#252 – Rufus is no doofus, Amazon Ads Agent, & Apple’s Mini App Partner Program

Hi Shopifreaks

Guess what time of year it is again? Predictions time!

Each year at Shopifreaks I publish an annual report featuring the best e-commerce related predictions in our industry. Here's last year's 2025 E-commerce Predictions report if you'd like to see who got theirs right and wrong. Personally, I was 50% on my predictions (2 out of 4).

What are your 2026 predictions?

Hit reply and let me know what major changes, trends, or milestones you see on the horizon. How about surprise mergers and acquisitions? Who are the sleeping giants that are about to awaken in 2026? What breakthrough technology is going mainstream next year?

All predictions are welcome! Have yours in by Dec 12th for inclusion in this year's report. You can keep them short and sweet or get as detailed as you'd like. And if you've already published your predictions, feel free to send me a link to the post.

Now let's stop thinking about the future and take a look at what happened during the past week.

In this week's edition I cover:

• Rufus can now buy items on sale for you
• Amazon unveils Ads Agent
• Apple launches a Mini App Partner Program
• Walmart appoints a new CEO
• Shopify teams up with Liquid AI
• Facebook Marketplace gets an upgrade
• ElevenLabs launches a celebrity voice marketplace
• Beehiiv expands into the greater creator economy
• Google releases new AI shopping features
• PayPal relaunches in the UK
• Google owes Idealo and Producto €572M
• USPS embraces is last-mile network again
• Private-label takes over Thanksgiving dinners this year

All this and more in this week's 252nd Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

Stat of the Week

Global e-commerce startup funding is down 80% from its peak in 2021. Crunchbase reports that so far this year, there have been around $7.3B in global e-commerce related startup funding rounds, putting 2025 on track to deliver the sector's lowest investment tally in years, and down to a fraction of its peak in 2021.

1. Amazon Rufus can now buy items for you when they go on sale

Amazon rolled out a new agentic shopping feature in Rufus that will automatically buy products for shoppers when they go on sale, as discovered by ModernRetail. Here's how it works:

• Open a product detail page.
• Tap the chat bubble that launches Rufus.
• Type a request like, “Buy these headphones when they're 30% off.”
• Alternatively you can start the process by clicking “Price History” on the product detail page and then clicking “Set price alerts.”
• Confirm pricing details and check the “Auto Buy” box.
• Rufus then monitors the price of the item every 30 minutes until it meets or exceeds your pricing criteria. 
• Then Rufus buys it for you.
• According to ModernRetail, Amazon gives you 24 hours to cancel the order after it's placed, which I assume means that auto purchased items are precluded from same-day delivery. 

I think this is a great initial agentic use case for Rufus. I'm not quite ready as a consumer to send an agent out into the wild and shop for me without restraints. However I do love the idea of choosing a specific product that it can buy for me automatically when it reaches a certain pricing threshold. It feels like I'm still steering the ship.

It also gives Amazon a new way to promote discounting on its marketplace. Imagine as a seller receiving this message from Amazon, “Hey Paul, 42 shoppers are waiting for your product to go on sale by at least 30%.” That's quite the incentive to put your product on sale!

I'm curious if in the future, Amazon will allow sellers to put their items on sale just for those customers, which could consequently create a new way for shoppers to bargain with sellers or effectively make bids on items. As a customer, I love it. As a merchant, it could become one more way for Amazon to beat me up on price. And knowing Amazon, they'd charge for discounting in this manner — similar to how they charge merchants to run certain types of promotions or coupons.

btw – I cover this briefly in section 9 below, but Google actually started rolling out a similar agentic feature last week that tracks an items price, notifies you when it goes on sale, and gives you the option to have Google buy it on the merchant's site using Google Pay. 

2. Amazon unveils Ads Agent to automate advertising

At its annual UnBoxed event last week, Amazon unveiled Ads Agent, an AI-powered tool designed to automate media planning and campaign creation. Here's how the company describes it: 

“Powered by AI, Ads Agent works alongside advertisers to automate time-consuming tasks, like identifying targeting segments, adjusting pacing across hundreds of campaigns, and generating SQL queries for advanced analytics. It also provides data-driven recommendations and simplifies analysis—all while providing transparency and control.”

Here are a few examples of what Ads Agent can do:

• Create & Optimize Campaigns – Advertisers can upload a custom media plan and let Ads Agent create their campaign structure and ad groups for them. The agent can also optimize campaigns at scale using text prompts like “pause all campaigns with ROAS less than 200%.”
• Campaign Targeting – Ads Agent reviews thousands of audience segments to recommend the most relevant Amazon audience segments and keywords for the campaign.
• Amazon Marketing Cloud Insights – Use natural language to ask Ads Agent questions and receive real-time guidance to simplify analysis. 

Ads Agent is available to all users with access to Amazon Marketing Cloud and U.S. users of Multimedia Solutions with Amazon DSP.

