Week 26 - Shopify Goes Full AI: Agentic Commerce, Amazon vs. Walmart Data Wars, and EU Customs Chaos

Max: Welcome to the Checkout Point, your quick dive into this week's eCommerce buzz with me, Alex, powered by Blicket. These 20 minutes pack the latest trends, news, and insights. Let's navigate the digital marketplace together. Ready? Let's go. Rachel: Welcome back to the Checkout Point, everybody. Big week in eCommerce. Like, a lot happened. Speaker 3: A lot happened. Good to be back, Max. Rachel: Good to be back. Rachel, where do we even start? Because I feel like every story this week is competing for the top spot. Speaker 3: Honestly, Yeah. Shopify dropped their Spring 26 Edition, 150 plus updates, and the whole thing is centered on something they're calling Agentic Commerce, AI agents shopping on your behalf. Rachel: Which sounds cool until you ask, are shoppers actually into that? Because PYMNTS put out some consumer research this week, and the answer is complicated. Speaker 3: That's a diplomatic way to put it. Spoiler, people want AI helping them shop, not replacing them at the checkout. Rachel: Right, right. And then on the trade side, the EU is scrapping de minimis for low-value imports. Cross-border sellers are going to feel that fast. Speaker 3: Fast is an understatement. And there's a surprise in there. InformaBTL reported Mexico just ranked eighth globally in eCommerce penetration, ahead of the US on that metric. Rachel: Wait, eighth? I had to do a double-take on that one. Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll get into what that actually means for your growth strategy. Rachel: And we round things out with Amazon and Walmart both going hard at becoming retail media and data brokers. And Kroger, this one genuinely caught me off guard. Their e-commerce operation just turned profitable. Speaker 3: After ditching those Ocado sheds, Diginomica reported a $400 million tailwind. Not a small number. Rachel: Not even a little small. Okay, Shopify's Spring '26 Edition is up first. A hundred and fifty plus updates and the phrase 'agentic commerce' all over the announcement. Let's break down what that actually means for merchants today. Three easy ways to get your questions to us. Check the description for our web form, text us at 747-293-4612, or call the same number to leave a voice question. However you reach out, we can't wait to hear from you. Okay, so imagine this. You wake up, you need new running shoes, and before you've even had coffee, an AI agent has already found the right pair, checked your size history, compared three stores, and checked out for you. No cart, no browse session, no abandoned checkout email three days later. Speaker 3: Which honestly would eliminate about 40% of my job anxiety right there. Rachel: Right? So that's the world Shopify is betting on, and this week they dropped the Spring 26 Edition, and Rachel, it's a lot. More than 150 updates, according to PYMNTS, all centered on what Shopify is calling agentic commerce. Speaker 3: Okay, but let's actually define that, because agentic commerce is one of those terms that can mean everything or nothing depending on who's using it. Rachel: Fair. So the way Shopify frames it, instead of a shopper clicking through pages, an AI agent acts on their behalf. It finds the product, checks availability, Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Rachel: confirms the details, and completes the purchase. The human sets the intent, the agent handles the execution. Speaker 3: So less here's a chatbot that answers questions and more, here's a system that actually closes transactions. Rachel: Exactly. And the infrastructure behind it, that's the interesting part. Part. Shopify published their developer breakdown on Wednesday, and two things hit at the center: the Shopify Catalog and the Unified Commerce Platform, or UCP. Speaker 3: Walk me through the Catalog piece because that's where I'd push on the ROI. Rachel: Yeah, so the Shopify Catalog is basically a global structured product data set. Speaker 3: Wow. Rachel: Every eligible merchant listing gets syndicated out to AI services, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode, the Shop App. Your products become discoverable by AI agents that are out there shopping on someone's behalf. Speaker 3: Okay, so the question I'd ask as a merchant, what does eligible actually mean? Because if my product data is a mess, I'm not getting found. Rachel: That's exactly the catch. Shopify reported that AI searches on the Shop app are growing faster than traditional keyword searches, but your listing has to be structured well enough for an agent to actually understand it. Vague titles, missing attributes, bad images, agents just skip you. Speaker 3: So product data quality goes from a nice-to-have to basically a survival requirement. Rachel: 100% and that's a real shift for indie merchants who've been getting away with good enough listings for years. tricks like your SEO tricks don't really apply when it's a machine evaluating your catalog. Speaker 3: Okay, and then the UCP, what does that actually unlock for developers? Rachel: So the Unified Commerce Platform is the foundation rebuild. Shopify says anyone can now build