball, television, books, and current events. Unlike X's Communities, which are created and moderated by X users (similar to Reddit's subreddits) and private to members, Threads' communities are created exclusively by Meta and anyone can view and participate in the conversations — which is a unique take on the word “community” if you ask me. Currently the only perk for joining the community is that you get to use a custom “Like” emoji when engaging with posts, such as a basketball emoji in the NBA community.

Snapchat is putting a price on its Memories feature, which was introduced a decade ago to save photos and videos that would normally disappear after 24 hours. Moving forward, free storage will be limited to 5GB, with paid plans starting at $1.99/month for 100GB, $3.99/month for the Snapchat+ membership with 250GB, and $15.99/month for Snapchat Platinum with 5TB. Snapchat said that users have saved more than 1 trillion Memories on the platform since it launched the feature, but that the vast majority of users have under 5GB of Memories.

Amazon Ring is adding a new feature called “Familiar Faces” that uses facial recognition to identify your family, friends, and neighbors. Privacy advocates warn that the feature is invasive and crosses ethical boundaries because it captures biometric data from anyone in view of the camera without consent. Other home security companies, including Google, already offer facial recognition for connected doorbells and cameras. How much do you want to bet Amazon is adding this feature so that it can later introduce in-home grocery delivery where Amazon drivers can enter your home through facial recognition and add cold items to your refrigerator?

A TikTok video is going viral warning shoppers not to buy anything from Amazon in October because this is the month that sellers inflate prices to make BFCM deals appear larger. The creator claims that Amazon requires sellers to base holiday sale prices on the previous six week's average, so this is the time when they start jacking up prices so they can later bring them back down. Amazon denied the claim, telling The New York Post that it uses verified list prices based on the median price paid over the last 90 days to calculate discounts and that it “works hard to provide clear and accurate pricing information” to customers all year. Okay so 90 days… does that mean August is the month you shouldn't buy anything on Amazon?

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act into law, requiring AI companies to disclose their safety practices and report incidents to state authorities. The state's previously vetoed SB 1047 bill would have mandated safety testing and kill switches for AI systems, whereas the newly passed law exclusively focuses on disclosure. Companies must now report “potential critical safety incidents” that could potentially cause 50+ deaths or $1B in damage through weapons assistance, autonomous criminal acts, or loss of control. What's interesting about that 50+ death threshold (but not in a good way) is that the U.S. has experienced 574 school shootings since the year 2000 with fatalities ranging from a handful up to 49 deaths — which means none of them would have qualified as a “critical safety incident.”

Google laid off more than 100 employees from design roles within the company's cloud unit, particularly roles that focused on using data, surveys, and other tools to understand and implement user behaviors that inform product development and design. The cuts reportedly reduced some design teams by half, with most affected roles based in the U.S. Since the beginning of the year, Google has offered voluntary exit packages to many U.S. units and eliminated more than one-third of its managers overseeing small teams.

Indonesia temporarily suspended TikTok’s operating license after the company refused to fully share data on its live streaming activity during late-August protests that left ten people dead. Officials said the data was needed to trace accounts tied to illegal gambling that profited from TikTok Live during the unrest, but skeptics argued the suspension raised concerns about government overreach and online speech rights. The government lifted the suspension after TikTok submitted the requested information, restoring its license as a registered electronic system provider.

India's Ministry of Consumer Affairs is investigating Amazon and Flipkart for adding additional charges to cash-on-delivery orders, which it classifies as a dark pattern, and for delaying or blocking refunds when repaid orders are cancelled. One user on X shared a screenshot from Flipkart checkout page showing multiple additional fees including “Offer Handling Fee,” “Payment Handling Fee,” and “Protect Promise Fee,” which collectively increased the total cost of the item compared to the displayed price. Another user pointed out that those fees are nonrefundable, even if you return the product. I wish our FTC would investigate 1-800-GET-LENS and OptiContacts and a bunch of other online contact lens retailers because their even worse about nontransparent pricing and adding junk fees!

