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I had the pleasure of hosting Pattern’s Future of Social Commerce event in Sydney yesterday. It was brilliant to see TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest all present back-to-back. Keeping with this week’s theme, I think there’s a charity boxing event idea in that.
Cheers
Bushy
PS. It’s the last week of the Online Retailer comp. We have a double Full Access Pass worth over $3,000 to give away. Share your unique newsletter referral link with your team (it’s below the Top 5 Stories). Any person who signs up with your link will get you an entry into the final draw.
This week’s ecommerce news you should know
Before we get into today’s story, a quick apology for throwing you into a panic last week. This week, Amazon announced that Prime Day in Australia will be 7-13 July (not 23-26 June, as in the US). Breeeeathe… for a little while.
1. Pinterest takes the knitted mittens off 🥊
Pinterest is in the fight. This week, they announced Amazon Storefront linking for creators, which lets creators connect their Amazon storefront to their Pinterest account. Once it's linked, affiliate links are applied automatically whenever they tag an Amazon product. No manual link handling, straight to Amazon. They also signed a $4 billion deal with AWS, the biggest infrastructure commitment in their history, to run AI models at scale through to 2031.
I'll be honest, I didn't see a world where Pinterest and Amazon became intimate bedfellows. But it's often the art kids you need to watch. If you want a sense of how fast the crafty kids move, look at all the Stevie Knicks shirts now on Etsy, and all the blonde basketball fan AI models.
2. Shopify Collective quietly lands in Australia 🤝
Nice little surprise from Shopify this week. Shopify Collective is now live in Australia. It's an app you install on your store that lets you connect with other retailers and request to stock their product. If they accept, you list the product on your site, take a cut of everything you sell, and never physically touch the item. You need Shopify Payments to be eligible, and both stores have to be Australian. It blurs that third-party marketplace line again, but it's a real opportunity for content-led or niche sites wanting to expand into complementary products.
While we're here, police have a new data point to track serial killers. LinkedIn has opened a creator marketplace to help you find and identify business influencers, built straight into Campaign Manager. Search by topic, check the audience, then reach out. Or avoid them.
3. Adidas will run your ecommerce store for you 🏎️
Adidas announced a new revenue model that didn't involve dodgy bum bags. It's ecommerce as a service (EAAS). They used their Salesforce stack to launch the Audi Revolut F1 Team store, running the lot on Audi's behalf, including the site, customer service and logistics. Eight weeks from start to live, largely in response to Fanatics doing the same thing in their category.
At the same time, Hasbro launched Sixth Wall, an AI studio built with ElevenLabs to licence its characters, including Optimus Prime and Mr Potato Head, for games, physical products and real-world experiences. They're calling it Behavioural Licensing. I love this space where established brands are turning their IP and infrastructure into new revenue models.
4. Meet AppLovin, the ad network nobody mentions 📱
Not my usual news story, but AppLovin, the distant cousin of McLovin, hit my radar twice this week as an alternative ad platform. First, Mallory from Eureka Pet Co called it out at Pattern's Future of Social Commerce event, as a network that helped her achieve exceptional results. Then, Tom in the ATC Community ran a small test pitting OpenAI ads against Reddit and AppLovin. AppLovin won comfortably, with the lowest CPCs, actual add-to-carts and conversions, and strong on-site engagement, while the OpenAI ads sat stuck in review for 10 days.
If you haven't come across it, AppLovin's engine is called Axon, and it serves ads across free mobile games, sports apps, and dodgy dating apps that keep you hooked for free access. It's pushing into connected TV and social, too. It’s not small or new, around $132 billion on the NASDAQ, yet it barely gets a mention here in Australia. Might be worth a look.
Pssst… if you’re going to Online Retailer, we are throwing a Good Sorts party with Thread Together on Tuesday night before. Register here if you are keen to join.
5. Drunk deliveries, now with voice ordering 🍔
Concerning research out of Victoria this week. A Monash and Turning Point study found four in ten people had received an online alcohol delivery while intoxicated, despite the 2022 reforms that banned deliveries after 11 pm and were meant to stop drops to anyone who's clearly had enough.
At the same time, DoorDash launched Ask DoorDash this week, which lets you say what you're in the mood for and have it built into an order and sent to your door. It's US only for now. "Hey DoorDassssssh. Chishen kebab and powerade. No red ongions. Leave at door."
We’re hosting a free live ecommerce masterclass next week with behavioural scientist Sonia Friedrich and Brooke Eichhorn from Behamics. Backed by 1.2 billion shopper sessions, they unpack why the same conversion tactic works for one customer and fails for another, and how to use behavioural signals across your site, paid media and CRM.
If you work in ecommerce, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Inside the Add To Cart Community, you’ll find like-minded professionals, expert insights and live webinars. All for free.
This week’s discussions include:
🧪 New channel test: OpenAI vs Reddit vs AppLovin Tom ran all three on a small budget and AppLovin walked it. The full breakdown is worth a read.
💸 Are you discounting to solve a problem, or to plug a revenue gap? An EOFY gut-check on why you're really running that promo.
🤖 Is this a good use case for Claude, and would it even work? A member thinking out loud about an AI workflow. Jump in to help.
🎬 A good TikTok / Reels video editor recommendation? Sylvie's after someone to level up her short-form social. Drop your go-to in the comments.
Not in the Add To Cart community?
How to Plan for a Product Recall Before You Need One | ATC Playbook #634
Nobody builds a recall plan until they're already inside a recall. That's the whole problem.
Most of us never get to it for the simple reason that a recall feels like a future problem. A dodgy batch from a manufacturer, a labelling slip, a supplier who cut a corner you never saw. Anyone shipping a physical product is one phone call away from it. And the day that call comes is the worst possible day to be building the systems you needed the week before. This is the episode that gets you prepared while it's still hypothetical.
Melanie Nolan knows. She grew Naternal Vitamins to $8 million in four years on trust, with no paid ads for the first two. Then, a manufacturing error put inconsistent iodine across 15,000 units of her prenatal supplement. The TGA forced a full recall, and she refunded nearly $300,000 in a single month. She came out the other side still growing, with 95% of her customers still there.
“My biggest learning was you have to have systems and processes in place for all the bad things to happen. I was just like, that'll never happen to us. And then all of a sudden you're trying to catch your own tail."
Examples from this Playbook
🧯 Melanie from Naternal had none of the systems when the call came. She lists what she wishes she had in place beforehand: a recalls@ inbox, pre-drafted comms in a shared drive, batch-level tracking, and fillable forms.
🥩 Oliver from Hagen's Organics keeps it simple: no little white lies. Say what happened, say sorry, go first. Customers forgive far more than you expect when you're honest before they find out.
🩲 Brendan from Budgy Smuggler calls rather than emails any time a customer is even slightly unhappy. A phone call says you're not hiding, right at the moment they decide whether to stay.
Hey, if you’ve read this far, let me know what you think. Just hit reply and give me your deepest, darkest thoughts. Would love to hear from you.
