Week of October 16 to 22, 2026
A tense week: after the looting of October 17, Vinted, Leboncoin and TikTok pledge to track down the resale of stolen goods, GiFi files for receivership and Casino renames itself Plesio. Maisons du Monde sees sales on its own website plunge 35%. Across the Atlantic, eBay cuts 1,000 jobs and Salesforce buys Braze for $5.66B. Here's what mattered this week.
📢 E-commerce & Shopping
🔥 October 17 looting: a bill of "several hundred million euros" for retail. In France, the FCD retail federation counts around 1,500 shops directly hit on the sidelines of protests against the cost of living, 70% of them small retailers, while the government refers to 3,000 affected businesses. Carrefour reports around fifty stores hit, about twenty of them looted, and chains such as Galeries Lafayette, Apple, Decathlon and Fnac were targeted. According to the Alliance du Commerce, fashion sales fell 14% that day, and as much as 84% in Clermont-Ferrand. (pointsdevente.fr)
🕵️ Vinted, Leboncoin, Amazon and TikTok pledge to fight the resale of looted goods. In France, after a meeting with ministers Serge Papin and Anne Le Hénanff, Vinted, Amazon, eBay, Leboncoin, Meta, TikTok, the French marketplace alliance and Fevad signed four commitments on October 20. They will monitor suspicious listings (abnormally low prices, batches of new products, security tags still attached), cooperate with investigators and send regular reports, the first within 48 hours. Vinted had already stepped up its checks after an influx of suspicious listings. (fashionunited.fr)
🩹 Looted shops: 100% short-time work coverage and zero-rate Bpifrance loans. In France, the support plan announced on October 20 provides 100% coverage of short-time work for companies with fewer than 250 employees, a deferral of employer Urssaf contributions for up to 12 months and a zero-rate Bpifrance loan of up to €50,000 over 3 years. The deadline for filing insurance claims is extended to 30 days and a dedicated hotline has opened, 0 806 807 807. (fashionunited.fr)
🛒 Carrefour lowers its targets but its e-commerce jumps 18%. In France and worldwide, the group reports Q3 sales of €22.7B (+2.3% like-for-like), including €11.9B in France (+1.2%). E-commerce grows 18%. Carrefour puts the impact of the looting and curfews on its recurring operating income at €80M to €200M and lowers its 2026 margin target. (ecommercemag.fr)
🐞 Carrefour buys Codifrance (Coccinelle, CocciMarket) for €152M. In France, Carrefour is acquiring from Colruyt this supplier to convenience stores, which serves around 3,100 retailers from 3 warehouses and generates €307M in sales. The deal is due to close in the first half of 2027, subject to approval by the French competition authority. (pointsdevente.fr)
🏷️ Casino Group becomes Plesio. In France, the retailer announced on October 20 its new name, which means "proximity" in Greek and will be submitted to the 2027 shareholders' meeting. Its banners, from Monoprix to Cdiscount, Franprix and Naturalia, keep their names. Plesio has also entered exclusive talks to convert 9 stores of the Coopérateurs de Normandie-Picardie to the Casino banner. (pointsdevente.fr)
🆘 GiFi files for receivership. In France, the insolvent discount variety chain informed its works councils of its filing on October 20, with a hearing scheduled for October 23 at the Toulouse commercial court. It has 513 stores and 6,000 employees, and is suffering in particular from competition from Action, Maxi Bazar and Temu. Stores remain open. (ecommercemag.fr)
📺 Fnac Darty: online now over 21% of sales, and Brussels clears Kretinsky's takeover bid. In France, the group reports Q3 sales of €2.51B (+1.8% like-for-like). Online sales grew 5.3% over nine months and nearly half of orders go through Click & Collect. The European Commission approved EP Group's €35-per-share tender offer on October 20, which is set to close on November 9. (pointsdevente.fr)
🛋️ Maisons du Monde: sales on its website plunge 35%. In France, Q3 sales fell 21.5% to €176.3M. Online sales dropped 30.3% to €42.6M, with around -35% on maisonsdumonde.com and -4% for the marketplace, due to stock-outs and lower search engine advertising spend. The group confirms €30M in savings. (globenewswire.com)
🛍️ Showroomprivé returns to slight growth. In France, the group reports Q3 net sales of €102.7M, up 0.7% excluding The Bradery, after -6% in Q1 and -12% in Q2. International online sales grew 10.7%, while France was down 0.6%. (abcbourse.com)
💄 L'Oréal accelerates, with e-commerce up around 17%. In France and worldwide, the group posts Q3 sales of €11.56B (+7.2% like-for-like), driven by Dermatological Beauty (+13.9%). Europe grew 8.9% and e-commerce around 17% over nine months. (boursorama.com)
🖼️ Maurice Lévy's YourArt group buys the Artsper art marketplace. In France, two years after ArtMajeur, the group is acquiring Artsper and its roughly 1,200 partner galleries, for an undisclosed amount. The two brands will remain separate and ArtMajeur's AI tools will be integrated into Artsper. (cbnews.fr)