A federal judge in California rejected Apple, Google, and Meta’s attempts to dismiss lawsuits accusing them of promoting illegal gambling through casino-style apps hosted on their platforms. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila ruled that Section 230 protections do not shield the companies for processing in-app payments, where they allegedly (but definitely) took 30% commissions totaling more than $2B on transactions they processed. The decision allows consumer protection claims, except those under California law, to move forward, with the companies now permitted to appeal the ruling to the 9th Circuit due to the significance of the Section 230 issues.

A court in Sweden found that Shein infringed on the copyright of Nelly, a Swedish online fast-fashion retailer, by making copies of their product images and using them on their own website. Nelly requested a fine of 500,000 Swedish crowns (about $53,400), to which Shein, on track to do $58.5B in revenue this year, giggled at and ultimately accepted. The court also ordered Shein to pay Nelly's legal costs plus interest.

A Dutch court ordered Meta to provide Facebook and Instagram users with simpler options for a timeline that does not rely on profiling, which the court says is not in line with the EU's Digital Services Act. It gave the company two weeks to offer users a “direct and simple” way to opt out of a timeline with recommended content, such as an option to display posts in chronological order. Additionally the court ruled that Meta's current practice of automatically reverting to an algorithmic timeline whenever the app or website is closed constitutes a prohibited dark pattern and infringes on a user's right to freedom of information.

Mercari is expanding its Japan-based marketplace internationally through a new partnership with Stripe and the launch of the Mercari Global App, which enables buyers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and eventually over 50 countries to shop directly from Japanese sellers. The app simplifies cross-border shopping with real-time AI translation, local payment support, and upcoming inspection and delivery assurance features to ensure quality and safety. Until now, international buyers had to use proxy services like Buyee or Mercari’s Beenos partnership to shop from Japan, but the new Mercari Global App lets them purchase directly.

Amazon is bringing its direct-from-China marketplace, Haul, to France and Spain to rival Shein and Temu in the countries, a year after launching it in the U.S. market and few months after expanding it to the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Germany, Mexico, and Australia. Haul will offer around thirty product categories including clothing, footwear, and cosmetics, with prices capped at €20, although Amazon says that most items will be priced under €10 with bargains starting from €1. Meanwhile, Shein is planning to open its first brick-and-mortar shops in France this November, much to the dismay of local retailers. I'm confident that France is not going to permit either retailer, Amazon nor Shein, to pump cheap Chinese goods into its market for very long, so I guess enjoy it while it lasts.

TikTok’s Culver City headquarters was evacuated Friday after a 33-year-old man named Joseph Mayuyo posted multiple threatening messages across social platforms, prompting TiKTok's security team to clear the building “out of an abundance of caution.” His social posts targeted TikTok's e-commerce department and followed posts from his Medium account in July, criticizing TikTok Shop USA as a “scam.” (Did he lose $15 on a shitty #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt purchase?) Detectives later arrested Mayuyo at his home following a 90-minute negotiation where Mayuyo said he would never be taken alive, but eventually was.

🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… Deloitte Australia is issuing a partial refund to the federal government after admitting it used generative AI to help produce a $440,000 report for the Department of Workplace Relations that was riddled with errors, including fake academic references and a fabricated court quote. The consulting firm quietly replaced the report online with a revised version, acknowledging its use of Azure OpenAI GPT-4o to fill “traceability and documentation gaps,” after a professor highlighted multiple errors in the original document, which he speculates were due to AI hallucinations. Pretty embarrassing for a company that earns billions of dollars a year providing AI advice and training to companies that love to waste money! Equally embarrassing for the Australian government for not demanding a full refund.

10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions

OpenAI acquired Roi, a fintech app that allows users to connect their existing brokerage accounts, track their net worth, manage investments, and get AI-driven trading insights, for an undisclosed amount. CEO and co-founder Sujith Vishwajith is the only one of the company's four-person staff to join OpenAI, which plans on winding down its operations and end its services on Oct 15th. The Roi deal is the latest in a series of acqui-hires by OpenAI this year, following similar moves involving Context.ai, Crossing Minds, and Alex.

