THE V SPOT NEWS | FRI, JUNE 12TH, 2026 | Everything's on Sale

Welcome to the VSpot, your home for the e-com nearly news and a little bit of everything today. So the World Cup kicked off yesterday. Mexico, South Africa, the Azteca, 84,000 people, Shakira, 3 red cards and hydration breaks lasting longer than most VAR checks. South Africa finished with 9 men. The opening game of a 48-team tournament that Gianni Infantino has been telling us for 3 years is the most inclusive, joyous World Cup in history. Ask a Somalian ref if he agrees. Infantino, for the record, did not even watch it. So the man who's campaigning for a third term on the strength of his ability to run a tournament couldn't even be bothered watching it. Here I am watching from Tralee, where most Irish people are watching from. Which is home. Not bitter at all. Meanwhile, in New York, the Knicks are ripping it up, one game away from making history and turning around 50 years of hurt. Uh, Wednesday night came back from a huge deficit of well over 20 points, winning with 1.2 seconds to go, or at least getting the score at that point, leaving them in an interesting position. Courtside seats are at a huge premium, uh, but when there's over 400,000 millionaires and 1,700 billionaires in your city, that doesn't really matter. While all that was happening, ShopTalk Europe wrapped in Barcelona. 4,500 retail and e-com leaders, most of whom were vendors from what I can see, were all at the Fira Gran Via under the theme 'Where AI and human ingenuity meet,' usually on a yacht or drinking cocktails, go figure. Which still sounds kind of profound though until you're sitting through your fourth panel of someone saying we need to balance human touch with technology. Oof, really riveting stuff. The Deloitte macro briefing was apparently the most sobering 30 minutes of anyone's conference season. They could do bringing some of that sobriety into Ireland. 20,000 pre-scheduled one-on-ones were the real show as always. Tapas were excellent. Let's do the news. In the UK this week, Mike Ashley, head of Fraser's, wants to add to his empire. The Sports Direct house of Fraser, Flannel's boss, has launched a bid to take over Hugo Boss in just under £2 billion. Cash offer, 38 quid a share. Ashley already owns about 26% of Hugo Boss, has been building that stake since 2020, quietly, patiently being the catcher in the rye. Hugo Boss stock jumped 8% on Thursday. The board said they will examine it thoroughly. That translates into they're nervous, they weren't warned, and now they are buying time. If this closes, it's the biggest deal in Fraser's history and a statement of intent. 'Ashley is building a genuine premium fashion empire, not just a discount pile-on washing machine. Watch this one closely. He's been doing an amazing job, and his son-in-law Mike Murray too.' Next story coming out of the UK as well, and ASOS continues its road back to recovery. They hired Natasha Jeffers, as I mentioned a few months ago, as managing director of global trade. This is a March poster from Amazon Fashion, which itself is kind of just one of those anomalies and Amazon fashion. Uh, she's back at the brand where she started her career, and she's been describing this as a full circle moment. Numbers are pretty good in there— 50% profit surge under her tenure, uh, gross margin up 330 basis points. Women's wear is outperforming most of them. This is a really interesting one. The question now is whether Jeffers can drive them through this growth phase. The Amazon comeback story is the best underdog narrative in the UK right now, and not enough people are talking about it, but I'm going to keep banging the drum. Uh, one more UK story. Sorry, US, uh, you're getting all the news with the World Cup, but GLP-1 just ate 700 million— 780 million of UK grocery spend. New data from World Panel this week: 1.9 million adults in the UK or Great Britain are now on GLP-1 weight loss medication. Means you can eat as much Greggs as you want or go to Wetherspoons, it doesn't matter because you got your old little jab in your pocket. That's roughly about 6% of households, up from 2% in 2023. And those households spent quite a lot of money, as I said, on groceries this year up to February 2026, but they're spending £480 less per household. 