😅Time for a laugh: No need to pay for a Claude subscribtion, McDonalds got you covered😅

🇸🇪 Meanwhile in Sweden: an AI manager runs a coffeeshop

Interesting to see what goes wrong, what goes right. Would you like to have an AI boss?

🔍And now a SEO Break⬇️

First of all the pictures that went viral among the SEO community from Google Search Central Lie in Toronto. I think the slides speak for themselves.
A few other notes on it:

• Crawl vs. Index: “Crawled – Currently not indexed” is rarely a technical rendering issue; it’s usually a quality signal. Google may have tried the content and decided it “wasn’t good,” or it’s a canonical/duplicate issue.

• Gemini in AIO / AI Mode vs. Gemini in App. They both use the same model, but Google Search “shapes” Gemini differently in search than the standalone app. Results from AIO and AI Mode are expected to be different *There is no benefit in converting your site to Markdown for LLM or SEO purposes. *There is no benefit to creating a llms.txt file for SEO.

Details and many more very nice slides👍👍👍 via:
https://www.jcchouinard.com/google-search-central-live-toronto-slides-april-2026/

And this is also one worth to share from Aleyda :

More and more evidence also comes out that AI generated scaled content goes up and then very fast down again, fully in line with the slides from Google’s Toronto event.

🎥Mr Beast copy from the best

Learn from the best, copy from the best, and model just like Tony Robbins teaches. For YouTube, that person or model is MrBeast.

Checkout this motivational video. Most important takout: on the algorithm: it doesn’t exist. Replace “algorithm” with “audience” every time. The algorithm didn’t like your video. No. The audience didn’t. YouTube is a mirror. If people click and watch, it gets promoted. The growth hack industry sells you a god that isn’t there.

Before you hit record, run a checklist:

What’s the thumbnail?
What’s the title?
What’s the first 5 seconds?
What’s the first 30 seconds?
If you can’t answer all four clearly, don’t film.

• On thumbnails: make them simple enough that a scrolling viewer instantly understands and feels emotion. MrBeast’s test: if you can still wonder about the story hours later, the thumbnail/title combo is strong.

• On autoplay: many people never see the thumbnail; the video just starts. You must visually and emotionally grab them in the first 5 seconds.

• On matching expectations: your title and thumbnail set the promise; the first 10 seconds must honor it. If the title says “Tether is a scam,” start with “Tether is a scam and I’m going to show you why.” Match, then exceed. The first 10 seconds are critically undervalued.

• On retention: remove every dull moment. Show your video to 10 critical people and let them roast it. Even 10 seconds of talking head with no cut loses people; adding B‑cam or a new angle at 3 seconds keeps it interesting.

• On the real metric: the most important metric is the next video. You don’t want “that was good, but enough for today”; you want “holy crap, what’s next?” so viewers binge 10 videos in a row.

Checkout an earlier post on Mr Beast, I wrote about Mr Beast in edition 18:

🔎Got a demo of Algolia’s agentic search & discovery layer

I recently joined a company tour through my network group, and Algolia gave a great demo of their B2B search and discovery engine. I recorded it during dinner (not the best angle from the back, but still very watchable).

What stood out: their Agent Studio powering AI agents that make on site search and discovery truly fun. These agents help users with complex queries by reasoning through intent, dynamically updating results in real-time, suggesting smart sidebar comparisons and filters, and even delivering expert-level insights directly on product detail pages (PDPs).

It’s a clear preview of where agentic on site search is heading. Sound on (English speaker).

If you’re working on digital product experiences, definitely worth a watch!

More on Algolia here: https://www.algolia.com

👩‍💻Vercel introduction slides

Same event, different slides, this time on Vercel, the AI coding platform. I knew them already but for many attendants is was new. They gave an introductionary presentation. (Thanks Nicky!)
Next weeks in the follow up, we get an “agentic course” from Vercel. Looking forward. I share the slides, might be useful for some.
My highlight the slides:

• Where you see different use cases in busineses for -in this example- Black friday. You see the way we work now will be transformed, with tools like Vercel it’s much easier for marketing teams to create pages for promotions.
  For Sales to get tailored insights and actions
  And for IT to pro-actively respond.

• Vercel’s internal support system already succesfully resolves 87.6% of incoming requests. Now they didn’t dive into it but my guess is it works much much better then the -so far in many organisations still used- “ticket” system.

• Know user intent: Great AI agents don’t just answer questions they understand who the user is (name, preferences, loyalty, saved addresses), what page/context they’re on, and their full history (abandoned carts, repeat visits, past purchases) to close the loop intelligently.

