James Chen 
The ONS publishes August 2026 retail sales for Great Britain at 7am on Friday 18 September, a day after the Bank of England decision and two days after CPI. BRC-KPMG, Barclays and GfK data already point to food growth, falling non-food sales and cautious big-ticket spending.
The European Commission is likely to clear JD.com’s EUR 2.2bn takeover of Ceconomy with strengthened commitments by its extended FSR deadline of October 23, 2026. Beijing’s blocking order, a commitments-triggered deadline extension and JD.com’s Q2 disclosures point to conditions, not prohibition.
UPS made a new global operating model effective September 1 that splits its network from its US customer and lifts pricing into a single vacant global seat. Signals point to non-network services carrying the US growth story by the fourth-quarter 2026 results in late January 2027.
Nuvei will pay $4.85 million to settle FTC charges that it opened and kept merchant accounts for schemes it knew were defrauding consumers, including more than $30 million processed for the Reimage tech support scam. The accompanying commissioner statement sets a knowledge requirement for payment processor liability for the first time.
OpenCart handles a big catalog well until the defaults catch up with you. Attributes, filters and imports are where large stores win or stall.
The EU removed the small consignment relief years ago. Every parcel now carries VAT, and the only question is who collects it.
The United States is preparing a 7.5% tariff on Chinese goods under a Section 301 excess capacity investigation, a step that would lift replacement duties to the 20% ceiling Beijing says Washington agreed to. Officials want the findings published before the September 24 summit in Washington.
Chasing a perfect lab score is not the same as making a phone checkout feel fast. These are the fixes that show up in revenue.
The EU Cyber Resilience Act’s reporting duties begin on September 11, 2026, forcing a 24-hour early warning on actively exploited vulnerabilities in connected products. Retailers selling own-brand smart devices are treated as manufacturers, putting the clock on their side of the contract.
Payment passkeys are spreading fastest where regulators dated the end of SMS OTP, not where e-commerce is biggest. The signals point to a further mandate market getting a named issuer or PSP rollout before the end of Q1 2027.