Week 32 - Amazon's $200 Billion AI Quarter: Shopify's Privacy Mess, DoorDash Drones, and the Rise of Agentic Payments

MaxWelcome to the Checkout Point, your quick dive into this week's e-commerce 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.

RachelHey everyone, welcome back to the Checkout Point.

Speaker 3Good to be here with you.

RachelWe've got a packed show, huh?

Speaker 3Big earnings week across the board.

RachelRight. Amazon just crossed $200 billion in sales, and PYMNTS is calling out this whole AI agent story behind it.

Speaker 3Plus, they just wrapped up that $50 billion investment in OpenAI, so that's another thread we're pulling on.

RachelYeah, and Shopify's stock has been bouncing all over the place heading into their... to their August 5th report.

Speaker 3Oh, and a federal judge just let a data privacy lawsuit against them move forward, too.

RachelTalk about timing. We'll dig into what that stock swing actually means for merchants, not just the traders watching the ticker.

Speaker 3Then there's fulfillment. DoorDash just landed FAA approval for drone delivery.

RachelDrones, and that ties right into this whole agentic ordering push through Shopify, too.

Speaker 3Which raises a question we keep circling. Circling

RachelRight.

Speaker 3back to who's actually authorizing a purchase when no human clicked buy.

RachelYeah, that's the one that's been bugging me too. Then on the payment side, Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal all leaned into that same agentic story on their earnings calls.

Speaker 3Yeah, PayPal's checkout growth is only sitting at 2% though.

RachelNot exactly lighting the world on fire.

Speaker 3Convincingly, by the end of the hour, we'll land on some concrete moves merchants should make before Shopify reports. Pie reports.

RachelI like it. Should we start with Amazon's numbers?

Speaker 3Yeah, let's start there.

RachelThree easy ways to get your questions to us: Check the description for our web form, text us at seven four seven two nine three four six one two, or call the same number to leave a voice question. However you reach out, we can't wait to hear from you. $200 billion. That's Amazon's quarterly sales number, and it's not even the wild part.

Speaker 3Okay, what's the wild part?

RachelNorth American sales up 16% year-over-year, worldwide paid units up 17%, and profit landing at $62.6 billion. Ina Steiner covered the regional growth numbers Friday.

Speaker 3Whoa, $62.6 billion in profit for a quarter? That's not retail money. That's not moving boxes money.

RachelRight. And that's the part I geek out on. Sarah Mahoney reported advertising revenue was up 26% this quarter and that's the number that actually explains the profit.

Speaker 3Walk me through why that matters more than the sales figure.

RachelSo retail margins on physical goods are thin, like razor thin. You're fighting shipping costs, warehouse costs, returns. Advertising is basically pure margin. Sellers pay Amazon to show up higher in search. No inventory risk for Amazon at all.

Speaker 3So the store is really an ad platform wearing a shopping cart costume.

RachelKinda, yeah. And now they're layering agentic AI on top of all that whole thing. PYMNTS had a piece this week saying Andy Jassy called agentic AI a work in progress on the Q1 call and now it's actually shipping.

Speaker 3Okay, so here's where I get skeptical, because Amazon also just finished a After a $50 billion investment in OpenAI, PYMNTS confirmed that closed in a Friday filing.

RachelYeah, and Amazon Web Services runs a chunk of OpenAI's infrastructure now, too.

Speaker 3$50 billion is a number that needs a payback story, though. What does Amazon actually get for that beyond, like, good vibes with a hot AI lab?

RachelI mean, the honest answer is we don't fully know yet. There's the cloud compute revenue coming back to AWS. Unless there's whatever gets built into those shopping agents.

Speaker 3Which is the speculative part, right? Nobody's published the ROI on that yet.

RachelExactly. It's a bet, not a receipt.

Speaker 3I've sat in enough Amazon planning meetings to know $50 billion doesn't get approved on vibes. Somebody modeled a return. We just don't get to see the spreadsheet.

RachelAnd somewhere there's a finance person very tired of that exact question.

Speaker 3Probably. And here's what's bugging me about this whole quarter. Amazon's crushing it. Advertising up 26, profits up huge. But Forbes had Elaine Pofeldt at a merchant conference this week and the mood there was very different.

RachelDifferent how?

Speaker 3Sellers are turning to AI too, but not to grow. Pofeldt's reporting says it's about defending margin that's already already shrinking. And they're doing it carefully because they're scared of AI hallucinations messing up listings or customer service.

RachelSo one side of the marketplace is printing money off AI and the other side is using AI just to keep their head above water?

Speaker 3That's the split. Amazon's playing offense with $50 billion. The sellers on Amazon's own platform are playing defense with like a subscription to some AI tool and a lot of Lot of caution.

RachelSame technology, completely different budget.

Speaker 3Right. And it raises the actual question, is that AI adoption on the seller side a sign of confidence? Or is it more like triage? Because those aren't the same thing.

RachelI don't think we get a clean answer this week, but it's worth sitting with because it's the same tension you'll see play out with a couple other companies, too.

Speaker 3Meaning?