• “Act on user intent: The best AI assistants don’t stop at understanding they do whatever the platform allows: search, recommend, add to cart, or complete checkout. They combine context awareness with real action capabilities.”

🇦🇪 UAE governments go full AI

So what’s happening on the digital side in the UAE. Well something really interesting. UAE already a leader or close to a leader at many digital topics, now embraces AI at government level.

Announcing what he described as a new government system, Sheikh Mohammed said the plan aims to make the UAE the first country globally to adopt “agentic AI” models capable of independently executing tasks, managing processes and supporting decision-making.

I’m very curious how this will play out especially from my perspective here in the Netherlands. Many Dutch people (including me) complain that the “human touch” in government services is lost. Civil servants seem locked into rigid processes. (I can confirm that personally also for Netherlands).

UAE claims that AI might help to get or keep (I don’t know the situation in UAE), the personal touch so it’s AI and humans.

Every federal employee will receive specialized AI training. The whole transformation is being overseen at the highest levels, with a clear message: AI isn’t replacing people it’s amplifying them to create a faster, more responsive government. People still come first.

I think we can learn from this. Very interesting to follow.

Details: https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/uae-to-move-50-of-government-services-to-ai-within-two-years-1.500516798

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Wow so amazing, what a team, what a development! AI not as a feature but to help getting things done. Or as others say it: from features to interface. Revolut has released (in the UK for now) : 𝗔𝗜𝗥 (AI by Revolut).

You can ask questions like:

• Instant clarity: "How much did I spend on subscriptions last month?"

• Real-time interventions: "Freeze my physical card and order a new one."

• Lifestyle companion: "I’m in Tokyo next week. Set up my eSIM and check my insurance."

As Revolut says it: "The era of navigating through endless tabs and menus is over, with AIR we're delivering a new level of money intelligence that's both powerful and endless".

This will set the bar for other apps as well. Not only the bar but also expectations.

Details: https://www.revolut.com/blog/post/air-ai-by-revolut/

https://www.connectingthedotsinfin.tech/connecting-the-dots-in-fintech/

Incredibly cool and I am a very happy customer of Revolut because of these things! I encourage every app/web development team to look at what Revolut does and to see how these kind of ideas can be applied to your own app or service.

🌎 Vitaly Friedman with the UX localisation guide

Vitaly Friedman shared a nice infographic on localisation:

• Translation: “We adapt messaging to resonate in other markets”.

• Localization: “We adapt UX to local expectations”.

• Internationalization: “We adapt our code to work in other markets”.

In summary of what Vitaly added to this infographic:

✅ English users ≈ 26% of total
✅ Top written languages: Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese
✅ Users prefer native-language content
✅ French text ≈ 20% longer than English; Japanese 30–60% shorter

🚫 Flags ≠ languages — use text labels for languages, globe icon for country selector
🚫 Not everyone has first/middle names — use “Full name” instead

✅ Reserve ~30% space for longer translations
✅ Test visuals and colors with local audiences
✅ Share annotated wireframes with translators for context
✅ Mark special “branding moments” early
✅ Stress-test UI via pseudolocalization (make text 40–50% longer, flip formats)
✅ Adjust numbers, formats, units, addresses per locale

💡 Localization goes beyond translation:

• Arabic → more line spacing

• Chinese → higher info density

• German → detailed, precise layouts

⚙️ Always review with native speakers to ensure clarity, familiarity, and cultural fit.
🌍 Design to adapt and scale globally — you’ll learn more with every new market.

I know from experience these things are very important (for most brands) but often not followed. Do so and you will improve conversion and experiences. Now with AI I think even more important as expectations per country (may) differ!

🤖 Zapier AI fluency bar for every new hire

Let me share this here from Zapier, as I think it’s good to realise for anyone working in tech. Zapier released the AI fluency bar for every new hire. Check it out and see how AI fluent you are. I think I am for sure in Capable but also in partly in Adoptive. I will get to “Transformative” for a large part I think. On route!

Details:

https://zapier.com/blog/raising-ai-fluency-bar-in-hiring/

🇦🇷 🇧🇷 Mercado Libre and the Williams Sponsorship

Mercado Libre built its reputation on one thing: delivery speed. It’s one of the clearest differentiators they have in Latin America and their F1 sponsorship with Williams racing is a smart extension of exactly that story. Fast cars, fast delivery. It just makes sense. A campaign that makes you smile and reinforces the brand perception in one video. It’s those things that make them stand out against Amazon.

