#198 – Shopify Finance, Mexican Tariffs, & Apple Intelligence

by Shopifreaks | Nov 4, 2024 | Recent Newsletters

Hi Shopifreaks!

Is Shopify becoming more bank than e-commerce platform?

Are we about to enter an era of AI personal assistants that live on our phones?

Is Mexico fed up with cheap Chinese imports?

Will TikTokers have to pay back what they stole from JPMorgan Chase (and more)?

In this week's edition I cover:

Cavana's 2 million cars sold
The launch of Shopify Finance
Mexico imposing tariffs on Chinese imports
eBay's Fall Seller Update 2024
JPMorgan Chase sues TikTokers
The end of a $12M e-commerce scam
Highlights from OpenAI's AMA
Affirm launches in the U.K.
Apple Intelligence goes live
Meesho generates positive cash flow
Your first Beneficial Ownership Information Report

All this and more in this week's 198th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

PS: Don't forget to enter my iPhone 16 and Macbook Pro giveaway! All you have to do for a chance to win is mention/tag Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter and/or Paul Drecksler on LinkedIn (bonus entries for both) between now and Dec 20, 2024. You can post about the newsletter once a week for additional chances to win. As for the post, you can either share stories from this week's edition, talk about the newsletter, or repost my weekly recaps — all count as entries.

PPS: I updated my live case study with Linkifi.io after receiving a feature / do-follow link from HubSpot. As you might recall, I'm running a live “earned media” experiment in collaboration with the PR team at Linkifi.io to earn some high-value backlinks to Shopifreaks.com. Check out that post to learn more about the experiment and to see the results.

Stat of the Week

Carvana sold its 2 millionth used vehicle since launching in January 2013. It took the company nine years to reach one million cars sold and just over two years to sell the next million.

1. Shopify launches Shopify Finance

Shopify introduced Shopify Finance, a unified home for all of its financial solutions built straight into the Shopify admin. Now merchants can access the following tools and services in one place:

Shopify Balance – a free business account that allows merchants to receive funds from orders on the next business day. The account comes with a 3.39% APY on balance (4.43% APY and higher ACH limits for Shopify Plus).
Shopify Credit – a pay-in-full Visa business card that gives merchants up to 3% cashback on eligible marketing, wholesale, and fulfillment purchases. Merchants can now get up to 10 months to pay over time from a percentage of daily sales.
Shopify Capital – a revenue-based financing program for Shopify merchants to borrow working capital up to $2M, with no credit checks or impact on personal credit score and repayments automatically deducted as a percentage of daily sales. Now Shopify is rolling out monthly-cost loan structures in early access, which offers lower overall costs the faster merchants repay.
Shopify Bill Pay – a business payments solution that allows merchants to schedule, pay, and manage their business bills directly from their Shopify admin by credit card, debit card, bank transfer, or Shopify Balance, whether or not a vendor accepts that form of payment. Now merchants can make batch and recurring payments, as well as combine payments to save on transaction fees.
Shopify Tax – a built-in tool that automates sales tax calculations, collection, and reporting, while enabling merchants to automatically set aside sales tax into their Balance accounts.

Shopify wrote in its announcement:

“Shopify Finance is our latest move in making merchants’ lives easier and removing barriers to entrepreneurship. Now, business finances can be more streamlined, less daunting, and more aligned with the way entrepreneurs need to operate. Shopify Finance was built not just to meet the needs our merchants have today, but to help them scale for years to come.”

Honestly, I love all these financial moves by Shopify. Their tools are convenient for merchants and beneficial to Shopify's bottom line — a win-win. Shopify earns revenue by moving money, and it makes sense for the company to do so in additional ways that benefit businesses outside of payment processing (their bread and butter). The more money that flows through Shopify's payment rails, the better for the company.

Here's my biggest concern though — reporting.

