Week of October 2 to 8, 2026
A week of deals: Uber snaps up ezCater for $2.3B, the Weston family buys Boots and Lapeyre goes Italian. On the rough side, Lacoste parts ways with its CEO, ASOS drops 11% on the stock market after a cyberattack and French fashion suffers its worst September in five years. Meanwhile, Orange jumps into the marketplace game. Here's what mattered this week.
๐ By the wayโฆ we were in Biarritz!
๐ Humind was at One to One Biarritz. From October 6 to 8, the Humind team set up at One to One "AI & Customer Experience", on booth D31 facing the ocean. On the agenda: non-stop demos of our AI shopping agent, a pitch on stage in front of a big crowd and plenty of conversations with e-merchants about AI that drives conversion. Thanks to everyone who stopped by! The full story is on our blog (thehumind.com)
๐ข E-commerce & Shopping
๐ฑ Orange launches its marketplace with Mirakl. In France, the telecom operator opens a marketplace built into its online store (over 22M monthly visitors), with 30 sellers and 18,000 offers at launch. It targets 200 sellers by the end of 2026. The range starts with refurbished smartphones, high-tech and connected accessories. (mirakl.com)
๐ฎ๐น Lapeyre is set to go under Italian ownership. In France, Mutares has received a binding offer for a majority stake in Lapeyre from Italian entrepreneurs, including the family that owns Bricofer and Conforama Italia. Mutares would keep a minority stake, with closing expected in Q4 2026. The retailer has more than 115 stores, around 2,000 employees and around โฌ475M in revenue. (lefigaro.fr)
๐ Lacoste parts ways with its CEO. In France, Lacoste removed its CEO รric Vallat just before its Paris fashion show, according to sources cited by Reuters. (fashionnetwork.com)
๐ Fashion: September is the worst month in five years. In France, according to the Alliance du commerce's Retail Int. panel, apparel sales fell 17.6% in stores and 15.9% online in September, with footfall down 13.3%. Kidswear dropped 27.4%. Since January, online fashion sales are down 1.8%. (ecommerce-nation.fr)
๐ฉฒ Le Slip Franรงais: digital accounts for 87% of sales. In France, the brand reports โฌ14.0M in revenue over nine months (+12%). Its digital channel grows 18% and represents 87% of sales, up from 82% a year earlier. It gained 95,000 new customers (+40%). (optionfinance.fr)
๐ LDLC hit by a cyberattack. In France, the high-tech e-retailer reports unauthorized access to customer data: names, addresses, phone numbers, titles and customer codes. According to the company, passwords, bank details and payment cards were not affected. (clubic.com)
๐ Prime Big Deal Days: $9.86B spent online. In the United States, according to Adobe, the October 6โ7 event generated $9.86B in online sales (+8.5%), with 52% on mobile and 7% via social (+40%). According to Numerator, 68% of items purchased cost less than $20. (chainstoreage.com)
๐ฑ Uber buys ezCater for $2.3B. In the United States, Uber will acquire the corporate catering platform ezCater in cash to bring catering into Uber Eats. ezCater claims more than $2.5B in gross bookings over 12 months and more than 140,000 partner restaurants. (investor.uber.com)
๐ Boots sold to the Weston family for $8.9B. In the United Kingdom, Wittington Investments, the holding company of Canada's Weston family (Loblaw), is buying The Boots Group for $8.9B including debt, alongside Fairfax Financial. The sellers are Sycamore Partners and the Pessina family. Closing is expected in Q1 2027. (bnnbloomberg.ca)
๐ช๐ธ Kaufland Marketplace launches in Spain. In Spain, the Schwarz Group's marketplace opens with more than 3,100 merchants and over 10M products. It is now present in 9 European countries. (lebensmittelzeitung.net)
๐ Amazon accounts for 63% of German e-commerce. In Germany, according to IFH Kรถln, Amazon captured 63% of online spending in 2025, marketplace included, for โฌ69.1B (+5%). Third-party sellers represent 46.1% of that spending. One in eight consumers says they are shifting part of their purchases to Chinese platforms. (ecommercenews.eu)
๐บ Currys opens its TikTok Shop store. In the United Kingdom, the electronics retailer joins TikTok Shop in a test phase, with weekly live shopping sessions run by THG Commerce. It starts with beauty, coffee, seasonal and audio. (currysplc.com)
๐ช IKEA will buy back used furniture online. In Europe, IKEA will test an online buyback service by the end of December in Spain and Portugal, linked to its second-hand marketplace. The marketplace launches in Germany on October 14. (theguardian.com)
๐ 90% of non-EU purchases go to Temu, Shein and AliExpress. In Europe, according to ECDB, Europeans spent โฌ55.1B on non-EU websites in 2025, or 13.1% of European e-commerce. Temu, Shein and AliExpress capture 90.2% of it. (ecommercenews.eu)
๐ฃ Marketing & Ads
๐ Black Friday: French shoppers plan to spend โฌ151. In France, according to Shopify's Holiday Retail study, consumers plan to spend โฌ151 over the Black Friday weekend, up from โฌ143 in 2025. 63% say they are ready to use AI for their purchases. British shoppers, on the other hand, cut their budget to ยฃ165, down from ยฃ181 last year. (toutsurmesfinances.com)
๐ฌ Bouygues Telecom shares its ChatGPT Ads results. In France, the operator invested around โฌ40,000 over a little more than a month in ChatGPT ads, for an average CPM "close to โฌ15". It considers the CPC uncompetitive, with some exceptions. (journaldunet.com)
๐บ Intermarchรฉ will sell 700,000 plush toys of its wolf. In France, the wolf from Intermarchรฉ's Christmas 2025 ad will be sold as a plush toy for โฌ18.90 at the end of November. (leparisien.fr)
๐ผ๏ธ OpenAI shows ads next to generated images. In the United States, ChatGPT is testing labeled display ads this month next to images generated by users, with a limited group of advertisers. Measurement is handled by about twenty partners, including AppsFlyer, Northbeam and DoubleVerify. (techcrunch.com)
๐ค AI & Tech
๐ต TikTok launches one-click checkout in the "For You" feed. In the United States, TikTok lets users buy directly from brands in their feed with one-click checkout, with Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza and Stripe. The platform adds an AI shopping assistant that answers questions about products, shipping and sizes. (techcrunch.com)
๐ Cyberattack at ASOS, shares drop 11%. In the United Kingdom, ASOS app users received push notifications sent by hackers. The retailer confirms access to names and contact details via third-party platforms, after an employee's account was compromised. Payment cards and passwords were not affected. (retailgazette.co.uk)
๐ E-merchants, want to put generative AI at the heart of your store? Switch to agentic commerce with @Humind!
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