Mollie has completed its acquisition of GoCardless, creating a combined European payments and financial services group serving more than 350,000 businesses across over 30 markets.

The deal, originally announced in December 2025, brings together Mollie’s card payments, local payment methods, business accounts and financing capabilities with GoCardless’ expertise in Direct Debit, Pay by Bank and recurring bank payments.

Mollie CEO Koen Köppen will lead the combined group, while GoCardless will continue operating under the name “GoCardless, a Mollie company” and remain under the leadership of co-founder Hiroki Takeuchi. Mollie says maintaining the GoCardless brand reflects the strategic importance of both its existing customer base and its Pay by Bank technology.

Mollie CEO Koen Köppen will lead the combined group, while GoCardless will continue operating under the name “GoCardless, a Mollie company” and remain under the leadership of co-founder Hiroki Takeuchi. Mollie says maintaining the GoCardless brand reflects the strategic importance of both its existing customer base and its Pay by Bank technology.

The completion of the acquisition marks an important step in Mollie’s attempt to build a broader European financial platform capable of handling multiple payment methods, banking services and business financing through a single provider.

Mollie and GoCardless create a broader European payments platform

The strategic logic behind the acquisition is largely based on the complementary nature of the two companies.

Mollie has traditionally focused strongly on merchant acquiring, card payments and local European payment methods.

GoCardless, meanwhile, has built its business around bank-based payments, particularly Direct Debit and open banking-enabled Pay by Bank solutions.

Combining the two creates a platform capable of supporting:card payments,local European payment methods,Direct Debit,Pay by Bank,recurring payments,business accounts,and financing.

When the deal was first announced in December 2025, the companies said the objective was to create a single provider capable of reducing the fragmentation many businesses face when operating several payment and financial platforms simultaneously.

This fragmentation is particularly relevant for international e-commerce businesses.

A merchant expanding across Europe may use one provider for cards, another for local payment methods, another for bank transfers and a separate banking partner for accounts and financing.

Each additional provider can create more integrations, reconciliation work and operational complexity.

More than 350,000 businesses across 30+ markets

The combined group now serves more than 350,000 businesses across more than 30 markets.

That gives the new organisation significant scale across Europe while also expanding its reach internationally.

Mollie has built much of its business around a highly localised European strategy, supporting market-specific payment methods, onboarding requirements and merchant needs.

The post Mollie Completes GoCardless Acquisition, Creating European Payments Group Serving 350,000 Businesses appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

SHIP.com has launched two artificial intelligence tools designed to bring agentic commerce into one of the most operationally complex areas of e-commerce: shipping and fulfillment.

The company announced SHIP AI, an AI-powered shipping manager for online sellers, and SHIP MCP, a Model Context Protocol integration that exposes more than 35 shipping capabilities to Claude and other AI applications.

Together, the tools automate tasks such as order analysis, rate comparison, address correction, label preparation, and tracking. They also allow developers to connect AI agents directly to shipping infrastructure. The announcement is significant because much of the recent discussion around agentic commerce has focused on product discovery and payments. SHIP.com is extending the same concept deeper into the physical fulfillment layer.

That means AI agents are moving closer to handling not only what consumers buy and how they pay, but also how those purchases are shipped.

What Is SHIP AI?

SHIP AI is designed to function more like a digital shipping manager than a traditional chatbot. Instead of simply responding to questions, the system can analyze incoming orders and prepare fulfillment work before the seller begins processing shipments.

According to SHIP.com, the system can determine package details, compare shipping options, correct addresses, flag inconsistencies, and prepare multiple orders for shipment simultaneously. Users can also ask the system to update dashboards, run reports and analyze variables such as shipping costs and delivery times.

Joe DiSorbo, founder and CEO of SHIP.com, described the distinction by saying that a general chatbot provides answers, while SHIP AI is designed to perform operational work. The goal is to move sellers away from manually processing every order and toward reviewing work AI has already prepared.

From Manual Processing to AI-Assisted Fulfillment

Shipping remains one of the most repetitive and time-consuming areas of online retail operations. A merchant processing multiple orders may need to verify addresses, calculate package dimensions, compare rates, select carriers, purchase labels and update order information.

SHIP.com says SHIP AI can automate much of that preparation. The company gives the example of a 20-order batch that could take around 25 minutes to process manually. Depending on the level of automation enabled, SHIP.com says the same batch could potentially be prepared in less than a minute with SHIP AI.

That claim is based on the company's own testing and should therefore be treated as a vendor-reported performance example rather than an independent benchmark.

Nevertheless, the broader operational shift matters. The merchant's role shifts from performing each shipping action manually to supervising and approving AI-generated decisions.

Sellers Retain Control Over Financial Decisions

SHIP.com is not presenting SHIP AI as completely autonomous by default. Financial transactions remain under the merchant's control. Purchasing shipping labels, adding insurance or reloading an account balance normally requires seller approval, and the relevant costs are displayed before the transaction is completed.

This human-in-the-loop approach reflects a central challenge facing agentic commerce. Businesses want AI systems to remove repetitive operational work, but financial authority introduces considerably greater risk. SHIP.com's approach lets the AI analyze and prepare decisions while merchants decide how much authority they are willing to delegate.

According to the company, sellers could gradually expand the degree of automation as they become more comfortable with the system.

Early Adoption Suggests Sellers Are Willing to Test AI Shipping

SHIP AI has been available to SHIP.com users since August 11, 2026. The company says that during the first week of beta availability, more than 30% of orders were purchased through SHIP AI.

This figure does not necessarily mean that 30% of all SHIP.com customers have adopted the technology, nor does it demonstrate long-term adoption. However, it provides an early indication that merchants are willing to experiment with AI-driven shipping workflows when those tools are integrated directly into the software they already use.

SHIP is offering the complete AI experience free to users for at least 30 days during the launch period.

SHIP MCP Brings Shipping Capabilities Directly to AI Agents

The second product may ultimately have even larger implications for agentic commerce. SHIP MCP connects SHIP.com's shipping infrastructure to AI applications through Model Context Protocol. MCP is an emerging standard that allows AI systems to connect with external tools, software and data sources.

SHIP.com says its implementation exposes more than 35 shipping capabilities that developers can integrate into AI applications. These capabilities include rating shipments, creating labels, tracking packages, processing order information and managing shipping workflows.

Rather than forcing users to leave an AI environment and manually open separate shipping software, these functions can potentially operate directly inside the AI application.

Claude Users Can Access SHIP.com Shipping Functions

SHIP MCP is available through Claude Desktop CLI and can also be found by searching for SHIP.com within Claude's connector directory. Developers can additionally access the technology directly through SHIP.com when building their own AI applications.

SHIP.com says some early customers have already embedded its capabilities into their own AI applications, enabling orders to be rated, labeled and tracked through those systems. DiSorbo described these integrations as early steps toward fully autonomous agentic commerce.

The distinction matters. SHIP AI primarily focuses on making existing merchant shipping operations more efficient, while SHIP MCP could make shipping itself a machine-accessible service that autonomous AI agents can call.

Agentic Commerce Moves Beyond Checkout

This development reflects a broader shift across e-commerce. Many of the highest-profile agentic-commerce initiatives have concentrated on the early stages of the customer journey. AI agents can increasingly discover products, compare alternatives, recommend purchases and initiate payments. Companies including Stripe, Alipay and major AI providers are already building infrastructure around these interactions.

But purchasing a physical product creates another requirement: the item still needs to leave a warehouse and reach the customer. A genuinely autonomous commerce system eventually needs access to inventory, fulfillment systems, shipping rates, carrier networks, delivery estimates, labels, tracking information, and returns processes.

SHIP.com is attempting to make part of that logistics infrastructure directly accessible to agents. The emerging agentic-commerce stack could therefore begin to resemble Discovery → Decision → Payment → Fulfillment → Delivery, rather than stopping once the transaction is authorized.

The Logistics Layer Could Become Machine-Readable

Agentic commerce also changes the way logistics technology needs to function. Most shipping platforms were originally designed for humans. A user logs into a dashboard, reviews orders, chooses a carrier, generates a label, and manages exceptions through a graphical interface.