RachelMeaning Amazon's writing a $50 billion check to control it. troll its AI outright. There's another company this week making a very different-sized version of that same bet, and it's doing it while a privacy lawsuit sits on the calendar.

Speaker 3Now you've got my attention. Same story, way smaller balance sheet?

RachelSomething like that. Let's see how well the pitch holds up.

Speaker 3Shifting gears to Shopify and it's a mess right now.

RachelOoh, okay, what kind of mess?

Speaker 3The kind where the AI headline sounds amazing until you check the base it's growing from.

RachelYou're talking about the referral surge thing, right?

Speaker 3Tessa Vaughn covered it for Forecast.News. Shopify's Q1 2026 data shows AI-driven referral traffic up 13 times.

RachelThirteen times. That's a huge number to just throw out there.

Speaker 3It is, but thirteen of what? If you start from almost nothing, doubling it twice gets you a scary sounding multiple.

RachelOkay, so it's like a dating app. You match with 13 times more people this month,

Speaker 3Sure.

Rachelbut how many of those matches actually turned into a date, like an actual purchase?

Speaker 3That's the exact gap Vaughn's piece flags, referral influence versus... Since agent executed transactions, traffic showing up isn't the same as an AI agent actually completed

MaxCHECKOUT

RachelRight, right, so merchants are seeing more window shoppers wearing an AI sent me name tag, sent me name tag, but nobody's confirmed the AI is the one buying.

MaxExactly the distinction; and that structural question is still open.

RachelOkay, and meanwhile Shopify has got actual legal problems, not hypothetical ones.

MaxYeah, this one's not fuzzy. A federal judge just ruled Shopify has to face a class action over data collection.

RachelWait. Wait, I thought they tried to get it thrown out.

MaxThey did. MLex reported the judge rejected Shopify's motion to dismiss, saying the amended complaint was enough to show intent behind how they collected and used consumer data.

RachelIntent. That's a strong word for a judge to use.

MaxIt is. Shopify argued this was just routine commercial behavior. The court didn't buy it.

RachelSo what's a merchant actually supposed to do with that? Like, Panic? Audit their pixel tracking?

MaxWatch the discovery phase. If plaintiffs get internal documents on how tracking scripts behave across merchant storefronts, that could reshape what tools Shopify lets you install.

RachelMakes sense. It's not really Shopify's problem alone. It's every store running on their checkout.

MaxRight, the liability sits closer to the platform than people think. And then there's the stock, which is just... Doing whatever it wants.

RachelLeo Sun at the Motley Fool pointed out shares fell sixteen per cent after Shopify's last earnings beat. Beat the number, dropped anyway. Wait, they beat and the stock tanked?

MaxYep, guidance spooked people more than the print helped them.

RachelBut now shares popped again?

MaxMarcin Frckiriewicz reported an eleven point five per cent pre market surge, tied to a payments shift feeding the AI-moat narrative. going into their August fifth print.

RachelSo we've got a sixteen percent drop, an eleven point five percent jump, and a lawsuit, all before the actual earnings call happens.

MaxThat's the setup. For merchants, the read isn't buy or sell, it's watch whether Shopify's AI story survives contact with a courtroom.

RachelSomewhere between a dating app and a deposition?

MaxPretty much.

RachelSpeaking of the AI actually doing something in the real world...

MaxShopify's already teamed up with DoorDash on agentic ordering.

RachelRight, so the AI can place the order.

MaxBut somebody still has to get the box out the door.

RachelWhich conveniently is exactly where we're headed next. Okay, switching gears from lawsuits to actual boxes moving, this one's fun.

MaxPlease, I need something that isn't a court room.

RachelSo UNIT AI just raised twelve million bucks and Amit Chowdhry covered it for Pulse Two Point Oh. It's an AI-run platform for fulfillment and returns.

MaxReturns-the part nobody wants to talk about.

RachelRight, everybody geeks out on the outbound shipment, the pretty box, the confetti unboxing video. Nobodys excited about the box coming back.

MaxBecause it's pure cost-no revenue, just labor and shipping. Shipping and a warehouse worker guessing if that sweater is resellable.

RachelI had a client once, mattress company; their return rate on one SKU was so bad, they were basically running a mattress rental service and didn't know it.

MaxThat's not a return rate, that's a subscription model!

RachelExactly; so when a platform automates the sorting, the grading, routing it back to inventory or liquidation, that's real margin, not a vanity metric.

MaxWhich is the actual investor pitch here, not "AI is cool," but "AI touches the part of the P&L everyone ignores.

RachelAnd speaking of automation touching the boring stuff—UPS

MaxOh, I saw this—Max Garland reported UPS now runs over two-thirds of its US volume through automated facilities.

RachelTwo-thirds—that's not a pilot programme any more, that's the network.

MaxOkay, but here's my actual question: what does that do to cost? It's per package, because automation capex is enormous.

RachelGarland's piece frames it as UPS trying to cut handling costs and flex capacity without hiring seasonally every seasonal spike.