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a story from a merchant about how terrible Shopify's reporting system is…

In fact, just a few days ago a reader wrote me a detailed account of a discrepancy with Shopify's reporting of subscription sales. The issue she's run into is that Shopify doesn't include the first subscription sale as a “subscription sale” in their reports, and only counts subsequent sales as coming through the subscription app. This can obviously create a lot of issues when it comes to tracking new subscriptions. She also brought to light several other reporting issues related to subscriptions, which Shopify has now been made aware of.

Another example… a client I work with hired a merchandising expert as a part time consultant. This guy works with major enterprise fashion brands (think Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch level) — but has never worked on a Shopify store before. He's working with this particular brand because he's a customer himself and personally passionate about their mission. He wrote to me last week and asked if there was something he was doing wrong with Shopify reporting, and explained the issues he was running into. Basically he asked, “Is it really this bad?” The best answer I could really give him was — “You're not imagining things” — and I offered to install whatever tools or 3rd party analytics platforms he needed to get the job done.

Honestly, I could share countless stories about Shopify Reports falling short of merchant expectations. It seems that reporting has never been a strong point for the company. And that's extra concerning if they're now going to play the role of your bank.

Reporting discrepancies are notoriously difficult to discover unless you cross-reference reports from various apps and analytics tools — which most small merchants don't do because they look to Shopify Reports as their single source of truth.

I applaud Shopify for all of its recent financial moves, but I humbly ask that the company make reporting a priority. Shopify did report in September and in their most recent Shopify Editions that they rebuilt their analytics tech stack to make it “faster, more flexible, and more intuitive” and will offer merchants the ability to layer on combinations of metrics or dimensions and build exploration reports from scratch (which sounds a little GA4-esque).

So it sounds like they've listened to merchant feedback and are trying to improve their internal reporting system. Hopefully the updates, which we should begin to see in the coming months, will solve many of the documented reporting errors.

2. Mexico considers imposing tariffs on Chinese e-commerce imports

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is considering imposing tariffs on small imported goods from China to boost revenue, protect jobs in domestic industries, and offset the nation's budget deficit inherited from her predecessor, Andres Lopez Obrador.

The proposed tariffs would target low cost products bought from platforms like Temu, Shein, AliExpress, and Alibaba, which circumvent import duties while oftentimes failing to meet the technical standards for products that required for domestic manufacturers.

Mexico currently has a de minimis threshold that permits duty-free imports from all countries, including China, for shipments valued up to $50 USD. Shipments valued between $50 and $117 are exempt from duties but are subject to a 16% VAP. For shipments exceeding $117, both duties and VAT apply. In comparison, USA has higher de minimis threshold of $800.

Finance Secretary Rogelio Ramirez de la O said that Sino-Mexican trade relations were “not reciprocal” and that it was “only logical to expect that both Americans and Mexicans demand our fair share of this global demand.”

El Universal reports that the “unfair competition” from Chinese e-commerce platforms eliminated at least 20,000 textile industry jobs in the country and reduced apparel manufacturing by 8%.

Governmental data show that this year Mexico will face its largest budget deficit in more than 30 years, reaching 5.9% of its GDP. Sheinbaum aims to reduce this to 3% next year, which will require bringing in additional tax revenue.

The financial plan, along with any new tariffs (which have yet to be determined), must be submitted to Mexico's Congress by mid-November for approval.

Watch out China — you may have flown too close to the sun with all your de minimis shipments, and now countries want to even the playing field for their domestic retailers and manufacturers. As reported in September, the USA is also looking to revise its de minimis loophole, which I highly encourage.

🔥 Partner News

Omnisend explored how Americans are showing support for their candidates, and how these choices are reflected in the merchandise sales of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. This election season, Amazon sellers have sold over $140M of Trump merch and $26M of Harris merch (although to be fair, those numbers just reflect sales through September, before Harris had built as much momentum). However 21% of Trump merch sold has contained negative keywords like “anti” and “sucks.” Read more merch stats in Omnisend's full report.

3. eBay Fall Seller Update 2024

eBay is rolling out its Fall Seller Update for 2024, which includes changes to its seller feedback policy, but no changes to seller fees.