AI agents require something different. They need structured, programmatic access to shipping capabilities so they can evaluate different options and perform actions automatically. SHIP MCP represents one approach to solving that problem. Rather than requiring an agent to navigate a human-designed web interface, the system exposes specific shipping actions through standardized tools.

That could eventually allow an AI agent to determine that a particular order needs expedited delivery, one carrier offers a better rate, an address needs correcting, or an alternative service would meet the customer's requested delivery date. The agent could then act on that information within predefined limits.

What This Could Mean for E-Commerce Sellers

For merchants, the immediate benefit is operational efficiency. Shipping teams spend a lot of time on repetitive tasks that follow predictable rules. AI systems are particularly well suited to analyzing those workflows and preparing recommended actions.

But the longer-term implications extend further. As agentic commerce develops, merchants may increasingly operate in environments where software agents communicate directly with logistics platforms.

Instead of a human seller manually selecting a shipping method, an AI system could optimize thousands of shipments based on cost, speed, service level, and delivery probability. Smaller merchants could access capabilities that previously required dedicated logistics teams, while larger businesses could use agents to manage significant order volumes and let human employees focus on exceptions and strategic decisions.

AI-Driven Shipping Still Introduces Risk

Autonomous fulfillment also introduces important limitations. SHIP.com's own terms explicitly warn that AI-generated outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete or outdated and may not always reflect current carrier rules or rates.

Users are therefore responsible for reviewing and approving AI-generated outputs, including shipping labels, addresses, rate selections and customs or regulatory classifications. That is particularly important in cross-border commerce. Incorrect customs information, classifications or addresses can result in delays, additional costs or regulatory problems.

SHIP.com's terms also address automated clients such as AI assistants and autonomous agents. Actions carried out by an authorized automated client can be treated as actions taken by the user. As businesses give agents greater authority, questions of accountability will consequently become increasingly important.

Shipping Platforms Could Become Infrastructure for AI Commerce

The most important aspect of SHIP.com's announcement may not be automated label creation itself. It is the idea that AI systems can call logistics capabilities directly. That turns a shipping platform from a traditional software interface into infrastructure that autonomous commerce applications can use.

The same transformation is already occurring elsewhere in e-commerce. Payment companies are building agent-compatible payment mechanisms. Marketplaces and retailers are exposing product information to AI systems. AI platforms are creating tools that allow consumers to discover and purchase products without leaving a conversational interface. Shipping represents another piece of that puzzle.

The Next Phase of Agentic Commerce Reaches the Warehouse

Agentic commerce has often been presented primarily as a change to the shopping experience. Consumers tell an AI assistant what they want, and the assistant searches for the best option. But commerce does not end when the shopper presses, or no longer presses, the checkout button. Orders still need to be processed, packed, shipped, tracked, and delivered.

SHIP.com's new tools show how AI agents are beginning to move into that operational layer. SHIP AI focuses on automating the work merchants currently do inside shipping software. SHIP MCP goes one step further by allowing external AI applications to interact directly with shipping capabilities.

If this model expands, logistics platforms could increasingly become invisible infrastructure behind AI-driven commerce. The customer may interact with an AI assistant, the merchant may approve only exceptions, and software agents could manage much of what happens between the purchase and the doorstep.

For e-commerce, that would mark an important evolution in agentic commerce: from automating the transaction to automating its fulfillment as well.

The post SHIP.com Brings Agentic Commerce Into E-Commerce Fulfillment With New AI Shipping Tools appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Amazon has officially brought its Prime Air drone delivery service to UK customers, marking the first time the company has expanded its drone-based last-mile network outside the United States.

The service is operating from Amazon’s 465,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Darlington, England, where eligible customers within a roughly 7.5-mile (12 km) radius can have selected products delivered by autonomous MK30 drones.

Amazon says orders can arrive in 60 minutes or less, with some deliveries potentially completed in around 30 minutes. Millions of products are eligible provided they meet the drone’s size and weight restrictions. The launch is a major milestone for Amazon’s long-running Prime Air project and comes as the company also dramatically accelerates the service in the United States.

Amazon now plans to make Prime Air available across nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of 2026, transforming what was once a limited experimental program into a potentially significant component of its last-mile network.

Darlington becomes Amazon’s first Prime Air location outside the US

Amazon first announced plans to bring Prime Air to the UK in 2023. Darlington was subsequently selected as the company's first British location, with the fulfillment center confirmed as the proposed base in January 2025.

Drone flights began from the site in early 2026, and Amazon now confirms it is delivering parcels to customers from Darlington. According to Amazon, Darlington is the first Prime Air site anywhere outside the United States. The development therefore represents more than another regional delivery experiment.

It is the first international expansion of Amazon's drone logistics model. John Boumphrey, Amazon UK Country Manager, said the launch demonstrates how the company continues to develop new ways to make deliveries faster and more convenient.

Amazon's wider strategy increasingly revolves around shortening the physical distance between inventory and consumers. Prime Air provides an additional option at the extreme end of that strategy: moving lightweight orders directly from a fulfillment center to a customer's property by air.

How Amazon Prime Air works in the UK

Prime Air deliveries in Darlington use Amazon's latest MK30 drone. The aircraft stands about five feet tall, has a wingspan of about five and a half feet, and can carry packages weighing up to five pounds, or about 2.2 kg.

To qualify, a product must also be small enough to fit inside Prime Air's specially designed packaging, roughly the size of a large shoebox. Eligible customers can select drone delivery during the normal Amazon checkout process. Amazon then uses satellite imagery, mapping technology, and AI to identify suitable delivery areas around the customer's property.

Customers currently need access to an appropriate outdoor area such as a: garden, yard, or driveway.

The customer selects the proposed delivery zone digitally without requiring a physical property inspection beforehand. Once the order reaches the Darlington facility, Amazon's existing fulfillment robotics help move the product through the warehouse before it is packed for Prime Air.

An employee then performs a pre-flight inspection, installs a charged battery and loads the package onto the drone. The aircraft subsequently completes most of the delivery autonomously.

The MK30 is designed for autonomous last-mile delivery

The MK30 represents Amazon's latest generation of delivery drone. It uses onboard perception, navigation and detect-and-avoid technology to identify aircraft, obstacles, people and other hazards while flying.

Amazon says the system allows the drone to make safety decisions independently during a mission. The drones operate using Beyond Visual Line of Sight technology, or BVLOS.

This is particularly important because large-scale drone delivery would not be practical if an operator had to maintain direct visual contact with every aircraft throughout the entire route.

The Darlington operational model envisages drones traveling from Amazon's MME1 fulfillment center toward qualifying customers while generally remaining below 400 feet above ground level. Flight planning also accounts for designated no-fly areas and outdoor concentrations of people.

The UK rollout remains closely connected to CAA trials

Although customers are already receiving packages, Prime Air's UK expansion remains closely linked to the development of Britain's regulatory framework for commercial drones.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority has selected Amazon Prime Air as one of six projects participating in trials designed to develop safe Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations.

The regulator is gathering data on areas including: detect-and-avoid capabilities, electronic visibility, interaction with other aircraft, air traffic control integration, and safe operation in shared airspace. This distinction is important.

Prime Air is already delivering parcels to real customers, but the regulatory structure that would allow these operations to be scaled routinely across Britain is still evolving.

The CAA's longer-term objective is to enable routine BVLOS drone operations in UK airspace, with its roadmap targeting broader implementation from 2027.

Amazon has received approval to operate its drones

Amazon says the MK30 has received Civil Aviation Authority approval to conduct its current operations in Darlington. The wider program nevertheless operates within a tightly controlled aviation environment.

CAA documentation shows that Amazon has been working through the regulator's sandbox process to test how unmanned aircraft can eventually transition from segregated or specially managed airspace into normal shared airspace.

Amazon's proposed operational area also includes mechanisms allowing emergency aircraft to take priority. Prime Air operations are expected to stop when emergency-service aviation, such as police helicopters or helicopter emergency medical services, requires access to the relevant airspace.

