ReportWire

Tag: E-commerce

  • How Google’s A.I. Overviews Are Rewriting the Rules of Digital Commerce

    As Google’s AI Overviews move from experiment to default, brands face a fundamental shift in visibility, control and customer acquisition. Unsplash+

    The rules of online visibility have changed. For decades, digital commerce strategy rested on a relatively stable bargain: brands optimized for ranking and bids, Google surfaced links and ads and consumers clicked through to evaluate options. That model is being rewritten with a new gatekeeper standing between brands and customers. Artificial intelligence has become an intermediary in search that increasingly answers questions, frames comparisons and influences decisions before users ever reach a brand’s site. 

    Google’s AI Overviews, the generative summaries that now appear at the top of many search results, are fundamentally altering how consumers discover products, compare services and make purchasing decisions. Since late 2024, Google has expanded its reach across more query types, industries and regions, signaling that generative search is moving from experiment to default behavior. Instead of presenting users with a list of links to explore, search now often begins with a synthesized answer that sets the context, priorities and perceived winners before any click occurs. 

    The shift is becoming commercially consequential. In recent months, advertisers and agencies have begun to observe paid placements appearing within or adjacent to AI Overviews. Beyond reshaping organic discovery, early signals show ads beginning to appear within or adjacent to these summaries, introducing a new, and largely opaque, layer of paid visibility. While such placements remain limited for now, their presence at all raises a larger issue: advertisers currently have little insight into where their ads surface within A.I.-driven results, how those placements perform or how they influence buyer intent. As a result, a growing portion of search visibility is effectively operating outside of traditional reporting frameworks. 

    This coincides with a broader recalibration of Google’s search experience. As regulators scrutinize Google’s market power and users increasingly expect instant, synthesized answers, Google has strong incentives to keep people on the results page longer. AI Overviews serve that goal. For brands, however, this creates a growing measurement and control gap at precisely the moment when search remains one of the most expensive and performance-critical channels in digital commerce.

    A recent analysis by Adthena of more than 21 million search results suggests that this is not a gradual transition. The expansion of AI Overviews is accelerating, affecting visibility across nearly every major industry and creating what many brands are already experiencing as a measurement and control gap in search performance. With search engine results pages (SERPs) evolving in real time, brands face a narrowing window to understand where their ads and content appear, how A.I.-driven placements reshape performance and what strategic adjustments are required before competitors adapt faster. 

    The numbers tell a stark story

    Between April and September of last year, AI Overviews expanded their footprint dramatically across the search landscape. Finance saw the fastest growth, with visibility increasing at 9.9 percent, while healthcare maintained the highest overall presence with an 8.3 percent jump. Travel rose 5.8 percent, and even traditionally slower-moving sectors such as retail and automotive still recorded steady growth of around 2 percent.

    At first glance, these percentages may seem modest, but the impact is anything but. Early performance indicators suggest that paid search click-through rates could decline by eight to 12 percentage points, translating into a 20 percent to 40 percent relative drop in traffic for businesses that rely on search advertising. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a fundamental disruption to customer acquisition.

    More concerning than frequency is placement. AI Overviews initially appeared on longer, informational queries—classic top-of-funnel searches. Increasingly, they are triggering on shorter, high-volume keywords associated with comparison and purchase intent. This effectively compresses the funnel, placing A.I.-generated summaries in the same high-value real estate historically occupied by paid ads. 

    Consider what this means in practical terms. A search for “best business accounting software,” for example, may now surface an A.I.-generated synthesis before a user encounters a single paid listing or organic result. That summary often becomes the first, and sometimes final, touchpoint influencing a decision. 

    How the impact differs by industry

    The pattern varies significantly by industry, revealing which sectors face the most immediate pressure.

    Finance leads the disruption. AI Overview visibility in financial services climbs from 11 percent on single-word searches to nearly 79 percent on longer queries. For banks, investment firms and fintech companies, this means A.I. is now mediating the majority of comparison and research queries, precisely the searches that have driven customer acquisition for years.

    Healthcare remains saturated. Even short medical queries frequently trigger AI Overviews, though there’s a notable pullback on complex medical queries (down 21 percent). This suggests increased caution around sensitive health topics, creating both risk and oportunity for providers and pharmaceutical brands navigating compliance and trust. 

    Retail sees A.I. dominating product discovery. Retail AI Overviews peak at 84 percent on nine to 10-word searches, shifting advantage towards brands that publish detailed, educational content rather than those relying primarily on ad spend.  

    Travel faces a planning-stage takeover. AI Overviews rose 5.8 percent across mid-length queries, such as season travel planning, where paid listings once captured high-intent traffic. Airlines, hotels and booking platforms are competing with A.I. summaries that shape itineraries before users click. 

    What this means for the bottom line 

    The financial implications extend well beyond simple traffic loss. Businesses are facing a threefold challenge:

    1. Rising acquisition costs. As click-through rates decline, the cost per acquisition for paid search campaigns increases. Marketing budgets that once delivered predictable returns are now generating fewer conversions at higher costs.
    2. Diminished message control. AI Overviews synthesize information from multiple sources, often without clear attribution. Brand positioning gets filtered through A.I.’s interpretation, which may miss nuances, emotional cues or unique value propositions that create differentiation from competitors.
    3. Competitive displacement. The brands gaining visibility in AI Overviews aren’t necessarily those with the largest ad budgets. They’re the ones providing comprehensive, information-rich content that A.I. systems favor. This levels the playing field in some ways, but it also means established market leaders can lose ground to better-optimized competitors.

    Still, disruption creates opportunities for businesses willing to adapt quickly. For example, in industries like gaming and automotive, long tail informational queries, search terms that include specific words that reflect higher purchase intent with four or more words, often show paid ads securing strong placement above AI Overviews. These mid- and upper-funnel moments remain underexploited by many other competitors.

    What business leaders can do now

    Mitigating the impact of AI Overviews on their search campaigns and overarching business visibility requires structural changes. 

    Map A.I. exposure precisely. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Identify exactly which search terms trigger AI Overviews, how frequently they appear, and on which devices. Industry benchmarks won’t help here, the impact varies widely depending on specific keywords, customer journey and device mix.

    Rebuild content by authority, not promotion. The brands winning visibility in AI Overviews aren’t outspending competitors, they’re out-educating them. AI systems reward comprehensive, comparison-rich content that genuinely answers customer questions. Content strategies must shift from promotional messaging to authoritative resources. Think less about what you want to say and more about what your customers need to know.

    Differentiate ads where A.I. cannot. Generic ad copy fades next to A.I. summaries. Ads need to offer something AI Overviews cannot: immediate value through deals, guarantees and limited-time offers. Take a contextual approach and layer in human elements such as real customer stories, accessible experts or personalized services, that build the trust A.I. summaries inherently lack.

    Segment by device. Mobile and desktop search show dramatically different AI Overview patterns. Mobile screens give less real estate and higher AI Overview saturation. Test device-specific campaigns with tailored creative, adjusted bids and potentially different keyword strategies for mobile versus desktop traffic.

    Build a testing culture, not a one-time fix. Google keeps adjusting when and where AI Overviews appear. The businesses that win will be those that monitor changes weekly and adjust tactics monthly. Set up dashboards, establish review cadences and empower teams to shift budget toward what’s working without waiting for quarterly planning cycles.

    Play the long game. A.I.-mediated search is the new foundation of digital discovery. The companies that thrive will treat this as an opportunity to own their customer relationships rather than rent attention through intermediaries. Invest in owned assets: authoritative content, direct customer channels and brand strength that transcends any single platform’s algorithm.

