👋 Weekly Editorial
Legal earthquake in the United States: the Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs, triggering a historic stock rally across e-commerce stocks. But the retaliation was immediate — new 15% tariffs via Section 122. On the fintech side, Stripe reaches a $159 billion valuation and launches Tempo, its own stablecoin blockchain, while Bloomberg drops a bombshell: Stripe may be considering acquiring PayPal. In France, Mirakl reaches profitability and unveils Nexus, its agentic commerce platform, while Shein continues its physical retail push by opening in 5 regional BHV stores. eBay restructures by cutting 800 jobs, but also bans third-party AI agents on its marketplace. This week's common thread: agentic commerce is no longer a concept — it's a battleground. Happy reading!
📢 E-commerce & Shopping
⚖️ SCOTUS strikes down Trump tariffs: shockwave across global trade On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled (6–3) that tariffs imposed by Trump under IEEPA were unconstitutional. Amazon (+2%), Etsy (+8%), Shopify (+1%) and eBay (+3%) stocks surged immediately. But the administration struck back within hours, invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act to impose 15% tariffs on all imports — a measure limited to 150 days without a congressional vote. Trade uncertainty remains at peak levels for international e-commerce players. (cnbc.com, cryptobriefing.com)
✂️ eBay lays off 800 employees to refocus On February 26, eBay announced the elimination of 800 positions (6% of its global workforce). The goal: realign its structure with strategic priorities — agentic AI search rolling out in the US, a strengthened C2C strategy, and the integration of Depop (acquisition announced the previous week for $1.2B). (ecommercebytes.com)
🤖 eBay bans third-party AI agents on its marketplace Effective February 20, eBay's updated terms of service explicitly prohibit "buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end automated flow placing orders without human review." eBay wants to control agentic commerce on its own platform. (ecommercetimes.com, webpronews.com)
👗 Shein opens 5 corners in regional BHV stores in France Four months after its first physical store at BHV Marais in Paris, Shein is expanding with corners ranging from 400 to 1,000 sqm in BHV stores in Limoges, Angers, Dijon, Grenoble and Reims since February 25. Reception remains modest: in Dijon, only 7 customers showed up at opening. The physical retail experiment continues for the fast-fashion giant. (fashionnetwork.com)
🎯 TikTok Shop: new tools for sellers TikTok Shop rolled out several features this week: an AI "Seller Assistant" in the Seller Center, an auto-approval workflow for product samples, creator profile highlights for brand collaborations, and automated clip posting from live broadcasts. (practicalecommerce.com)
🏠 Home Depot: mixed Q4, EPS beats expectations Home Depot reported Q4 results on February 24: revenue of $38.2B (-3.8% YoY), but adjusted EPS of $2.72 beat consensus ($2.54). Dividend increased by 1.3%. Demand remains muted as the US housing market struggles to recover. (ir.homedepot.com)
🇯🇵 Rakuten + Google Japan: direct purchase via YouTube Rakuten Ichiba partnered with Google in Japan to let users buy products directly through YouTube videos and affiliates. A video-commerce convergence that could inspire other markets. (practicalecommerce.com)
🛒 Avenue Z acquires Varfaj for AI-driven commerce Marketing agency Avenue Z acquired Varfaj, a Shopify development and optimization partner. The stated goal: positioning for "the evolution of commerce: shopping experiences driven by AI agents." (practicalecommerce.com)
📣 Marketing & Ads
💳 Worldline launches One Commerce for omnichannel European payments leader Worldline unveiled One Commerce on February 25, a unified platform enabling merchants to integrate new payment methods, value-added services and modern shopping models into a single interface. The goal: simplify omnichannel management for European retailers. (practicalecommerce.com)
📊 Wall Street bets on e-commerce post-tariffs Phillip Securities upgraded Shopify to "Buy" (target $160) on February 21, citing attractive valuation and positioning in agentic commerce. Goldman Sachs upgraded eBay to "Neutral" (target $88), praising its repositioning investments toward durable growth. (finance.yahoo.com, defenseworld.net)
🇬🇧 UK: CMA closes consultation on Google AI Overviews opt-out The UK CMA's consultation deadline fell on February 25. The proposed measures would allow publishers to refuse having their content power Google's AI summaries, while prohibiting Google from penalizing those publishers in organic search results. Final decision expected March 18. A major regulatory precedent for SEO and retail media. (gov.uk, pressgazette.co.uk)
📱 2026 Creator Economy Report: AI democratizes creation The Influencer Marketing Factory published its annual report on February 24. Key figure: the global creator population is expected to exceed 1.1 billion by 2032, driven by AI lowering barriers to entry. Micro-influencers (10K–100K followers) show higher conversion rates than mega-influencers. TikTok Shop is projected to reach $23.4B in US sales in 2026 (+48% YoY). (finance.yahoo.com)
🤖 AI & Tech
💰 Stripe: $159B valuation and Tempo blockchain Stripe completed a tender offer on February 24 valuing the company at $159 billion (+74% in one year), with $1.9 trillion in transaction volume in 2025 (+34%). In parallel, Stripe is developing Tempo, its own blockchain dedicated to stablecoins and payments, in partnership with Paradigm. Visa, Shopify and Nubank are already testing the solution. (techcrunch.com, bloomberg.com)
🔥 Bloomberg: Stripe reportedly considering PayPal acquisition Bombshell from February 24: according to Bloomberg, Stripe is exploring the acquisition of PayPal — or parts of its business. Neither company has commented. If confirmed, this would be the mega-merger of the decade in online payments. (bloomberg.com)
🚀 Mirakl: $218M ARR, profitability reached, and Nexus launch French unicorn Mirakl announced on February 26 its 2025 results: $218M ARR (+23%), and group profitability achieved. The major event: the launch of Mirakl Nexus, an agentic commerce infrastructure designed to connect merchants to conversational platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude). Strategic partnership with Stripe and OpenAI. (mirakl.com)
👔 True Fit launches AI shopping agent for retail True Fit, a fit and fashion intelligence specialist, launched an AI shopping agent powered by 20 years of purchase and return data. The agent identifies "Will this fit me?" moments in real time and guides shoppers to the right sizes and styles. Available March 2026 for select retailers, broader rollout in April. (practicalecommerce.com)
🛡️ Radial launches Commerce Solutions: payments and AI fraud prevention Radial unveiled a suite combining multi-provider payment orchestration, centralized tokenization and AI-driven fraud decisioning, eliminating manual reviews. The solution also includes chargeback protection and resolution. (practicalecommerce.com)
🆕 era.shopping raises $1.4M for agentic commerce era.shopping raised $1.4M in pre-seed funding (Presto Ventures and Alliance) on February 26. The platform helps brands make their catalogs discoverable and purchasable in AI engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity). A strong signal of the emerging agentic ecosystem. (startupnews.fyi)
🔗 Akeneo partners with Stripe for agentic commerce Akeneo, a PIM (Product Information Management) specialist, partnered with Stripe's Agentic Commerce suite. Akeneo positions itself as the "product experience" layer, enabling brands to enrich, validate and activate product data for AI-driven channels. (practicalecommerce.com)
💳 Paysafe + Spreedly: global payment orchestration Paysafe and Spreedly announced a payment orchestration partnership: Spreedly integrates Paysafe as an acquirer to process card payments for online merchants worldwide. (practicalecommerce.com)
🗓️ E-commerce Agenda
March 1: €2 tax on imported parcels goes into effect (France) March 2026: Official launch of Joybuy (JD.com) in France — next-day delivery via JoyExpress March 18: DPD E-commerce Tour March 18: UK CMA final decision on Google AI Overviews opt-out
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