Details: https://www.williamsf1.com/articles/1b734b55-9192-45df-9211-a3dc22479449/williams-racing-mercado-libre-heritage-inspired-yellow-engine-cover

🇸🇬 Two ads, two continents, one lesson: Checkout the Grab ad

One more I stumbled upon, I’m a big fan of Grab, I use it every time I’m in Asia. Their CNY ad is fun actually it’s more of a mini movie. It showcases Grab’s wide assortment in food and grocery delivery, and they pulled it off cleverly. Most likely, I think, all the brands featured paid for their spot, making this a cost-efficient production for Grab, while what sticks with the viewer is just how much Grab actually offers. On top of that, it stands out sharply against the usual emotional, family oriented CNY ads.

Details: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/wait-whose-cny-ad-is-this

What stands out for me

What strikes me in both ads Mercado Libre and Grab is that strong brand advertising doesn’t need to do everything. Pick one USP, make it memorable, and wrap it in something people actually enjoy watching. Mercado Libre owns speed. Grab owns assortment.
So branded ads can be useful, and brands can now create spin-offs more performance driven follow-up campaigns to convert the attention. Perfect for Andromeda for example.

📈 YouTube doubles in AI mode citations

I have written about it many times before, make YouTube centric in your content strategy. Now this research from Promptwatch makes it even more clear. YT doubled in citations for Google’s AI mode. TikTok seems also to speed up.
Crystal clear data, thanks Klaas!

https://promptwatch.com/blog

🧐4 Levels of AI marketing use, where are you at?

It’s a bit of an AI edition today.

A growth marketer from Anthropic (from Claude) called Austin Lau he mapped 4 levels of AI marketing use. I think it’s interesting you can map it against your company’s status f.e.

• level 1: automate what you already do (reporting, copy, data pulls)

• level 2: use AI as a thinking partner where its better than you

• level 3: do work that was below the ROI threshold before

• level 4: build custom tools only you would ever build

Some attention to Level 3, work that never existed before. Stuff nobody did because the manual cost was never worth it. Think of mining negative keywords across every ad group. Checking your full site for broken links every day. All work that existed in theory but nobody had the hours for. I think that could be a nice goal as it can already be done and isn’t that difficult and you can also use it in your agency for mapping out clients AI marketing maturity and help them achieve a higher level.

Details: here and here

Thank you for reading,

Alex

I am Alex Baar, I publish this weekly newsletter with links I find interesting on the topics: AI, cross-border e-commerce, marketing, retail, and a little bit of Fintech. Subscribe if you like!

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It’s great we in these days can watch lectures from famous universities for (almost) free. This is such one of them. A talk on “how to speak”. Worth watching, it takes about an hour.

"Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas. In that order."

Many things in the talk make sense and most of them you probably know but the teacher also explains why and how to use these techniques. If you only take 2 things out of this talk you are already winning arguments.

A few takeouts but do watch I think for everyone there is something in it.

• Do not start a talk with a joke. (that one I have to remember I often try to start with a joke😅)

• Promise: Tell them what they gonna learn at the end of your talk.

• Make a “Fence” around your idea so that it can be distinguished from someone else’s idea.

• Don’t put too many words on a slide. Slides should just reflect what you’re saying, not the other way around. Pictures attracts attention and people start to wait for your explanation. Make slides as easy as you can – no title, no distracting pictures, frames, points and so on. (He also suggests to remove all clutter like logo’s etc, do tell your brand police😅.)

• The blackboard is the ideal tool for teaching and informing because the speed of writing matches the pace at which an audience can naturally absorb information.

• PowerPoint is intended for exposing ideas rather than teaching them, making it most effective for professional settings like job talks or conference presentations

🇳🇱 AgentForce world tour Utrecht, Netherlands

I went to AgentForce, the annual salesforce conference in Utrecht, NL. I always go to their event because it’s always inspiring, you always see where the future is heading. This edition I didn’t saw too many new things and I also didn’t take too many pictures, but what stood out or at least what I took note of:

• Actively solving problems before users know there is a problem. They demo-ed a case where an account number was not correct of a customer, the AI agent recognized it and made sure it contacted pro actively the customer (instead of the other way around). But not only that, it also created a personalised landingpage for the customer and a chatbot to solve the problem in the easiest way possible. (so no need to fill in difficult forms).

• They showcased a few times, that sales reps can now just speak (voice) their visit experiences somewhere (f.e. after a repair) and SalesForce will not only extract the voice to text, but also pre-fill the complete form! It was cool to see. So if a sales rep would voice record “the problem is a 30inch valve”, SF can automatically fill that in to the right field(s) in a form and even convert it to “cm”.

• Another cool thing I saw was, a CSAT measurement but not in the tradtional way. By analyzing audio. They analyzed conversations that customers had with agents (both physically and AI agents) and from that they could extract a CSAT score.

• What every talk came back, was that to make AI work you really need to have your fundamentals right including processes. SalesForce is actively offering solutions to merge data, to make sense of large data lakes and pools across different systems.

