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.

Someone paid $9 million to have lunch with Warren Buffett and Steph Curry. Buffett matched the winning bid for both charities, Glide and the Currys' Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation, tripling the total impact to about $27 million. Not bad for a lunch in Omaha.

Here's what else caught our attention this week 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

On Running posts record Q1: $1B in sales, 64% gross margins, up in every region

-> Net sales hit CHF 831.9M (~$1.06B) -- the first time On has crossed CHF 800M in a single quarter.

-> APAC up 44%, EMEA up 23%, apparel up 57% -- and gross profit margin hit a record 64.2%.

-> With CEO Martin Hoffmann stepping down, co-founder Caspar Coppetti takes over. The brand has never been in better shape.

How On is building one of the most profitable athletic brands in the world →

Etsy debuts its app inside ChatGPT for conversational product search

-> Users tag @Etsy in a ChatGPT prompt and get curated listings back -- no keyword searching, no scrolling.

-> It builds on Etsy's earlier Instant Checkout pilot, which drove discovery but not enough direct sales to justify the model.

-> Q1 revenue up 3% to $631M; marketplace GMS up 6%. The ChatGPT app is the bet on where discovery goes next.

What Etsy's ChatGPT strategy says about the future of marketplace discovery →

eBay rejects GameStop's $56B bid -- "neither credible nor attractive"

-> eBay's board rejected the offer, citing doubts about the financing and the operational risk of combining the two companies.

-> Ryan Cohen couldn't explain where the money was coming from on CNBC. The board noticed.

-> GameStop's stock still ended the week higher than before the bid. The meme machine works in mysterious ways.

Why eBay said no to the most unusual M&A pitch of the year →

Amazon expands 30-minute delivery (Amazon Now) to dozens of US cities

-> Amazon Now is live in Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, and Seattle -- with Austin, Houston, Denver, Phoenix, and more expanding through 2026.

-> Uses a network of 5,000-10,000 sq ft dark stores stocked with groceries, household essentials, and electronics.

-> Prime members pay $3.99 per order. The race to sub-30-minute delivery is officially on.

What Amazon Now means for the quick commerce arms race →

OpenAI lets brands plug their product feeds directly into ChatGPT ads

-> Retailers can now connect their existing product catalog -- the same file they send to Google Shopping -- and ChatGPT auto-generates the ads.

-> Platform handles up to 1M SKUs per advertiser. Criteo and StackAdapt are the first ad tech partners live.

-> The shift: instead of taking a cut of transactions, OpenAI is going after the ad budgets brands already spend on Meta and Amazon.

What ChatGPT's product feed ads mean for how brands reach shoppers in AI →

Amazon kills Rufus, puts Alexa directly inside the search bar

-> Alexa for Shopping replaces Rufus as Amazon's AI shopping layer -- now embedded by default in the main search bar.

-> It taps purchase history, Alexa device conversations, and browsing habits to personalize results in real time.

-> "Buy for Me" lets it shop other retailers' websites on your behalf. The search bar just became an agent.

What Amazon's Alexa for Shopping means for brands selling on the platform →

Shein sues Temu at London's High Court for "industrial scale" copyright theft

-> Shein alleges Temu used thousands of its product photos to advertise knockoffs, trying to piggyback on a more established competitor.

-> Temu dropped its defense against 2,300 of the photo claims before the trial even started.

-> Also in the mix: Shein is accused of tying fast-fashion suppliers to exclusive agreements in a separate antitrust case next year.

The Shein vs. Temu trial and what it means for fast-fashion IP →

IKEA's new "Wherever life goes" campaign is just a blue bag -- and it's perfect

-> The campaign shows IKEA's iconic FRAKTA bag framing everyday moments: beach trips, moves, life.

-> Art director Björn Lindén on the brief: "less is more, because FRAKTA is always FRAKTA."

-> A masterclass in brand confidence -- when the product is iconic enough, you don't need to explain it.

Why IKEA's blue bag campaign is one of the better brand moments this year →

Old Navy taps Paris and Kathy Hilton for its "It's Old Navy" summer campaign

-> Set to "Stars Are Blind" on its 20th anniversary, the campaign leans hard into Y2K nostalgia with backyard BBQ energy.