Amazon also announced an update to its Campaign Manager – which it revamped into a new centralized hub that brings together sponsored ads and multimedia solutions with Amazon DSP into one single ad platform.

The new interface replaces fragmented workflows with unified setup, optimization, reporting, and cross-channel visibility, offering features like smart search, guidance cards, multi-account management, and a universal campaign creation button. Amazon said that early testing shows smart search cut bid-optimization workflow time by 26%.

The beta version of the new Campaign Manager is available to select advertisers, with a wider rollout planned for later this year.

3. Apple launches a new Mini App Partner Program with reduced fees

Apple launched a new Mini Apps Partner Program that offers app developers a better fee (15% instead of 30%) in exchange for using some of its technology to build their mini apps. Apple says: 

“The Mini Apps Partner Program provides an improved customer experience for mini app users while helping developers who host mini apps and games grow their business on the App Store.”

The partner program adds new requirements for the mini apps to support specific Apple technologies including its Advanced Commerce API, Declared Age Rating API, and in-app purchase system, as well as send information about a user's in-app purchase to Apple when refunds are requested.

One one hand, Apple positions the program as a way for developers to grow their business, leverage Apple's trust and safety tools, and benefit from reduced commissions. On the other hand, it helps ensure Apple retain its ability to extract a commission from mini applications by creating and enforcing an infrastructure around them. 

Wait, what exactly is a “mini app”?

Apple defines a mini app as “experiences that are built using web technologies like HTML5 or JavaScript and distributed within a larger, native app.” 

In simpler terms, mini apps are tools, games, or functions that exist within a “big app” or mobile browser that offer app functionality without requiring you to download and install a full app from the App Store. For example, mini apps can handle tasks like ordering food, booking a ride, playing a game, or making a quick purchase. Google Maps uses mini apps to offer ride-hailing from Lyft and restaurant reservations from OpenTable within its app, and and Snapchat runs mini app games like Bitmoji Party, Snake Squad, and Crazy Run directly within its app.

Mini apps have been around for a while, but they are still growing in popularity and use cases in the U.S. Whereas in China, there are literally millions of mini apps within the WeChat ecosystem. 

Apple has historically hated mini apps because they provide a way to bypass their App Store (and thus the “Apple tax” on in-app purchases). The company actually spent years fighting mini apps, but eventually had to give in to the growing demand for mini apps outside of their ecosystem, as well as regulatory and legal pressures — such as the Epic Games lawsuit and the EU's Digital Markets Act. 

That's an over simplification of Apple's greed-driven fight against mini apps, but I'm just trying to demonstrate that much to their dismay, Apple lost the battle against mini apps and are now embracing them in order to maintain as much control as they can over them. This new Mini App Partner Program is their attempt at an olive branch in exchange for continuing to climb their tree.

4. Walmart appoints its sixth ever CEO

Walmart announced that its CEO Doug McMillon will retire early next year, to be replaced by John Furner, the company's current U.S. CEO, who will take over as head of the retailer on Feb 1st.

McMillon, who is now 59, stepped into the role of CEO in February 2014 and helped pioneer the company's digital revolution to eventually become Amazon's top online competitor in the U.S. During his tenure, Walmart's shares have risen more than 300% despite the Covid pandemic, supply chain disruptions, high inflation, and tariff changes.

Furner, who is now 51, has been the CEO of Walmart's U.S. business since 2019, during which he's overseen the company's more than 4,600 stores in the U.S., which is its largest market.

Ready to learn something really interesting?

Both McMillon and Furner started at Walmart as hourly associates and then spent the next three decades with the company! Both executives at one time served in merchandising and operations roles, as well as CEOs of Sam's Club. It's fascinating how Walmart shaped these young men into leaders over the course of their careers, as opposed to making outside hires.

Walmart chairman Greg Penner described Furner as:

“the right leader to guide Walmart into the next chapter of our growth and transformation. After starting as an hourly associate and being with us for over 30 years in a variety of leadership roles across all three of our operating segments, John understands every dimension of our business – from the sales floor to global strategy.”

Since its launch in 1962, Walmart has only had five CEOS:

1. Sam Walton (1962–1988) — who founded the company
2. David Glass (1988–2000)
3. H. Lee Scott (2000–2009)
4. Mike Duke (2009–2014)
5. Doug McMillon (2014–2026)

McMillon will continue to serve as an executive officer of the company and be employed by Walmart as an advisor through Jan. 31, 2027.

In other CEO news this week… Apple CEO Tim Cook could step down from the top role as early as next year, according to the Financial Times. The company's board has already started to work out a succession plan, with John Ternus, Apple's senior VP of hardware engineering, being considered as the frontrunner for the position. 

5. Shopify partnered with Liquid AI to deliver sub-20ms product search

Shopify and Liquid AI announced a partnership to license and deploy the startup's flagship Liquid Foundation Models across Shopify workflows including search and other multimodal use cases.