Meta acquired Rivos, a California-based AI chip startup focused on building server-class processors optimized for LLMs and data analytics, for an undisclosed amount. In August, I reported that Rivos was seeking to raise $500M, bringing its total funding to $870M, at a valuation exceeding $2B, which would be record fundraising and valuation for a chip startup that has yet to mass-produce a single chip. Meta aims to leverage the company's expertise to expand work on the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator, which is its family of custom-build, in-house AI accelerator chips.

Tie, an AI-powered identity and enrichment platform formerly known as Revenue Roll that helps businesses verify, enrich, and analyze customer data, raised $10M in a Series A round led by Innovating Capital, bringing its total amount raised to $17M. Tie has built one of the largest identity networks in the U.S. compiled of 25B data points across 1,000+ sources and 280M opted-in consumers, helping customers move away from third-party cookies towards first-party data. The company claims that it can identify up to 95% of site visitors including those hidden behind expired cookies, multiple devices, or incognito browsing.

Reveni, a Madrid-based fintech that unifies sales, logistics, and returns in one dashboard, offering instant refunds, exchanges, and global tax and logistics management, raised €7.5M in a Series A round led by 13books Capital, bringing its total amount raised to €17.3M. The company claims its technology can cut logistics costs by 25% and boost repeat purchases by simplifying returns. The funds will help Reveni expand across Europe and the UK and develop its AI-driven reverse logistics and international commerce tools.

Zeta Global, an AI-powered marketing cloud company that helps marketers acquire and retain customers more efficiently, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Marigold's enterprise software businesses including Marigold Loyalty, Cheetah Digital, Selligent, Sailthru, Liveclicker, and Grow, for $325M in cash and stock. Margold's software collectively serves more than 100 global enterprise brands including 20 of the top 100 advertisers and more than 40 Fortune 500 companies. The deal, which excludes Marigold’s SMB products like Campaign Monitor and Emma and is expected to close by the end of 2025, strengthens Zeta's marketing automation and loyalty offerings for enterprise clients.

Periodic Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that builds AI scientists and autonomous labs that run real-world experiments to accelerate discovery in physics and materials, raised $300M and came out of stealth in a seed round backed by Andreessen Horowitz, DST, Nvidia, Accel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos. The company was founded by former engineers at Google Brain, DeepMind, and OpenAI, including one of the researchers who helped create ChatGPT. Its goal is to automate scientific discovery by building labs where robots conduct physical experiments, collect data, iterate, and try again, learning and improving as they go. Not necessarily an e-commerce related company, but too awesome to not provide coverage!

Third and Grove, a San Francisco digital agency that designs, builds, and optimizes e-commerce websites, acquired Elva, a New York agency that specializes in web design, branding, and digital strategy for startups, for an undisclosed amount. Elva’s design and on-platform expertise, showcased in projects for Stanley 1913, Hey Dude, and bareMinerals, complements Third and Grove’s strengths in migration, managed services, and CRO. All team members from both agencies will remain on board as part of the merger, and Third and Grove will remain privately owned with no outside investors.

DoorDash completed the acquisition of its UK rival Deliveroo, agreeing on a final £2.9B cash offer for all issued and to-be-issued ordinary shares of the company. The merger, which was first announced in May, expands DoorDash's presence in the EU and Middle East, where Deliveroo serves 176k restaurants, grocery and retail outlets and 7M customers, and works with over 130,000 riders, strengthening its position as a global delivery platform.

Posti, Finland’s state-owned postal and logistics company providing mail, parcel, freight, and e-commerce delivery services, is seeking to raise as much as €89M through an IPO, offering 11.6M shares at €7.50 each. The courier is also offering 300k new shares for its employees to own stock in the company at a 10% discount. Posti operates Finland’s national postal service, with roots dating back to 1638, and now manages parcel and logistics operations across Finland, Sweden, and the Baltics, with ambitions to grow into a global delivery and fulfillment provider.

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Paul E. Drecksler
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