Changes for November include:

Create studio-quality photos for free with our latest AI background enhancement tool.
Store subscribers, easily monitor the success of your discounts with the redesigned Summary and Discount pages.
Know the market value of your items and price them like a pro with the Product research tool.
Get access to the funding you need, whenever you need it, with Flexible Cash Advance.
Our Feedback Policy has been updated to better protect your business and ensure we’re being fair to both our buyers and sellers.
Ship with confidence with ShipCover’s expanded USPS insurance coverage, now safeguarding items up to $5,000.

Changes for December include:

Update your listings to comply with the General Product Safety Regulations if you sell to buyers in the EU and Northern Ireland.
Take advantage of eBay International Shipping’s increased item value limit on transactions to Canada.

eCommerceBytes notes that the feedback policy change is one of the more significant changes for sellers. eBay will now remove negative or neutral feedback in the following cases:

When a buyer asks to cancel an order after placing it and the seller denies their request. Per eBay policy, sellers have the discretion to accept or deny a cancellation request.
When a buyer changes their mind about their purchase and references being charged for the cost of an eBay return label.

You can read more details about each change on eBay's Fall Seller Update page.

4. JPMorgan Chase goes after TikTok users involved in money glitch

Remember in September when I reported on the Chase Money Glitch that went viral on TikTok?

Here's a quick reminder of what went down: Videos went viral on TikTok showcasing a “money glitch” at Chase. Viewers were told that if they deposited false checks in an ATM — that they wrote to themselves for an amount of money that they didn't actually have — and withdrew that money soon afterward, they would be able to cheat the system and take out a large sum of cash before the check bounced. Users posted hundreds of now-deleted videos showing their Chase accounts with negative amounts, sometimes up to $50,000.

Yes, as you're aware, what participants were actually doing was committing check fraud, and now JPMorgan Chase is pursuing legal action against clients involved in the scheme, demanding that defendants return the unlawfully accessed funds and cover the bank's legal fees and related expenses.

The bank said last month that it was investigating thousands of incidents of check fraud committed by TikTok users, but it hasn't yet disclosed the full extent of its losses.

One lawsuit in Houston involves a “masked man” who deposited a $335,000 check into a defendant's account, yielding the highest outstanding balance among the cases, totaling $291,000. Another defendant in California owes about $90,000, while two Florida defendants owe $141,000 and $138,000.

Drew Pusateri, a Chase spokesperson, said:

“Fraud is a crime that affects everyone and erodes trust in the banking system. We’re pursuing these cases and actively cooperating with law enforcement to make sure if someone is committing fraud against Chase and its customers, they’re held accountable.”

JPMorgan should donate any funds it recoups to America's public education system, so that we can teach future generations what check fraud is!

5. Court suspends operation of major e-commerce scam

As a result of a FTC lawsuit, a federal court has temporarily shut down the operations of an e-commerce scam that has taken more than $12M from consumers with false promises of big returns selling on Amazon and Walmart.

Since at least 2019, the scheme operated under various names including Lunar Capital Ventures, Ecom Genie, Profitable Automation, and Valiant Consultants Inc. Under each of these names, the company made bogus claims that consumers could earn huge profits after paying tens of thousands of dollars to start an e-commerce business — which never materialized — causing consumers to lose substantial amounts of money.

The operators used social media ads, websites, and marketing e-mails to tout the supposed success of their clients, claiming that some were generating upwards of $100k per month. The marketing campaigns were backed by aggressive sales tactics, with sales reps encouraging clients to use their pensions or life savings to invest in the scheme.

The FTC's complain charges that the companies' operators deceived consumers and failed to provide them with the disclosures required by the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule, which would have made clear the nature of the scheme and provided transparency to consumers about the viability of earnings claims.

Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, explained in a statement:

“At a time when consumers are increasingly looking online for opportunities to supplement their income, this scheme made grand promises of guaranteed passive income. Instead, the scheme’s operators took millions of dollars, lined their own pockets, and left consumers with debt and stress. Through its actions, the FTC is holding them accountable for the significant injury they have caused.”