Liquid AI is a Boston-area startup spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology that builds “liquid neural networks,” which are a form of foundation model designed to run efficiently on devices and embedded hardware. Shopify actually participated in Liquid AI's $250M Series A round in December 2024 and subsequently began co-developing its technology together for Shopify-specific use cases.

Liquid AI's models are “designed for sub-20 millisecond, multimodal, quality-preserving interference.”

In other words… Liquid AI's models are designed to give answers almost instantly, while still keeping the quality high, even when handling different types of input like text, images, or other data.

Shopify CTO Mikhail Parakhin said:

“I’ve seen a lot of models. No one else is delivering sub‑20ms inference on real workloads like this. Liquid’s architecture is efficient without sacrificing quality; in some use cases, a model with ~50% fewer parameters beats Alibaba Qwen, and Google Gemma, and still runs 2–10× faster. That’s what it takes to power interactive commerce at scale.”

As part of the partnership, Shopify and Liquid AI built a new recommendation engine together that beats its older recommendation tools and led to more shoppers clicking and buying the products it suggested, as well as a super-fast text model that helps improve search result speed and accuracy.

Shopify is also testing other Liquid AI models that can work with multiple types of data, such as customer profiles, product images, and store information, to power things like smarter recommendations, better product tagging, and more accurate customer insights.

Under the new agreement, Shopify will license Liquid AI’s foundation models, but the companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

6. Facebook Marketplace gets a “glow up”

Meta is revamping its Facebook Marketplace in an attempt to make it more “social and collaborative” and appeal to “young adults” on the platform. Updates include:

• Group Collections – A new feature that enables users to create groups of Marketplace listings and invite friends to join. All you have to do is save a listing, start a new collection, choose whether to make it public or private, and then invite your friends to participate. 
• Collaborative Buying – Users can now invite a friend to join their chat with the seller, making it easier to coordinate pickup, negotiate prices, and get answers to questions together. 
• Reactions & Comments – You can now react and comment directly on Marketplace listings, as opposed to just the shared version of the listing in buy and sell groups. This helps centralize the conversation around an item for sale without making users join each group that it's listed in.
• Suggested Questions To Ask – This pop-up button uses details from the listing and your conversation to suggest questions you might want to ask the seller — other than the annoying default “Is this item still available?” question that has plagued sellers for years.
• AI Insights For Car Buying – When you visit a vehicle listing, you'll now see AI insights that can gather information about engine options, safety ratings, transmission type, seating, cargo capacity, reviews, and price insights in one place. Love this one! This feature turns a crappy seller listing with no details into a comprehensive listing with everything you need to know about the car sans-Google search.
• eBay and Poshmark Expanded Inventory – Listings from partner marketplaces to give users more options across categories like fashion and electronics. Purchases happen on the partner sites. Technically this integration began rolling out earlier this year.
• Improved Shipping Experience – Buyers will now see total costs upfront, including shipping and tax, and then receive notifications as order status changes.

These updates are fantastic and long overdue! It's wild to me that Facebook Marketplace in recent years has been a primary feature that's kept young adults on the platform (or got them to sign up in the first place), yet it's simultaneously felt like an afterthought of Meta's. The company is so focused on AI tools of the future, that it's felt like they've abandoned the tools of today that people are actually using.

Meta likes to market everything as “AI-powered” — but their expanded car listings, for example, could have been accomplished years ago without AI simply by partnering with Edmunds or KBB. 

Over 1 billion people visit Facebook Marketplace every month across 70 countries, with some sources estimating that it owns around 22% of the global online resale market. It's about time that Meta prioritizes it on their development roadmap, and I hope that I'm covering more updates soon.

7. ElevenLabs launches an AI voice marketplace

ElevenLabs unveiled its Iconic Voice Marketplace, a new platform that lets brands license the voices of public figures like Liza Minnelli and Michael Caine for use in marketing and entertainment. What about Morgan Freeman?!

Michael Caine announced the partnership in a promotional video powered by his AI voice replica, claiming that the goal wasn't to replace human creativity but to “amplify” it with AI.

The marketplace allows brands to negotiate directly with the owners of the voices and their talent representatives before using their replicas, so not everyone can use the celebrity voices for anything they'd like.

Ready for the weirdest part?

The weirdest part of Iconic Voice Marketplace is that it includes voices from deceased celebrities like Judy Garland, Baby Ruth, and Maya Angelou, after having partnered with the estates. In fact, most of the voices are from deceased public figures! See for yourself.

IP rights aside, is it respectful of the dead to sell their voices to promote products that came out decades after they lived? And is it a good look for a brand to use a deceased celebrity's voice in their marketing campaign? Are customers going to be like, “Is that Dorothy from Wizard of Oz promoting a weight loss program?”