This illustrates one of the central obstacles facing drone delivery at scale. The aircraft themselves may already be technically capable of autonomous operations. The harder problem is safely integrating potentially thousands of delivery drones into airspace already used by helicopters, aircraft, emergency services and other drones.

Amazon is rapidly scaling Prime Air in the United States

The UK launch comes alongside Amazon's most aggressive Prime Air expansion to date.

The company says it intends to serve nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026, compared with a relatively small number of operating locations previously.

Prime Air is already operating around cities including:

Phoenix,
Tampa,
Kansas City,
Omaha,
Baton Rouge,
Detroit,
Houston,
San Antonio,
Dallas,
and Waco.

Amazon also plans to launch operations around Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta and Boise. Each Prime Air location in the US can serve about 175 square miles, according to the company.

Reuters reported that Amazon expects the service to reach approximately 500 US locations by the end of the year, a major increase from the roughly 11 operational sites existing when the latest expansion was announced. This scale-up makes the Darlington operation particularly relevant.

Prime Air is no longer simply a technological demonstration. Amazon is attempting to turn drone delivery into a repeatable logistics model.

Hundreds of thousands of drone deliveries in 2026

Amazon says Prime Air has already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages during 2026, with individual sites now completing thousands of deliveries each day. That marks a significant shift from the program's early years.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos first publicly demonstrated the Prime Air concept in 2013. For much of the following decade, commercial drone delivery remained limited by aircraft technology, aviation regulation, operational complexity and local concerns. The latest expansion suggests Amazon believes several of those barriers are beginning to fall.

Why drone delivery matters for e-commerce

The core advantage of drone delivery is speed. Conventional last-mile logistics requires packages to be consolidated into vans, driven along delivery routes and delivered sequentially to dozens or hundreds of addresses.

A drone can potentially bypass much of that route structure. Once an order is processed, the aircraft can travel directly from the fulfillment facility to the customer. For lightweight, urgent items, the resulting delivery time can approach that of a trip to a local store.

That makes drone delivery particularly relevant for products such as: small electronics, household essentials, beauty products, office supplies, health-related items, and other lightweight goods.

Amazon says millions of products are already potentially eligible for Prime Air where the service operates.

Prime Air joins Amazon's wider ultrafast delivery strategy

Drone delivery is only one element of Amazon's increasingly complex last-mile infrastructure. In the UK, Amazon has also introduced Amazon Now, an ultra-fast service offering groceries and household essentials in approximately 30 minutes or less in parts of London.

The company plans to expand Amazon Now into Manchester and Birmingham. The two services solve slightly different logistics problems. Amazon Now relies on inventory positioned in smaller urban fulfillment locations close to consumers. Prime Air instead provides extremely fast transportation for lightweight goods from larger facilities within a defined flight radius.

Amazon could therefore increasingly combine multiple fulfillment models according to: product size, customer location, urgency,
inventory availability, and delivery economics.

The ultimate objective is not necessarily to replace vans with drones. Instead, Amazon is creating additional delivery layers that can handle different types of orders.

Drone delivery still faces practical limitations

Despite its technological appeal, Prime Air has significant limitations. The UK service currently requires customers to live within approximately 12 km of the Darlington facility. Properties must have appropriate outdoor delivery areas. Products must meet strict size and weight limits. Weather conditions can also affect drone operations.

This means Prime Air cannot currently replace conventional parcel delivery for most Amazon orders. Large electronics, furniture, bulk groceries and many other products will continue to require vans or other established transport networks. Amazon's drones are instead likely to complement existing last-mile infrastructure.

Noise, privacy and safety remain concerns

Community acceptance will also determine how quickly drone delivery can scale. Drone operations have faced criticism in some US communities over issues including noise, privacy and safety.

Reuters reported that residents near some planned Prime Air sites have compared the sound of operating drones to equipment such as leaf blowers. Amazon says the latest MK30 aircraft has been specifically designed to reduce noise.

Amazon describes the MK30 as significantly quieter than earlier designs and says its noise level is comparable with conventional delivery activity. But scaling from thousands to potentially millions of flights would inevitably create a different operating environment.

Regulators and local authorities will therefore need to determine acceptable noise, safety and flight-frequency limits as drone delivery becomes more common.

Drone delivery could change last-mile economics

The long-term business case will depend on whether drones can reduce the cost of selected deliveries. Last-mile delivery remains one of the most expensive parts of the e-commerce supply chain. Traditional delivery networks require: drivers, vehicles, fuel or electricity, route planning, local depots, and significant labor.

Autonomous drones potentially reduce some of those costs for lightweight packages. However, they introduce different expenses, including aircraft acquisition, maintenance, batteries, aviation compliance, flight infrastructure and specialist staff.

The most likely future is therefore not a completely drone-based delivery network. Instead, fulfillment platforms may increasingly use algorithms to determine the most efficient delivery method for each individual order. A parcel could be assigned to a van, bike courier, locker, autonomous vehicle or drone depending on its characteristics.

Darlington could become a blueprint for European expansion

Amazon has not yet announced a broad network of Prime Air sites across Europe. Nevertheless, Darlington represents an important test case. If Amazon can demonstrate reliable, safe, and economically viable operations in the UK, the model could potentially be replicated around other fulfillment centers.

Europe's regulatory environment, dense population centers and complex airspace could make expansion more difficult than in some US suburban markets. But the strategic opportunity is substantial.

Amazon already operates an extensive network of fulfillment centers across Europe. Adding drone infrastructure to selected facilities could create ultra-fast delivery zones around those locations without requiring an entirely separate logistics network.

The UK is actively preparing for wider commercial drone operations

The British government is also investing in the wider development of commercial drones. In May 2026, the government announced £46.5 million in support to accelerate drone and advanced-air-mobility regulation, infrastructure, and security systems.

The program includes measures designed to enable commercial drone delivery while also improving systems for identifying unauthorized aircraft. The government has explicitly cited Amazon's Darlington operations when discussing the UK's transition toward more routine commercial drone use. This makes Prime Air part of a broader transformation in British aviation rather than an isolated Amazon experiment.

The last mile is becoming increasingly autonomous

Amazon's UK Prime Air launch highlights a wider trend across logistics. Warehouses are already heavily automated. Robots move inventory through fulfillment centers. Artificial intelligence predicts demand and optimizes inventory positioning. Autonomous systems increasingly manage sorting and packaging. Drone delivery extends automation beyond the warehouse doors. The potential future e-commerce journey therefore becomes increasingly automated from beginning to end:

Order placed → inventory selected → robotic fulfilment → automated sorting → autonomous transportation → customer delivery

Human workers remain central to many parts of that system, but the number of steps that can be performed autonomously continues to increase.

Prime Air enters a new phase

Amazon has spent more than a decade trying to turn drone delivery from a futuristic concept into operational infrastructure. The Darlington launch marks an important milestone in that effort. For the first time, customers outside the United States are receiving real Amazon orders through Prime Air.

At the same time, the company is preparing to scale the service across hundreds of American communities. Substantial barriers remain, including regulation, weather, noise, property suitability, package size, and public acceptance. But Prime Air is moving beyond the experimental phase.

The bigger question is no longer simply whether Amazon can deliver packages by drone. It is whether drone delivery can become reliable, affordable, and scalable enough to earn a permanent place alongside vans, lockers, same-day couriers, and traditional parcel networks. Darlington will provide one of the first major tests of that question outside the United States.

The post Amazon Prime Air Launches Drone Deliveries in the UK as Global Expansion Accelerates appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

HELMOND, 26 August 2026 – Maxi-Cosi is taking the next step in how it connects with parents across Europe. On Thursday evening, 27 August, the brand will broadcast Parenthood Unfiltered, an interactive live parenting show broadcast across Maxi-Cosi’s own platforms in seven European countries, as well as via social channels.

To the best of our knowledge, this makes Maxi-Cosi one of the first brands in the European baby and juvenile products category to broadcast an interactive livestream at this scale across its own D2C platforms and social channels. The broadcast is part of a pilot series developed by Maxi-Cosi together with live commerce agency YSS – Your Shopping Stream.

Following an initial closed pilot earlier this summer, the second edition will be open to everyone and distributed more widely. At this stage, the focus is on testing and learning – including how the format can drive reach, engagement and interaction, and what role live commerce can play within the customer journey.