That's great that this particular scheme was shut down. However it's unfortunate that it took consumers losing more than $12M to reach that point. I wish that the FTC had more resources available to investigate these types of schemes earlier on, before as many consumers are affected.

6. Highlights from OpenAI's Ask Me Anything on Reddit

OpenAI's Sam Altman (CEO), Kevin Weil (Chief Product Officer), Srinivas Narayanan (VP Engineering), Mark Chen (SVP of Research), and Jakub Pachocki (Chief Scientist) did an AMA on Reddit last week to answer all your pressing questions about what's next at the company. Here are the highlights from the Q&A session.

Will ChatGPT eventually be able to perform tasks on its own? Message you first?

Weil: IMHO this is going to be a big theme in 2025.

Opinion on people using ChatGPT for therapy?

Altman: it's obviously not a therapist, but clearly a lot of people get value out of talking about their problems with it. we have seen a lot of startups really exploring how to do more here; i hope someone builds something great!

When will you guys give us a new text to image model? Dalle 3 is kinda outdated

Altman: the next update will be worth the wait! but we don't have a release plan yet.

What's one thing you wish ChatGPT could do but can't yet?

Narayanan: I'd love for it to understand my personal information better and take actions on my behalf.

What are the unique advantages or key differentiators of SearchGPT that would make it worthwhile for a typical search engine user to choose it?

Altman: for many queries, i find it to be a way faster/easier way to get the information i'm looking for. i think we'll see this especially for queries that require more complex research. i also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response!

Release date of chatgpt-5 or its equivalent? What are its features?

Altman: we have some very good releases coming later this year! nothing that we are going to call gpt-5, though.

Seriously though — what did Ilya see?

Altman: the transcendent future. ilya is an incredible visionary and sees the future more clearly than almost anyone else. his early ideas, excitement, and vision were critical to so much of what we have done, for example he was one of the key initial explorers and champions for some of the ideas that eventually became o1. the field is very lucky to have him.

Once AGI is achieved, what's the first thing you would like to apply it on? Is there a certain field on speed dial for that moment?

Narayanan: i'd love for it to accelerate scientific discovery. i'm personally very interested in health/medicine

Do you guys have any plans to increase the memory ChatGPT can store?

Weil: Do you mean longer context windows? If so, yes.

Is AGI achievable with known hardware or will it take something entirely different?

Altman: we believe it is achievable with current hardware

What is the best use case of ChatGPT you have seen in the wild so far?

Altman: there are a lot of great ones, but the stories of people figuring out the cause of a debilitating disease and then getting fully cured are really awesome to hear.

Is sora being delayed due to the amount of compute/time required for inference or due to safety?

Weil: Need to perfect the model, need to get safety/impersonation/other things right, and need to scale compute!

Check out the full AMA on Reddit.

7. Affirm launches its BNPL payments in the U.K.

Affirm launched its BNPL payments in the U.K., marking its first expansion beyond the U.S. and Canada since entering the Australian market in Nov 2021 and later exiting it in February 2023.

CEO Max Levchin said that the reason Affirm chose Britain as its next overseas expansion target was because it saw a lot of demand from merchants in the country. Levchin noted, “It is a huge market, it’s English-speaking,” making it a great fit for the business.

That's all it takes? English speaking consumers with a pulse and fingers ready to click their Pay In Installments button? LOL.

The company is launching in the U.K. with flight booking site Alternative Airlines and payments processor Fexco, with more brands and platforms to follow.

Watch out Klarna! AI might enable you to fire most of your staff, but it won't protect you from big competition like Affirm. Aside from Klarna, the U.K. BNPL market also includes heavy competition from Block's Clearpay, Zilch, and PayPal, which entered the BNPL market in 2020.

Affirm said that it differs from these players by allowing customers to pay purchases off over much lengthier periods, such as its 36 month payment program. The company also notes that it doesn't charge late fees or do deferred interest, making it “thoughtfully pro-consumer.”