end-to-end agentic commerce on top of it. The idea is that all the commerce primitives, cart, checkout, inventory, payments, are exposed through APIs that agents can call directly. Speaker 3: Meaning a developer can build an app where the AI handles the whole transaction flow without a human touching it. Rachel: Right. And Shopify actually showed five demo apps in their Spring Edition drop. Things like automated inventory decisions, hands-free product discovery, agents that can reorder on behalf of a business based on stock signals. Speaker 3: Demo apps, though. That's the part I'd pump the brakes on. Demos are demos. How many real merchants are running this stuff? stuff. Rachel: Yeah, I mean, fair point. These are proofs of concept. The Shopify article is showing what's possible, not necessarily what's production-ready at scale today. Speaker 3: And that matters because a merchant with a three-person team doesn't have a developer to build a custom agentic app. The question is, what's the out-of-the-box version of this? Rachel: That's where the catalog piece is actually more immediately relevant, because you don't have to build anything. You just need your listings on Shopify to be in good shape and the syndication to AI services happens automatically. Speaker 3: So small merchants get passive AI distribution if their data is clean. That I can work with. Rachel: That's the practical version, yeah. The developer platform stuff is more for agencies and third-party app builders who will eventually package this into tools merchants can actually use. Speaker 3: Hmm. So the timeline is... Infrastructure Now, usable merchant tools, probably a year out. Rachel: I'd say that's a reasonable read. Shopify is laying the rails right now. The apps that run on those rails are still being built. Speaker 3: Which is not nothing. If you're an indie merchant, the moves to make today are pretty clear. Clean up your catalog, make your Speaker 4: website. Max: Make sure your attributes are complete. Don't sleep on the Shop app distribution. Rachel: And if you're a developer, this is a wide open space. Shopify just handed you an entire commerce infrastructure that agents can talk to. The app ideas that make sense here haven't even been built yet. Max: Okay, so Shopify is building the pipes. The real test, though, and this is what I keep coming back to, is whether shoppers actually want to hand over control to an agent. Like, the tech can do it, but does the customer? Rachel: Yeah, and it turns out there's some pretty fresh data on exactly that, because the answer is more complicated than either side of this debate wants to admit. So Shopify's laying the rails for agents to buy things automatically, but do shoppers actually want that? Max: That's the real tension this week. PYMNTS ran a piece on this Friday, and the finding is pretty blunt: Consumers want AI to shop with them, not for them. That distinction is doing a lot of work. Rachel: It's the difference between having a GPS and just getting teleported somewhere. Max: Right, exactly. And the data backs it up. PYMNTS' survey found that shoppers want to stay in control. control of final decisions. AI can narrow the field, surface options, flag deals, but they want the last click. Rachel: Which honestly makes sense. Nobody wants to open their front door and find 17 things they don't remember buying. Max: 17 things. Rachel: I mean, I've been there with one-click ordering. 17 is next level. Max: One step away from just subscribing to your own chaos. Rachel: So what does shopping with you actually look like in practice, though? Because that Because that framing sounds nice, but I want the mechanics. Max: So Instacart is probably the clearest live example right now. PYMNTS reported Friday that Instacart's new agentic AI assistant, You Describe What You Need, It Builds a Cart, Rachel: is Max: driving meaningfully bigger basket sizes. Rachel: Wait, like Bigger how? Max: They didn't drop a specific percentage in what I read, but the framing from Instacart was the AI surfaces items users wouldn't have searched for. searched for on their own, so the cart fills out. You came in for pasta, you leave with pasta, sauce, parmesan, olive oil. Rachel: And somehow a sheet pan and sparkling water? Max: Exactly, and that's the thing I keep poking at: bigger baskets are great for Instacart's GMV, but is that a win for the consumer? Rachel: Right, because there's two ways to read that number. One is, the AI genuinely helped you remember things you needed. The other is, the AI's really good at selling you stuff. stuff. Max: And Instacart would say both are true simultaneously. But from a consumer trust standpoint, those are very different experiences. Rachel: It's like having a friend who offers to help with your grocery list, but they also work for the grocery store. Max: That is an uncomfortably accurate description of the entire space right now. Rachel: So the PYMNTS Consumer Survey, what's the breakdown on trust? Because that's really what this comes down to. Max: So the finding was essentially that consumers are open to... into AI involvement in shopping, but their comfort drops sharply when the AI is making autonomous purchases. Browsing