I can rationalize the use case of bringing these deceased actors and public figures to life through their AI-cloned voices in documentaries about them, perhaps taking their written words and turning them into spoken voice for the purpose of storytelling. However I can't get behind using a deceased person's voice for marketing. That's just off putting!

What are your thoughts? Hit reply and let me know. 

8. Beehiiv expands into a full “operating system for the content economy”

Beehiiv released 10 new products & updates at its Winter Release event, aiming to reposition itself as the “operating system for the content economy,” as well as better compete with Substack, Squarespace, Patreon, Shopify, and other tools in various ways.

CEO Tyler Denk wrote:

“You start with a newsletter. Simple enough. Then, you’re juggling five tools just to send, grow, and monetize. That’s the problem we’ve been focused on since day one at beehiiv. We want to give creators and publishers the power to own everything: their audience, their brand, and their revenue – without the chaos.”

Here's what's new at Beehiiv: 

• Digital Products – enables creators to sell guides, templates, memberships, and other services commission-free.
• AI Website Builder – a tool that uses text prompts to create structure, copy, and visuals for a webpage using Beehiiv's existing builder, so that you can easily edit the page after the AI gives you a jump start.
• beehiiv Podcasts – enables creators to host a podcast website alongside their newsletter and digital products, as well as import their existing show to their platform. 
• Website Analytics – a real-time view of performance across your entire media ecosystem including traffic, behavior, and conversions without relying on GA4. I love that Tyler wrote in the announcement, “You shouldn’t need to be a data scientist to understand what’s working.” Agreed!
• Link in Bio – a mobile-first landing page to connect your newsletter, website, podcast, and products, similar to a Linktree, but built into beehiiv.
• Templates – a new set of professional layouts for your newsletter and websites. (Good, because it was becoming too easy to tell a “beehiiv newsletter” from the rest.)
• Dynamic Content – the ability to tailor what readers see based on location, interests, or subscription tier
• Automations – new flows including welcome series, upgrade workflows, and Discord and Slack integrations.
• New Ad Network Experience – a network that connects brands and publishers directly, leaving publishers full control to preview, approve, and track campaigns. This has existed for a while, but got a refresh.
• Paid Subscriptions – a commission-free way to offer premium content to your newsletter subscribers

Adweek notes that beehiiv's business is split between its SaaS subscriptions, which is comprised of 15,000 paying customers and generates $22M annually, and its newsletter ad network, which generates between $800k and $1M per month.

Great stuff! I especially love the newly added ability to bring digital products into the same ecosystem without requiring subscribers to have two accounts on different platforms (ie: one subscribed to your beehiiv newsletter and another on Gumroad to buy a product). 

Now if beehiiv would finally offer real human-powered live chat support for technical issues (not just AI chatbot support), I'd actually give them a shot. I've tried to switch to them in the past on multiple occasions so that I could tap into their growth tools, but either ran into pre-sale questions or technical issues during the migration, and support took days to get back to me, or never got back to me at all in other cases.

When you subscribed to Shopifreaks, I made a promise to send you a weekly curation of the most important e-commerce news stories every Monday without fail — and I've delivered on that promise for 252 consecutive editions spanning almost 5 years! I currently power this newsletter with Email Octopus, which offers live chat support that can resolve issues in minutes. This type of incredible on-demand support helps ensure that I can keep my promise to my subscribers and never miss an edition. No matter how great the growth and monetization tools, human-powered live chat support is ultimately the deciding factor in whether I'd switch to beehiiv or any other platform.

9. Other e-commerce news of interest

Google introduced new AI shopping features across Search and the Gemini app just in time for the holiday season. The update lets users shop conversationally in Search using AI Mode, which can generate shoppable images, comparison tables and real-time product data from the Shopping Graph. Google also added local availability checks by having its AI call nearby stores and expanded agentic checkout, which can track prices and automatically complete purchases with user approval. Awesome idea for local availability checks, except for the fact that local businesses are trained for years now to ignore all calls from Google! So good luck with that one, LOL. 

PayPal relaunched in the UK with a unified online and in-store payment experience and introduced its first loyalty program, PayPal+. The program lets nearly 30M UK customers earn and redeem points across PayPal balance, cards and Buy Now Pay Later purchases, with higher tiers offering increased point values and perks. PayPal also launched its first UK debit and credit cards, expanded PayPal Credit for in-store use and announced brand partnerships including Live Nation festival benefits. The relaunch comes nearly two years after PayPal restructured its operations in the UK following Brexit, transferring all of its services from its Luxembourg-based entity to PayPal UK Ltd in anticipation of the expiry of permissions by the UK government to allow EEA-based firms to operate in the country for a limited time following Brexit.

