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.

The story we can't stop thinking about this week is Audemars Piguet and Swatch announcing the "Royal Pop", a collab that drops May 16 and is genuinely hard to wrap your head around. AP's Royal Oak starts at $30,000. Swatch makes watches for $300. This is the first time AP has ever lent that silhouette to anyone outside its own factory and they picked the most accessible watchmaker on earth to do it with.

Here's what else caught our attention this week 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

Brooks Running posts its strongest quarter ever -- 23% global growth, 136% in China

-> Q1 2026 was the best quarter in the brand's history: 20% growth in North America, 30% in EMEA, 136% in China.

-> Glycerin up 34%, Hyperion Elite up 114%, apparel up 33% -- growth across every major category.

-> Nine consecutive years of growth, and now accelerating. A performance running brand quietly becoming a global one.

How Brooks Running is pulling away from the performance running pack →

Amazon lets shoppers talk to an AI host while browsing product pages

-> "Join the Chat" is a new feature inside Amazon's "Hear the Highlights" -- shoppers ask questions mid-audio and get real-time answers.

-> Ask things like "do people find this sweater itchy?" and the AI host pauses, answers, then picks back up.

-> This is what AI-native product discovery looks like -- not a chatbot on the side, but a conversation that IS the product page.

What Amazon's Join the Chat feature means for how shoppers research products →

GameStop makes a $56B unsolicited bid to acquire eBay

-> Ryan Cohen wants to merge GameStop's 1,600 U.S. stores with eBay's 135M buyers and turn them into a collectibles powerhouse.

-> The offer is 50/50 cash and stock, at $125/share -- a 46% premium from when GameStop started quietly buying eBay shares in February.

-> eBay's board confirmed receipt and said it will review. Cohen was unable to explain the financing on CNBC. One to watch.

What GameStop's eBay bid says about the future of collectibles commerce →

Anthropic signs a compute deal with SpaceX -- and usage limits get doubled

-> Anthropic is getting all 220,000+ NVIDIA GPUs at SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center in Memphis -- 300+ megawatts of compute.

-> Revenue grew 80x in Q1 2026, way beyond the 10x they planned for, creating severe capacity constraints.

-> The Musk angle: he called Anthropic a "Western civilization hater" in February. He's now their compute landlord. Wild week.

What Anthropic's SpaceX deal means for the future of AI compute →

OpenAI opens its ad platform to self-serve CPC bidding

-> ChatGPT ads are now available to mid-market advertisers -- minimum spend dropped from $250K to $50K, now on a CPC model at $3-$5.

-> OpenAI is projecting $2.5B in ad revenue this year and $100B by 2030.

-> If you've been waiting for the early-mover window on AI advertising, this is probably it.

What OpenAI's self-serve ad platform means for DTC brands →

Alysa Liu becomes Louis Vuitton's newest house ambassador

-> The 20-year-old figure skater won two gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics and is now the face of LV's fall 2026 campaign.

-> She made her runway debut at LV's Paris show in March and wore the brand to the Vanity Fair Oscars party.

-> LV keeps picking athletes over celebrities -- Eileen Gu, Rayssa Leal, now Alysa Liu. The ambassador playbook is clearly working.

Why Louis Vuitton keeps betting on athletes over celebrities →

Audemars Piguet x Swatch "Royal Pop" drops May 16

-> AP's Royal Oak silhouette, Swatch's bioceramic playbook, expected around $300-$450 -- in-store only at select Swatch boutiques.

-> This is AP's first-ever collaboration outside its own production and price tier.

-> 21 U.S. store locations confirmed. Expect lines. Expect sellouts. Expect resale at 3x by Monday.

Everything you need to know about the AP x Swatch Royal Pop →

2/ Shopify

Shopify posts $100B in GMV in Q1 -- stock drops anyway

-> Revenue up 34% YoY to $3.17B, GMV hit $100.7B -- the second consecutive quarter above $100B. Both beat estimates.

-> Stock fell 9% after market open because Q2 guidance called for "high-twenties" growth, down from 34%.

-> A platform doing $100B in GMV per quarter that gets punished for slowing to 28% growth says a lot about where expectations are set.

What Shopify's Q1 results say about the platform's next chapter →

Shopify says you can now let AI manage your store

-> Shopify's AI Toolkit lets agents read inventory, analyze sales funnels, write and deploy Liquid code -- all without touching the Admin.

-> This isn't a feature, it's an architecture shift: your store becomes something an AI can operate, not just assist with.

-> Early signals: AI-mediated orders are up 11-15x YoY, and AOV on agent-driven orders is 30% higher than human-driven ones.

Shopify on what it means for AI to manage your store →

3/ What We Found Interesting

Agentic commerce could hit $1 trillion in U.S. revenue by 2030

-> McKinsey and ICSC put agentic commerce at up to $1T in U.S. B2C retail by 2030, $3-5T globally.

-> 68% of consumers already used at least one AI tool as part of their shopping experience in the last three months.

-> The catch: 41% still have no trust in AI shopping assistants. The trust gap is the biggest thing holding this back.

What $1 trillion in agentic commerce means for every brand selling online →

Google Ads lets you preview the impact of negative keywords before applying them

-> Google is adding a simulation tool that shows how a negative keyword would have affected your recent campaign performance.

-> Before this, you had to make the change and hope for the best -- now you can see the projected impact first.

-> A small but genuinely useful update for anyone running search campaigns who's ever wondered if a negative is costing them reach.

How Google's new negative keyword preview tool works →

This Adidas ad is one of the best we've seen in a while

-> No product shot. No voiceover. Just an athlete doing something incredible, with the Adidas logo at the end.

-> It's a good reminder that the best brand ads don't feel like ads -- they feel like something you want to watch.

-> Worth watching if you're thinking about what great creative looks like right now.

Watch the Adidas ad →

Create Wellness gets called out for quietly auto-enrolling customers in subscriptions

-> DTC Twitter lit up after customers reported being charged recurring subscription fees without realizing they'd signed up for one.

-> The opt-out was buried, the pre-checked box was easy to miss, and the brand didn't send reminder emails before charging.

-> A good reminder that dark patterns in subscriptions are a trust and retention timebomb -- eventually someone notices and posts about it.

See the X beef that sparked the Create Wellness subscription controversy →

4/ What We Found Helpful

The best shoppable video apps for Shopify in 2026

-> A breakdown of the top shoppable video apps available on Shopify -- what they do, how they differ, and who they're best for.

-> Covers the key things to look for: video formats supported, placement options, analytics, and pricing models.

-> If you're thinking about adding shoppable video to your store, this is the fastest way to figure out where to start.

The definitive guide to shoppable video apps on Shopify →

One of the top-performing content formats any brand can use right now

-> Alex Garcia breaks down a content format that's driving outsized engagement and conversion for DTC brands.

-> Short, specific, and easy to replicate -- the kind of format that works whether you're posting on TikTok, Instagram, or your own site.

-> Worth bookmarking if you're always looking for what's actually working in content right now.

Alex Garcia on the content format brands should be using right now →