    Fundamentally, the search landscape has already changed. The strategic question is no longer whether to adapt, but how quickly organizations can adapt to a model where discovery, comparison and intent are mediated by machines. The companies that recognize it as a strategic imperative will find opportunities their competitors miss. They’ll move quickly, testing and learning rather than waiting for perfect information. They’ll diversify their approach, optimizing paid search performance while simultaneously investing in owned assets like comprehensive content, direct customer relationships and brand strength. And they’ll view AI Overviews not as an obstacle to overcome but as a new dimension of the search landscape to master, requiring evolved paid search strategies that work with A.I. rather than against it.

    The top spot on Google’s search results page still matters. But now, earning it requires a completely different playbook. The businesses that recognize this shift early, invest in visibility they can measure and build authority that A.I. systems reward, will be better positioned to compete as generative search becomes the default interface for digital commerce.

    How Google’s A.I. Overviews Are Rewriting the Rules of Digital Commerce

    Phillip Thune

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  • Amazon is closing its futuristic Go and Fresh stores—showing logistics and tech aren’t enough to make old-school retail work | Fortune

    As any local shop owner will tell you, running a brick-and-mortar business in the age of Amazon is an uphill battle. That’s a lesson that Amazon itself has just learned.

    The e-commerce giant said on Tuesday that it was closing its “Fresh” grocery stores as well as its automated grab-and-go “Go” shops, adding to its list of failed brick-and-mortar experiments.

    “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” Amazon explained in a post on its website.

    The move came a day ahead of Amazon’s announcement on Wednesday of 16,000 corporate layoffs, including some related to the Go and Fresh closures. That was on top of 14,000 layoffs last year as part of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s campaign to rein in what he sees as creativity-stifling bureaucracy. The company is also shifting resources to building AI data centers.

    Amazon’s 550-store Whole Foods chain, which it bought in 2017, will remain open with plans to expand. But the brand’s 58 Amazon Fresh stores, launched in 2020 as smaller grocery stores focused on the mass market, never found their niche. Amazon’s Go convenience stores, launched in 2018 and a major priority for founder Jeff Bezos, allow consumers to avoid checkout lines thanks to an array of cameras and sensors that tracked each item a shopper picked from a shelf and automatically charged the customer for it when it left the store. But the dazzling tech was not enough to camouflage how blah the merchandise was.

    These failures had predecessors: In 2015, Amazon launched a small chain of bookstores that it closed a few years later. Other Amazon retail flops: Amazon 4-Star (a kitchen goods, toys and electronics store); electronics kiosks in shopping malls; and a short-lived Amazon clothing store chain called “Style” that it closed in 2023 after only two years.

    As Amazon showed the many retailers it has disrupted over the years, standing out from the competition—whether on pricing, on service, or on merchandise—is essential, and on that front, Go and Fresh struggled.

    These failures illustrate a weakness in Amazon’s retail concepts: In brick-and-mortar retail, logistical and operational excellence isn’t enough on its own. Crafting an appealing in-store experience requires merchandising and presentation prowess. “The blunt truth is that neither Fresh nor Go stores offered this,” Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData said. 

    But even if they didn’t survive, Amazon’s brick-and-mortar retail concepts arguably show a strength of Amazon’s company culture: A pragmatic approach of allowing failure but also of cutting losses and moving on with new lessons learned. Armed with the insights gleaned from Go and Fresh, Amazon is refining and expanding its new five-store, small format Whole Foods Market Daily Shop, which will serve as mini-convenience stores. It will also stock more produce and perishables in its same-day delivery warehouses and at more Whole Foods stores.

    And these failures show why Amazon is ultimately successful at almost everything it does: The “Just Walk Out” cashier-less systems may not have been enough to save Amazon’s 14 Go stores, but its tech is now sold as a service to more than 360 third-party locations.

    To describe the company’s indefatigable approach, Saunders referenced the catchphrase of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s killer robot in the 1984 sci-fi Terminator. “In our view,” he said, “in one way or another, Amazon’s physical grocery mantra is: We’ll be back.”

    Phil Wahba

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  • Ignore the doom-mongers: e-commerce had a strong December, says Parcelhero – Tech Digest

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    In the lead-up to the 2025 festive season, economic headlines were dominated by a familiar sense of trepidation. Predictions of a “Drab December” and a lacklustre “Golden Quarter” suggested that the British consumer was finally retreating.

    However, the latest retail data has turned that narrative on its head. Far from the predicted slump, e-commerce surged through the end of the year, effectively crushing the previous year’s benchmarks and proving that reports of online retail’s death were greatly exaggerated, claims David Jinks, Head of Consumer Research at Parcelhero. 

    According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) retail sales bulletin, the final three months of 2025 – traditionally the most vital period for retailers – were a resounding success for the digital marketplace. Online sales values for the October-December period soared by 8.4% compared to the same peak in 2024. This growth was not just a steady climb but a significant jump that suggests a robust return in consumer confidence.

    The month of December itself provided a particular highlight, acting as a mini-boom for non-store retailers. Sales volumes in this category, which is comprised almost entirely of online businesses, rose by 4.2% in December compared to November. While some had feared that Black Friday and Cyber Monday would pull all the spending forward into November, the December figures prove there was plenty of appetite left for the Christmas countdown.


    High Street flourishes too

    Interestingly, it wasn’t just low-cost stocking fillers driving the numbers. According to Parcelhero’s David Jinks, online jewellers reported a significant resurgence in demand. The surge in spending on precious metals and luxury items in December helped push online sales values up by a whopping 11.1% compared to December 2024.

    Perhaps most encouragingly for the wider economy, online’s success did not cannibalize the traditional High Street. Overall retail sales volumes, combining both in-store and online, grew by 2.5% over the previous December.

    This suggests that rather than choosing one platform over the other, Brits are increasingly comfortable using both to secure their holiday purchases. For the year as a whole, 2025 saw total retail sales volumes rise by 1.3%, with the online sector leading the charge with a 3.6% annual increase.

    As the industry looks back on 2025, the data provides a clear lesson: resilience lies in flexibility. While the “Golden Quarter” lived up to its name, the most successful retailers were those capable of navigating an omnichannel landscape.

    With these positive results in the rearview mirror, online sellers can pivot toward 2026 with renewed confidence. The “death of the High Street” and the “decline of the web” both remain premature predictions. Instead, the 2025 peak proves that the British shopper is still willing to spend, provided the convenience and the product are right.

    Parcelhero’s influential report “2030: Death of the High Street” can be found here: https://www.parcelhero.com/content/downloads/pdfs/high-street/deathofthehighstreetreport.pdf


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    Chris Price

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  • Amazon closing its Amazon Fresh grocery and cashierless Go stores

    Amazon said on Tuesday that it is closing its Fresh grocery and cashierless Go convenience stores as the online retailer backtracks on its foray into brick-and-mortar retail. 

    Amazon said some physical store locations will be converted into Whole Foods Market stores. Amazon Fresh will continue to exist as an online brand, the company said. 

    “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said.

    Amazon said its grocery business, which it launched more than two decades ago, accounts for more than $150 billion in gross sales annually. The company bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion.

    Amazon Go stores’ technology allows registered customers to take what they want from store shelves and walk out of stores, without needing to check out.

    The company also said Monday that the technology has been deployed at hundreds of third-party locations across five countries, allowing shoppers to “simply take what they need and go.”