Entertainment, interaction and commerce

With Parenthood Unfiltered, Maxi-Cosi has created a ‘parentainment’ format that brings together honest conversations about parenthood, expert insights, entertainment and product integration. During Back to Reality, parents and experts discuss the transition from the summer holidays back to everyday family life.

Viewers can participate live through questions, polls, games and giveaways. Maxi-Cosi products are also integrated into the show, while viewers will receive access to an exclusive discount code during the broadcast. The result is an interactive live experience that brings together elements of television, social media and e-commerce.

From a Dutch case to European scale

For YSS, the collaboration with Maxi-Cosi follows an interactive livestream with Dutch celebrity chef Herman den Blijker earlier this year. With Maxi-Cosi, YSS is now scaling its live commerce model across seven European markets at once.

“The next evolution of live commerce lies, in my view, precisely in this scalability,” says Suzanne Pronk, founder of YSS. “It’s not about simply going live on social media, but about building formats where content, interaction and commerce come together.

Maxi-Cosi shows how one central production can reach audiences across multiple European markets, with owned platforms and social channels reinforcing each other.” The live production is delivered in collaboration with FabriQ Media Group, with the interactive technology powered by Livery Video.

The post Maxi-Cosi brings interactive live commerce to seven European markets appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Stripe believes one of e-commerce's most familiar elements could eventually become obsolete. Will Gaybrick, Stripe’s President of Product and Business, has argued that the traditional checkout page could disappear as artificial intelligence, digital wallets, and agentic commerce increasingly collapse product discovery and payment into a single transaction.

Speaking on the A16z Show, Gaybrick said the checkout page could become unnecessary not only for AI agents, but eventually for human shoppers as well. His argument is straightforward: when payment credentials, identity and authorization are already securely available through tools such as Stripe Link, consumers should increasingly be able to purchase directly from the product or discovery interface rather than navigating several checkout screens.

The prediction offers a glimpse of how Stripe expects online commerce to change as AI agents become increasingly capable of finding products, evaluating options, and completing purchases on behalf of consumers.

From checkout page to instant transaction

The traditional e-commerce journey is familiar:

A customer discovers a product, visits a merchant website, adds it to a cart, proceeds to checkout, enters delivery information, chooses a payment method and confirms the order. Agentic commerce challenges almost every step of that model.

Stripe defines agentic commerce as online shopping in which AI agents can find, compare, and potentially purchase products on users' behalf. The shopper provides an objective — for example, finding a particular product under a certain price with delivery before a specified date — and the agent handles much of the searching and decision-making.

In this environment, the shopper may never need to navigate a conventional checkout page. Instead, product discovery, decision-making, authorization and payment could take place inside an AI assistant, search environment or other digital interface. Stripe explicitly notes that customers using an AI agent may not need to see a checkout page at all.

Why Stripe thinks checkout could disappear

Checkout disappearing doesn't mean the underlying processes vanish. Merchants would still need to calculate taxes, confirm inventory, determine shipping costs, process payments, prevent fraud, manage orders, and handle fulfillment. The difference is that those processes increasingly happen behind the interface.

Instead of presenting each step to a human shopper, commerce infrastructure could communicate directly with an AI agent. Gaybrick has pointed to systems such as Stripe Link and Shopify's Shop Pay as early examples of how stored payment credentials and accelerated checkout can already reduce the number of steps required to purchase online.

Agentic commerce takes that concept considerably further. Rather than simply speeding up a checkout page, AI could make the page unnecessary.

Stripe is already building infrastructure for agentic commerce

Stripe's prediction is closely connected to products the company has been developing over the past year. At Stripe Sessions 2026, the company expanded its Agentic Commerce Suite and announced additional partnerships with companies including Meta and Google. Stripe also introduced new ways for AI agents to pay using Link's agent wallet.

Stripe describes its Agentic Commerce Suite as infrastructure that connects businesses, agents, and buyers. Merchants can make their products available to AI agents while maintaining control over pricing, descriptions, fulfillment and the customer relationship. AI applications can then embed checkout directly inside their own interfaces.

This model represents a fundamental shift in the merchant website's role. Instead of every purchase requiring consumers to reach a retailer's checkout interface, transactions could increasingly be completed wherever the customer discovers the product.

AI agents need their own payment infrastructure

Giving an AI agent purchasing authority creates problems that conventional payment systems were never designed to solve.

An agent may need to:

• Identify the correct product;
• Confirm availability;
• Compare shipping options;
• Understand return policies;
• Operate within a spending limit;
• Prove that the consumer authorized the transaction;
• and complete payment without gaining unrestricted access to the customer's financial credentials.

Stripe has been developing infrastructure specifically for these scenarios.

Its Link wallet for agents can issue a one-time-use card or Shared Payment Token backed by payment methods already stored within Link. According to Stripe, the agent itself does not receive the user's underlying payment credentials. This allows agents to transact while preserving spending controls and payment security.

Stripe has also introduced Issuing for agents and other mechanisms designed to give autonomous software controlled purchasing power.

Machine Payments Protocol removes checkout entirely

The transformation becomes even clearer when commerce takes place between machines rather than between a human and a retailer. In March 2026, Stripe and Tempo introduced the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard that lets AI agents transact directly with businesses and other services.

Traditional online payment flows assume that a human will visit a website, select a product, and complete a checkout form. MPP instead allows software agents to interact programmatically with paid services. Stripe says conventional financial infrastructure was built primarily for humans, meaning AI agents often struggle with tasks such as navigating pricing pages, selecting subscription tiers, creating accounts or entering payment details.

Machine-readable payment protocols are designed to remove those obstacles. If adoption grows, some forms of commerce may therefore never generate a visible checkout interface at all.

E-commerce UX could become commerce infrastructure

The implications for retailers could be substantial. For years, merchants have invested heavily in optimizing their checkout pages.

Businesses test:

• Button positioning
• Page layouts
• Payment methods
• Form length
• Guest checkout
• Upselling
• Cart recovery
• Conversion rates.

Agentic commerce could shift part of that optimization away from visible user interfaces and toward APIs, structured data, and machine-readable commercial rules. Stripe advises businesses preparing for agentic commerce to expose structured product information and build checkout flows that can function without a human directly interacting with them.

That means an AI agent needs reliable access to information including:

• Product availability
• Pricing
• Shipping times
• Returns policies
• Taxes
• Merchant identity
• Fulfillment guarantees.

In other words, the checkout experience increasingly becomes an infrastructure problem rather than purely a web-design problem.

Product discovery and checkout could merge

One of the biggest changes could be eliminating the boundary between discovering something and buying it. Today, discovery often happens outside the retailer's website.

Consumers may discover products through:

• Google
• Social media
• Marketplaces
• Influencers
• Comparison services
• Increasingly, AI assistants.

Historically, shoppers had to leave that environment and visit a merchant's checkout. Agentic commerce lets the transaction stay inside the discovery layer.

Stripe has already worked with OpenAI on the Agentic Commerce Protocol, designed to allow businesses to sell through AI interfaces while maintaining control over their transactions. Stripe said the protocol's first real-world implementation supported Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT.

The company is also working with AI and technology platforms including Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic, Perplexity, Vercel and others as it develops infrastructure for agent-driven commerce.

Merchants risk becoming invisible to AI agents

The change could also create a new form of competitive pressure. Traditional SEO focuses on ensuring that search engines can discover and understand a merchant. Agentic commerce introduces another audience: machines that are actively choosing which merchant should receive a transaction.

Stripe argues that businesses need structured product catalogs, clean APIs, transparent policies and real-time availability if they want AI agents to transact with them successfully. A retailer that is difficult for an AI agent to understand could theoretically become less competitive even if its consumer-facing website remains excellent.

The industry may therefore see the emergence of what could effectively become agent optimization alongside traditional SEO and conversion-rate optimization.

Trust remains the biggest challenge

Despite rapid technological development, agentic commerce still faces substantial barriers. Consumers must trust AI systems enough to allow them to spend money. Businesses must also distinguish legitimate AI agents from malicious automated systems.

