Welcome to the Moast newsletter. We spend the week collecting news, trends, and other content that we think would be interesting to e-commerce founders and CMOs. Our goal is to provide value without sounding like a promo for our app. Helpful wether you use Moast or not.

OpenAI is openly building ChatGPT into an agent that does everything: browsing, booking, buying, and managing your digital life. TechCrunch asks the question that matters: just because the agents are coming, will everyone actually use them? The answer will decide how much of the customer journey brands still own, and it connects to a stat further down in this issue.

Here's what caught our attention in the world of e-commerce this week 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

Apple's folding iPhone finally has a date: September 9

-> The "Surprise and shine" event is expected to debut Apple's first foldable, rumored to be called the iPhone Ultra, with a 7.8-inch book-style display and a price around $2,000.

-> The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max come too, but the standard iPhone 18 reportedly slips to spring 2027.

-> It's also the first launch of the John Ternus era, as Tim Cook moves to executive chairman.

What to expect from Apple's September event →

Walmart launched a fashion brand for shoppers who don't shop Walmart for fashion

-> Scenario is a 280-style "modern bohemian" women's line with most items under $25, now in all stores.

-> The internal stat driving it: Walmart grocery shoppers were spending 80 cents of every apparel dollar somewhere else.

-> It takes shelf space from Time and Tru, the $2B basics brand that skews 55+. Fashion margins beat grocery margins.

Inside Walmart's play for younger fashion shoppers →

Bath & Body Works' e-commerce is growing for the first time since 2021

-> Direct sales rose 3% to $275M in Q2, helped by a lower free-shipping threshold and a 10% lift in new-shopper conversion.

-> Sales on its new Amazon storefront more than tripled versus Q1.

-> Total revenue still fell 2.3%, and the CEO says the wins are "not yet broad enough to signal an inflection." Digital is carrying the turnaround.

How Bath & Body Works got digital growing again →

Shein priced its IPO at a $27 billion valuation. It trades today

-> The Hong Kong listing raises about $1.77B, with shares starting to trade September 1.

-> That's roughly a quarter of its $98B peak, with Tencent, Tiger Global, and General Atlantic as cornerstone investors.

-> 80% of proceeds go to AI, inventory, and supply chain tech. The fast-fashion machine is rebuilding itself as an infrastructure company.

The full story on Shein's discounted debut →

Liquid Death wants you to mail your pee to an AI data center

-> The Garage Beer collab, fronted by a singing Jason Kelce, asks fans to "donate" urine to cool the data centers moving in next door.

-> The $18 "data center coolant collector" jars sold out almost immediately, and the video passed 1.5M views.

-> It works because it rides a real sentiment: roughly 70% of Americans oppose a data center near their home.

See the campaign for yourself →

Callaway cut ties with Good Good Golf after a disastrous ad

-> The co-branded driver ad showed a Good Good co-founder shoving a female teammate to the ground, and the backlash was immediate.

-> Callaway ended the three-year partnership, committed $1M to organizations fighting violence against women, and admitted its review process failed.

-> Dick's pulled Good Good merch, Golf Channel postponed their reality show, and the brand gave up its PGA Tour sponsorship. A creator empire built in five years, badly damaged in one week.

The full timeline of the Good Good fallout →

Uber Eats is now delivering by drone

-> Zipline's drones are fulfilling Uber Eats orders, starting with Panera in the Dallas area.

-> It's the same Zipline that grew 13x in H1 and now completes a delivery every 20 seconds.

-> Autonomous delivery is consolidating into the apps people already use. The novelty phase is ending.

Inside the Uber and Zipline partnership →

2/ Shopify

Shopify's CEO threatened to ban Claude Code over a Markdown file

-> Tobi Lütke said he's considering banning the AI coding tool at Shopify because it reads its own CLAUDE.md config instead of the AGENTS.md standard used by 60,000+ projects.

-> His argument: when thousands of devs in one monorepo use different AI tools, mismatched config files create "split brain" problems.

-> Anthropic replied that AGENTS.md support is on the way. The real story: AI coding agents are now core enough infrastructure that config formats are a CEO-level fight.

Read the full AGENTS.md saga →

3/ What We Found Interesting

Sur La Table just launched peer-to-peer resale for kitchenware

-> "Second Servings," powered by resale platform Archive, lets customers sell used cookware for 70% cash or 100% store credit.

-> A Smart Pricing feature adjusts listings automatically over time.

-> Archive already powers resale for Lululemon, The North Face, Yeti, and Peloton. Branded resale is officially expanding beyond apparel.

How Second Servings works →

65% of shoppers will use AI this holiday season. 8% of retailers are ready

-> Narvar's new report surveyed 1,348 consumers and 100 retail executives, and the gap is stark.

-> Shoppers plan to use AI for gift discovery (43%), product comparison (33%), and budgeting (29%), and 78% want AI that personalizes.

-> Only 14% of retailers expect AI assistants to be the season's biggest shift. Being AI-visible is the arbitrage.

See the full Narvar holiday data →

Five sharp predictions for holiday 2026

-> Practical Ecommerce forecasts US online holiday sales up roughly 8%, ahead of NRF's 4.4% full-retail outlook.

-> Also on the list: Amazon's own retail arm clawing share back from third-party sellers during Q4.

-> The author has published holiday predictions every year since 2013, and shows his scorecard from last year. Refreshing honesty.

Read all five predictions →

4/ What We Found Helpful

The Q4 peak season playbook worth stealing

-> A month-by-month runway to Black Friday with an owner, a deadline, and a KPI on every workstream.

-> The stat that should reframe your planning: AI-referred retail traffic surged 693% last BFCM.

-> Also inside: analysis of billions of ad impressions showing manual seasonality bid adjustments often hurt BFCM performance. Trust Smart Bidding, control with budgets.

Read the full Q4 prep playbook →

How to increase your Shopify store's repeat purchase rate with video

-> Our new guide covers how video keeps customers coming back after the first order.

-> It breaks down where video fits across the post-purchase journey, from unboxing content to customer testimonials.

-> With acquisition costs still climbing, retention is the cheapest growth lever you have. Start here.

Read the repeat purchase guide →