• I do think their AI agent who helped them plan this event in Utrecht, it might have hallucinated when it planned the toilets 😅. There was only “one” toilet bloq for the whole audience, long lines the whole day!

A few additional pictures :

🖱️ Good clicks, bad clicks

Zippy a.k.a. Cyrus, one of my favorite SEO influencers, created -again- nice infographics. I share them here, you can use them in your job. I already did and shared them among our content team.

* Is this result relevant?
* Is the content useful to answer the question?
* Does this completely satisfy the user search?

All details in the post:

Zyppy Signal with Cyrus Shepard

How Google Click Signals Drive SEO Rankings and AI Answers

It's a great irony that while AI answers can reduce clicks to our websites, AI output often relies on user-click data to produce more accurate results…

Read more

a month ago · 28 likes · Cyrus Shepard

🏫 Claude Tutorial, free, can fully recommend

I am now actively using “Claude”. Not for chatting, ChatGPT style, but for actually doing work with Claude CoWork and Claude Code. I can seriously recommend this to everyone. It speeds up, gives much better insights and lets you be much more productive. Besides that, it is also really fun.
So I did this course, there is no certificate, but it’s very nice to do. Some parts I already knew but others not. I can fully recommend it:

https://ccforeveryone.com/

A few takouts:

• Sub-agents as your advisory board. You create persistent AI personas (a CEO, a product designer, a frontline employee) that review your work from different angles. Imagine stress-testing a proposal with a skeptical exec before sending it to the real one. (yeah this is so useful I think for so many people in daily life and work. For example, imagine before you finalize your presentation, you ask Claude to review it from different angles, simoutaniously!).

• Working with files at scale: I had a folder of 10 old marketing campaigns, customer feedback across 4 months, competitor research, and a messy CSV. Claude analyzed all of it in parallel using "agents" (multiple AI instances working simultaneously). What would take hours of reading took seconds now. (yeah you can even use it to clean up your dropbox, although that costs a lot of tokens)

• Building better PRDs: Claude interviews you with structured questions to define clear requirements before building anything. AI as your thought partner to think through EVERYTHING before you start. The result is a spec so clear that the AI (or a developer) can build exactly what you want. (This is very very very nice, for us product managers, digital marketers. It goes also beyond PRD’s but it also helps you create nearly perfect briefings for agency’s)

Bottom line CLAUDE MD files are as persistent memory. Unlike ChatGPT where every conversation starts from zero, Claude Code remembers your project context across sessions. Really nice to learn how to work with .md files.

Great to learn to work with Claude. One downside but I am sure this is only temporary, is the token bottleneck, even if you pay.

Here an X link to some free skills but to be honest its als great to write your own skills, I write them and let them refine by Grok then use them in Claude.

🇩🇪 DM Germany great app nice stores

German people go on sunday to the Netherlands to do shopping, as in Germany nearly all stores are closed on sundays (which I still find very annoying as a regular visitor to Germany).
Dutch people on the other hand, go to Germany to the DM stores to buy cheaper drugstore products. (not on Sundays).
I visited a DM in Berlin and I have to say, they have a real good APP as well. I was impressed.

So Dutch people who shop at a DM in Germany: use the DM app to be ready for your visit. It will assist you very well including gifts!

The app has a great product scanner. It’s fast and it gives all details you need on a product. There is a difference in product scanners in apps. Some work well, others not. This one does the job extremely well.

• You can also buy via the app and then get it delivered to a “box” inside a store, just pick up and go, often that is already ready within an hour or so. Super convenient.

• Everywhere they encourage you to use the app regularly. For example by showing : Jede woche ein geschenk → Every week a gift. I tried it, it works well. I also got gifts.

• In some stores they have a “bell” you can ring if there is a line at the cashier. Probably a bit obsoleet now with self scanning. And I prefer the “jumbo” approach as it was in NL (before). More then 4 in a line, you get groceries for free. You didn’t have to ring a bell to get a cashier, they just made sure there were always available.

• The app gets the job done fast, looks nice. There's more to it than just products editorial content, offers, inspiration. It rewards browsing and usage.

🙏 Thank you Cheng Lou , you made the web better!

I remember building webpages and spending way too long fighting CSS just to get text and images to align properly. I hated it as it blocked me from creating pages as I wanted them to be.
Cheng Lou one of the developers behind React, Messenger, and Midjourney just released a tool called Pretext that tackles one of the most overlooked bottlenecks in web development: accurately measuring how text wraps, breaks, and fits on screen, without relying on slow browser tricks or CSS at all.