Traditional fraud tools rely heavily on signals associated with human behavior, devices and payment credentials. Agent-initiated transactions can change those patterns. Stripe has acknowledged that agentic commerce challenges many assumptions built into existing permission and fraud systems.

Its Shared Payment Tokens, Link agent wallet and Stripe Radar infrastructure are designed partly to address this problem by attaching authorization and risk information to agent transactions. Human approval is also likely to remain important for many purchases, particularly expensive or sensitive transactions.

Agentic commerce therefore does not necessarily imply giving autonomous software unlimited purchasing authority. Instead, the emerging model relies on controlled delegation.

The checkout page may disappear, but checkout will not

Stripe's prediction should therefore be understood carefully. Commerce will still require authorization, payment processing, taxes, fraud prevention, shipping and fulfillment. What could disappear is the visible page where those processes traditionally come together.

For consumers, that could mean fewer forms, fewer redirects, and fewer abandoned carts. For merchants, however, it could require substantial behind-the-scenes changes. Retailers may increasingly need commerce systems that can communicate directly with AI agents while preserving pricing control, customer data, brand identity, payment security and fulfillment rules.

Stripe is betting that this transition will happen quickly. The company said during Stripe Sessions 2026 that it expects AI agents eventually to account for a significant share of online transactions and is positioning its payments infrastructure accordingly.

E-commerce is moving beyond the website

The broader significance of Gaybrick's comments is not simply that checkout pages may become shorter or more convenient.

They suggest that the website itself could gradually lose its position as the central interface of digital commerce.

In an agentic-commerce environment, consumers may increasingly interact with AI assistants rather than individual retailer websites. Those agents could search across merchants, evaluate products, negotiate constraints and complete transactions without reproducing the traditional browsing journey.

The merchant remains responsible for the product, pricing, payment and fulfillment. But the interface connecting the merchant to the consumer may belong to someone else. That makes Stripe's prediction about the death of the checkout page part of a much larger transformation. The next era of e-commerce may not be defined by better checkout pages. It may be defined by commerce that no longer needs them.

The post Stripe says traditional checkout pages could disappear in the Agentic Commerce Era appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce business continued to outpace its traditional retail operations in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, with online sales increasing 24% year over year as the retailer leaned further into store-based fulfilment, marketplace expansion and faster delivery.

The performance reinforces Walmart’s transformation from a predominantly store-led retailer into a broader omnichannel commerce platform. While comparable U.S. sales increased at a much more modest pace during the quarter, digital channels remained one of the strongest areas of the business.

According to Walmart’s Q2 FY27 results, global e-commerce sales increased 23%, while Walmart U.S. e-commerce grew 24%. Online sales now account for approximately 23% of Walmart U.S. sales, illustrating how central digital commerce has become to the company’s overall retail model.

Fast delivery becomes central to Walmart’s e-commerce strategy

One of the key drivers of Walmart’s e-commerce growth is its growing use of physical stores as fulfillment hubs. Walmart said store-fulfilled delivery increased 40% during the quarter. Rather than depending exclusively on large regional fulfillment centers, the company is increasingly using inventory already located in its thousands of stores to fulfill online orders closer to the end customer.

The approach gives Walmart an important structural advantage in last-mile delivery. Stores historically designed primarily for in-person shopping can increasingly perform multiple roles simultaneously: retail location, pickup point, fulfillment node, and local delivery hub.

This distributed model can shorten the distance between inventory and consumers, allowing Walmart to expand same-day and rapid delivery services while making greater use of an existing physical network. Walmart described strong demand for convenient and fast delivery as one of the principal drivers of its global digital growth during the quarter.

Walmart's physical stores become e-commerce infrastructure

The growing importance of store fulfillment reflects a broader shift across retail logistics. Traditionally, large e-commerce operations concentrated inventory inside dedicated warehouses positioned strategically around a country or region. Walmart is increasingly combining this model with a vast network of stores already located close to population centers.

This creates a distributed fulfillment network. For customers, the visible result is faster delivery. Behind the scenes, however, the model requires much deeper integration between inventory management, order orchestration, store operations and last-mile logistics. Walmart needs to determine in real time whether an online order should be fulfilled from a store, distribution center or another part of its network while simultaneously preserving enough inventory for customers shopping physically.

Successfully coordinating these channels is becoming one of the defining logistical challenges of large-scale omnichannel retail.

Marketplace sales climb more than 50%

Walmart is also seeing strong momentum from its third-party marketplace. The company reported that Walmart U.S. marketplace net sales increased by more than 50% during Q2 FY27. Nearly half of Walmart's marketplace business globally now flows through the company's fulfillment services.

That combination is strategically important. A marketplace lets Walmart expand its product assortment without owning all the inventory being sold. Fulfillment services, meanwhile, enable the company to generate additional revenue by storing, processing and delivering products on behalf of third-party merchants.

The model increasingly resembles the ecosystem strategy that has helped Amazon expand beyond direct retail. Rather than generating revenue only from the final product sale, a marketplace operator can earn revenue across several layers of the transaction, including seller commissions, fulfillment, advertising and membership services.

E-commerce is becoming more important to Walmart's business model

Walmart's digital growth is increasingly connected to several of the company's other strategic priorities. Its Q2 results showed global advertising revenue increasing 38%, while Walmart Connect in the United States grew 43% excluding Vizio. The company has been expanding advertising alongside marketplace, membership and fulfillment services as it seeks to generate more revenue from each customer and merchant interaction.

These businesses are particularly important because many of them can carry higher margins than traditional retail. The result is a commerce ecosystem in which a marketplace transaction can potentially generate revenue from the seller, fulfillment, advertising, and the customer relationship, in addition to the underlying retail transaction.

Walmart highlighted marketplace, fulfillment services, membership, advertising, and other commerce solutions as businesses strengthening the company's economics.

Digital growth stands out amid slower comparable sales

The e-commerce performance was particularly notable because Walmart's broader U.S. retail growth was considerably slower. U.S. comparable sales excluding fuel increased 2.6% during the quarter. Reuters reported that this represented Walmart's slowest comparable-sales growth in approximately six years and fell below market expectations.

Walmart nevertheless raised its full-year sales and profit outlook. The contrasting results underline a key shift within the company: digital commerce is expanding much faster than the traditional store business.

Walmart U.S. e-commerce grew 24%, compared with 2.6% comparable sales growth, while Sam's Club U.S. e-commerce sales increased 26%. Walmart International e-commerce increased another 19%.

The divergence suggests that consumers are not necessarily abandoning Walmart's physical infrastructure. Instead, they are increasingly accessing the same inventory through digital channels.

Walmart continues closing the e-commerce gap with Amazon

Amazon remains the dominant e-commerce operator in the United States, but Walmart possesses an asset that is difficult for digital-native competitors to replicate: an enormous network of stores already positioned close to consumers. Walmart has increasingly treated those locations as logistics infrastructure.

That strategy changes the competitive equation around delivery. Instead of trying to reproduce Amazon's fulfillment network exactly, Walmart can combine dedicated e-commerce facilities with thousands of existing retail locations that can support pickup and local delivery.

The company is therefore competing not only through product pricing and assortment but increasingly through fulfillment speed and convenience. Its continued investment in automation, digital platforms and fulfillment technology is designed to make that network more productive while reducing the cost of serving increasingly demanding online customers.

The economics of rapid delivery remain the key challenge

Fast delivery can improve customer loyalty and conversion, but it also creates significant cost pressures. Picking individual orders from stores, coordinating delivery drivers, and transporting smaller baskets directly to homes can become expensive if order density is insufficient.

Scale is therefore crucial. The more orders Walmart can consolidate within the same geographic area, the easier it becomes to improve route density and spread delivery costs across more transactions. Marketplace growth can help by bringing more products and order volume into Walmart's logistics ecosystem.

Fulfillment services provide another layer of scale by encouraging marketplace sellers to place inventory within Walmart's distribution network. The objective is ultimately not simply to grow online sales, but to make those transactions increasingly profitable.

Walmart noted that its international operating-income growth benefited from improving e-commerce economics, particularly in China, India and Canada, suggesting that digital profitability remains a major focus across the group.