assistance, comparison help, reminders, high comfort. Go buy this for me, much lower. Rachel: Hmm, which maps pretty directly to what Shopify's building, right? The infrastructure is there for full autonomy, but the consumer side isn't ready for it yet. Max: That's the gap. Brands and platforms are building for a world where agents transact. In fact, shoppers are still Rachel: Right. Max: asking to be in the loop. Rachel: And the brands that ignore that gap are going to spend a lot of money building things that freak their customers out. Max: And probably tank their return rates in the process. Autonomous purchases that miss the mark don't just cost the refund, they cost the relationship. Rachel: So the smart play right now is probably AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Max: For most categories, yeah. Maybe replenishment is different. toilet paper, coffee pods, stuff where preference is locked in. But anything with judgment involved, shoppers want the wheel. Rachel: Makes sense. I'll let AI remind me I'm out of detergent. I'm not letting it pick my running shoes. Max: Bold line to draw. Rachel: I have opinions about cushioning, Rachel. Max: Fair enough. But that's actually the product data story connecting back here. Merchants who want to show up in AI-assisted shopping Thing needs specs, attributes, context that lets the AI make a confident recommendation, even if the shopper's making the final call. Rachel: Right, the agent's only as good as what it can read. Max: And speaking of things that are about to scramble what merchants can actually sell cross-border, the EU just rewrote the customs rulebook and the impact on low-value shipments is significant. Rachel: Oh, this one's going to sting for a lot of sellers. Let's get into it. Speaker 3: into it. Rachel: Okay, shifting gears completely, because while AI is rewriting the shopping experience, customs regulators in Brussels are rewriting the math on cross-border selling. Max: And not in a fun way. Rachel: No, not at all. So, Rachel, you've lived through these kinds of policy shifts before. Walk us through what's actually changing. Max: OK, so the big one, the EU is ending de minimis treatment for low value goods, which, if you're not familiar, that's the exemption that let. that let packages under a certain value sail through customs without paying duties or getting inspected. Rachel: Which is basically how Temu and Shein built entire businesses, right? Max: Exactly. And according to the American Journal of Transportation, when the U.S. killed its own de minimis exemption for goods under $800 back in August 2025, cross-border eCommerce traffic dropped immediately and significantly, Rachel: Wow. Max: like not a gradual decline. Overnight. Rachel: That fast? Max: That fast. And now the EU is following the same playbook. Passport, the logistics compliance firm, published a piece this week noting the 2026 EU customs reform is pushing full digitalization, higher compliance requirements, and real import cost increases for brands sourcing from China. Rachel: So what does that actually mean for a seller like a mid-sized brand shipping into Europe? Europe. Max: It means, your landed cost just got a lot more complicated. You now need an importer of record in the EU, you need supply chain visibility at a granular level, not just my stuff is on a boat, but item level tracking, valuation documentation, all of it. Rachel: And most sellers don't have that. Max: Most sellers definitely don't have that. I've seen this movie before at Walmart, when a regulation changes and half the Speaker 4: industry isn't ready. Max: And half your supplier base just isn't ready. And the brands that survive are the ones who got ahead of the paperwork, not the ones who waited for a penalty. Rachel: Right, right, and look, this isn't just a China story either. Any brand doing cross-border into the EU is going to feel this. Max: 100%. The passport piece was pretty clear this is reshaping the full import. Cost structure for international eCommerce, not just fast fashion players. Rachel: Okay, so on a slightly more cheerful note, because I need one after all that, can we talk about Mexico for a second? Max: Sure, hit me. Rachel: So, InformaBTL dropped a piece this week, and the headline is wild. Mexico is ranked eighth globally in eCommerce penetration, above the United States on that specific metric. Max: Wait, seriously? Eighth? Rachel: And like the U.S. has way more absolute eCommerce. Blue eCommerce volume-that's not the point. The penetration rate is what's interesting. It means the share of retail happening online in Mexico is punching way above where people expected it to be. Max: Hmm. So where's the growth actually coming from? Rachel: So the article flags the uncomfortable flip side: Mexico's at eighth, but there's still real structural gaps in payments and logistics infrastructure that cap the ceiling. So it's not like everything's solved. Max: Right. High penetration rate but unit economics on fulfillment are still... are still messy. Rachel: Yep, which is kind of the story for a lot of emerging markets, right? The demand is there before the infrastructure catches up. Max: I'll say this, though: any brand ignoring