A Berlin court ruled that Google must pay €465M to Idealo and €107M to Producto for abusing its dominance in price comparison search. The case was originally filed because Idealo alleged that Google favored its own Shopping service on search results pages from 2008 to 2023, diverting traffic and harming rival comparison sites. Idealo, which sought €3.3B in damages, said it will continue its legal action. Google rejected the rulings and said it plans to appeal, arguing that it had made changes in 2017 to ensure rival comparison shopping services were given the same opportunity as its own Google Shopping to display ads on its search results page.

OpenAI's video generator tool Sora 2 can't fix its copyright infringement problem because it was trained on stolen content, according to 404 Media's Emanuel Maiberg. 404's testing found that Sora 2 continues to produce copyrighted characters and likenesses despite new guardrails that require rights-holder opt-in and that users can bypass restrictions with simple misspellings or indirect prompts, enabling videos resembling Animal Crossing, American Dad and real people. Maiberg says, “For OpenAI to actually stop the copyright infringement it needs to make its Sora 2 model ‘unlearn' copyrighted content, which is incredibly expensive and complicated” and “would require removing all that content from the training data and retraining the model.” Sorry OpenAI, but not our problem!

USPS is planning to open its last-mile network to more shippers as it pursues negotiations with UPS and other companies to handle expanded Ground Saver and retailer deliveries. Postmaster General David Steiner said the agency wants to grow same-day and next-day last-mile options while better monetizing its nationwide reach. Steiner described an effort to build broader partnerships without reverting to pre-DeJoy consolidator arrangements and said the USPS could also expand its role in returns through its 33,000-facility first-mile network. Also, USPS is planning to raise shipping rates in January 2026 and plans to ask Congress and regulators for greater pricing flexibility as it faces current rate-setting limits.

Walmart, Target and Kroger promoted lower-cost Thanksgiving meal bundles this year by replacing several national-brand items with private-label alternatives. Walmart’s basket dropped from about $55 in 2024 to roughly $40 in 2025 with the same amount of items by swapping out brand-name products for cheaper store brands, while Target and Kroger made similar substitutions to keep prices flat. President Trump took credit for the price reduction on Truth Social, calling it a “very powerful statement” that's “better than a poll,” but failed to mention the substitutions (or didn't know about them). 

commercetools introduced Agentic Jumpstart, a new enterprise tool that connects product and pricing data to major AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot and provides secure infrastructure for AI-initiated transactions through its AI Hub and Agent Gateway components. Early adopters include Frasers Group and Liverpool, and launch partners such as Accenture, EPAM, Orium and Valtech will support enterprise deployments as agent-led shopping grows. In other commercetools news, the company announced that it processed more than $75B in annualized GMV as of September 2025, marking a 60% YoY increase, alongside an average 30% annual revenue gain among customers. 

Airbnb will soon be testing a new service with Instacart called “kitchen stocking” that lets guests at some U.S. rentals order groceries through the app ahead of and during their stay. During the three-month pilot program, which begins Jan 5th, Airbnb will pay hosts $25 for every completed order if they receive a guest's pre-order and put away the groceries before they check in. Guests will be able to place an Instacart order within the Airbnb app up to three weeks before their stay. Really cool idea! Whenever I rent Airbnbs for my friends and family who visit me in Cuenca, I always check-in early and fill their fridges with groceries for their stay. It's a nice touch that saves them from having to go find a grocery or convenience store after a long day of travel.

Amazon Music launched a new feature called Fan Groups in beta in Canada, bringing dedicated communities where where people can “discover, share, chat, and listen to music” in the iOS and Android app, with plans to roll out in the U.S. and additional markets globally in 2026. Fan Groups can be made for artists, songs, or genres, and group members can save music recommendations and instantly stream recommended music. Do people actually want to join communities based around a single song? And does Amazon really want to be in the business of moderating group chats on its music platform? Save that for Reddit.

Amazon introduced a centralized returns dashboard that gives sellers ASIN-level insights, performance metrics, and recovery data across FBA and merchant-fulfilled channels. The tool includes return reasons, critical review rates, and Grade and Resell recovery metrics, and arrives as Amazon’s holiday return policy allows purchases made between November 1 and December 31 to be returned through January 31. Some sellers welcomed clearer reporting, while others voiced frustration that inaccurate return reasons and refund-first policies continue to create costs and abuse across the marketplace.

Venmo introduced a new rewards program called Venmo Stash that offers cashback of up to 5% to its Mastercard Debit Card. Initially customers earn a whopping 1% cash back when they spend their Venmo balance, but then rewards grow to 2% when they turn on auto reloads to keep their balance replenished, followed by 5% when they opt to receive Direct Deposits on Venmo each month. Instead of offering cashback based on spending category like a lot of cashback programs, Venmo Stash has customers pick from curated bundles of their favorite brands, such as a bundle that includes McDonald's, TikTok Shop, Uber, and Uber Eats, or another bundle that offers Amazon, DoorDash, Domino's, and Walgreens. Cashback rewards are capped at $100 per month, and users can switch bundles each month.