    Edited by

    Alain Sherter

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  • 2026: The Year Retail Stops Searching and Starts Thinking

    A.I.-native commerce is collapsing the traditional funnel and forcing brands to rethink visibility, trust and control. Unsplash+

    For the past decade, it seems that while technology has become increasingly advanced, the online shopping experience has remained largely the same: endless scrolling, reviews we don’t fully trust and price comparisons that often create more confusion than clarity. Despite improvements in logistics and payments, the core workflow—search, scroll, compare, repeat—has barely evolved. With the rise of A.I., that equilibrium is finally breaking. 

    2026 marks the first true departure from the e-commerce model most consumers have grown accustomed to. For the first time, shopping journeys are no longer anchored in static catalogs or keyword searches. They’re increasingly mediated by intelligence systems that can interpret intent, synthesize options and act on behalf of the consumer.

    The rise of A.I.-native shopping, accelerated and exemplified by the first truly agentic holiday shopping season, has made one thing clear: it’s no longer enough for brands to optimize for human shoppers alone. They must also optimize for the A.I. agents that increasingly discover, compare, validate and transact on those shoppers’ behalf. Retail has acquired a new operating system, and it’s powered by agency rather than search.

    Agentic commerce becomes retail’s new OS

    Agentic commerce represents a structural shift far beyond chatbots or plugins. Intelligent, merchant-guided agents replace the old “search-scroll-compare” workflow with curated, intent-driven journeys—cutting down on browsing time, reducing decision fatigue and unlocking conversion rates that traditional e-commerce simply can’t deliver. 

    This shift addresses a well-documented pain point. A recent Accenture survey showed that 74 percent of consumers abandoned their shopping baskets in the previous three months because they felt “bombarded by content, overwhelmed by choice and frustrated by the amount of effort they need to put into making decisions.” When shoppers delegate tedious tasks to A.I. agents, the effects compound. They buy faster, return less and feel more confident in their decisions. For retailers, this does not represent incremental optimization; it is a new operating system that fundamentally changes how value is created and captured. 

    The first true A.I.-powered holiday season proves the shift

    The 2025 holiday season serves as a clear inflection point. Shoppers finally experienced, at scale, the convenience of A.I. handling discovery, comparison and curation, while retailers, in turn, received an unmistakable signal that the traditional commerce funnel is dissolving. One in three shoppers, and a majority of Gen Z, used A.I. tools to generate gift ideas, compare prices across stores, style outfits or build personalized wishlists. What used to require 30 open tabs now happens inside a single, adaptive conversation.

    At the platform level, the signals were equally strong. A.I.-powered assistants expanded into more than 180 countries, as camera-based shopping tools reached tens of millions of users. Discovery no longer begins with a homepage or a search bar. It begins with conversations. 

    Investors are taking note: more than $90 million in funding has already flowed into A.I.-commerce startups, signaling what many call the next great platform wave—one that merges the personalization of 2015’s DTC boom with the scale of 2020’s marketplace era.

    The 6 trends that will define retail in 2026

    GEO supplants SEO

    The decline of traditional search is already underway. As A.I. agents become the primary gateway to product discovery and checkout, keyword-driven SEO will lose its central role. What matters instead is whether an A.I. system can understand a product in context—how it fits a user’s needs, preferences and constraints.

    This is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and it will define competitive advantage for the next decade. Brands that structure their data, imagery and metadata for machine interpretation, not just human browsing, will retain visibility. Those that don’t will increasingly disappear from consideration. 

    Virtual try-on and A.I. twins become the standard

    Virtual try-on (VTO) isn’t a novelty anymore. Consumers are already building A.I.-powered avatars of themselves to preview outfits, assemble lookbooks and refine style preferences with automated precision. In 2026, retailers will be expected to meet shoppers inside these environments. The primary “fitting room” will be a digital twin informed by measurements, purchase history and aesthetic signals.  

    Authenticity verification becomes non-negotiable

    As A.I.-generated content floods retail media, trust becomes a prerequisite for discovery and recommendations. Watermarking, credentialing and authenticity scoring will increasingly determine whether a product is surfaced by A.I. engines at all. In an A.I.-mediated retail ecosystem, unverified products lose both credibility and distribution. Trust becomes a non-negotiable, not a differentiator. 

    Returns enter their A.I. era

    With returns expected to exceed $850 billion, the days of blanket free return policies are becoming unsustainable. A.I.-driven sizing recommendations, personalized return policies, predictive risk scoring and agent-guided resolution flows will become standard and essential to protect loyalty without eroding margins. The goal shifts from discouraging returns to preventing avoidable ones. 

    Resale continues to surge

    As economic pressure and cultural values converge, the resale business will continue to explode. With authenticated buyback programs, trade-in incentives and recommerce-led gifting, resale has outpaced traditional apparel by approximately five times. 

    This aligns with generational preferences: 64 percent of Gen Z consumers say they are willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products, marking resale a commercial strategy rather than a nice ethical play. 

    Physical retail will evolve into A.I.-powered showrooms

    Physical retail will continue its reinvention. By 2027, stores will function as data-rich, immersive showrooms where A.I. agents guide in-store paths, surface personalized recommendations and stitch together online-to-offline journeys seamlessly. The store becomes both a sensory brand experience and a fulfillment node in a unified agentic commerce system.

    Where this leaves retailers

    Together, these shifts point to a single conclusion: retailers now serve two customers—the human who ultimately makes the purchase and the A.I. system that helps them decide. 

    Brands that go all-in on agentic commerce will regain control of the shopping experience, with agentic tools allowing them to embed their own voice, priorities and merchandising strategy directly into A.I.-guided journeys. Those that resist will increasingly compete on price alone, surfaced only when an algorithm deems them interchangeable. When merchants embrace the fact that the most important buyer in the market is no longer a person, but the A.I. that earns that person’s trust, they move back in the driver’s seat. 

    2026: The Year Retail Stops Searching and Starts Thinking

    Sam Atkinson

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  • Saks CEO steps down as luxury retailer struggles under heavy debt load

    Saks Global Enterprises, which operates Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, said Friday its CEO Marc Metrick stepped down, effective immediately

    NEW YORK — The top executive of the private company that owns Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus is stepping down as it struggles with debt taken on to buy a rival almost two years ago.

    Saks Global Enterprises said Friday that the departure of CEO Marc Metrick is effective immediately, and that he will be replaced by Executive Chairman Richard Baker. Baker will continue to serve as executive chairman.

    In addition to debt from Saks’ $2.65 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus in the summer of 2024, the company is facing increasing competition from a fragmenting luxury goods sector.

    Hudson’s Bay Co., the Canadian owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, split off the luxury retailer’s e-commerce business, Saks.com in 2021. After acquiring Neiman Marcus three years later, Saks Fifth Avenue changed its name to Saks Global.

    Saks Global, based in New York City, completed a $600 million notes offering in August in an effort to bolster its liquidity following the Neiman Marcus acquisition.

    The company is trying to winnow down its heavy debt load with global sales of luxury goods that are expected to contract for the second straight year in 2026. Wealthier customers have rebelled against extravagant price hikes on goods that haven’t drummed up much excitement, in addition to growing anxiety about the global economy, according to a new study by Bain & Co. consultancy released in November.

    Metrick joined Saks Fifth Avenue in 1995 and held a variety of positions at Saks and Hudson’s Bay. He was named CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue in 2021 and CEO of Saks Global in 2024.

    The company said Friday that he is stepping down to pursue new opportunities.