Omnichannel retail increasingly becomes a logistics competition

Walmart's results also illustrate a broader shift within global e-commerce. Competition between major retailers is increasingly determined by logistics capabilities rather than simply website traffic, product selection or pricing.

Consumers now expect accurate inventory visibility, multiple fulfillment options, convenient returns and increasingly rapid delivery. Meeting those expectations requires retailers to connect stores, warehouses, marketplaces and delivery networks into a single fulfillment system.

For retailers with large physical networks, this creates an opportunity. Stores can become strategic assets rather than liabilities in the age of e-commerce, provided their inventory and operations are integrated effectively with digital ordering systems. Walmart's 24% U.S. e-commerce growth suggests that this strategy is gaining momentum.

Walmart is building a broader commerce ecosystem

The longer-term significance of Walmart's digital growth extends beyond online retail sales. The company increasingly resembles a commerce infrastructure provider connecting consumers, merchants, advertisers and logistics services.

Its marketplace provides access to additional assortment. Walmart Fulfillment Services allows merchants to outsource logistics. Walmart Connect monetizes shopper traffic through advertising. Membership programs increase customer loyalty, while its store network provides local fulfillment capacity.

Together, these businesses create an increasingly interconnected commercial ecosystem. Amazon pioneered a similar model in which retail, marketplace services, fulfillment, advertising, and subscriptions reinforce each other. Walmart's advantage is that it can combine those digital capabilities with one of the world's largest physical retail networks.

What Walmart's 24% e-commerce growth means for retailers

Walmart's latest results reinforce one of the most important trends shaping modern retail: the distinction between physical commerce and e-commerce continues to disappear. The company's stores are increasingly becoming components of its digital fulfillment infrastructure, while its online marketplace feeds additional volume into logistics, advertising and fulfillment businesses.

For other retailers, the lesson may be less about matching Walmart's scale than about integrating channels more effectively. Inventory visibility, flexible fulfillment and delivery speed are becoming increasingly important competitive factors.

Walmart's Q2 FY27 results suggest that retailers that can turn physical locations into distributed e-commerce infrastructure may have a significant advantage as consumers increasingly prioritize convenience and faster delivery. For Walmart, the 24% increase in U.S. e-commerce sales is therefore more than another strong digital quarter.

It is further evidence that logistics and fulfillment are becoming central to the company's strategy for competing in the next phase of global e-commerce.

The post Walmart U.S. E-Commerce Sales Jump 24% as Fast Delivery Drives Growth appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

By DELIVER - DELIVER America, the leading invitation-only event for retail and supply chain leaders, has officially kicked off the countdown to its 2026 event by unveiling its first wave of high profile industry speakers.

The announcement sets the stage for the highly anticipated gathering on October 7+8 at Caesars Forum, Las Vegas, giving confirmed and prospective attendees an early look at the world-class content program before the event's signature 1-to-1 matchmaking platform officially opens later this summer.

This year's agenda features senior decision makers from some of the world's most influential retail and commerce brands alongside leading voices from across logistics, supply chain and technology.

Key speakers announced include Todd Soller, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Patagonia; Kirsten Hochberg, Board Director, Yogi Tea; Laurent Cohen, SVP Operations at Rockstar Original; and Gopalendu Pal, Director of Operations, Target. Bringing retailer-led insight to the forefront, these leaders will address the most pressing challenges and opportunities shaping the future of commerce - from artificial intelligence, automation and decision velocity to tariffs, trade shifts and practical sustainability strategies.

Stéphane Tomczak, Founder and Chairman of DELIVER, commented: “DELIVER America exists to connect the industry’s most influential decision makers in a highly focused and efficient way. Our upcoming 1-to-1 matchmaking phase will allow attendees to curate their own tailored schedules, ensuring meaningful, pre-qualified connections that drive real commercial outcomes. Combined with the incredible speaker lineup, this is where partnerships are built and business gets done.”

While the full matchmaking platform will launch closer to the event, qualified retailers and brands are encouraged to secure their invitations early - places are strictly limited to 100, and once they're gone, they're gone. Early applicants will receive priority access to the meeting selection process the moment it goes live. DELIVER's curated, pre-arranged 1-to-1 format remains the event's core differentiator, ensuring every interaction onsite is targeted, valuable, and commercially focused. 

Taking place in an exclusive, fully hosted environment, DELIVER America will bring together senior level retail and supply chain decision makers, including C- and Director level leaders, alongside innovative solution suppliers. Attendance is strictly limited to ensure quality connections, high level networking and a premium experience for all participants.

As anticipation builds throughout the summer, further speaker announcements and interactive session highlights will be revealed.

About DELIVER
DELIVER is the leading global event platform connecting supply chain, logistics and commerce decision-makers through curated B2B matchmaking experiences. Renowned for its disruptive event model built on ROI-driven matchmaking and strategic content, DELIVER operates across Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East. A mission-led, 100% carbon and profit neutral company, DELIVER places sustainability at the core of its business model.

For more information on attending, exhibiting, or sponsoring, please visit https://www.deliver.events/AMERICA

The post DELIVER America Unveils Stellar 2026 Speaker Lineup as Countdown to Las Vegas Begins appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

By fulfilmentcrowd - International commerce creates an interesting conundrum for fulfilment providers. Customers want global reach, but logistics expertise remains inherently local. For a start, warehouses need to be positioned in the right markets, and carrier and delivery requirements differ by region. And, as brands grow, adding new warehouses and logistics providers can quickly lead to a fragmented supply chain.

One answer is to own more infrastructure. Another is to scale reach through partnerships. The latter sits at the heart of the business model of fulfilmentcrowd – a global fulfilment provider that injects its technology across a range of partner-owned sites worldwide. Importantly, this isn't a traditional outsourced model where independent partners are simply handed responsibility for fulfilment. 

Each Fulfilment Network Partner (FNP) operates within fulfilmentcrowd's established processes, technology and service standards, with performance and SLAs centrally managed and monitored by fulfilmentcrowd’s dedicated Network Team.

It means the physical operation can benefit from local expertise, while customers retain the consistency and control of a single fulfilment model.

Using this controlled network of FNPs, fulfilmentcrowd allows its customers to rapidly expand into new regions and put products wherever demand takes them. One of these FNPs is GDB Logistics, the Netherlands-based logistics specialists that provide forwarding, transport, warehousing, fulfilment and supply chain solutions.

Building a network, not warehouses

The traditional route of expanding a fulfilment network is relatively linear: identify a market, find a site, invest in infrastructure, recruit a team, establish an operation. It works, but it can be expensive and slow. So, instead of building warehouses from scratch, fulfilmentcrowd deploys its in-house platform and operating model within existing infrastructure.

Crucially, joining the network means adopting fulfilmentcrowd's operating processes, rather than continuing to operate as a disconnected third-party provider. FNP teams work within the same framework, with agreed service levels and processes providing a consistent operational standard across the network.

The physical warehouse space may be operated by a local partner, but from the customer’s perspective, it forms part of the same connected fulfilment network. Global orders, inventory and performance remain visible through a single platform, allowing brands to expand internationally without assembling and managing a different technology stack for every market.

This also means expansion doesn't require brands to surrender visibility or control as their fulfilment footprint grows. The network may extend across different operators and countries, but the technology and oversight remain consistent. For growing retailers, it removes a lot of the operational headaches associated with global expansion.

The local knowledge behind international growth

Technology can connect different fulfilment centres, but it’s the local expertise that delivers on the logistical side. This is where fulfilmentcrowd’s FNPs become particularly valuable. A strong network partner already understands its local market: compliance, location, operational knowledge, relationships.

GDB Logistics is a great example of this. The family-owned European logistics provider has more than 85 years of industry experience and operates across many areas of the typical supply chain.

Through the partnership, GDB facilitates fulfilmentcrowd operations in Born (Netherlands) and Leipzig (Germany), helping brands put products closer to their customers throughout the EU. Where fulfilmentcrowd provides the technology and the customer base, GDB concentrates on the physical logistics operation.