Mercor, a startup that helps AI companies train their large language models by contracting humans to tag and categorize text, images, and videos, told thousands of its contract workers that they would no longer be working on a big project for Meta due to “project scope changes,” and then offered the contractors work on a similar new project that would pay $16 an hour, $5 less than their previous hourly rate. Mercor, which was recently valued at $10B, said that the information was “inaccurate,” but didn't add any additional details. I guess it turns out there's only so many things to label.

Cash App introduced new features during its fall update including Moneybot, an AI assistant that analyzes spending, income, and savings patterns and helps users take actions like splitting bills or checking balances, and tools to help users find merchants that accept Bitcoin and pay in Bitcoin using USD through the Lightning Network. Cash App is also launching a new benefits program called Cash App Green with perks including higher borrowing limits, free overdraft coverage, ATM access, and up to 3.5% APY, with roughly 8M accounts eligible for the benefits.

TikTok is partnering with iHeartMedia to feature TikTok creators on its podcasts, broadcasts, and live events, including the launch of a TikTok Podcast Network. The announcement describes the endeavor as “a station where listeners will feel like they are scrolling on TikTok, but with their ears,” featuring songs that are popular on TikTok as well as “trend-driven storytelling and emotional context behind the music.” The two companies also plan to work together to add creators to iHeart events like its Music Festival and Jingle Ball.

Samsung is preparing to launch its own credit card in the U.S. in partnership with Barclays and Visa, according to WSJ sources. The card is expected to challenge the Apple Card with cash-back rewards and a feature that allows users to transfer their rewards to a Samsung savings account, which they could then use for discounts on future Samsung products like phones, TVs, and home appliances. The same sources say that Samsung is also exploring launching a high-yield savings account, a digital prepaid account, and a BNPL product to encourage consumers to use its digital wallet more often.

Mozilla Firefox is building an AI browsing feature called AI Window that includes an assistant and chatbot, which it calls an opt-in “intelligent and user-controlled space” that is being built “in the open” with user input. Mozilla is attempting to position itself as a respectful browsing company that gives users the option to use as much or as little AI as they want, while other browsers “are building AI experiences that keep you locked in a conversational loop.” AI Window will be one of three browsing experiences offered to Firefox users in addition to classic and private windows.

Index Exchange, a Toronto-based global supply-side ad tech platform, is suing Google for allegedly illegally tying its publisher ad server to its ad exchange, seeking monetary damages and injunctive relief following a federal court's determination in April that Google illegally monopolized digital advertising markets. The lawsuit alleges that Google's systematic ongoing anticompetitive conduct prevented the company from competing fairly in markets worth over $104B annually and that Google's conduct artificially suppressed its growth and forced the company to invest substantial resources in developing workarounds to Google's anticompetitive restrictions.

Former GroupM executive Richard Foster filed a $100M lawsuit accusing WPP of firing him for objecting to what he described as improper rebate practices tied to media buying. Foster alleged that WPP retained $1.5B to $2B in rebates that should have gone to clients and said his dismissal coincided with GroupM’s rebrand to WPP Media. WPP denied the accusations and said it will defend the case, noting that Foster was let go as part of a broader restructuring and rejecting any link between his termination and rebate concerns.

Meta, TikTok, Google, and YouTube are suing California to challenge its new Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, arguing that its requirement for parental consent before minors can access personalized feeds violates the First Amendment and restricts minors' access to protected speech. Meta's complaint argues that just as the state can't dictate how a library orders its books, it also can't dictate how Meta organizes speech on its platform. Good augment Meta — because kids have a history of getting addicted to library bookshelves! California’s attorney general maintains the statute is aimed at safeguarding children from addictive design features, and the Ninth Circuit has previously signaled that key elements of the law are likely to survive legal challenges.

GoDaddy owes Express Mobile $170M for infringing on two of its patents relating to website building tools. A Delaware federal jury found that GoDaddy’s web-design features violated patents owned by Express Mobile, which sued in 2019 over technology developed by its founder and former IBM engineer Steven Rempell. GoDaddy said it disagrees with the verdict and plans to challenge it in court, while Express Mobile called the outcome a validation of its patents. The company previously won a $40 million verdict against Shopify in 2022, though that ruling was later overturned.

TikTok users who accused the company of collecting sensitive data through its in-app browser withdrew their lawsuit after independent experts concluded the browser code did not in fact capture the information alleged in the complaint. Maybe they should have gotten those experts involved before filing the lawsuit! The class action, which originally filed in 2022, claimed TikTok secretly tracked keystrokes and activity on third-party sites, citing research that showed the app’s browser was capable of such logging. After reviewing TikTok’s code during discovery, the plaintiffs’ experts reported that the data of concern was not collected, leading both sides to agree that continuing the case was unwarranted.