The implication is bigger than it sounds. Right now, truly dynamic text layouts on the web are still surprisingly hard. Pretext fixes that. It opens the door to more fluid, generative interfaces and crucially, it gives AI a precise way to design and arrange layouts before they ever appear on your screen, rather than guessing. So Imagine asking an AI to generate a product page for your webshop. Today it guesses whether the product name fits on one line. With Pretext, it knows and adjusts the layout accordingly before you ever see it. No broken designs, no manual tweaking after the fact. So a bit technical all but I think very nice.

Details:

Thank you for reading,

Alex

I am Alex Baar, I publish this weekly newsletter with links I find interesting on the topics: AI, cross-border e-commerce, marketing, retail, and a little bit of Fintech. Subscribe if you like!

A thank you to “thuiswinkel.org” for providing me with a VIP pass and the conferences.

🇳🇱 Otrium & Talpa on audio advertising via a product feed

First, let me share here a few slides of a presentation I went to at the “WebWinkelVakdagen”. It’s about audio advertising. A company called “Otrium” shared their experiences in audio advertising and moving budget from performance marketing to “performance branding” a trend that continious and I wrote about many times before on my substack.
I really liked the part in the presentation where they explained, you can now use a “product feed” to personalize the audio advertising experience. By connecting their live product feed to their audio production, they can now generate audio ads in real-time. If a specific sneaker sells out, the AI-driven system automatically stops that ad and swaps it for a trending product, ensuring that every “Sonic” impression is 100% relevant and up-to-date.
Something that might also be worth remembering is the question “how does your brand sound”? The speaker notes that while 100% of marketers have clear guidelines for their visual brand identity, very few have actually thought about how their brand sounds and almost no one wrote that down. This is increasingly important.

A few bullets with takeouts and the slides in the pictures above.

• The Performance Marketing "Glass Ceiling": By 2024, Otrium found that their performance marketing had reached a limit where every additional euro spent no longer yielded the same return. Costs for CPCs and CPMs had increased by approximately 11% year-over-year, meaning the same budget resulted in less reach.

• Over-reliance on Lower Funnel: Approximately 97% of Otrium's spend was concentrated in the lower funnel, focusing on direct conversions and capturing existing demand rather than creating it. This limited their reach to only the 5% of the audience currently in the market.

• Strategic Shift to Audio: To break through the growth ceiling, Otrium shifted 20% of its budget to radio, digital audio, and digital out-of-home. The goal was to move from "demand harvesting" to "demand creation" by reaching the 95% of the market not yet ready to buy.

• The company utilized AI voice cloning of a real voice actor to create relevant, cost-effective ad variations. This allowed them to dynamically update the final five seconds of a radio spot to reflect real-time offers or specific product categories without needing a voice actor to return to the studio.

• Otrium implemented Billy Grace to centralize their marketing data and overcome the resource limitations of a small team. This allowed them to finally gain a comprehensive view of the customer journey across both web and app, which had previously been difficult to track. Crucially, they could see the impact of their marketing not just per channel, but the incremental value of specific advertisements (such as Pinterest and YouTube ads) and audio campaigns down to the individual promotion level.

• With these insights, the team could directly measure an incremental Return on Ad Spend (iROAS) of over €6 for their upper and mid-funnel activities. This data was essential for justifying the larger branding investments to their CEO and, as it proved the strategy was successfully reaching entirely new customer groups instead of just targeting the same 5% of audiences already in the market.

Very nice presentation, I hope you can also use some of the takeouts.

✈️ TUI: what if your biggest competitor is NOT a company?

TUI, the well known, travel company also gave a presentation via Suzanne Goos from TUI NL. What stood out for me was their opening slide where they said: “Our new competitor is not a company but an algorithm”. Everything they do is focused on to be where there customers are and increasingly these are LLM’s.

I thought it was a solid presentation highlighting the right angles (especially technology and trust). Sometimes it was a bit too much "high over” and some aspects were clicked on too shortly in my opinion but I summarize my takeouts here below:

• Technology is fundamentally changing commerce by shifting its role from a simple tool to a factor that determines customer decision making.

• To remain relevant, TUI focuses on three strategic pillars: Reputation, Relationship, and Reintegration: Reputation is now a differentiator based on building trust with customers, algorithms, and the broader ecosystem through reliable data.

• The "Predict" Era: We are now entering a phase where customers stop searching and start asking questions (e.g., via AI). In this world, an algorithm determines visibility and recommendations, making it a "predict" world where technology anticipates behavior.

  • Trust is no longer just about the customer's perception of the brand but also about trust from algorithms.

  • To be recommended by AI systems, an organization must provide reliable data, consistent content, and high product quality (reviews)

  • TUI is moving from purely performance-driven marketing to building emotional brand preference through rebranding (mainly via controlling and optimizing the whole journeys.