In other Affirm news, the company updated its mobile app with new features that allow shoppers to view their estimated spending limit on the home screen, review and manage payment plans, view credit offers, and open an Affirm Money Account. Affirm says that 80% of its customers have downloaded its app and that it wanted to provide a better mobile experience in time for the upcoming holiday season.

8. Apple Intelligence launches on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Apple launched its long awaited Apple Intelligence last week on iPhone, iPad and Mac. The AI features allow users to refine their writing, summarize notifications, mail, and messages, experience a more capable Siri, remove objects from images, and more, available through a free software update with the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

Apple says, “Apple Intelligence is the personal intelligence system that harnesses the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks while taking an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.”

Here are some key features of Apple Intelligence (which is the greatest name for AI across all the major tech companies in my opinion):

Writing Tools – allow users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text everywhere they write including Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. Users can choose from different versions of text and adjust the tone to be professional, concise, or friendly.
Conversational Siri – Apple's voice assistant is becoming more natural, flexible, and integrated into the system experience, with a new design featuring a glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active. Now with richer language understanding capabilities, Siri can follow along when users stumble over their words and maintain context from one request to the next, as well as answer thousands of questions about the features and settings of Apple products.
Intelligent Photos App – now giving users the ability to search for photos and videos by describing what they are looking for, while its Clean Up tool can remove distracting elements from photos.
Memories – a feature that gives users the ability to create movies by simply typing a description. From there, Apple uses language and image understanding to pick out the best photos and videos, craft a storyline with chapters, and arrange them into a movie with a narrative arc. Wow!
Priority Messages – a new section at the top of the inbox in Mail that shows the most urgent e-mails, like a same-day invitation to lunch or a boarding pass. Users can also now see summaries of e-mails without needing to open a message, as well as click a Summarize button within the e-mail to view pertinent details of long threads.
Smart Reply – provides suggestions for quick responses and will identify questions in an e-mail to ensure everything is answered.
Notes & Phone Apps – user scan now record, transcribe, and summarize audio.
Lock Screen Updates – users can now scan long or stacked notifications with key details right on the lock screen, while a new Focus, Reduce Interruptions feature surfaces only the notifications that might need immediate attention.

Apple notes that new Apple Intelligence features will be available in December, with additional capabilities rolling out in the coming months.

Kaveh Vahdat, founder of AI marketing firm RiseOpp, told PYMNTS, “Apple isn’t just upgrading Siri — it’s redefining the retail experience. Imagine AI-powered shopping where Siri becomes a real-time stylist, inventory checker, and payment assistant, all wrapped in Apple’s signature privacy shield.”

He described walking into an Apple Store and having your iPhone instantly alert you to personalized offers or check if the Macbook you've been eyeing is in stock. He noted, “This could transform Apple’s retail strategy from reactive to predictive, placing the iPhone as the personal shopping assistant of the future.”

Vahdat also predicted that significant changes might come to Apple Pay. He said, “Imagine an iPhone that knows you’ve entered your favorite store, highlights items on your wish list, and lets you complete a purchase with a nod to your payment history and budget—all with Apple’s tight privacy controls intact.”

Does the release of Apple Intelligence mark the beginning of our path towards Her style operating systems? I sure hope so! Honestly, I've never been a fan of Apple products, but Apple Intelligence is getting me excited.

9. Other e-commerce news of interest

Amazon customers are buying cheaper products, but at a higher volume, according to Andy Jassy during the company's recent earnings call. Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's finance chief, added that customers are using the platform more to buy health, beauty, personal care, and nonperishable grocery items, which often have a lower average selling price, but the customers end up shopping more frequently and spending more time on Amazon.

Klarna launched a payments partnership with Zoom to give consumers greater access to Zoom's premium features. Customers in 16 countries can now use Klarna to manage their Zoom Workplace subscription, with Pay Now available in all countries and Pay Later available in the U.S., Sweden, and Germany.