Rather than attempting to duplicate one another’s expertise, the partnership is built around knowing what each organisation does best. For fulfilmentcrowd’s customers, the GDB partnership means quick access to strategically important European hubs, reducing delivery times and supporting more competitive cross-border trading.

For GDB, the collaboration provides opportunities with fulfilmentcrowd’s international customer base, allowing the business to extend its reach beyond its traditional operational footprint. “What stands out with GDB Logistics is how closely aligned we are as teams,” says Paul Taylor, fulfilmentcrowd’s Managing Director.

“There’s a shared mindset around performance and continuous improvement, which makes for a natural, effective partnership. It’s a genuinely collaborative working relationship, and that shines through in the service provided to customers on both sides.”

Consistency through a shared operating model

One of the biggest challenges in any multi-partner fulfilment network is ensuring consistency across different locations worldwide.

The fulfilmentcrowd and GDB relationship addresses this through a shared operating framework, underpinned by fulfilmentcrowd’s platform. Across all of its international locations, the fulfilmentcrowd platform provides real-time visibility of inventory, orders and performance – regardless of where fulfilment takes place.

Rather than operating as separate entities, both organisations work within a connected system that standardises processes while still allowing GDB to apply its local expertise in day-to-day warehouse and transport operations.

The technology provides visibility, but control extends beyond the platform itself. Processes, service levels and operational performance are continually managed to ensure the customer receives a consistent fulfilmentcrowd experience – regardless of which network location is handling an order.

This balance is important. Brands benefit from the efficiency and scale of a wider network, while still receiving the reliability and operational quality expected from an experienced local logistics provider.

It also reinforces a key principle of the fulfilmentcrowd model: partnerships aren't about outsourcing isolated functions, but about integrating trusted operators into a unified fulfilment ecosystem.

“fulfilmentcrowd handles the system, brings in customers and does the customer service side. With this setup, it allows us to focus fully on the logistics part,” adds Danny de Koning, Head of Warehousing at GDB Logistics.

Enabling faster, more flexible European growth

For eCommerce brands, the practical impact of this type of partnership is speed and flexibility.

Instead of investing heavily in new infrastructure or managing multiple third-party providers across different countries, brands can scale into European markets through a connected network that already has established operational capability. 

Put simply, brands grow across regions using the same tech they started with.

As demand shifts or grows in new regions, stock can be reallocated within the network without requiring a complete overhaul of fulfilment operations. This creates a more responsive approach to international expansion, where logistics can adapt alongside commercial growth.

In effect, the partnership allows brands to treat Europe less as a collection of separate fulfilment challenges, and more as a single, connected trading environment supported by local execution.

A practical route into European growth

As cross-border eCommerce continues to grow, the ability to enter new markets quickly and efficiently is becoming a key competitive advantage. fulfilmentcrowd and GDB’s partnership demonstrates how this can be achieved in practice. 

By combining established European logistics infrastructure with a connected fulfilment platform, brands can scale into new territories without the traditional barriers of fragmented operations and duplicated systems. For many retailers, this approach offers a more sustainable path to international growth: one that prioritises flexibility, local expertise and operational visibility over heavy upfront investment.

It’s this combination that makes the model particularly relevant for brands looking to expand across Europe in a controlled and scalable way. For a closer look at how the partnership works in practice, read the full story behind the fulfilmentcrowd and GDB Logistics collaboration.

The post Global scale, local expertise: The partnership-led business model that’s changing cross-border fulfilment appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Data has always been one of the most valuable assets available to an e-commerce business. Yet having more data does not necessarily mean understanding customers better — and it certainly does not guarantee higher revenue.

For Daniele Rutigliano, e-commerce expert, the real opportunity lies in turning the information companies already possess into concrete decisions. From identifying friction in the customer journey to improving retention and personalising marketing, data becomes valuable only when businesses know what question they are trying to answer.

As artificial intelligence makes increasingly sophisticated analysis accessible to companies of every size, Rutigliano believes the competitive divide will not simply be between businesses with more or less data. It will be between those capable of transforming it into action and those that continue merely collecting it.

Having data is not the same as being data-driven

CBM: Companies have access to unprecedented amounts of customer information today. Are e-commerce businesses actually making good use of it?

Daniele Rutigliano: There are essentially two very different situations.

On one side, you have companies — particularly small and midsize businesses — that still don't have a genuinely data-driven culture. Some may not even have a CRM system in place.

On the other side, there are businesses collecting enormous amounts of information but struggling because that data is distributed across different platforms, databases and servers.

So simply having data isn't enough. Companies need accurate information, properly integrated systems and, most importantly, the expertise required to interpret what the data is telling them.

Artificial intelligence is making that process considerably easier because it can accelerate analysis, identify correlations and even allow people to interrogate complex datasets using natural language. But AI cannot compensate for incomplete or poor-quality information.

"The goal shouldn't be to collect as much information as possible. It should be to transform the right data into better decisions."

Which e-commerce metrics actually matter?

CBM: With so many metrics available, which KPIs should online retailers really be paying attention to?

Daniele Rutigliano: Understanding customers has always been fundamental to marketing. The better you understand their needs and behaviour, the better positioned you are to encourage repeat purchases, generate referrals and create relevant campaigns.

There are many metrics an e-commerce company can monitor, but some of the most important are Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Average Order Value (AOV), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Time Between Purchases (TBP).

Each tells you something different.

CAC tells you how much you're investing to acquire a customer. CLV helps you understand how valuable that customer could be throughout the relationship. AOV shows the average value of their transactions, while TBP tells you how frequently they're coming back.

Put those pieces together and you begin developing a much clearer picture of the customer.

We're still going to need segmentation and broader customer groups, but the direction is increasingly towards personalisation. E-commerce marketing is gradually moving closer to a one-to-one model.

Moving from dashboards to decisions

CBM: How does a company actually transform those metrics into higher revenue?

Daniele Rutigliano: Collecting information is only the beginning. There needs to be a process behind it.

You identify a problem or an opportunity, formulate a hypothesis, take a specific action and then measure what happens.

Imagine, for example, that your data shows an unusually high checkout abandonment rate in one particular country.

The number itself isn't the answer. It's the starting point.

You then need to understand why it's happening. Are shipping costs too high? Are delivery times too long? Are customers missing their preferred local payment method? Is there another source of friction?

Once you've developed a hypothesis, you implement a change and compare performance before and after that intervention.

That's when data becomes valuable. You're no longer simply observing a dashboard; you're using information to make a measurable business decision.

"The real value doesn't come from having more dashboards. It comes from using their information to make measurable improvements."

Creating a unified view of the customer

CBM: One of the challenges you mentioned is having information scattered across multiple systems. How can retailers build a clearer customer view?

Daniele Rutigliano: It depends on the maturity of the business and what it's trying to achieve.

Web analytics platforms can tell you how visitors arrive at your website and how they navigate it. Behavioural analytics tools such as Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar or Mouseflow can go further by using session recordings, heat maps and interaction data to identify friction in the customer journey.

More advanced businesses can introduce Customer Data Platforms, or CDPs, which combine information from different sources to create unified customer profiles.

Once you have that integrated view, the information can then be activated across different channels to create much more personalised customer communications.

Where does AI fit into the equation?

CBM: Artificial intelligence is changing virtually every aspect of e-commerce. What difference does it make when working with data?

Daniele Rutigliano: AI can dramatically accelerate the analytical process.

It can identify correlations across complex datasets and make information accessible to people who might previously have required specialist analytical knowledge. Natural-language interaction is particularly interesting because it reduces some of the barriers between decision-makers and the information contained within their systems.

But there's an important limitation.

AI cannot fix fundamentally bad data.

If your information is inaccurate, incomplete or poorly integrated, introducing AI isn't suddenly going to create a reliable business intelligence system. The foundations still matter.

Companies need to collect accurate information and connect their systems properly before they can expect AI to generate meaningful insights.

Data-driven e-commerce isn't only for large companies

CBM: Smaller e-commerce businesses may hear terms like CDPs, AI and advanced analytics and assume that becoming data-driven requires a major investment. Does it?

Daniele Rutigliano: Not necessarily.