299 million fewer packs are purchased. Things taking the biggest hit: crisps and chocolate. Sorry, Gary Lineker. Sorry, Mr. Cadbury. The irony: Ozempic, Matt, the dry mouth and bad breath side effect, is driving double-digit growth in mouthwash and chewing gum. Every cloud. So the same drug that's killing the snack aisle is quietly propping up oral care. Boots launched a high street weight loss job service in February. Holy crap. Superdrug is building an oral weight management loss service right now, and the grocers are scrambling to build GLP-friendly ranges. This is not a trend, folks. This is here to stay. Like I said, eat all the Greggs you want, don't suffer any of the consequences. Amazon has taught itself to draw. On Monday, Amazon added custom merchandise creation to Alexa for shopping. You type a prompt, say, 'Golden Retriever as a 1990s corporate lawyer at a disco,' I don't know, Mad Libs, and Alexa generates the design for you, puts it on a t-shirt or water bottle, and sends it via Prime. Free to design, you pay for the product. As weird as it gets from an Amazon perspective, and really they haven't got consumer AI right at all. You can share the link with friends so they can do the same thing, or just tell you that you're mad. So for anyone running to do print-on-demand business, custom merch brand, or even a Printful-powered Shopify store. This is the threat you didn't see coming, but you probably don't have to worry about it either. It's an Amazon plug, remember? Next story, and we're almost there, folks. Bed Bath Beyond is having a moment, and it's in a weird best way. This week, Bed Bath Beyond—yes, back from the dead, now owned by the entity formerly known as Overstock, what's the name of it now? Nobody knows—acquired two home services companies, InstallRight and SFV be acquiring professional services to add to their full suite. That's for installation of closets, flooring, kitchens, and cabinets to their portfolio. I did not get paid to say this. Their first co-branded container store and Bed Bath Beyond location opened in Fort Worth in May. Marcus Lemonis is building what he calls an everything home ecosystem— product installation, financing, loyalty— all under one roof. It's either brilliant or it's the most ambitious retail pivot since since that footwear brand, what would you call it, Allbirds, turned into an AI company. I don't know, folks. AI is driving everyone mad. Prime Day is coming. Keep an eye on Bed Bath Beyond and see what they're going to be called come September. We're taking bets. Now, final story here, and Adidas is selling e-com with the product. This was one of the things that was at Salesforce Connections in Chicago a little, a couple of weeks ago. Deserves a little bit more airtime. Adidas revealed that it has built ecom as a service, E-A-A-S, EaaS, using AI agents on Salesforce's Agentforce platform. First client, Audi F1, full e-commerce store built and live in 8 weeks, no new headcount. Senior project manager called it a $100 million-plus opportunity. Adidas, a brand, is now competing with Fanatics for a licensed e-commerce model. Interesting. They're not just selling trainers, They're now getting into the infrastructure that runs the shop. If you're operating as an e-com agency platform partner, building brand capabilities for third party, Adidas is now your competitor. What a world. 8 weeks, AI agents, no headcount. That's the benchmark, folks. This week's VSpot has been brought to you by our partners Omnisend, Sumo Blue, who we are very kindly happy to be still working with. We are still not sure quite how they are doing it. They're the ones that know that reaching e-com retail operators means actually being in a room where they're paying attention. If this sounds like your audience, the link is in the description. Go say hello to the teams. They're incredible. Great partners to us this year. We are very grateful. So that's your 6 Minute Folks that you're not getting back this week. Mike Ashley wants Hugo Boss. ASOS is back and it raided Amazon to prove a GLP1 wipe. £780 million off British grocery spend and nobody in the crisp aisle is really happy. Poor Gary Lineker, at least he's got his Netflix show now. Amazon can now design your merch in 11 seconds. Bed Bath Beyond is building a home services empire from the grave. Adidas did it all in 8 weeks with AI agents. And finally, Ireland is watching from the sofa. We're supporting Scotland, at least in my house there's support for Scotland, France, Canada, and what was the last country? I can't remember. But Ireland is watching from the sofa. The Knicks are one win away from history. The World Cup is 102 games to go. And at least half of them are going to have red cards from what we've seen. We're on YouTube, we're on TikTok, we're on, uh, we're on Substack. Hit subscribe. We will see you next Friday.