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.

HeyGen just launched Video Podcast, a tool that turns any doc, link, or idea into a fully produced two-host video show with studio scenes, multi-cam cuts, and B-roll.The demo went viral this week, with replies split between "why would anyone watch an AI podcast" and "some of these already beat human shows." Either way, the cost of producing good enough video just fell off a cliff.

Fair warning: it was a bit of a slower news week, but there's still plenty worth knowing. Here's what caught our attention 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

Disney and TikTok struck a first of its kind fan video deal

-> TikTok creators get licensed access to characters and scenes from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and FX.

-> Selected fan videos will live on both TikTok and Disney+'s Verts feed, the first time TikTok videos stream anywhere outside TikTok.

-> Decades of legally gray fan edits just became an official content pipeline. UGC is now streaming strategy.

Inside the Disney and TikTok fan content deal →

Shein slashed its IPO valuation target to $30 to $40 billion

-> The Hong Kong listing could launch as early as mid-August, per Reuters.

-> That's down from a $98.2B peak in 2022 and $64B in its most recent private rounds.

-> Some cornerstone investors are pushing closer to $30B. Tariffs and shrinking margins did this.

Why Shein's valuation keeps falling →

Wayfair just posted its best US growth since the pandemic

-> Q2 revenue rose 7.5% to $3.5B, with US revenue up nearly 9% and the stock surging on the news.

-> The luxury Perigold banner grew more than 35%, and its customers spend about 3x what a typical Wayfair shopper does.

-> The growth is coming almost entirely from higher-income households. It's the K-shaped economy in one earnings report.

How high-income shoppers are carrying Wayfair →

The new round of tariffs officially took effect this week

-> Sweeping new rates against dozens of countries kicked in, pushing the effective US tariff rate to 15.8%.

-> Retailers pulled forward record import volumes ahead of the deadline.

-> Analysts peg the cost at roughly $1,300 per US household this year. Check your landed costs before Q4 planning.

What the new tariff regime covers →

Warby Parker turned a profit and teased AI glasses "within weeks"

-> An $11.8M tariff refund helped swing Q2 to a $4.6M profit on revenue up 9.8% to $235.5M.

-> The bigger story: its first intelligent eyewear, powered by Google's Gemini and built with Samsung, is imminent.

-> Navigation, translation, messaging, and photos. A DTC brand going head to head with Meta's Ray-Bans.

Inside Warby Parker's AI eyewear bet →

Ex-Spotify employees raised $10M to bring Spotify-style AI to e-commerce

-> Malachyte, founded by people behind Spotify's recommendation engine, wants to give online stores the same personalization muscle.

-> The pitch: product discovery that learns your taste the way Discover Weekly does.

-> A picks and shovels bet on the AI commerce wave, led by Lauren Forristal's reporting at TechCrunch.

Meet the startup bringing Discover Weekly to shopping →

eBay is doubling down on live shopping after a record quarter

-> Fresh off record results, eBay is expanding eBay Live, its livestream shopping experience for collectibles and resale.

-> It joins QVC's live social shopping pivot and TikTok Shop in making the same bet: streams sell.

-> Live commerce is quietly becoming table stakes for marketplaces.

Why eBay keeps betting on live shopping →

2/ Shopify

Shopify had a monster quarter and the stock jumped 26%

-> Q2 revenue rose 34% to $3.58B, beating estimates by roughly $130M, with GMV up 32% to $115.6B.

-> Shop Pay GMV grew 53%, B2B GMV grew 76%, and free cash flow margin hit 18%.

-> Q3 guidance came in above expectations too. So much for last month's "Meta will eat Shopify" downgrade.

The full numbers behind Shopify's blowout quarter →

Shopify says AI search is driving traffic, not replacing Google

-> Traffic and orders from AI-driven discovery channels roughly tripled, per the earnings call.

-> Those visitors also convert at higher rates than traditional search traffic.

-> It's the strongest large-scale evidence yet that AI answers are a new acquisition channel, not a threat.

What Shopify's AI traffic data means for your brand →

3/ What We Found Interesting

Shein's prospectus shows what the tariff era actually costs

-> Its IPO filing revealed a $99M Q1 loss, swinging from a $395M profit a year earlier.

-> US revenue fell 14.3% after the de minimis exemption ended, and US prices have been rising since May 2025.

-> It also disclosed an FTC investigation. Useful context for the valuation cut in the headlines above.

What Shein's filing reveals about the tariff era →

Amazon's AI shopping assistant is quietly becoming a habit

-> More than 350 million shoppers used Alexa for Shopping over the past 12 months, with interactions up 5x year over year.

-> Users spend 40% more per order than non-users, and Alexa+ triers join Prime at nearly 25% higher rates.

-> Agentic shopping isn't coming. At Amazon, it's already here.

The numbers behind Alexa for Shopping's rise →

4/ What We Found Helpful

What TikTok Shop taught us about the future of e-commerce

-> Our deep dive unpacks what TikTok Shop's $33 billion growth run means for every Shopify brand.

-> The short version: discovery is moving into the feed, and video is doing the selling.

-> It covers the lessons worth stealing, from content-led conversion to why entertainment now beats search.

Read what TikTok Shop teaches Shopify brands →

Two-thirds of shoppers are already using AI for their holiday buying

-> 67% used tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for purchases in the last three months. For Gen Z it's 80%.

-> 71% plan to start holiday shopping before Black Friday, and 46% start before November.

-> If your brand isn't visible in AI answers by October, you're missing the research phase entirely.

See the full holiday AI shopping data →