Meesho has become India's first e-commerce marketplace to generate positive cash flow, reporting $27.6M for the financial year ending March 2024. The company reports that 45% of its customers now come from tier 4 cities and beyond, with 145M unique annual transacting users – representing approximately 10% of India’s population.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering legal action against Meta for its alleged improper use of financial data obtained from third-parties in its advertising business. Meta said it received a formal notification about the federal investigation last month, but that the filing only said that the inquiry was related to “advertising for financial products and services on our platform,” and that it disagrees with the claims.

DHL eCommerce released its Online Shoppers Trends Report, which provides how and what Americans buy online, their delivery and returns preferences, and where they're buying from. Do I need a report to tell me that people are shopping on Amazon? LOL. The report revealed that 61% of Americans shop online at least once a week, with 84% browsing for their next purchase at least once a week. 43% have an online shopping subscription, with pet food subscriptions being particularly popular in the U.S. at 44% compared to 25% globally.

Amazon UK is introducing a new return policy in the country, requiring international sellers to provide a domestic return address or issue a return label, otherwise the customer will receive a refund without needing to return the item. Amazon says that the new rules are necessary to establish clear guidelines for sellers and simplify the return process for customers.

Alibaba introduced Trade Assurance in Europe, which is a standard for safe and transparent digital B2B trade in the region, initially available in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Trade Assurance promises features like payment security by processing transactions, holding the associated amounts in escrow, and releasing them to the seller after delivery. Buyers and sellers can also track their order statuses in real-time.

Since acquiring Kiva Systems in 2012, Amazon has developed, produced, and deployed more than 750,000 robots across its operations network. In a recent blog post, the company shared eight of its robots that are supporting its package fulfillment services including Sequoia, which consolidates inventory, Hercules, which brings pods of items from hard to reach areas of its fulfillment centers for employees to pick faster, Titan, a Roomba looking device that brings items directly to employees, and Sparrow, a robotic arm that picks up and moves individual items from containers into specific totes.

Square launched its Square Card in the U.K., a business spending card that helps companies manage their cash flow by eliminating the time between making a sale and having the funds available to spend. The card allows business owners to have real-time access to their money, instead of having to wait until the next business day to get paid.

The deadline to file your first Beneficial Ownership Information report is coming up at the end of the year for business owners in the U.S. The Corporate Transparency Act aims to stop illegal activities like hiding income to avoid taxes and money laundering by requiring companies to provide information such as the full legal name of owners along with their current address and taxpayer identification numbers.

Walmart and Amazon announced their upcoming Black Friday deals, both heavily promoting their membership programs. Walmart is offering a 50% discount on its Walmart+ plan through Dec 2, while Amazon reminded shoppers that it offers 50% discounts to government assistance recipients and students.

AliExpress launched an initiative called AliExpressDirect to get more U.S. retailers to sell on its international marketplace, offering 0% commission and $0 onboarding costs during an introductory period, as well as marketing, business and customer support at no charge. AliExpress offers a one-click store design template, multiproduct listing capabilities for uploading thousands of SKUs at once, and tools for optimizing product listings, price, and promotions, with plans to add an API integration in 2025 to allow sellers to integrate their product listings with their existing systems.

Rufus, Amazon's AI-powered shopping assistant, launched in Europe as a beta in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, after coming to the UK in September and to the US in February. The rollout is gradual and the company says it could be a few weeks before every user receives a software update with Rufus.

Block is planning its second round of successive layoffs for this December, according to Fortune sources that asked to remain anonymous. Earlier this week, Block laid off employees at Tidal, which it acquired a majority stake in 2021 for $300M.

In other layoff news…. Dropbox is laying off 20% of its workforce, or 528 individuals. Meta laid off teams from Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs. Coursera cut 10% of its workforce, or around 150 positions. And Kraken laid off 15% of its workforce amid an announcement that Arjun Sethi would be the co-CEO of the company.