Latin America as a growth market right now is leaving money on the table. Mexico at eighth is a signal worth paying attention to. Rachel: Agreed. And honestly, that connects to the bigger theme we keep coming back to. The brands that are doing the hard work on compliance, on data, on infrastructure, those are the ones positioned to actually capture these markets. Max: Which, funny enough, is exactly where Amazon and Walmart are making their moves right now. Rachel: Oh yeah, and that data broker battle? That's a whole thing. Let's get into it. Shifting gears, while we were talking trade friction, Amazon and Walmart have been quietly fighting a very different war. Max: And PYMNTS had a good breakdown of this. It's not just retail anymore. Both of them are racing to be the most powerful data broker in the industry. Rachel: Right, and that's the thing that doesn't get enough attention. Amazon's ad business? We're talking billions. Walmart Connect is catching up fast. These aren't side hustles. This is... This is the business model now. Max: The margin on ads versus the margin on selling a box of cereal, not even close. Rachel: Not even in the same zip code. Max: And what makes this interesting for smaller sellers is you're not just competing for shelf space anymore. You're competing for ad placement, for data visibility, for who the algorithm decides to surface. Rachel: Which means if you're a brand without serious first-party data, you're basically renting your audience from whoever's platform you're on. We're on. Max: And paying more for it every quarter. Rachel: Okay, but Kroger, we have to talk about Kroger, because Diginomica reported something I genuinely didn't see coming. Max: The e-commerce profitability story. Rachel: Yeah. Kroger's e-commerce finally turned a profit, Max: Wow. Rachel: and a big piece of that was shutting down unprofitable Ocado sheds, which freed up a reported $400 million tailwind. Max: So for anyone who's been following grocery e-commerce economics, This matters because grocery has been the unit economics nightmare for years: thin margins, high delivery costs, heavy infrastructure. Rachel: The joke was always like the fastest way to lose money is to deliver bananas. Max: Join yet here we are. Rachel: And yet here we are. But CEO Greg Foran, Diginomica quoted him pretty directly on this. He's positioning Kroger as separating from the traditional grocery pack. Not trying to out Amazon Amazon, doing its own thing. Max: Which, honestly, smart, because you can't win a data arms race against Amazon if you're playing on Amazon's terms. Rachel: Exactly. You find where you can actually own the relationship. Max: And that connects back to the smaller seller problem, because Kroger going profitable on e-commerce probably means more pressure to monetize their own ad network, Kroger Precision Marketing. Which means yet another platform demanding ad spend from brands. Rachel: Another walled garden, another auction. Max: Right, so if you're a midsize CPG brand, you're now managing Amazon DSP, Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, your ad budget is just everywhere. Rachel: And then Walmart's also dropping $8 million into a Texas distribution center remodel. New electrical, new material handling equipment. That's not a small bet. Max: That's a fulfillment speed play going into the back half of 2026. They're not letting Amazon own two-day delivery without a fight. Rachel: So the scoreboard right now: Amazon owns the data layer, Walmart is closing the gap on fulfillment, and Kroger just proved grocery e-commerce can actually make money. Max: And whoever figures out how to own the full customer data loop, purchase history, browsing, delivery behavior, that's who sets the price of access for everyone else. Rachel: That's not a 2030 problem, that's a right now problem. Max: For sellers, the question is, where are you building equity that a platform can't just take back? Rachel: All right, that's a wrap on another one. Rachel, what's sticking with you from today? Max: Honestly, that line about product data quality going from a nice to have to a survival requirement. I've watched brands skip that step at Amazon and Walmart. It does not end well. Rachel: Yeah, and for me, it's the grocery store analogy, the AI assistant that also works for the grocery store. Like, that conflict of interest is real, and I don't think shoppers have fully clocked it yet. Max: Right. And PYMNTS backed that up. Consumers want AI shopping with them, not running the whole cart solo. Rachel: So the through line today, honestly, is infrastructure is getting built fast, Max: Mm-hmm. Rachel: trust is lagging behind. Whether it's Shopify laying rails for agents, Instacart testing bigger baskets, or Amazon and Walmart turning data into their next revenue stream, everyone's moving, but shopper buy-in is still the gap. Max: And Kroger finally cracking e-commerce profitability shows unit economics do eventually catch up. Chap. Something to watch. Rachel: Totally. Hey, if you got value out of today's episode, subscribe, leave us a review, it genuinely helps. Max: Thanks for spending time with us on The Checkout Point. We'll see you next week. Rachel: Later, everyone.