MrBeast is on a hiring spree, bringing on board new executives from TikTok, Snap, and NBCU, as part of his goal to build a Disney-style entertainment business. His company, which raised an estimated couple hundred million dollars earlier this year at a $5B valuation, has been pushing to turn its media business profitable, staffing up in certain areas to close more brand deals, recruit creatives, and expand production work. I fully support the development of a new media empire! The existing ones have gone stale.

X launched a new “Bangers” badge, which rewards creators for “the very best posts that move the timeline, ranked by authentic interactions,” and appears on the creator's profile for one month. Only updates from personal accounts (not brand accounts) are eligible for the award, and only engagements by X Premium accounts, which comprise less than 1% of users on the platform, count as “authentic interactions.” Honestly I can't even hate on this. It's kind of nice to have a social media company not be a bland sterile ripoff of every other network and come up with its own vibe.

Nebius Group, a Netherlands-based AI infrastructure and cloud computing company that provides GPU-optimized compute for AI firms, signed a $3B deal with Meta to provide the company with AI infrastructure over a five-year period, noting that the size of the contract had to be limited to the capacity that Nebius had available. The deal follows a similar $17.4B deal with Microsoft in September. Nebius reported a 355% jump in revenue to $146.1M in Q3 and is targeting up to $9B in ARR by the end of 2026.

The European Union is accelerating its plan to abolish the de minimis exemption, which lets packages under €150 enter the region duty free, and may now end it as early as the first quarter of 2026, two years ahead of schedule. The move comes as France has been pushing for stronger action against platforms like Shein and Temu and follows the U.S. endings its own de minimis loophole earlier this year in May. Once implemented, every low-value package entering the EU would be subject to a customs charge, with the European Commission proposing a flat-rate duty and France lobbying for a fixed fee of around €5 per parcel, arguing that Chinese exporters frequently lie about the declared value of their goods. A separate €2 handling fee is also under discussion.

Meta is getting ready to launch third-party integration with WhatsApp in Europe during the next few months, as required by the Digital Markets Act, beginning with BirdyChat and Haiket. WhatsApp users in the region will eventually see a notification in the settings that that will explain how to opt-in to third party messaging, which will work on mobile apps, but not on desktops, web, or tablets. Meta says its partnerships are a result of more than three years of work with the European Commission to build a solution to third-party chats that meet the requirements of the DMA, while preserving privacy and security for users.

PayPal introduced its BNPL service Pay in 4 in Canada, allowing shoppers to split purchases up to $1,500 into four interest-free payments with any merchant that uses PayPal, joining Affirm, Klarna, and Afterpay in serving the Canadian market. PayPal launched pay in 4 in the U.S. in August 2020, but has offered installment payments in select European markets as far back as 2016 under different branding. 

🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… A TikToker from North Carolina named Brenay Kennard has been ordered to pay $1.75M to the ex-wife of her manager for ruining her marriage. Kennard was sued by Akira Montague, the former wife of her manager, who accused her of having an affair with her husband, Tim Montague, which in turn ended their marriage. The ex-wife claimed in the lawsuit that Kennard “engaged in behavior designed to seduce” her former husband and “flaunted her affair and romantic relationship … in public and private places.” Nearly two years after filing the lawsuit, a jury found Kennard liable of alienation of affection and criminal conversation. Only six states other states recognize the alienation of affection law, which allows a spouse to sue a third party for intentionally interfering with their marriage.

10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions

CloudX, a mobile ad tech startup that uses AI agents to automate ad pricing and optimize in-app advertising for publishers, raised $30M in a Series A round led by Addition. The company, founded by the creators of MoPub and MAX, is building a supply-side platform that uses agentic automation and a Trusted Execution Environment to provide transparent auctions and real-time optimization. CloudX is integrating with initial partners including Meta, Liftoff, and Magnite, with broader availability expected in early 2026.

Life360, a family safety company that provides location sharing, driving analysis, and emergency assistance through its mobile app, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nativo, an adtech company that provides a full ad-tech stack enabling brands to create and distribute premium, integrated ad experiences across mobile, web, and connected TV, for $120M in cash and stock. The deal brings Nativo’s ad tech stack, publisher integrations, and sales team into Life360, enabling a broader location-based targeting and measurement platform for brands.

CommerceClarity, a platform that automates product catalog operations for retailers and brands using AI-agent workflows, raised €2.7M in a pre-seed funding round led by IFF and Entourage. The company uses a network of specialized agents to ingest, clean, validate, and optimize product data for retailers, aiming to cut operational costs and improve visibility across marketplaces and channels. CommerceClarity plans to use the new capital for international expansion and to build out its agentic infrastructure, following early adoption from more than 40 clients including Nestlé Purina and Arcaplanet.

Salesforce is acquiring Doti AI, a one-year-old Israeli startup that provides an AI-powered enterprise search platform that integrates with tools like Slack, Jira, and of course Salesforce to deliver actionable insights and build custom agents, for an undisclosed amount estimated to be around $100M. The acquisition will bring Doti's workforce to the Salesforce, strengthening its AI R&D hub in Israel and accelerating the development of unified, agentic search and knowledge discovery for customers. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal 2026.

