Coverage of global e-commerce marketplaces, online shopping platforms, and cross-border selling.
TikTok Shop opened four new EU markets on 15 June 2026 alongside a cross-border selling tool that slashes the cost of each launch. Three signals point to another European market wave, likely the Nordics or Central Europe, before the 2026 holiday peak.
Alibaba has offered about $1.5 billion for Chinese on-demand grocery platform Pupu, more than double a rival bid. The move escalates its instant-retail fight with Meituan and JD.com.
Three signals from late May 2026 point to TikTok Shop converting its ten European markets into a single cross-border marketplace. The shift looks likely to land before the 2026 holiday quarter, even as the US business stays ring-fenced.
The US Department of Defense has named Alibaba, Baidu and BYD on its updated Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies. The label carries no automatic sanctions but deepens US-China decoupling for one of the worlds largest e-commerce and cloud firms.
Amazon used its London Delivering the Future event to pledge more than 10 billion euros to modernise its European fulfilment network, adding 25,000 jobs and a new generation of warehouse robots. The package also widens ultra-fast Amazon Now delivery to more UK cities, including Manchester and Birmingham.
How US brands sell on Temu in 2026: picking the local-to-local model, surviving the pricing-approval floor, the payout hold cycle, and the mistakes that sink early sellers.
A dedicated shopping app is no longer a default. Here is the concrete economics, retention math, and decision framework for whether a retail brand should build one in 2026.
Smartphones drive most retail sessions but convert at half the desktop rate. This guide fixes the mobile checkout with wallets, lean forms, guest checkout, and speed.
Translation is roughly 15% of localizing a store. Local currency, payment rails, trust signals and returns law decide whether a cross-border market converts.
Your first export order rarely fails because of demand. It fails at customs, in a surprise VAT bill, or in landed-cost math you never ran. Here is the tax and duty setup behind a profitable launch.