Ina and David Steiner of eCommerceBytes got the go-ahead from a judge to pursue punitive damages from eBay for its potentially $700M cyberstalking case. Previously, eBay had signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ that forced the company to admit that it was involved in six felony offenses, and eBay was ordered to pay a $3M fine and undergo three years of enhanced compliance monitoring — but that $3M was paid to the US Treasury, not to the victims, who now have a chance to pursue compensation through the civil court system.

OpenAI hired Gabor Cselle, the former CEO and co-founder of Pebble, an X challenger, to work on a secret project. Pebble, originally called T2, launched in 2022 and grew to become a small community, however it ultimately struggled to maintain meaningful growth and shut down last October, reemerging as a Mastodon instance in November. Cselle shared on Linkedin, “Will share more about what I’m working on in due time. Learning a lot already.”

The Collective Defense Institute, a consumer rights group in Brazil, is suing Meta, TikTok, and Kwai, a short video platform from China, for $525.8M for not protecting minors. The lawsuit pulls from studies demonstrating the risk of social media use and orders the companies to clearly issue warnings about how platform addiction can negatively impactor minors' mental health, as well as calls for the companies to lay out detailed data protection mechanisms.

Speaking of lawsuits, a U.S. judge is allowing ex-Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, to pursue lawsuits against Elon Musk for severance pay. The judge ruled that the execs can sue Musk for terminating their roles with Twitter during his acquisition and before they could resign, in order to cheat them of their severance. The ex-execs claim they are owed severance benefits equal to one year's salary and unvested stock awards valued at the acquisition price.

GoodRx, a prescription savings platform in the U.S., launched a D2C shopping experience that allows customers to order eligible health products and medications on its platform and have them shipped direclty to their door. The move marks the company's entry into the OTC market with Ipill as its launch partner.

The European Commission launched formal proceedings to investigate Temu over the sale of illegal products on its platform, which if true, would put the company in violation of the Digital Services Act. The decision comes after a review of Temu's risk assessment report submitted in September. The investigation will examine the systems Temu employs to prevent the sale of non-compliant products, the potential risks associated with the systems, and whether they meet DSA obligations regarding access to publicly available data for research purposes.

Apple privately urged TikTok to raise the age range it recommends for users due to the platform featuring more mature content than was suitable for children, according to newly unearthed communications in a state lawsuit against the social network. TikTok lists its platform as appropriate for children 12 and over on Apple's App store, describing the prevalence of mature content as “infrequent” or “mild,” however Apple found mature content to be featured more frequently and pressed the platform to increase its recommended age. Can't Apple just make that change for them if it really wanted to? Don't they make the rules?

JD.com started accepting Alipay for payments after the announcement of its logistics deal with Alibaba Group Holdings Cainiao. The two companies have been arch rivals in China's e-commerce industry for years, but both face fresh competition from new players such as PDD Holdings and ByteDance. In September, I reported that Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall began accepting payments from Tencent's WeChat Pay, which is a competitor to its own Alipay service.

Amazon delayed the launch of its new and improved version of Alexa, which was planned for late 2024, after cutting off access to its beta phase. The new Alexa is designed to understand more complicated questions from users, but failed to do some of the most basic things the old version could do easily such as setting a timer or operating smart lights. Amazon originally planned to unveil the new version of Alexa AI in October, but now the timeline has been extended into next year.

Meta AI has more than 500M active users just a year after its launch, according to Mark Zuckerberg on a recent earnings call. He added that the company plans to continue investing significantly in AI, but that they haven't decided on a final budget yet.

Meta's new X-competitor, Threads, isn't doing too bad either. Zuckerberg also announced on the earnings call that Threads now boasts 275M monthly active users after adding 100M users in the past three months. Does that include users who accidentally clicked on a Threads post while browsing Facebook?

81% of shoppers do not plan to increase their holiday spend this year over last year, according to Rakuten. Many consumers are nervous about supply chain disruptions, with almost half (42%) starting their shopping early to avoid shipping delays, while 32% plan to do more shopping in-store this year to avoid potential delays.

