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It’s been a big week talking about shipping stuff. This week, we co-hosted the world’s first Claude Community Meetup for Ecommerce in Brisbane, and last night, I helped launch Shippit’s annual State of Shipping Report in Melbourne. I’m now covering myself in packing peanuts and shipping myself home.
Cheers
Bushy
Don’t forget about our Online Retailer comp - entry details below. We have two weeks left, where we are giving away four full access passes worth $1,682 each.
This week’s ecommerce news you should know
1. Amazon crashes EOFY. Click Frenzy rides back in. 🪂
It's been a bit quiet on the sales front, right? Thank goodness for EOFY. EOFY sales will save us all. Right?! Well, Amazon is keen to wreck your plans. They've moved Prime Day from July to June 23 to 26, four days, right in the guts of peak EOFY. Watch those ad costs increase, shoppers shopping around, and Amazon take the headlines. You may need to adjust your strategy - you might not want to compete directly. But hey, there's a new season of Clarkson's Farm landing on Amazon Prime, so if your EOFY promo goes tits up you can cry yourself to sleep pretending you're a rich farmer in the Cotswolds.
The mighty Leibovich brothers might be the ones to save you from the evil empire. The Catch founders have taken over Click Frenzy, with their first event on June 18 and free entry for the first 500 retailers. Those brothers know how to win Aussie retailer hearts.
2. Reddit opens Shopify product ads to everyone 👽
This week Reddit opened Shopify Dynamic Product Ads to all global advertisers. Link your Reddit Business account to your Shopify store, get a codeless pixel, and your product catalogue, images, live pricing and inventory all sync automatically. They're claiming $12.52 back per $1 spent in North America and a 7x return across EMEA. Those numbers come from a study Reddit commissioned. We'll be the judge of that when we upload our automatic cat feeders, 3D printers and privacy screens to test it out. You could try them with the weirdos on ChatGPT ads while you're there. Two new channel experiments for the effort of one.
3. Only 12% trust their own data for AI 🐝
Winter is here, and so is the annual Arktic Fox report, split into retailer and brand sections this time. The retailer side surprised me most. Only 12% of retail leaders are confident in their data for AI use cases, which means we can't stop saying "get your data right" as the first tip for AI adoption yet. Boo. Only 1 in 5 are looking to bring in new martech and 64% are sweating the tech they've already got, implementing or consolidating. This is why your tech rep is so antsy right now.
But here's the one that releases the bees into my bonnet. Improving the end-to-end customer experience is the top priority for retailers. Yet, 30% run their own marketplaces, while only 12% sell through existing ones like Amazon. Where do you think customers actually want to shop? If you want evidence that consumers hate your endless aisle marketplace, read this thread. Make the retailer marketplaces stop.
While we're here, online retailers come out looking like heroes in a new Mandala report that says online shopping is saving the average Aussie household $1,414 in 2026, roughly six weeks of groceries. Good news for consumers. But you know what's coming. That saving is built on less loyalty, more price comparison and more competition. You can take your six weeks of groceries and put them you know where. There are some good macro stats in there, but the report was commissioned by Amazon. Hmmmph.
4. Amazon is dismantling on-site search in real time 🔎
Amazon is treating its new search experience like a tween girl with her first makeup set. They just can't stop dabbling, and it's getting a bit gaudy. This week, they started adding AI-generated images to search results based on your terms. Type "summer dress" and it starts populating silhouettes, sleeveless, longer, patterned, for you to pick from inside the search bar and refine further. We are watching on-site search get dismantled in real time. I just hope I've got time to load my synonyms before traditional search disappears.
On another note, Google just dropped a decent prompt guide for generating imagery and video to support its Gemini Omni release. The ideas on how to prompt short video to make it watchable are worth a flick through. Changing camera angles, adding little bits of action, and getting text to render. Two minutes here will open up what you might be able to generate.
5. Instagram added a teleprompter. Demand it. 🎬
Not strictly ecommerce news, but this could be the tidbit that helps you avoid a fight with your social media manager. Next time you're asked to do a piece to camera, know there's now a teleprompter feature in the main Instagram app. You can deliver your words straight down the lens without looking like a buffoon across 30 different takes. Your social media manager will, of course, publish the take that makes you look like an incompetent manager. Demand the teleprompter.
SPONSOR CONTENT
Shippit’s NEW State of Shipping Report 2026
The Shippit State of Shipping report is my go-to every year for understanding benchmarks and trends in ecommerce shipping. Here are three of my highlights this year…
The average standard delivery cost is now $10.39. Cheaper than last year despite fuel surcharges.
We are promising customers delivery in 5.2 days. It is only taking 2.2 days. That’s a lot of conversion left on the table.
The average shipping threshold is now $135 - that’s up $12 since last year. If you haven’t revisited your thresholds, now’s the time before peak.
These benchmarks and a HEAP more are in Shippit’s State of Shipping 2026 report.
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:
📊 DPAs vs. Product Optimisations Zac's DPAs were cruising last year and are softer this year. He's asking how others split DPA and non-DPA ad sets to keep control of spend.
🧠 The best AI workflow for knowledge work in May 2026 is... Cameron says Obsidian + Claude. Drops the CLAUDE.md file and walks you through it.
🤷♀️ What are you doing with your disengaged subscribers? It might not be best to be a mass delete. They might be very valuable.
🎨 Content creation at scale. Sarah's after a tool that can bulk-create social and Meta ad content from her own photos. Already nine comments deep with recommendations.
Not in the Add To Cart community?
How to Run a Live Shopping Show That Actually Sells | ATC Playbook #631
Live shopping has been the next big thing in Australian ecommerce for five years running. Grayson White stopped waiting for it and built the biggest trading card business in the country on it.
Most live experiments flop for the same reason. The brand builds the show only for the person ready to buy. Grayson builds it for three audiences at once: those who want the product, those who want the theatre, and those who just want to be in the chat. Get that mix right, and the selling takes care of itself. When Cherry premiered the Select NRL cards, the community moved 1,600% more than on any previous release, with no hard sell.
"We've never wanted to come across as a catalogue. We treat our community as an engaged group of collectors who want to escape the grind. And when you've got that trust, they will activate."
Examples from this Playbook
🃏 Grayson from Cherry never lets the show feel like a catalogue. He folds an offer in only when he's earned it, which is how a Select NRL drop moves 1,600% with no hard sell.
👗 Lauren from Motto went live at 4pm every day through lockdown and grew the brand 127% in 12 months. People came for her and the banter. Some bought.
💇 Guy from Oz Hair and Beauty treats live selling as reps, not revenue. Glitchy internet, no aircon, sweating on camera. Start before you're ready.
