The Digital Commerce Daily

UK Black Friday is forecast to hit £9.8bn — but margins are tight. Plus, Bol's own sales have stalled while partner sellers keep growing, and German consumers are dropping AI the moment they reach checkout. In this episode: VoucherCodes.co.uk research forecasts UK Black Friday spending at £9.8bn, a 3% year-on-year rise, as shoppers increasingly plan their full Christmas budget around the peak trading window. Bol's first-party sales have flatlined while third-party partner seller volumes continue to grow, signalling that Benelux ecommerce momentum now sits firmly in the marketplace channel. German holiday shoppers are adopting AI tools for product research and comparison in significant numbers this season, but abandoning them at checkout due to trust gaps, local payment preferences, and ingrained purchasing habits. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

DoorDash just paid $17 billion for the retail media business it couldn't build — and with Singles Day live, a sharp new analysis asks whether brands are buying real growth or renting it. Two stories every ecommerce professional needs today. In this episode: DoorDash acquired Instacart for $17 billion, instantly gaining access to one of the most mature retail media ad networks in US grocery commerce — a business DoorDash had failed to build organically. A new analysis questions how much of Singles Day's massive revenue is truly incremental for brands, warning that ad tech platforms profit regardless of whether campaigns generate new customers or simply discount existing ones. Gutsy, a DTC dog food brand that started as a student project, is targeting 33 million meals across Europe by competing on transparent recipes and local production in one of the continent's fastest-growing subscription ecommerce categories. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

AppLovin is challenging Meta for DTC ad budgets and the numbers are hard to ignore. Plus, BarkBox reveals a warning sign hiding inside a recovery story — and Omnicom just made retail media standardisation in Europe real. In this episode: AppLovin came in just under a major revenue milestone with exceptional growth rates this quarter, yet Wall Street remains cautious — a signal for ecommerce brands to test it as a Meta alternative, not replace Meta outright. Bark's total net revenue fell in fiscal Q2 ended September 30 despite direct-to-consumer commerce resuming growth, exposing a dangerous gap between order volume and overall business health that subscription DTC brands heading into Q4 should heed. Omnicom Media has been named beta agency partner for SMG's RMX retail media exchange, committing real budget to a single cross-retailer buying interface and turning years of standardisation talk in Europe into live infrastructure. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Amazon just made your text inbox a shoppable ad surface. TikTok now rivals Google for paid search precision. And Fox's $22B Roku deal reshapes how ecommerce brands buy streaming TV. In this episode: Amazon's AI shopping assistant now accepts purchase orders via SMS and serves Sponsored Product ads directly inside the text conversation thread, rolling out to millions of users in the coming weeks. TikTok Search Ads now support keyword match types, negative keywords, individual keyword bidding, and impression share data, bringing the platform in line with Google and Microsoft Ads for performance marketers. Fox Corp completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, folding the platform and its 80+ million active accounts and OneView ad platform into Fox Digital Platforms alongside Tubi, Fox One, and Red Seat Ventures. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Amazon is accused of secretly overcharging sellers by up to 250% during peak events. Shein just made European fashion brands' worst nightmare permanent. And Criteo is bringing measurable TV advertising to European ecommerce for the first time. In this episode: Newly unsealed FTC filings allege Amazon secretly inflated ad auction prices by up to 250% during Prime Day and Black Friday, with both federal and state-level complaints raising the legal stakes for the company. Shein is investing an additional €500 million in its Polish logistics hub to fulfil orders from inside the EU, eliminating import duties and slashing delivery times to directly rival European DTC fashion brands on both price and speed. Criteo is expanding its Performance Connected TV product to Europe for the first time, linking retail media first-party shopper data to CTV ad targeting and delivering closed-loop attribution that shows whether a TV ad led to an actual purchase. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Amazon just turned its logged-in audience into a cross-retailer targeting weapon — bad news for Walmart and Kroger's ad businesses. Plus, why agencies are buying TikTok Shop expertise before Q4 hits. In this episode: Amazon DSP now lets advertisers target display and video ads at shoppers identified as also buying from Walmart, Dollar General, Kroger, Walgreens, and Sephora — repositioning Amazon as a full-funnel off-Amazon ad platform that competes directly with rival retail media networks. Ecommerce agencies and holding companies are acquiring TikTok Shop specialist firms ahead of Q4, betting the platform will be a meaningful holiday revenue channel and seeking to own the full content-to-cart journey that also drives Amazon sales. Commerce tech startup Chord has acquired rival Zenlytic to build an agentic customer data platform designed for a future where AI agents — not humans — make purchase decisions, signalling that the traditional CDP category is being rebuilt from scratch. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