  • The goal is a seamless omnichannel journey where online, social, and retail channels are fully integrated. (ah yeah that’s what I said :)

  • In a world dominated by platforms, TUI sees value in controlling the entire customer journey, from inspiration to the actual experience at the destination.

  • By connecting distribution, data, and their own products (like planes and hotels), they reduce dependency on external platforms and can better influence the "share of search"

• This is nice: They use AI persons actively already today! They are very open that it is an AI person, and that differs from others, many companies don’t tell that. Seems to work very well. Here details on Lena the Explorer.
  Besides “Lena” (social media), TUI introduced “Lisa”, an AI assistant in travel agencies who handles intake conversations to collect data and reduce waiting times for customers.

Nice presentation, Suzanne ended also with a pretty cool video from where TUI is heading, but that one I could not find anywhere online. So stay tuned and follow TUI, there might be nice things coming up!

🍻 A story from Heineken on AI, acceptation of digital tools and some new concepts.

Yeah let’s talk about beer! I also visited a presentation from Heineken and that one was truly crossborder😀🚀 Sorry for the bad pictures, I didn’t had the best position in the large hall and also I could not upload all of them because substack only allows 9 images per gallery.

• The speaker explained that Heinken is creating "Pull" demand: While Heineken generates over €30 billion in turnover through B2B channels like supermarkets and bars, they invest more than €1 billion in marketing directly to consumers. The goal of this direct communication is to create a "pull" effect, generating the consumer demand that then drives sales for their B2B customers.

• Shifting focus to the end of the chain: Traditionally, Heineken focused on its direct B2B customers (the first links in the chain), but the speaker argues that the "real value" is at the back end of the chain: understanding the shoppers, consumers, and the market categories.

• Supporting B2B partners with B2C Insights: By understanding the end consumer better, Heineken aims to help its direct customers such as the "pub on the corner" better understand their own guests and shoppers to optimize their business.

• The speaker also explained some innovations like: "Beer as a Service" (BaaS😅): A model where customers pay per glass tapped rather than per keg, allowing Heineken to manage logistics and stock more efficiently.

• Image recognition: Customers in Mexico take photos of their fridges; Heineken uses AI to verify if products are stocked according to the "picture of success" and offers discounts for compliance. They always start small in the beginning they realised that their customers send the same picture every day, then they made it mandatory to put a date post it on the fridge. Small steps was the main message, small steps to acceptation of AI and digitization.

• Modern POS systems: Heineken has partnered with Apple to create an iOS-based iPOS system that is easy for temporary staff to use and provides deep category insights for bar owners. Its so easy he told us that staff can use it at their OWN phone and no explanation or tutorials are needed.

• Brewery optimization: Nearly 8,000 machines in breweries are connected to a data platform to optimise production and learn from global performance.

• AI-Driven sales: In Mexico, sales representatives use AI tools to determine which outlets to visit and what specific products to pitch based on data, rather than following a fixed route.

• The speaker noted that the greatest resistance to these changes was actually internal, coming from the sales representatives themselve.

  • Fear of job loss: Initially, sales reps were very resistant because they feared that AI and digital tools would eliminate their jobs.

  • From “Order Takers” to “Consultants”: To address this, Heineken promised not to cut jobs and instead reframed the role of the sales rep. They moved from being transactional “order takers” to becoming “business consultants”. In this new role, reps use data to help bar and shop owners understand their own categories and grow their businesses.

  • AI-Guided sales: Instead of following a random route, reps in Mexico now use AI tools that tell them exactly which outlets to visit first based on sales opportunities or the need to fix a customer relationship (like “drinking a cup of coffee” to mend a previous stock issue).

• Assisted orders: Many customers were initially reluctant to use the new e-commerce apps. To bridge this gap, sales reps would initially help the customers place their orders through the platform, a process known as “assisted orders”.

• Incentivising direct use: Over time, Heineken introduced loyalty programs. Customers who placed orders themselves rather than relying on a rep’s assistance earned points that could be traded for merchandise or other rewards.

❤️ A smartwatch as POS reducing transaction costs

Pretty cool!

So soon we scan the watch of a waiter/waitress to pay? Competition to Visa/Mastercard and massive POS terminals.

Your smartwatch is becoming a POS terminal, and it’s bypassing Visa & Mastercard entirely.

Huawei and YowPay just launched a smartwatch-based payment app powered by open banking.

The app turns a Huawei smartwatch into a payment terminal, enabling merchants to accept instant Sepa payments directly on their wrist.