-> Zac Posen (Old Navy's CCO) directed the creative -- his second major celeb campaign for the brand after Lindsay Lohan last year.

-> Everything in the collection is under $55. The nostalgia play continues to work for a brand that sells on price and feeling.

What Old Navy's Paris Hilton campaign says about nostalgia-first marketing →

US retail sales rose for a third straight month in April -- but gas prices did most of the work

-> Total retail sales up 0.5% to $757.1B, in line with estimates. But strip out gas and the gain shrinks to 0.3%.

-> Clothing (-1.5%), furniture (-2%), and car dealerships (-0.5%) all fell. Online retail jumped 1.1%.

-> The war with Iran is keeping gas at ~$4.50/gallon. Consumers are still spending -- just on essentials.

What April's retail data says about where consumer spending is actually holding up →

Spotify and Apple align on HLS video podcasting for cross-platform publishing

-> Creators using Spotify for Creators or Megaphone will soon be able to publish video to both Spotify and Apple Podcasts from a single upload.

-> Separately, Spotify's video distribution API is now live for five hosting platforms including Libsyn and Audioboom.

-> The two biggest podcast platforms just agreed on a standard. That's good for everyone making video content.

What Spotify and Apple's video podcast alignment means for content creators →

Dua Lipa is suing Samsung for $15M for putting her face on TV boxes without permission

-> Samsung used a photo of Lipa on Crystal UHD TV packaging throughout 2025 and 2026 -- without her knowledge or consent.

-> Social media comments in the lawsuit include: "I wasn't even planning on buying a TV but I saw the box so I decided to get it."

-> Samsung says a content partner gave them permission. Lipa says she demanded they stop a year ago and was ignored.

The Dua Lipa vs. Samsung lawsuit and what it means for brands using celebrity imagery →

2/ Shopify

Shopify: niche entrepreneurs are now outselling the mainstream

-> Product categories outside the top 100 now account for nearly 55% of all Shopify sales -- and they're growing faster than mainstream categories.

-> 54% of new Shopify stores launched in 2025 were long-tail offerings. 71% of AI-attributed orders came from niche categories.

-> The takeaway: the most specific ideas have the most room to grow. AI is the matchmaker that makes niche viable at scale.

What Shopify's data says about the next era of commerce →

3/ What We Found Interesting

Why TikTok's comment section is now the biggest driver of first purchases

-> TikTok Shop health and beauty sales are up 84% YoY -- it's now the fourth largest health and beauty e-commerce retailer in the US.

-> The #1 predictor of a first purchase isn't the ad or the creator video. It's comments from other users saying it works.

-> After seeing affiliate content, 77% of users search the product to validate. The comment section is the new review page.

What TikTok's comment section data means for your DTC content strategy →

DedCool x Brooklinen just launched a sleep spray -- and it's a collab worth studying

-> Clean fragrance brand DedCool partnered with Brooklinen on a limited-edition pillow spray ($18) and Super Plush Robe ($159).

-> The collab expands fragrance from a bottle into a nightly ritual -- scent layered into bedding, not just on skin.

-> Two DTC brands with overlapping audiences, a shared aesthetic, and zero channel conflict. Textbook collab anatomy.

Why the DedCool x Brooklinen collab is a good model for brand partnership strategy →

4/ What We Found Helpful

Meta is building an AI shopping agent for Instagram called "Hatch"

-> Hatch is an autonomous AI agent being tested on services like DoorDash, Reddit, and Outlook -- built for everyday users, not developers.

-> The Instagram shopping tool lets users tap a product in a Reel and have AI handle the purchase without leaving the app.

-> Internal testing wraps in June. Q4 2026 launch is the target. If it works, it's TikTok Shop for Meta's 2B+ users.

What Meta's Instagram shopping agent means for DTC brands →

How to add shoppable video to your Shopify store

-> A step-by-step guide to adding shoppable video to Shopify -- placement options, app choices, and what actually drives conversions.

-> Covers where to put it (PDPs, homepage, collections), what video formats work best, and how to measure impact.

-> One of the highest-leverage things a DTC brand can add to its store right now. This is the practical guide to doing it.

The guide to adding shoppable video to your Shopify store →