JD.com just became Europe's biggest electronics retailer overnight. Shopify stores are under suspected AI-powered attack weeks before Black Friday. And IAB Europe says retail media's measurement problem is reaching crisis point. In this episode: JD.com received final European Commission approval to acquire Ceconomy, giving China's second-largest ecommerce company full ownership of MediaMarkt and Saturn — Europe's largest consumer electronics chain — including hundreds of stores and major ecommerce operations across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria. Shopify merchants are reporting a suspected wave of AI-driven fraudulent attacks on their storefronts, discovered by a German software engineer during a legitimate purchase, arriving weeks before Black Friday and Cyber Monday when transaction volumes and fraud risk are at their peak. IAB Europe's third annual retail media measurement report, published 3 November, warns that a growing gap between retail media investment and measurement standards is creating a credibility crisis, even as UK retail media spend alone grew 31%. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Amazon's 400 million Alexa shoppers spend 50% more than the rest — and a Spanish florist just proved ChatGPT is already a top acquisition channel. If you sell online, today's episode is required listening. In this episode: Amazon revealed that more than 400 million customers used Alexa for shopping in the past 12 months, with Alexa shoppers spending 50% more than non-Alexa customers — making voice optimisation an urgent priority for sellers heading into peak season. Spain-based florist Persa Flores reports that 1 in 5 of its orders now originates from ChatGPT referrals, with most arriving on city-specific delivery pages, making it one of the first ecommerce brands to publicly quantify ChatGPT as a major acquisition channel. Nordic marketplace group Vend Advertising — spanning Blocket, FINN, Tori, Bytbil and Oikotie — has partnered with ad server company Kevel to build an independent retail media stack, keeping full first-party data ownership away from walled garden platforms. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Google is disrupting its own ad business with AI Overviews, Amazon's Prime Day shake-up is rattling seller budgets, and UK Q4 ad spend is heading for an all-time record. Here's what ecommerce brands need to know now. In this episode: Google's search ad revenue growth has cooled as its aggressive AI Overviews rollout prompts investor concern that AI-generated answers are reducing ad clicks across the entire search business. Amazon Ads revenue growth has decelerated despite approaching $20 billion in quarterly revenue, with changes to Prime Day's timing and format disrupting the predictable ad spend cycles sellers have relied on. UK ad spend is forecast to reach £51.3bn for full-year 2026, with Q4 alone projected at a record £14bn, intensifying auction competition for ecommerce brands heading into peak trading season. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily

Lengow just consolidated European seller tech, Reddit is locking down the product discovery channel brands relied on for free, and Tesco's £1.5bn exit from Central Europe could supercharge its UK retail media business. In this episode: Lengow, a French ecommerce automation platform, has acquired Daily&Co, a multi-channel marketplace integration specialist, consolidating the feed management tools European sellers use to distribute products across marketplaces like Zalando, Bol and Amazon.de. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced a shift to a login-only experience, triggered by Google's AI scraping of Reddit content, which will shrink open product discovery traffic while giving advertisers richer first-party audience data. Tesco has agreed to sell its Czech Republic and Slovakia supermarket operations to Ahold Delhaize for €1.7bn (£1.5bn), freeing up capital that could accelerate its UK ecommerce and Clubcard-powered retail media platform. The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day. Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us. Also from Marco & Klara: The FMCG Marketing Daily · The Health Marketing Daily