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  • Department stores try to distinguish themselves as beauty lovers turn to TikTok and Amazon

    NEW YORK — It’s shoppers like Quinn Kelsey who keep department store executives up at night.

    The 38-year-old Denver resident gets makeup ideas from TikTok videos and other social media content, not salespeople at beauty counters. She uses an AI chatbot to get product recommendations that fit her budget and to see how a certain foundation or lipstick would look on her. When she buys, it’s usually from Amazon.

    “I use Chat GPT as my personal beauty consultant,” Kelsey said. “Department stores? I’ll walk through one for the decor, but they’ve basically lost me unless I can get the same product-research experience there that I can get scrolling through my phone at home.”

    Once the ultimate beauty destination, department stores lost sales and their authority as skincare and makeup trendsetters starting in the late 1990s. That was when the growth of Sephora and Ulta Beauty made shopping for cosmetics more of a playful, self-service experience.

    But fast-changing consumer preferences have all types of retailers racing to outdo each other for a slice of the $129 billion U.S. beauty and personal care market. The competition is fiercer than ever due to the ease of e-commerce. Amazon, which has slowly added premium beauty brands to its massive selection, is the nation’s largest online seller of beauty and personal care products, according to market research company Euromonitor International.

    Social media also has provided new sources of beauty guidance. Instead of store advisers, many consumers look to videos by influencers, beauty brand founders or dermatologists for advice. Shoppers also turn to TikTok and Instagram for information about “dupes” — drugstore versions of more expensive products.

    “Stores are more of the showroom, but the spark itself is happening in TikTok,” Jake Bjorseth, founder of the Generation Z advertising agency Trndsttrs, said.

    To keep up, companies with both physical and online stores are investing in upgrades that are meant to give beauty fans like Kelsey an experience they can’t get anywhere else. Macy’s and Nordstrom, for example, renovated the beauty floors of their flagship New York stores to add more space, ultra-luxury brands and cutting-edge technology. At Nordstrom, customers can book an appointment to get robot-applied eyelash extensions for $170.

    The makeovers were launched in time for the holiday shopping season, which accounts for about one-quarter of all U.S. “prestige” beauty sales, according to market research firm Circana.

    Department stores chasing beauty sales are introducing some of the serve-yourself features of Sephora — Nordstrom put in a “beauty bar” with brightly lit mirrors where customers are allowed to take makeup from different counters — while trying to distinguish themselves from specialty and online rivals.

    Executives from Macy’s and Nordstrom said the latest changes were designed to create an engaging atmosphere that encourages shoppers to stay longer and spend more. The overhaul at Macy’s Herald Square included comfortable seating and skin analysis devices that help make the case for lotions and potions costing hundreds of dollars.

    In the Parfums de Marly section, customers sample scents while wearing a virtual reality headset meant to immerse them in an 18th century chateau the French fragrance maker cites as its inspiration.

    “This is the future of beauty,” Nicolette Bosco, Macy’s vice president of beauty, said, referring to the interactive technology the department store considers central to offering shoppers an elevated experience.

    The company expects to redesign the beauty departments of 40 more stores. The facelifts are intended to draw shoppers of all ages, Macy’s Inc. CEO Tony Spring said.

    “We’re trying very hard to take the idea of a department store and make it intimate and friendly and convenient,” he said.

    Since becoming chief executive of the department store’s parent company last year, Spring has focused on reviving Macy’s by trying to attract the higher-spending customers who power sales at Bloomingdale’s and upscale beauty retailer Bluemercury, both of which Macy’s owns.

    Nordstrom unwrapped the reimagined beauty floor of its midtown Manhattan store in September. It includes an area where shoppers can test beauty tools like LED light therapy masks and a “fragrance finder” machine that provide a dry whiff of up to 60 different scents.

    Nordstrom also expanded the beauty treatments area at the New York flagship and a few other stores to include a medical spa that provides Botox and dermal filler injections that cost $575 to $1,050.

    Sephora redefined beauty buying by installing mirrors and disposable application tools near compact displays of both tester products and ready-to-grab goods. The DIY concept was a major contrast from department store counters staffed by beauty advisers who oversaw product sampling and retrieved fresh products from locked drawers.

    But even innovators have to renovate. Sephora, a division of French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, is in the process of updating its 720 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

    The stations where customers get their hair and makeup done are getting moved to the side for more privacy. The chain, known for its long cash register lines, plans to expedite check-outs by equipping salespeople with devices that accept card and contactless payments.

    Ulta, which stocks drugstore beauty brands like Maybelline as well as high-end brands, has had in-store hair salons since its founding in 1990. It’s adding ear piercing, testing robotic manicures and plans to add robotic lash extensions like Nordstrom’s to its service menu next year.

    Walmart has moved into the turf of specialty retailers and department stores with products from higher-end and independent brands. The nation’s largest retailer put beauty counters this year in 100 stores where customers can try products.

    After working at a fashion event at Nordstrom’s Manhattan flagship, Ivan Leon, a 35-year-old freelance stylist, headed to the Tom Ford fragrance counter. He walked away an hour later having spent $537 on two bottles of perfume: a unisex scent named Bitter Peach and another named Vanilla Sex.

    Leon planned to wear them together, a practice known as “fragrance layering” that he heard about on social media. The Nordstrom salesperson caught his interest by suggesting Tom Ford scents could be applied in tandem.

    “It’s kind of cool when you combine two scents and it makes something new,” Leon said. “I think it helps the psyche and builds confidence.”

    Leon, who typically buys his fragrances online, offers department stores hope but also represents the uphill climb they face given customers’ multidimensional shopping habits.

    TikTok is not only spawning trends like “tired girl” makeup and “blurred skin” but becoming a place where users discover and buy from new brands. TikTok Shop, an e-commerce feature the social media platform launched in 2023, has emerged as the nation’s seventh-largest online seller of beauty and personal care items, right behind Target, according to Euromonitor.

    The online market shares of Macy’s and Nordstrom are 1% and less than 0.5%, and declining, the market research firm said.

    Amazon, which accounts for almost half of online beauty and personal care sales, aims to mimic the physical store experience with virtual makeup try-on tools like one Sephora introduced in 2016. Sephora, meanwhile, unveiled in March an AI-powered online tool that uses selfies to identify potential skin concerns and make product recommendations.

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  • How Long Island small businesses are rethinking storefronts | Long Island Business News

    In Brief:
    • Long Island entrepreneurs are using shared workspaces to reduce overhead and stay flexible.
    • Co-working spaces like Moss Wellness help service-based businesses avoid long-term leases.
    • Shared retail models allow food and specialty sellers to launch quickly and reduce waste.
    • Local e-commerce platforms like Trellus offer same-day delivery without national warehouses.

    Small businesses across Long Island are thriving beyond traditional storefronts, using shared workspaces, flexible retail models and local delivery platforms to reach customers while keeping overhead low.

    DIANA LILLO: ‘We attract everybody from local professionals, entrepreneurs, small businesses and remote workers, because we’re able to be flexible enough to meet them all where they are.’

    Diana Lillo sees that shift every day. She is the co-founder of Moss Wellness Workspaces, a shared office environment in Garden City that has become a starting point for dozens of small businesses that need flexibility more than square footage.

    “The office is set up as a co-working space, and we do have full-time and part-time private offices, which is a major component of our business model,” said Lillo, who also works as founder and chief creative officer of Inspire Design Creative Studio. “We attract everybody from local professionals, entrepreneurs, small businesses and remote workers, because we’re able to be flexible enough to meet them all where they are.”