MaxWhich, fine, great for UPS's margins, but does any of that saving reach a merchant's shipping bill, or does it just pad UPS's earnings call?

RachelHonestly, probably slower than merchants would like. Efficiency gains tend to sit with the carrier first.

MaxThat's the skeptic in me talking-I've watched efficiency get announced plenty of times without a rate card changing.

RachelFair, though fewer delays and fewer damaged packages is its own kind of savings-less customer service, fewer refunds.

MaxSure, indirect ROI-I'll take it. Now, the one that's actually wild-

RachelDoorDash and drones.

MaxKirsten Korosec reported DoorDash got FAA approval to run its own commercial drone delivery service.

RachelDoorDash building its own drone arm. I did not have that in my bingo card for this year.

MaxSomewhere a Whole Foods bag is about to fly over your backyard, which

RachelRight? But it's not just drones. Laurie Sullivan's piece connects this to DoorDash exploring agentic ordering through Shopify.

Maxis the part that actually matters more than the drone footage.

RachelBecause a drone just answers how does it get there.

MaxThe agentic piece answers who told it to go there in the first place.

RachelYeah, automated warehouse, automated last mile, that's the easy half. Someone still has to authorize the purchase.

MaxNo human clicked buy, so who's approving the charge? Who eats the return if the AI orders the wrong size?

RachelThat's not a logistics question anymore.

MaxNope, that's a payments question, and it's about to get very messy very fast. fast.

RachelWhich conveniently is exactly what's sitting in Mastercard's and Visa's earning skulls this week.

MaxYes, we should go find out what the card networks think happens when the buyer isn't a person.

RachelShort pause.

MaxBuilding on that authorization question, Mastercard just answered it, sort of.

RachelSort of?

MaxPYMNTS covered Mastercard's earnings call Thursday. Executives are betting cards run what they're calling the prompt economy.

RachelThe prompt economy. So the card just rides along inside whatever the AI agent's doing?

MaxBasically, and Visa's leaning the same direction. PYMNTS reported Visa expanding money movement as card spend picks up

RachelAccelerating for actual human swiping, though, not bots. Not yet.

MaxMostly humans, yeah. That's the gap. Visa's own people flagged it-a separate PYMNTS piece has a Visa executive saying agentic buying needs permission controls and spending limits before this scales at all.

RachelWait, so Visa's saying hold on, we're not ready?

MaxGuardrails around data, spending caps, Whos allowed to authorize what.

RachelMm-hmm.

MaxWithout that, one runaway shopping agent is a fraud story waiting to happen.

RachelPicture your assistant restocking printer paper and it orders 400 cases.

MaxThats the exact scenario theyre trying to prevent.

RachelMeanwhile, PayPals playing it cautious too, right?

MaxPYMNTS wrote about PayPal pushing AI and digital identity. But they're Checkout volume only grew 2% this quarter.

RachelTwo percent? Thats not the AI explosion everybodys been promising.

MaxIts a company hedging. Theyre building the identity layer now so an agent can prove whos buying for later. The growth just hasnt shown up yet.

RachelSo what does a small store owner actually change this month?

MaxThree things: first, authorization rules-decide now whether youll accept an order placed by an agent versus a person at checkout;

RachelAnd who eats the cost if the agent grabs the wrong size or address?

Maxwhich is the refund policy piece-if an agent placed it, is that a normal return, or does it need its own rule? Your chargeback exposure changes completely.

RachelChargebacks are messy enough with people.

MaxWith an agent in between, you need a rec Keep a record of what was authorised and by whom, or you're eating that loss every time.

RachelThird thing?

MaxClean product data: An agent can't read a size chart the way a person browsing your site can.

RachelAh, messy product feed agent buys the wrong item every time.

MaxWhich loops straight back to who's on the hook for that mistake.

RachelSounds like homework, but doable homework.

MaxAnd it lands right before Shopify reports on August fifth.

RachelWhich is the real test: do those agent referrals turn into agent authorized purchases, or is it still window shopping? shopping.

MaxIf Shopify's checkout data shows even a sliver of agent-executed volume, this whole liability conversation gets a lot more real fast.

RachelCase in point. Okay, so you take one thing away from today, it's that Amazon's ad business is basically the quiet money maker behind that whole quarter.

MaxRight. No inventory risk, just pure margin. Meanwhile, that $50 billion into OpenAI? It's still waiting on the payback story there.

RachelYeah, good vibes of the hot AI lab only gets you so far.

MaxTotally. And the dating app thing you said about Shopify's AI referrals actually stuck with me.

RachelMatches don't mean dates, man. Doubling from almost nothing still isn't a relationship.

MaxExactly. So merchants, watch Shopify's earnings on August 5th, not the headline stock swings.

RachelAnd keep an eye on who's actually authorizing purchases when there's no human clicking anymore.

MaxThat's the real shift happening in payments right now.

RachelAll right, that's the show. If you liked digging into this stuff with us...

MaxSubscribe. Leave a review. It really helps.

RachelTotally does—I read every single one.

MaxThanks for spending your time with us today.

RachelSee you next week on The Checkout Point!