This week in e-commerce (May 24 – 30, 2025) was defined by tighter catalog discipline, lightning-fast fulfillment pushes, and a regulatory step-change for BNPL. Here are the five shifts that matter before you lock Monday’s roadmap.
Five moves that matter
- Amazon trims 24 bn SKUs – The covert “Bend the Curve” purge is deleting low-velocity ASINs and throttling bulk uploads, saving an extra $36 m in AWS spend this year and refocusing on listing quality. Sellers riding the long-tail should expect tougher ad auctions and stricter catalog controls. Source.
- Quick commerce now 20 % of Indian GMV – Walmart International CEO Kathryn McLay pegged India’s q-commerce share at 20 % and growing 50 % YoY; Flipkart is scaling dark-stores to chase <30-minute delivery. Margin pressure is set to spill into the wider APAC market. Source.
- Meta revives bricks-and-mortar – Memos show plans for multiple Meta Stores beyond its Burlingame pilot to demo Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta glasses. For DTC brands, “experiential retail” inside MR playgrounds could become the next product-discovery channel. Source.
- UK BNPL enters the regulatory era – HM Treasury has tabled legislation bringing zero-interest BNPL agreements under FCA oversight by mid-2026. Merchants directing shoppers to BNPL partners will fall within scope, adding compliance friction but likely boosting consumer trust. Source.
- Shopify Summer ’25 Edition lands – 150 + upgrades include Horizon (a flexible theme foundation), AI-assisted merchandising, “Flex Checkout,” and POS v10 with smarter search. Unified pixels and new audience modeling shorten the test-and-learn cycle for multi-store operators. Source.
Strategic takeaways
- Marketplace growth is shifting from SKU breadth to catalog hygiene—invest in listing quality.
- India’s speed race signals wider APAC demand for micro-fulfilment; model the cost curve now.
- BNPL’s move from growth hack to regulated product means review your UX and disclosures.
- Mixed-reality showrooms could cut CACs—prototype pop-ups before the holidays.
- Shopify’s AI rollout narrows the tech gap between scrappy DTC and enterprise stacks—iterate fast while the algorithm is cheap.
Watchlist: EU Digital Product Passport consultation closes 1 July; TikTok Shop opens German merchant onboarding 3 June; Amazon Prime Day date drop expected any day. – Stay sharp, ship fast.