Customers scan a dynamic QR code generated on the watch face using the camera of their Smartphone, bypassing traditional card schemes and, says Yowpay, reducing transaction fees.

https://www.fintechfutures.com/paytech/huawei-and-yowpay-bring-sepa-pos-payment-acceptance-to-smartwatches

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marcelvanoost_your-smartwatch-is-becoming-a-pos-terminal-activity-7442883707931238400-XxfN/

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading.

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

Currently I am traveling and I am in Berlin. The city of “Zalando”. I just visited their HQ (but it was closed) and I went to their physical outlet store.
But before I write about that, their figures and some glimpse of their strategy came out a few days ago.

Zalando is doing really well with AI, and I think it’s worth to regularly test and use their app. They are trailblazers in Europe take note of these citations:

Zalando ⁠said AI-generated product ⁠images were saving money and time on ad creation and enabling it to publish 70% more content, while an AI virtual try-on was also helping shoppers pick their correct size, reducing size-related returns.

Today, more than 80% of traffic to Zalando is organic and does not come from paid advertising, according to Schröder, while the rest comes largely through paid channels such as Google and Meta. But “a low single-digit percentage” is now driven by AI. He is optimistic that the technology will help reach new customers.

Zalando is also unlocking a new, conversational way to shop by evolving its Zalando Assistant into a true personal lifestyle companion.

It seems to me Zalando is both open to agentic commerce and tries to make their own AI layer extensive and unique so they can lockin users. 62 million customers with data of size, style, and behaviorial data, that no generic LLM has. The question is, I think, whether they use that to make their own app unbeatable, or sell access to it and become the AI backbone for fashion e-commerce at large. Or maybe a combination🧐.

I have visited their outlet store today here in Berlin. It fits the brand only partly, I think. It’s very nice to visit a branded physical store and it’s very recognizable “Zalando”. But what I would have expected from such an innovative online brand, that focuses so much on AI and personalisation, is a much more phygical integration. There was hardly any. I even had to signup “again” in store, to some other portal to get an extra discount, really strange to me, as I am already a long time member of Zalando and Zalando Lounge and I have both apps on my phone.

Details:
https://english.aawsat.com/fashion/5250550-zalando-says-ai-drives-productivity-and-expects-higher-profit-shares-jump

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2026/0312/1562998-zalando-eyes-higher-2026-profit-as-ai-drives-productivty/

https://corporate.zalando.com/en/investor-relations/zalando-full-year-2025-results

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zalando-notches-23-growth-q4-082518413.html?guccounter=1

🔍Lily Ray: Your SEO and GEO Strategies should always work together

I think this is a very, very well written article by Lily Ray and much worth a read. It’s (sorry) again the SEO/LLM/GEO topic, I wrote about before many times, but I do think it’s very important to understand how things work and things update fast.

Basically what Lily says is that if you ignore traditional SEO (the foundation), the AI will never "see" your content, and therefore will never cite or recommend you in its answers.

These bullets below are “no go’s” mentioned in the article. So never do those things. (yeah and all “no go’s” are backed by data), thanks Lily!

• Scaling content rapidly with AI

• Artificial refreshing

• Excessive Self-Promotional Listicles

• “Summarize with AI” Buttons that Promote Your Brand

• Excessive “Alternatives” and “Comparison” Pages

Checkout the details in Lily’s substack:

Lily Ray

Your GEO Strategy Might Be Destroying Your SEO

We have reached the peak of the AI search hype cycle. Lately, for those of us in the search marketing industry, it feels impossible to open any social media feed without being flooded with posts or ads about how brands not investing in GEO will be invisible in AI search…

Read more

a month ago · 47 likes · Lily Ray

To complete this I add some snippets of a post (also shared by Lily) from Malte Landwehr called: Not getting cited by LLMs? You can debug that!. I think it can be used as a framework for your clients or the company you work for.

1. Is your website directly cited in the answer?

   Yes? Perfect. Your work is done and you should probably focus on other prompts where you are not cited, yet. No? Go to step 2.

2. Is your domain used as a source but not explicitly cited?

   Yes? Make it more citeable / quotable. Add a summary with the relevant key statement. Keep it short. Write in clear and simple language. Keep the entity density high. If relevant, explicitly express relationships between entities. If you use technical terms or abbreviations, shortly explain them. Use an authoritative, declarative voice. The summary does not have to be for the whole article. You can also summarize a long paragraph, a table, or a chart/diagram. It a summary does not fit, you can use question-answer style content blocks. No? Go to step 3.

3. Does your domain rank for the fan-out query but not get used as a source?

   Yes? Improve the content so it is more source-worthy. Make sure you agree with the broad consensus. Add unique information no other source has. Strengthen your EEAT signals. Add quotes from trustworthy sources. Explicitly name your sources. Ideally, expand your document to cover multiple fanout queries. No? Go to step 4.