📦 Colis Privé and Paack merge under the Paack brand. In France and Europe, CEVA Logistics (CMA CGM) is combining its two last-mile delivery networks, which handle 150 million parcels a year in 5 countries with more than 17,000 pickup points, around 8,000 of them in France. The new identity will roll out from January 2027. (ecommercemag.fr)
📉 Small parcel tax: Temu loses 37% of its active customers in France. In France, according to a Joko study of 1.5 million users, active customers fell between Q2 and Q3 by 37% at Temu, 30% at AliExpress and DHgate and 23% at Shein. Temu's loyal customers dropped 49%, but the average basket rose 34% at Temu and at least 40% at AliExpress. (ecommerce-nation.fr)
💳 Sofinco launches PURE, a card to choose cash or credit after purchase. In France, the Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance subsidiary offers a deferred-debit Mastercard backed by a revolving credit line: after each purchase, customers decide whether to pay in full or on credit, up to 60 monthly instalments. The card includes "Internet delivery" insurance and 180-day purchase protection. (pointsdevente.fr)
📉 eBay cuts around 1,000 jobs. Worldwide, the platform is reducing its workforce by around 9%, after 800 cuts in February, despite Q2 revenue up 15% to $3.1B. In the US, eBay is also offering 0% commission on live shopping sales from October 19 to 29, by invitation. (retaildive.com)
🇬🇧 The UK wants marketplaces to collect VAT for British sellers. In the United Kingdom, the government is considering extending marketplace VAT collection, already in place for foreign sellers, to large domestic sellers, with expected revenue of up to £1B a year. The measure mainly targets Chinese sellers using British shell companies. Amazon supports the plan and details are expected in the October 28 budget. (ecommercenews.eu)
💱 Klarna removes currency fees at all its merchants. In Europe and worldwide, Klarna launches "Consumer FX": its 120 million users pay in their own currency at any Klarna merchant, with prices and rates shown upfront, in 10 currencies including the euro, the dollar and the pound. No integration is needed on the merchant side, and Klarna reports +5% conversion in early tests. (etailment.de)
🎁 Target launches 8,000+ holiday items and rolls out its "Ask Target" assistant. In the United States, more than half of the new gift items are exclusive and most cost $20 or less, with a daily "Deal of the Day" from November 1 to December 24. The "Ask Target" conversational assistant, in beta on the website and app, helps find gift ideas and answers product questions. (modernretail.co)
🏪 Walmart takes on Prime with a $120 bundled membership. In the United States, Walmart combines Walmart+ and Sam's Club Plus in a $120-a-year offer, nearly $100 less than the two memberships separately, while Prime costs $139. The offer includes free delivery at both chains, Peacock or Paramount+ and a fuel discount. (retaildive.com)
👟 Adidas posts a record third quarter. In Germany and worldwide, the sportswear maker reports preliminary sales of €7.3B (+9%) and record operating profit of €1B (+37%). It raises its full-year target to €2.5B in operating profit, while Nike saw its revenue fall 4%. (retaildive.com)
🇩🇪 Amazon to invest more than €16B in Germany in 2027. In Germany, Amazon announces more than €16B in investments next year, including €4.8B for AWS, and more than 3,000 logistics-related jobs. According to its report published the same day, German SMEs generated more than €20B in sales on Amazon in 2025, including €5.9B in exports, with France as their top market. (aboutamazon.com)
🎄 Amazon hires 300,000 seasonal workers for the holidays. In the United States, Amazon plans more than 300,000 seasonal hires, 20% more than the 250,000 it has hired each year since 2023, at an average wage of $20 an hour. Other retailers are hiring less this year. (aboutamazon.com)
↩️ UPS Happy Returns integrates with TikTok Shop. In the United States, TikTok Shop sellers can offer box-free, label-free returns at 10,000 drop-off points, including The UPS Store, Ulta and Staples. It is Happy Returns' first direct integration into a platform, with Everlane and Pacsun among the first merchants. (retaildive.com)
🎅 US holidays: only 22% of consumers still trust promotions. In the United States, Simon-Kucher forecasts a 5.5% drop in holiday spending, with an average budget of $1,018. Only 22% of respondents believe advertised discounts are real savings, compared with 46% last year. (retaildive.com)
📣 Marketing & Ads
🤝 Coopérative U joins Unlimitail, the Carrefour and Publicis ad network. In France, the network of nearly 2,000 U stores hands its retail media to Unlimitail, which will thus cover "more than a third of the French grocery market" according to its CEO Alexis Marcombe. Sales will start in January 2027. (cbnews.fr)
📡 Orange launches retail media and in-store screens. In France, Orange Advertising is selling a retail media offer built on its 570 stores, 38 million visits a year, and 31 million monthly unique visitors online. Around 285 stores will be equipped with DOOH screens by the end of November. (fr.themedialeader.com)