Many SMEs already have a surprising amount of useful data. It might exist inside their e-commerce platform, analytics tools, advertising accounts, CRM or customer service software.

You don't need to begin with an enormous technological infrastructure.

Start with a business objective.

Identify the information that can help you understand that particular objective and then use the tools you already have available.

Platforms such as Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity, combined with advertising platform data and the reports generated by the e-commerce platform itself, can already reveal customer behaviours, weaknesses in the purchasing journey and potential opportunities for growth.

The important thing is not how sophisticated the technology is. It's whether you're using the information to answer a meaningful business question.

From insight to competitive advantage

For Rutigliano, becoming data-driven is ultimately less about accumulating technology and more about changing how companies make decisions.

A metric should lead to a question. The question should generate a hypothesis. The hypothesis should result in an action. And that action should produce something that can be measured.

That cycle turns information into commercial intelligence — and commercial intelligence into revenue.

It is also the approach Rutigliano will explore through practical examples during his workshop, “Data as a Revenue Driver: From Insight to Competitive Advantage,” at the EU Cross-Border E-commerce Forum 2026 in Liège on September 9 at 11:15 a.m.

For e-commerce businesses, his message is straightforward: competitive advantage will not come from simply possessing more information than everybody else. It will come from knowing which data matters, understanding what it means and, above all, acting on it.

The post Spotlight on Daniele Rutigliano: Turning E-commerce Data into Revenue and Competitive Advantage appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Alipay has launched what it calls China’s first full-stack agentic commerce platform, introducing new infrastructure designed to help merchants shift from conventional digital commerce to operations increasingly managed and accessed by artificial intelligence agents.

The platform was presented at Alipay’s AI Ecosystem Partner Conference and brings together tools that make businesses' products, services, workflows, and payment capabilities accessible to AI agents. According to Alipay, businesses with different levels of AI maturity can adopt different components of the system, rather than building their own agentic-commerce infrastructure from scratch.

The announcement represents another step in the rapid development of agentic commerce in China, where Alipay has already been developing AI-native payment technologies, trust protocols and consumer-facing AI agents.

What is Alipay’s agentic commerce platform?

Traditional e-commerce has largely been designed around humans interacting directly with websites, apps and marketplaces.

Agentic commerce introduces another layer: AI agents that can search, compare, select and potentially purchase products or services on behalf of consumers.

Unlike conventional chatbots, agentic AI systems can interact with external software and perform actions toward a defined objective with limited human supervision.

For merchants, this creates an important technical challenge. A product being visible on a website or searchable through Google does not automatically mean that an AI agent can understand the service, determine whether it is appropriate for the user, and complete the required transaction.

Alipay’s new platform is intended to bridge that gap. The company says merchants without their own AI capabilities can use a one-stop solution to convert product and service processes into tools that AI agents can understand and invoke. Alipay describes these as agent-ready Skills and MCP-based tools.

This could allow merchants to make existing commercial services available through emerging AI interfaces without rebuilding their entire technology stack.

From digital storefronts to AI-accessible businesses

One of the most important implications of agentic commerce is that the traditional online storefront may no longer be the only interface between a consumer and a merchant. Instead of opening several websites and comparing products manually, a consumer could potentially tell an AI assistant:

“Find me the best hotel near my meeting, book it within my budget and pay using my preferred payment method.”

The AI agent would then need to interact with multiple businesses, evaluate availability and pricing, verify relevant information and complete the transaction. For this model to work at scale, merchants need infrastructure that can communicate with those agents.

Alipay is positioning its new platform as part of that infrastructure. Its approach combines merchant services, AI tools, payment capabilities, identity systems, risk controls, and transaction infrastructure to support the entire agent-driven commercial process.

Ah Bao becomes a gateway to Alipay’s AI commerce ecosystem

A major part of Alipay's strategy is Ah Bao, the company’s consumer-facing AI service agent. Launched in June 2026, Ah Bao provides access to more than 10,000 AI-enabled everyday services, Alipay says. Consumers can use natural-language conversations to do everything from paying utility bills and locating electric-vehicle charging stations to booking services.

Alipay is now developing Ah Bao as a gateway connecting consumers with businesses participating in its agentic ecosystem.

This marks an important difference between generative AI assistants that simply recommend a service and systems that can actually complete the requested task.

The commercial opportunity increasingly lies in moving AI from recommendation to transaction.

For merchants, participating in these ecosystems may eventually become as important as optimizing products for search engines or marketplaces today.

Businesses may need to ensure not only that consumers can discover their products, but also that AI agents can understand, compare, and transact with them.

Payments are becoming AI-native

Payments are another essential piece of the agentic commerce model.

Earlier in 2026, Alipay introduced new AI payment infrastructure including AI Wallet and Token Pay, designed to enable transactions involving AI agents and AI-powered applications.

The company has also developed an Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol, intended to establish a standardized framework for interaction between AI systems and service platforms.

The challenge is significant.

Allowing an AI agent to make purchases raises questions about authorization, identity, transaction limits, fraud prevention, and whether the AI's actions accurately reflect the user's intention.

Alipay has therefore built security and trust mechanisms alongside its payment infrastructure, rather than treating AI payments as just another checkout method.

This development is not limited to Alipay's domestic ecosystem.

Alipay+ has also introduced an Agentic Mobile Protocol designed to let AI agents initiate payments through compatible digital wallets while users maintain control over spending intentions, budgets, and security.

The infrastructure supports scenarios where AI agents can transact without requiring consumers to manually open a payment application for every purchase.

Why agentic commerce matters for e-commerce merchants

The arrival of full-stack agentic commerce platforms could eventually change how online businesses approach customer acquisition.

Today, e-commerce companies invest heavily in areas such as:

SEO
marketplace optimization
paid advertising
social commerce
mobile applications
conversion optimization

Agentic commerce could add another requirement: AI discoverability and transactability.

An AI shopping agent needs structured information about products, pricing, availability, delivery, returns and payment options before it can confidently select a merchant.

That means product feeds and APIs could become increasingly important parts of customer acquisition infrastructure.

Commerce may consequently evolve from businesses optimizing primarily for human interfaces toward businesses optimizing simultaneously for humans and machines.

Competition for the AI commerce layer is intensifying

Alipay is not developing agentic commerce in isolation.

Technology companies, payment networks, marketplaces and AI providers are increasingly exploring ways for autonomous AI agents to interact with commercial services.

The strategic question is becoming which platforms will control the infrastructure connecting:

Consumers → AI agents → merchants → payments → fulfillment

The companies controlling those connections could gain significant influence over how products are discovered and transactions are routed.

Alipay already occupies an important position in digital payments and consumer services in China, giving it an existing ecosystem from which to develop an agentic commerce layer.

Its latest platform therefore represents more than the introduction of another AI assistant.

It aims to provide the underlying commercial infrastructure through which AI agents can interact with thousands of businesses.

Agentic commerce still faces major challenges

Despite rapid development, fully autonomous commerce remains an emerging model.

Security is one of the largest concerns.

Recent academic research examining agentic-commerce systems has highlighted potential vulnerabilities at the protocol level, particularly when agents interact with credentials, payment systems and external services.

Merchants and payment providers must also address questions surrounding authorization, liability, refunds and disputes.

If an AI agent buys the wrong product, exceeds a budget or incorrectly interprets a consumer's request, responsibility for that transaction could become difficult to determine.

Reliable identity verification and clear user controls will therefore be critical before highly autonomous purchasing becomes mainstream.

The next phase of e-commerce could be machine-to-business

Alipay’s launch shows how quickly agentic commerce is moving from experimentation to commercial infrastructure. The internet was originally designed for humans to visit websites.

Mobile commerce shifted that interaction toward apps. Marketplaces then centralized product discovery and purchasing within large commercial ecosystems. AI agents could represent the next change in that interface.

Consumers may increasingly describe what they want to achieve, while software agents determine which merchants, products, and services can fulfill that request.For e-commerce businesses, that could ultimately create a new competitive requirement. Visibility may no longer be enough.

Merchants may also need to become visible, understandable and transactable to AI agents. Alipay’s full-stack agentic commerce platform is an early indication of what that future could look like.

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