    Many of the small businesses using Moss are not traditional retail operations at all. Lillo said they include therapy practices, audiologists, infant feeding specialists and creative arts therapists—businesses that require professional space without committing to a long-term commercial lease.

    “A lot of them [businesses] start just looking for the hour until they build up their base,” she said. “They don’t have to commit to the lump-sum lease because they can just try out the area or see how it works for them and their business model.”

    Another benefit to different models is new ways of collaboration. Small businesses may not have the time or bandwidth to join a local chamber of commerce—and may even plan to move locations once they find a permanent location. At Moss Wellness, a shared workspace gives small business owners to have regular exchanges with peers, where they can share ideas, help each other and form longer-lasting relationships.

    Lillo said she has implemented regular, informal, off-hours meetups for small businesses—for relationship building—a benefit that many continue to take advantage of.

    “The amount of collaborations that we’ve seen has been so amazing… we host a monthly meet-up and mixer… it’s a really nice, light way to be able to introduce to the community.”

    A combination of current economic challenges, opportunities from new technologies and a workforce in transition is driving many of the changes that Long Island entrepreneurs now embrace.

    Some of that technology provides for virtual office assistants or receptionists, AI-based email management, and, of course, cloud-based IT.

    EVAN FREED: ‘I was getting sick and tired of looking, and I just wanted to start already.’

    A similar rethink is happening in retail. Evan Freed opened Common Grounds, a farm-to-table grocer in Port Washington, not as a conventional standalone shop but as a shared, flexible retail operation to reduce risk and food waste while supporting regional farms.

    “I was getting sick and tired of looking, and I just wanted to start already,” Freed said, describing his decision to launch without waiting for a perfect storefront. Freed describes himself as a longtime entrepreneur and small business creator.

    Rather than waiting to find an affordable, appropriate location for a solo store, Freed took advantage of an opportunity to share store space with a friend, Andrew Bly, who owns and operates Snacks & Design in a Main Street storefront in Port Washington. The shared space facilitated him to jump right in and open for business quickly.

    It’s worked. Freed sold 20 Turkeys in the run-up to Thanksgiving this year, and sold out of food entirely in three days—until he closed early on Thanksgiving.

    Freed sources most of his products from small farms within a few hours of Long Island, even though that approach costs more than wholesale supply chains.

    “Even with the tariffs, it’s still more expensive,” he said. “Small farms are still more expensive.”

    But the trade-off is freshness, transparency and flexibility. Freed said operating in a smaller, shared space gives him the ability to closely manage inventory and dramatically reduce waste.

    “If I had a full store, I would have had so much more food waste,” he said. “I donated like $1,200 worth of meat to the food pantry this week.”

    Freed said customer relationships, not foot traffic, drive his business. Social media, direct conversations, and limited inventory create urgency and loyalty that large grocery chains struggle to replicate.

    He also leverages on an active social media presence for direct customer contact, keeping his followers informed of specials, events and answering questions without the need for outsourced marketing.

    ADAM HABER: ‘We did the reverse of Amazon. We started doing the delivery, which is a commodity business, but we created a very unique model.’

    For Adam Haber, co-founder and CEO of Trellus, the challenge was even more fundamental: How to make shopping local as convenient as clicking “Buy Now” on Amazon.

    “Politicians say, shop locally,” Haber said. “There’s no way to do it. There’s just no way to do it.”

    Even e-commerce—considered a domain powerfully dominated by Amazon.com—is re-emerging as a competitive tool for Long Island small businesses.

    A Long Beach-based startup, Trellus flips the traditional e-commerce model by connecting consumers directly with local merchants and handling same-day delivery without warehouses or national logistics networks.

    “We did the reverse of Amazon,” Haber said. “We started doing the delivery, which is a commodity business, but we created a very unique model.”

    The platform now works with hundreds of small businesses and uses a network of more than 100 drivers on Long Island alone.

    “We have well over 100 drivers for just Long Island,” Haber said. “The gig drivers love it. They get 80 percent of the delivery fee, which is the highest in the industry.”

    Haber said Trellus succeeds because it solves real-world problems that big platforms overlook—urgent purchases, gifts and everyday needs that cannot wait days for delivery.

    “You need a new shirt, or a pair of socks, or something for your interview,” he said. “We’ll get it to you.”

    Despite operating in very different sectors, all three businesses reflect the same underlying shift. Reduced overhead, digital tools and changing consumer habits are facilitating small businesses to decouple success from expensive storefronts.


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  • This entrepreneur’s product went viral on TikTok. Scammers quickly swooped in.

    Michelle Mildred is the proud entrepreneur behind the company Coloring Your Own. She’s not the owner of a company called “Flolyed Shop,” which is just one of the many sites posting fake ads using her face and voice. 

    The single mother says the ads are promoting products that look like hers, and sending customers to scam sites overseas.

    “I oscillate between like, ‘I can hang on until this ends,’ and then, ‘I don’t know how much more I can take,’” Mildred said.  

    She says some customers are getting counterfeit products when ordered from scam sites, and some aren’t. If they are, they’re much lower quality.

    “You can see the print is really glitchy,” she said while showing WCCO a knockoff one of her customers unknowingly purchased.  

    It all started after she posted a product to TikTok in September that went viral.

    “Within 36 hours there were fraudulent videos on Amazon, and then Walmart, Temu,” she said.

    Mildred individually reported the sponsored ads on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

    “I did hire an intellectual property firm. They’ve taken down 175 listings, but I’ve reported over 750 and it takes them a while to get up and running,” she said.

    It’s an effort costing her nearly $2,000 a month out-of-pocket, and endless back-and-forth conversations.

    “I have to bring this to Facebook and be like, ‘Hey, turn off this revenue stream for you because it’s causing damage to my small business,’” she said.

    Mildred is now taking steps to watermark her videos, website and urging you to watch out, too.

    “I didn’t pay myself for four years,” she said. “I don’t know what the future looks like.”

    Mildred says these are ways you can best protect yourself:

    • If you see something advertised on social media, click on the page itself to see who’s running the ad and their reviews.
    • Go to the website and see what other items are offered, and if they look AI-generated.
    • Search the website in Google and write “scam or fraud” and look at the products on Trust Pilot.

    WCCO has reached out to Meta and TikTok for comment.

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  • Uber Just Added a Major Service Upgrade That Sounds Too Good to Be True

    Holiday shoppers want their orders, and they want them fast. Now, Uber is delivering. With a new partnership with Shopify, it’s offering its Uber Direct on-demand delivery service for businesses that use Shopify Plus in the United States, Canada, and France, it announced yesterday.

    That means retailers will be able to take advantage of same-day, same-hour delivery for the customers that put off their holiday shopping until the very last possible minute.

    The vast majority of customers—80 percent—now expect retailers to offer same-day delivery, and they are willing to shell out for that added convenience, according to research compiled by Capitol One. The report, which was published last month, found that 41 percent of Americans would be willing to pay more for same-day delivery and 23 percent of those surveyed would pay more for delivery within three hours. 

    The $178 billion transportation and logistics giant previously expanded its last-minute, last-mile delivery services for consumers last year when it added well-known brands, such as Allbirds, Cuyana, Blueland, and Trashie, to UberEats alongside takeout stalwarts.

    Bernie Huddlestun, the head of Uber Direct, said that the new Shopify integration would help retails stay competitive and unlock new sources of revenue during the peak holiday shopping season that consumer companies count on to often generate nearly 40 percent of annual revenue.

    “Our integration with Shopify will give Shopify Plus merchants a new way to keep their direct connection with customers and stay competitive—without the cost or complexity of building delivery operations from scratch,” Huddlestun said in a statement with the release. 