📲 15% of French people have already bought on a social network. In France, according to the Colissimo/Ifop barometer, the share of social commerce shoppers rose from 9% at the end of 2025 to 15%, reaching 39% among under-25s. 87% of buyers are satisfied, but fear of scams remains the main barrier (56%). 51% of online shoppers would be willing to let an AI search, compare and pay for them. (cbnews.fr)
📍 Drive-to-store is worth €7.6B in France. In France, according to the France Pub barometer for Alliance Digitale, spending to drive in-store traffic grew 21.1% and accounts for 21.5% of the advertising market. The digital share reaches €2.1B (+33.4%), and retail and consumer goods account for around three quarters of spending. (fr.themedialeader.com)
🎵 heaven and CreatoRev create a TikTok Shop agency in France. In France, the agency heaven is teaming up with US-based CreatoRev, which claims $800M in GMV generated in the US for more than 230 brands with more than 8,000 creators, to launch CreatoRev France. (fr.themedialeader.com)
💸 Bouygues Telecom launches 5 to 12% cashback with Younited. In France, the operator's customers will be able to get back 5 to 12% of their purchases at Carrefour, Castorama, Ikea, Sephora, Zalando or Intersport, and at Amazon from December, for estimated savings of around €250 a year. The service launches on November 9 under an exclusive multi-year contract with Younited. (mind.eu.com)
☁️ Salesforce buys Braze for $5.66B. In the United States, Salesforce is acquiring the real-time customer engagement platform, which has around 2,770 customers, for $47.50 per share in cash. Braze will complement Marketing Cloud and Agentforce, with closing expected during Salesforce's fiscal year 2028. (sec.gov)
⚠️ Meta makes advertisers solely responsible for edits made by its AI. Worldwide, Meta's new advertising terms, effective October 30, make advertisers "solely responsible" for changes made to their ads by Meta's AI, including features enabled by default. On the earnings side, its advertising revenue grew 26% to $63.06B in Q3. (ppc.land)
✍️ ChatGPT will rewrite ads by default from October 30. Worldwide, OpenAI is turning on "creative enhancements" by default for self-serve campaigns: rewritten headlines, translations, resized images and variants generated based on the conversation, with an opt-out. ChatGPT ads are also expanding to 26 new countries, 89 in total, and more than 100,000 advertisers have already run campaigns. (openai.com)
▶️ AliExpress and YouTube team up on affiliate marketing. In the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, eligible creators can now tag AliExpress products in their long-form videos, Shorts and livestreams, and earn a commission. The partnership, launched in Korea in March, covers electronics, sports and home in particular. (channelx.world)
🤖 AI & Tech
📸 Omi partners with Nvidia and launches ProductDrop. In France, the AI product visuals start-up announces a partnership with Nvidia that lets it generate images 10 times faster. It claims more than 1,000 brand customers, including L'Oréal, Nestlé and Shiseido, more than 50,000 digital twins and €4M in ARR in the United States in less than 18 months. (maddyness.com)
🏬 Carrefour opens three BuyBye autonomous stores in Lyon. In France and Belgium, Carrefour is rolling out three "AI-powered" autonomous stores in Lyon and two at the Charleroi university hospital, bringing the BuyBye network to 12 units. (retaildetail.be)
🧑💼 OpenAI appoints a former Google Retail executive to lead France. In France, Laureline Serieys, former Industry Head Retail at Google and then head of Uber in France, becomes OpenAI's General Manager for France and Southern Europe, a newly created role, from November 9. (cbnews.fr)
🛡️ A critical PHP flaw threatens Magento sites. Worldwide, two critical vulnerabilities dubbed "PHP2Shell", patched on October 21, affect PHP versions 5.4 to 8.5.11. The UK and US cybersecurity agencies advise taking sites offline if they cannot be updated, and Sansec demonstrated unauthenticated remote takeover on Magento. Cloudflare counted millions of attack attempts after the disclosure. (retailgazette.co.uk)
🤖 Walmart opens its site to AI shopping agents. In the United States, Walmart will launch "Agent Profiles" within the month: each customer creates a profile per AI agent in their account, with approval of each purchase by default or a spending cap. In parallel, the "Agent Gateway", in beta and based on MCP, lets agents buy without accessing customers' personal or card data, unlike Amazon, which blocks Perplexity's and Meta's agents. (techcrunch.com)
🔎 16% of shoppers start their search on ChatGPT, but reviews still seal the deal. In the United States, according to Feedvisor, 16% of shoppers start their product search on ChatGPT and 5% buy the recommended product right away. According to PartnerCentric, 33% check reviews after an AI suggestion, and only 7.3% would let an AI agent buy their clothes, according to Prosper Insights. (modernretail.co)
📅 Agenda
⚖️ "Wreckers pay" bill in the Senate on October 27. In France, after the violence of October 17, the bill establishing collective civil liability for rioters, capped at €10,000 per person, was adopted by the Senate Law Committee on October 21 and will be debated in plenary session on October 27. (sudradio.fr)
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