James Chen 
Commons committee chair Liam Byrne has written to Amazon and TikTok over their reluctance to send witnesses to a 3 November hearing on online marketplace safety. Here is what MPs have already heard, the rules coming for marketplaces and what it means for UK shoppers and sellers.
Wind-up radios, torches and power banks are selling out after the government asked UK households to keep three days of emergency supplies. Here is what the official Be Ready checklist asks for, what retailers report and how to build a kit without panic buying.
Walmart began selling Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus together for $120 a year on October 20, nearly $100 less than buying both separately and $19 below Amazon Prime. The annual-only bundle adds warehouse club access, free delivery from both chains, streaming and fuel savings.
Shein’s European revenue likely falls year over year again in the second half of 2026, with a base case of a 15–25% decline, scored at FY2026 results due by 31 March 2027. The 13.9% drop it just reported came before the EU duty even took effect.
Britain is drawing up its first tariff on Chinese electric cars, with ministers reported willing to match the EU effective ceiling of about 45 percent. The pressure comes from Brussels and its Made in EU content rules, not from British carmakers.
Affirm re-entered Australia through a single Shopify channel, but it holds the credit licence itself and hired an in-country compliance owner two weeks before launch. Three dated signals point to at least one more Australian distribution channel before 30 June 2027.
Shein posted its first results as a listed company on September 28, reporting USD 11.08bn of net revenue and a 13.9% drop in Europe after the EU scrapped its EUR 150 customs duty exemption. The company blamed pre-emptive price rises and advertising cuts, with a further per-parcel handling fee due November 1.
Amazon likely discloses a US Amazon Now micro-fulfillment site count, or names ten or more new US metros, before June 30, 2027. Three hiring signals from August and September 2026 point to a shift from coverage to templated site construction.
India will charge merchants a 0.4% discount rate on UPI payments above INR 2,000 from October 15, 2026, ending nearly seven years of free acceptance on the world’s largest instant payment rail. The government has ruled out any delay as trade bodies demand a rollback and the dispute reaches the Supreme Court.
The FedEx-Advent consortium closed its InPost tender at 89.8% on September 18, and InPost is already running last-mile deliveries for FedEx in the UK and Poland. Three signals point to that pilot becoming a contracted, multi-country arrangement by June 30, 2027.