10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions

Melio, an accounts payable and receivable platform for SMBs, raised $150M in a Series E round led by Fiserv with participation from Shopify Ventures and Capital One Ventures, valuing the company at over $2B. Fiserv and Melio entered into a partnership last year that combined Melio's accounts payable and receivable workflows with Fiserv's payment capabilities and merchant network, creating a solution called CashFlow Central that's now used by 3,500 financial institutions to meet the cash flow needs of their SMB clients.

Hummingbirds, a startup platform that connects hyperlocal content creators with brands that reward them for sharing products with their communities, raised $5.4M in a round led by Allos Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to $10M. Hummingbirds currently focuses on creators located in Middle America in cities like Des Moines, Nashville, and Omaha, and will use the funds to expand into 20 more cities including Atlanta, Charlotte, and Denver.

Insider, an Istanbul-based startup that helps brands customize their marketing campaigns based on buyer preferences, raised $500M in a Series E round led by General Atlantic, just 18 months after securing $105M at a $2B valuation. Insider allows retailers to upload their company's customer records into its platform to create buyer segments, to which the retailer can send personalized promotion, as well as distribute promotions via a website's search bar, WhatsApp, and other channels.

Socket, an AI-powered threat detection service for e-commerce and SaaS companies, raised $40M in a Series B round led by Abstract Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and executives from OpenAI, Google, and Shopify, bringing its total amount raised to $65M. The platform supports six programming languages and allows companies to detect and block malicious threats in real-time.

Reactiv, an AI-powered platform that helps brands quickly launch and manage mobile apps, raised $5M in a round led by Bonefire Ventures. The company aims to make mobile apps the go-to for brand interactions instead of mobile websites and handles everything from setup to ongoing updates of the brand apps. I'm a big believer in mobile apps for e-commerce brands. Check out our sponsor Apptile to learn more about their solution for turning your e-commerce store into a mobile app.

Moment, an inflight digital solutions company, acquired Airfree, an in-flight e-commerce platform that connects passengers to more than 350 duty free stores worldwide, allowing them to order products in real time and choose from several delivery options including on board, at the airport, or to their homes. Airfree also owns a patented technology that optimizes in-flight bandwidth, allowing airlines to offer digital services even under restricted connectivity conditions.

Udaan, India's largest B2B e-commerce firm, secured a new round of debt financing from investors including Lighthouse Canton, Stride Ventures, and others. The funding round follows Udaan's $340M Series E found that valued the company at $1.88B. The company plans to use the capital to expand its geographical footprint and enhance its go-to-market strategy.

MealMe, a unified API for food ordering that seeks to address the consumer pain points of fragmented ordering options, raised $8M in a Series A round led by Mercury Fund. MealMe's API provides inventory data on over 1 billion products from 1.2 million restaurants, grocery stores, and retailers, serving over 100 customer platforms including TripAdvisor, Favor Delivery, and Fantuan Delivery.

Brand Engagement Network, a developer of conversational AI solutions, acquired Cataneo, an all-in-one solution for ad sales, inventory management, and campaign optimization, for $19.5M in cash and stock. Cataneo's Mydas platform manages over €5B in annual media spending and supports over 5,000 users and 1,000 media brands across four continents. Cataneo will continue to serve its clients independently, collaborating closely with its acquirer to integrate AI into its internal processes.

Table22, a provider of e-commerce, fulfillment, and marketing tools for independent restaurants, grocers, butchers, and restaurants, raised $11M in a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The NYC-based company will use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts following a year of 3X growth.

Coolmate, a Vietnamese D2C men's apparel brand that offers activewear, casualwear, underwear, raised $6M in a Series B round led by Vertex Ventures. The company will use the funds to accelerate its international expansion, prodcut innovation, and to strengthen its omnichannel retail presence across Southeast Asia.

Wildfire Systems, a San Diego-based platform that powers loyalty and reward programs, shopping companions, and content monetization, raised $16M in a Series B round co-led by Intuit Ventures and Mucker Capital. Wildfire's white label platform enables financial services organizations like RBC, Visa, and Citi to provide rewarding online shopping experiences to consumers.