The V Spot week 31 2025 Retail and eCommerce Nearly News

Welcome to the VSpot, your home for e-com nearly news. Some people have said that this is your weekly drip feed of e-commerce truth, brewed dark and served without all that investor froth. This week, retail has been busy rebranding panic as strategic agility. Shopify went all in on AI again, and they're going to ghost that bad boy like a summer fling. Amazon have decided they want to continue its mission on delivering everything, this time expanding Prime Pharmacy beyond the US. Sure, why not get your antidepressants and your dog food all in one simple box? TikTok is still trying to convince the West that livestreaming a lip gloss is as essential as rent. Walmart roll out more automation. Kärna keeps flirting with being an AI stylist, and UPS decided that the only thing better to do than cut delivery times is jobs. Right, enough mood music. Let's go do the news. This episode as well is powered by Omnisend, the email and SMS platform that delivers $68 for every $1 invested. No jargon, no 14-day setups, just revenue. Works so well, your CFO might actually smile. Don't forget, you get 3 months off your subscription, uh, once you subscribe to the link below and put in your discount code. Uh, let's do the news. Shopify's AI store overhaul continues as they announced this week that they're adding new AI features to reimagine storefront design. Translated, this means fewer freelancers, more prompts, and finally, your homepage can look like every other AI-generated homepage, but with your logo. Amazon expands Prime Pharmacy overseas because just when you think cutting-edge global healthcare, you think Andy Jassy, nothing like picking up your antibiotics, your antidepressants, and the dog food all at once. Oh, what a time to be alive. TikTok Shop has soft rollout west. So TikTok says its US or western markets will see incremental e-com growth. The rest of us call that slow. Yep, slow growth. That's okay though. Apparently even the algorithm is signing out of your shopping cart. Walmart has announced more store tasks. New tech is taking over picking and packing and stock movement. Perfect for customers who always want to dream that their groceries could be judged by a robot called Greg. Cousin Greg from Succession, that is. Klarna's AI personal shopper has just been testing new AI products that are going to recommend products based on your mood. Ooh, nice. Bad news, it knows that you're sad, sitting at home drinking wine and trying on your new weighted blanket. Happy Friday, everybody. Well, though it's Monday. UPS says that it's cutting jobs despite service gains. So UPS says that their operating efficiency is gaining and that they're optimizing all the time whilst they are shedding thousands of jobs. Uh, can't be efficiency where you're firing the person who knows where your actual package is and there's no one there to track it when you need it. And finally, Meta have tested— more AI, I'm so sorry— Meta have tested more AI-powered ad creation tools. —trailing tools that build ads from scratch for small businesses. Woohoo! Your cousin's candle brand is now going to be able to get that same creative campaign as a Fortune 500 company. Said no one ever. So you have it, folks. AI is going to design our stores, deliver our pills, write our ads, and tell us what throw pillows we need to go with our blanket and what goes well with a good sipping wine. UPS is slimming down, Walmart's speeding up, and TikTok Shop is taking baby steps while pretending to sprint. Retail is not dead, don't forget, it's just outsourcing its personality to a chatbot, and not a very good one at that. Big thanks to Omnisend, the only email marketing tool that doesn't need a 47-slide deck to prove ROI. Turn it on, watch your flows, watch your revenue grow, and don't forget to put my discount code in the link. There it is, folks. You've been watching the VSpot. That is 4 minutes you're not getting back this week.