    Uber is not the only platform eyeing this opportunity. After sunsetting its own program that offered same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar retail stores like Office Depot, PacSun, and Petco, last year, Amazon is reportedly working on an internal rush delivery service that will let customers pick up orders from Amazon stores within an hour, according to Business Insider.

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  • Shopify outage disrupts some merchants on Cyber Monday


    Shopify services were temporarily interrupted as an outage at the e-commerce platform disrupted retailers on Cyber Monday, one of the busiest online shopping days of the entire year.

    Thousands of Shopify users reported problems with the platform, hindering their ability to do business. Outage reports peaked at 11 a.m. EDT at around 4,000 before tapering off, according to Downdector, a website that tracks online outages.

    Shopify said on its status page that users may experience issues logging in or accessing point-of-sale systems, the equipment used to process in-person transactions.

    The company said Monday evening it was dealing with a “system degradation” that had been “mitigated” and that it would continue to monitor the system’s recovery.

    “We kept checkout and storefronts online, but access to admin interfaces was temporarily unavailable for some merchants,” Shopify said, adding the problem “briefly extended” to point of service but that issue was “quickly resolved.”

    Merchants use Shopify’s tech to build online stores, process payments, arrange shipping, manage inventory and handle other retail transactions, while the company also provides point-of-sales hardware. 

    Shopify said in a 2:31 p.m. EDT alert on its status page that it had “found and fixed an issue with our login authentication flow” and that it was “seeing signs of recovery.”

    The Canada-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

    It’s unfortunate timing for Shopify, as Cyber Monday is expected to drive a large number of online sales. Adobe Analytics predicts consumers will spend a record $14.2 billion online, a 6.3% increase from last year.

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  • Shoppers spend billions on Black Friday to snag holiday deals, despite wider economic uncertainty

    NEW YORK — Despite wider economic uncertainty hovering above this year’s holiday season, shoppers turned out in big numbers for Black Friday — spending billions of dollars both in stores and online.

    Adobe Analytics, which tracks e-commerce, said U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online Friday, marking a 9.1% jump from last year. Traffic particularly piled up between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time nationwide, when $12.5 million passed through online shopping carts every minute.

    Consumers also spent a record $6.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, per Adobe. Top categories that saw an uptick in sales across both days included video game consoles, electronics and home appliances. Shopping services powered by artificial intelligence and social media advertising have also particularly influenced what consumers choose to buy, the firm said.

    Meanwhile, software company Salesforce estimated that Black Friday online sales totaled $18 billion in the U.S. and $79 billion globally. And e-commerce platform Shopify said its merchants raked in a record $6.2 billion in sales worldwide on Black Friday. At its peak, sales reached $5.1 million per minute — with top categories including cosmetics and clothing, according to the Canadian company.

    Black Friday is far from the sales event that created midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem just decades ago. More and more consumers have instead turned to online deals to make post-Thanksgiving purchases from the comfort of their own homes — or opt to stretch out spending across longer promotions now offered by retailers.

    As a result, in-store traffic has continued to dwindle. Initial data from RetailNext, which measures real-time foot traffic in physical stores, found that U.S. Black Friday traffic fell 3.6% from 2024.

    But “the story isn’t just that shoppers stayed home; it’s that they’re changing how and when they shop,” Joe Shasteen, global manager of advanced analytics at RetailNext said in emailed comments on Saturday. He explained that customers are now spreading out purchases over a longer time frame and “walking into stores with a far narrower mission than we’ve seen in past holiday seasons.”

    Black Friday remains a major date on retailers’ calendar — and Shasteen added that Friday’s drop is “notably better” than a sharper 6.2% decline RetailNext saw in in-store traffic for the days leading up to Thanksgiving. This indicates that, while shoppers remain cautious and are pulling back on in-store spending overall, “they’re still willing to show up for the biggest promotional moments,” he said.

    Experts expect heightened holiday spending to continue through the weekend. In terms of e-commerce, Adobe expects U.S. shoppers to spend another $5.5 billion Saturday and $5.9 billion on Sunday — before reaching an estimated $14.2 billion peak on Cyber Monday, which would mark yet another record.

    Still, rising prices could be contributing to some of those numbers. U.S. President Donald Trump’s barrage of tariffs on foreign imports have strained businesses and households alike over the last year. And despite spending more overall, Salesforce found U.S. shoppers purchased fewer items at checkout on Black Friday (down 2% from last year). Order volumes also slipped 1%, the firm noted, as average selling prices climbed 7%.

    This year’s holiday spending rush arrives amid heightened economic uncertainty for consumers. Beyond tariffs, workers across public and private sectors are also struggling with anxieties over job security — amid both corporate layoffs and the after-effects of the 43-day government shutdown.

    For the November-December holiday season overall, the National Retail Federation estimates U.S. shoppers will spend more than $1 trillion for the first time this year. But the rate of growth is slowing — with an anticipated increase of 3.7% to 4.2% year over year, compared to 4.3% in 2024’s holiday season.

    At the same time, credit card debt and delinquencies on other short-term loans have been rising. And more and more shoppers are turning to “buy now, pay later” plans, which allows them to delay payments on holiday decor, gifts and other items.

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  • Black Friday: What Time Do Stores Open?

    Black Friday has become something of an anachronism in the e-commerce era. The day after Thanksgiving marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, but retailers already have spent weeks flooding their websites and customers’ email inboxes with early Black Friday offers.

    While sales trends have been shifting, the best bargains may still be from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. That may be especially true for big ticket items, seasonal merchandise and the latest trendy products.

    Consumer advocates note, however, that deep discounts are not a once-a-year opportunity. They advise shoppers to comparison shop, research price histories and to read the fine print to make sure they are buying what they really wanted at a good price.

    That said, some people enjoy stepping out from behind a computer or phone screen to take in the holiday atmosphere and music at a local mall or shopping area. Some retailers are offering exclusives to get them through the door. A number of stores that were closed on Thanksgiving reopen early Friday as retailers work to kick the holiday shopping season into high gear.

    Here are the Black Friday store hours for some prominent national chains.

    Best Buy stores will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

    Costco stores will open at 9 a.m.

    Dick’s Sporting Goods stores lists its hours as 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. for Black Friday, but says on its website that hours may vary by location and to check with your local store for specific hours.

    Home Depot stores will open at 6 a.m. and close at the store’s regular hours. Specific closing hours may vary by store.

    JCPenney stores will open at 5 a.m.

    Most Kohl’s stores will open at 5 a.m.

    Lowe’s will open at 6 a.m.

    Macy’s stores will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Hours vary by location.

    Sam’s Club stores will be open during their regular hours.

    Target stores will open at 6 a.m. and close at their regular time.

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  • Onton raises $7.5M to expand its AI-powered shopping site beyond furniture | TechCrunch

    Major tech companies aren’t just using AI to help you generate or summarize content — they also want you to use it for shopping. OpenAI, Google, and Amazon have heavily invested in AI assistants that research new product categories for you and suggest the right ones to buy.

    Startups like Perplexity, Daydream, and Cherry have also built businesses around AI for product discovery. All these efforts have resulted in customers using more AI for shopping. Onton (previously known as Deft), an AI-powered furniture shopping platform, says it has seen its user base grow from 50,000 monthly active users to over 2 million monthly active users, serving millions of searches and image generations.

    Fueled by this growth, the startup announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in a new funding round led by Footwork, with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures, and 43, among others. This round brings the startup’s total funding to approximately $10 million.