Zilch, a UK-based fintech that offers ad-subsidized payment options like interest-free BNPL and cashback debit for consumers, raised $176.7M in debit and equity from KKCG and BNF Capital at a $2B valuation. Zilch has almost 5.5M customers in the UK and plans to use the funds for marketing, European expansion, and new product development such as a digital wallet called Zilch Pay, as well as for growing its product, engineering and data science teams.

Sunday, a digital payments company that lets restaurant guests scan a QR code to view, split, and pay their bill from their phones, raised $21M in a Series B round led by DST Global Partners. In just four years since launch, the company has scaled to 3,000 restaurants across the U.S., U.K., and France, processing $4B in payments annually for 80M guests. It plans to use the funds to add new U.S. markets, launch a guest app, and roll out white-label solutions for multi-location groups.

REBEL, a returns recommerce marketplace that takes open-box and overstocks from retailers, quality-checks them, and resells them at discounts, raised $25M in a Series B round led by MarcyPen Capital Partners, less than one year after its $18M Series A round. The company, which surpassed one million products processed in August 2025, will use the funds to expand into outdoor and sporting goods like water and winter sports, camping equipment, athletic gear, and outdoor toys, following its expansion into baby products earlier this year. 

Rain, a stablecoin payment infrastructure company, agreed to acquire Uptop, a card-linked on-chain rewards platform built on the Avalanche blockchain, for an undisclosed amount. The deal follows Rain’s $58M Series B and will allow enterprises to launch branded cards and wallets with built-in rewards through Rain’s full-stack platform. Uptop will expand beyond sports into retail, entertainment, travel, and dining while continuing to operate as an independent brand under Rain.

Responsible, a fashion-tech platform that enables brands and retailers to buy back, resell, and manage previously worn clothing to support circularity, acquired KLEKT, a European marketplace for authentic sneakers and streetwear, for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Responsible will integrate its buy-back and resale infrastructure with Klekt’s community-led sneaker marketplace to widen its reach in resale, positioning the company to scale authenticated pre-owned streetwear across Europe and new global markets.

Netigate, an experience-management platform that helps organizations collect and analyze feedback from customers and employees, acquired Mopinion, a user feedback analytics platform that helps companies collect, analyze, and act on feedback from websites, mobile apps, and email campaigns, for an undisclosed amount. The deal creates a consolidated platform that brings together survey automation, analytics, and AI-driven insights with advanced digital feedback collection, enabling organizations to capture customer and employee signals across the full journey and analyze them in a single European-hosted system.

Barron McCann, an IT services company that installs, deploys, and maintains technology infrastructure for retail, hospitality, and leisure brands, acquired a controlling interest in Retail247, a provider of SaaS tools for product information, stock management, and order management for multichannel retailers, for an undisclosed amount. Both companies plan to continue operating under their own brands while combining capabilities to offer managed IT services, hardware procurement, field engineering, and retail software across multiple sectors.

Banzai International, a marketing-technology company that provides AI-powered SaaS solutions for strategies across acquisition, engagement and analytics, acquired the assets of Superblock, an agentic AI platform for developing and hosting launch-ready SEO-optimized websites, for an undisclosed amount. The deal expands Banzai’s AI-powered SaaS suite by adding tools that generate branded web interfaces and deploy them using modern frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular, while enhancing Banzai’s integrated marketing ecosystem, which already includes webinars, video creation, and automation products.

QuickShift, an India-based fulfilment startup that offers full-stack supply-chain and logistics services tailored for D2C brands and e-commerce businesses, raised ₹22 crore ($2.4M) in a Pre-Series A round led by Atomic Capital. The company, which currently operates seven fulfillment centers across India, plans to use the funds to enhance its AI-driven fulfillment platform, expand its operations to key Indian markets, and strengthen multi-channel programs for D2C and enterprise brands.

Klook, a Hong Kong-based travel and experiences booking platform that lets users reserve tours, attractions, transportation, and in-destination activities worldwide, filed for an IPO to list on the NYSE, seeking to raise between $300M and $500M. The company, which posted a net loss of $141.5M on $407.4M of revenue for the first nine months of 2025, plans to use proceeds from the public offering to fund acquisitions and strategic investments.

Bond, a Toronto-based customer engagement company that uses data and customer intelligence to design and manage loyalty programs, personalized experiences, and CRM solutions for global brands, acquired Armadillo, a UK-based CRM agency that designs and manages data-driven customer engagement and loyalty programs, for an undisclosed amount. The deal expands Bond’s international footprint and creates a connected engagement platform spanning analytics, predictive modeling, CRM strategy, loyalty programs, martech activation, and performance measurement.

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: How much does it cost to build a chimney? Nothing it's on the house!