    Onton co-founders Zach Hudson and Alex Gunnarson Image Credits: Onton

    Using this funding, the company wants to expand into new categories such as apparel and then eventually consumer electronics.

    The company rebranded from Deft to Onton earlier this year, citing confusion around the original name and difficulty securing a premium domain.

    Zach Hudson, co-founder of Onton, says that while large language models (LLMs) are good at guessing probable intent, they have not solved many problems in e-commerce. He added that the startup has observed that the average time a consumer takes to make a purchase decision has increased.

    Image Credits: Onton

    For its core technology, the company uses what’s called neuro-symbolic architecture. Hudson said that with this approach, the company can eliminate the hallucination problems of LLMs and provide better, logical search results. He added that the startup’s model can also learn information from the real world that might not necessarily be included in a product description.

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    “Let’s say you are looking for furniture that is pet-friendly. Our tools know that if the item has polyester in it, it would be more stain and scratch-resistant, so it would be more pet-friendly. Our tools learn these things through every single search and become smarter at a faster rate,” Hudson said.

    He added that often, when you search for a product that might be called different things on different sites, you don’t get great results. The company’s AI model takes those scenarios into consideration while presenting results.

    Onton has added different input methods and features to help people with their short and long-term decisions. You can now upload an image or add a prompt to generate what you want to achieve with your house or office setup, and Onton can find you furniture based on that.

    Image Credits: Onton

    Onton also offers an infinite canvas with image generation, where you can add existing images along with the products you find for ideation. You can also add images of your room and ask the tool to furnish it.

    The company feels that rather than stick to a chat-only approach, these features will give consumers more options to get to what they want, even if they don’t know how to describe it perfectly.

    The startup said that with these approaches, it has been able to convert customers 3-5x more than traditional e-commerce sites, as they can trust the underlying data.

    Hudson noted that because of the technological and interface changes it made, it will be easier to launch apparel. The company is building its catalog for the category and plans to launch the vertical soon. In this category, it will face competition from companies like Daydream, Aesthetic, and Style.ai.

    The company has grown from three full-time employees in 2023 to 10 now, with plans to expand the team to 15 people by hiring engineers and researchers.

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  • Alibaba’s cloud business revenue soars 34% driven by AI boom

    HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Alibaba Group posted a 34% jump in revenue from its cloud business in its most recent quarter, buoyed by the boom in artificial intelligence.

    But overall revenue at the Chinese tech group for the July-September quarter increased by just 5% year-on-year to 247.8 billion yuan ($35 billion), and profit fell 52% from last year, as a fierce price war in China’s e-commerce landscape — including in the food delivery segment — eroded into short-term profitability. JD.com, its e-commerce rival, reported a 55% net profit drop in the same quarter.

    Alibaba started out in e-commerce and later turned its focus to cloud and AI technologies. Earlier this year, it pledged to invest at least 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) in three years in advancing its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

    CEO Eddie Wu said in prepared remarks Tuesday that the group’s “significant” investments in AI had helped its revenue growth. The 34% cloud revenue growth was faster than the 26% increase in the April-June quarter.

    The company added that demand for AI was “accelerating” and its “conviction in future AI demand growth is strong.” It also will probably end up investing more than the planned 380 billion yuan in AI to meet surging demand, Alibaba said Tuesday.

    On Monday, Alibaba announced that its upgraded AI chatbot Qwen — which aims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT — recorded 10 million downloads in the first week after its public launch.

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    The company’s Hong Kong shares gained 2% Tuesday and just before the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, shares rose 2.4%. Shares have gained more than 90% so far this year, fueled by optimism over its progress in AI.

    Chinese companies have been gaining ground in AI since tech startup DeepSeek upended the industry, raising doubts over the dominance in the sector of its U.S. rivals.

    Recent earnings reports by other Chinese tech giants have been mixed.

    Tencent, which rivals Alibaba in AI, this month reported a strong 15% year-on-year gain in its revenue for the July-September quarter. But Baidu, which also competes with Alibaba in AI development, recorded a 7% drop in revenue in the same quarter compared to last year.

    Concerns among investors and analysts over an overblown AI bubble have also been growing, although strong earnings at Nvidia last week slightly eased worries.

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  • World shares are mixed as traders pin hopes on a rate cut by the Fed

    BANGKOK — World shares and U.S. futures were mixed on Monday after Wall Street was buoyed by revived hopes for an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

    The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was nearly unchanged.

    Germany’s DAX gained 0.5% to 23,201.85, while the CAC 40 edged less than 0.1% lower to 7,978.77. Britain’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.1% to 9,547.77.

    Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

    Hong Kong’s benchmark, the Hang Seng, rose 2% to 25,716.50. It got a boost from a 4.7% gain for e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has reported strong demand for its updated Qwen AI app. Alibaba is due to report earnings on Tuesday.

    The Shanghai Composite index rose less than 0.1% to 3,836.77.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.3% to 8,525.10.

    In South Korea, the Kospi reversed early gains, falling 0.2% to 3,846.06 on heavy selling of automakers.

    Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.3% and the Sensex in India shed 0.4%.

    This week, U.S. markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, which will be followed by the Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail rushes.

    After last week’s ups and downs over AI and Nvidia, traders will focus more on “the backbone of U.S. growth, the consumer, whose spending still drives two-thirds of GDP,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    Data on the U.S. economy was scarce during the 6-week U.S. government shutdown, leaving investors struggling to parse trends in the economy.

    “This makes any sniff of holiday activity — foot traffic, discount depth, card authorizations — disproportionately important. In a data desert, even a puddle looks like a lake,” he said.

    On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 1% and the Dow climbed 1.1%. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.9%. Nearly 90% of stocks in the S&P 500 advanced.

    It was a fitting finish for a week that left the S&P 500 just 4.2% below its record but also forced investors to stomach the sharpest hour-to-hour swings since a sell-off in April. The jarring moves are testing investors following a monthslong and remarkably smooth surge for stocks, and they come down to two basic as-yet unanswered questions.

    Have prices for Nvidia, bitcoin and other stars of Wall Street shot too high? And is the Federal Reserve done with its cuts to interest rates, which would boost the economy and prices for investments?

    Markets took heart from a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, John Williams, who told a conference in Chile that he sees “room for a further adjustment” to interest rates.

    Other Fed officials have argued against a December cut, saying inflation is still too high.

    In the bond market, Treasury yields eased Friday on hopes for cuts from the Fed. Traders are now betting on a nearly 72% probability of a December cut, up sharply from 39% a day before, according to data from CME Group. That helped send the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 4.06% from 4.10% late Thursday.

    In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 43 cents to $57.63 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 38 cents to $61.56 a barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 156.75 Japanese yen from 156.47 yen. The euro climbed to $1.1537 from $1.1516.

    Bitcoin was up 1.6%, near $86,000. On Friday, it briefly plunged below $81,000 before pulling back toward $85,000. That’s down from nearly $125,000 last month and brought it back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs.

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  • Asian Shares Mostly Gain and US Futures Also Advance After Wall St Ends With Gains

    BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher and U.S. futures advanced Monday after Wall Street ended on an upbeat note after much drama last week.

    Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

    Hong Kong’s benchmark, the Hang Seng, rose 1.3% to 25,550.89. It got a boost from a 4.7% gain for e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has reported strong demand for its new Qwen AI app. Alibaba is due to report earnings on Tuesday.

    The Shanghai Composite index, one of the few regional markets to decline, fell 0.3% to 3,821.68.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.1% to 8,507.60

    In South Korea, the Kospi climbed as technology shares settled after a rough few days of volatility spurred by worries over the craze for artificial intelligence will be sustained.

    Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.4% and the Sensex in India edged 0.1% higher.

    The future for the S&P 500 rose 0.6% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3%.

    This week, U.S. markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, which will be followed by the Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail rushes.

    After last week’s ups and downs over AI and Nvidia, traders will focus more on “the backbone of U.S. growth, the consumer, whose spending still drives two-thirds of GDP,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    Data on the U.S. economy was scarce during the 6-week U.S. government shutdown, leaving investors struggling to parse trends in the economy.

    “This makes any sniff of holiday activity — foot traffic, discount depth, card authorizations — disproportionately important. In a data desert, even a puddle looks like a lake,” he said.

    On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 1% to 6,602.99 and the Dow climbed 1.1% to 46,245.41. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.9% to 22,273.08. Nearly 90% of stocks in the S&P 500 advanced.

    Markets took heart from a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, John Williams, who told a conference in Chile that he sees “room for a further adjustment” to interest rates.

    In the bond market, Treasury yields eased Friday on hopes for cuts from the Fed. Traders are now betting on a nearly 72% probability of a December cut, up sharply from 39% a day before, according to data from CME Group. That helped send the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 4.06% from 4.10% late Thursday.

    In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 6 cents to $58.00 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 4 cents to $61.90 a barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 156.65 Japanese yen from 156.47 yen. The euro edged to $1.1519 from $1.1516.

    Bitcoin was up 3.2% at $87,350. On Friday, it briefly plunged below $81,000 before pulling back toward $85,000. That’s down from nearly $125,000 last month and brought it back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • New Survey Find a Huge Difference in Profitability for E-Commerce Companies That Embrace AI

    Despite juggling stubbornly high prices, ever-shifting tariff policies coming out of the Trump administration, and an increasingly dour mood among shoppers, digital-first consumer brands have actually been having a good year. 

    Over the past 12 months, returns have been climbing with 73 percent of e-commerce businesses reporting a significant or moderate increase in profitability. That’s according to a new survey commissioned by Mercury, a San Francisco-based financial technology company that provides banking services to more than 200,000 startups. The report, which was released on Thursday, polled 750 leaders from e-commerce businesses in the U.S. during the months of October and November.

    The survey found that larger and younger businesses tended to overperform. Among companies with more than 500 employees, the share reporting a significant or moderate increase in profitability rose to 87 percent. Some 78 percent of businesses that had been in operation for less than 10 years said that returns rose, compared with 61 percent of businesses 

    When it came to upping margins over the past year, another major differentiator was AI adoption. Businesses that reported using AI extensively were more than two times more likely to increase profitability, compared to the businesses that reported using little to no AI. Still the report stressed, “These figures show correlation rather than causation — but they do highlight a clear divide.”

    The e-commerce companies that had adopted AI were also much more likely to have an upbeat view about the year ahead. Among business leaders that used AI, 92 percent said they were optimistic about the growth of their companies in 2026, compared with 69 percent of business leaders that did not use AI. Those that reported extensive AI use were even more confident about the year ahead with 96 percent of respondents saying they were optimistic about future growth.

    Ali Donaldson

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  • 3 Different Types of Customers Brands Should Target Now

    The impact of social-media-driven, algorithmic advertising really can’t be overstated. In just the past five years alone, we’ve seen the advent of TikTok and the total takeover of Instagram: visual venues that have shortened the distance between “seeing” and “buying” to nearly zero. These days, shoppers hardly ever leave their chosen app.

    This has completely eroded the old rules of e-commerce. Black Friday is in August now and lasts for 100 days. Back to School is all four seasons. Customers now come at any time, from any direction. Brand loyalty isn’t a given. As a result, brands must do a better job at “surrounding” the consumer with an experience that covers every touchpoint. Opportunities to buy via email, SMS, and Amazon/Google feeds must be ready and frictionless for when a person decides to engage. 

    But earning customers in this climate takes more than blasting out promotions and discounts. Brands must truly understand the evolving world of shoppers— considering each person’s needs and getting some kind of benefit-focused point across. The old shopper archetypes are either dead or barely applicable in our evolving landscape.

    Here are the three most important categories of modern shoppers—crucial to understanding consumer needs and successfully catching their eye online. 

    The new impulse purchaser

    Instead of old wisdom around impulse shopping, don’t think of this group as looking for immediate gratification, but rather as people who are comparatively more open to suggestion. Pressure campaigns aren’t needed here—just a clear vision.  
     
    It all starts with eye-catching visuals to lower the barrier to entry and create clear differentiation. Next, make it easy to buy. Yes, low prices will help with that, but many brands underestimate other critical factors like security, an easy return policy, reviews, and social proof, all of which younger shoppers demand in the social shopping/mobile-first age. Lastly, use data collection and retargeting to follow-up with these shoppers.

    Don’t be coy—be direct and ask for business. Here’s where you should also consider adding promos such as rewards for abandoned carts or SMS offers for even deeper discounts or exclusive items. 

    The competitive gift giver

    Like impulse buyers, these shoppers are open to suggestion, but also aim to fulfill criteria. In the past, that would have meant that brands had to rely solely on strategically crafted product descriptions (highlighting quality and benefits) and hope to be discovered. But modern tech gives brands the ability to learn, remember and apply data about each gift giver using zero and first-party data.

    Instead, use your e-commerce site or other touchpoints to ask shoppers about the event or recipient of the gift. The answers can then be used to power personalized recommendations or packages, while also giving your brand an opportunity to enrich CRM with both giver and recipient. 
     
    Beyond that, brands should take into account that gift-giving sometimes has a new context since the rise of social. Everyone wants their gift to stand out. So, websites need to sell a “moment” to the gift giver. The online touchpoints need to convey that each consumer will be perceived as a thoughtful and generous giver that provides the most unique experience. So, focus your visuals on packaging and the entire experience of receiving the gift, unboxing, opening and reacting. In our own work with Oreo, we’ve found that focusing on this increases conversion by up to 2x. 

    The utilitarian shopper

    As you’d expect, these shoppers are purely fulfilling criteria, so the challenge is knowing what they want and giving it to them. One solution for brands is to attempt to empower these shoppers to make their own choices. This can be accomplished with various site tools and resources—like product filtering that allows people to filter out specific ingredients or features, sitewide search that compiles both product and article results, and comparison facilitators that put your product in the best light. When used correctly, these can all make purchasing frictionless. 
     
    These shoppers are also more discerning—they are less likely to “take your word for it” that your product fills their needs. To head off skepticism, showcase testimonials and reviews from credible sources who have some element of respect or expertise in the field. When a big celebrity name is not available to cosign your products, higher volumes of reviews are an acceptable substitute. In our experience, adding services like Bazaarvoice can lift the conversion rate by 1.7x. 

    These are important archetypes to consider in building any brand or product ecosystem in the age of social media. Otherwise, even the best product will go ignored and be edged out by a competitor that works harder at giving these people the experiences that demonstrate an understanding of how they really shop.  

    Ryan Vanni

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  • France to Suspend Shein Sales After Finding Childlike Sex Dolls

    The French government moved to temporarily suspend Shein’s website after authorities discovered sex dolls resembling children were being sold on its platform.

    The French finance ministry said Wednesday that it had begun the process to suspend Shein for “the time necessary for the platform to demonstrate” it has scrubbed its site of illegal products.

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    Chelsey Dulaney

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