4. Do you already have a relevant page for the fan-out query that does not rank yet? Yes? Make sure it is indexed. Build internal and external links. Improve the content. Make sure there are no crawling or rendering issues. In short, do SEO. No? Create that page.

Last but not least on this topic a quadrant on types of content, LLM’s like to accumulate. This comes via Emilia Moller. Very useful for every content strategy.

📘Deloitte on loyalty drivers: Digital experience is the #1 loyalty program priority across all generations

Yeah, let that sink in😅! It’s not a point system itself, it’s a product that works and innovates. The gap between what brands think drives retention and what actually does remains a major blind spot in many loyalty strategy’s.
I think its very much true. Sure loyalty programmes help, but the core functionality should be the loyalty driver itself. Just like it is with the Revolut app and up to a certain way with the Amazon app.

65% of marketers believe customers return because of “brand love” but fewer than 1 in 4 consumers cite emotional attachment as a drive.

Consumer behavior underscores the shift, as 64% prefer apps over email for loyalty interactions and over 50% engage weekly, making digital seamlessness a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator.

Consumer companies’ goals might need to shift from simply maintaining a program to designing programs that convert enrollment into enduring engagement. Three strategies can help define the path forward.

Now how will this loyalty work if we really get phones that let you vibe code your own apps or widgets? (yeah I wrote about this earlier). AI builds a widget/mini-app for your home screen, no code.)
I think loyalty via the ‘core app’ doesn’t vanish, at least not in most cases.
It transforms.
Turn a product into an open, service layer: clean APIs that let agents + vibe-coded minis pull real-time personalized rewards, dynamic offers, direct value.

Not every app needs this tomorrow, But as a Product Owner of an app, I think you better have an API-(first) strategy now. Otherwise, when agents or vibe-coded shortcuts handle discovery/rewards/offers, your brand or app becomes invisible. No icon, no opens, no loyalty just skipped.

So I think a very interesting and useful article if you are busy with loyalty. It includes a step by step approach and also highlights the importance or actually critical successfactors of AI personalisation.

Details: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/retail-distribution/reshaping-customer-loyalty-programs.html

Or https://www.emarketer.com/content/every-generation-wants-same-thing-loyalty-programs

🇳🇱 CorenDon NL does live stream test and it worked!

As you know I have seen “live shopping” a lot in Asia. Participated myself as well, but it never took really off in Europe. I always wanted to test and try this concept in Europe, but none of the company’s I worked for supported the idea. That’s why this story from CorenDon (a Dutch airline) is so nice, they did try it and it was also a success. Imagine the possibilities in the future when platforms get much more integrated live stream options (like China).

Now the articles I link to below, are in Dutch, I translated the most important parts, if you want more info just use a translation extension.

Corendon ran an interactive livestream (nearly an hour long) on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, featuring a presenter showcasing Curaçao as a destination with visuals and engagement elements.

It featured a specialist host flown in from the island, multiple cameras, live direction, green-screen beach/airplane scenes, interactive Q&A, a game segment, and high engagement.

Key highlights and stats:

• Peak concurrent viewers: over 1,500 (Instagram/Facebook) and up to 15,000 on TikTok after algorithmic boost.

• Massive reactions: ~13,000 chat messages on Facebook in 45 minutes; nearly 16,000 reactions and 105,000 likes on TikTok in an hour.

• Audience: 77% female; strong appeal to Gen Z (despite Corendon’s usual older demographic), who asked island questions and wanted fast, direct bookings.

• Real-time conversions: 70–80 WhatsApp conversations handled simultaneously during the stream by call center staff in the studio, leading to immediate trip bookings to Curaçao via WhatsApp.

• Quote from awesome agency (production partner): “We saw it happen. People book trips via WhatsApp from a live stream. People want this.”

• Travel director Martin de Boer: “With this format, we noticeably served GenZ’s wishes. They want live, direct, fast, and transactional—even for travel and vacation.”

The experiment was inspired by Chinese live commerce examples and timed well amid global travel shifts (e.g., away from Middle East/Asia due to unrest, boosting Curaçao interest). Corendon sees huge potential: plans to run similar streams regularly (possibly every other week), extend to their youth brand Go Fun, and eventually enable full bookings without leaving the app (e.g., directly in TikTok or WhatsApp). They view it as a game-changer for shopping, inverting the traditional sales funnel with real-time, low-friction transactions.

I have been watching part of the recording and I think it’s really well done things that stand out for me:

• Frictionless choice: By offering only 2 exclusive deals, they avoided "choice problem.”

• Conversational commerce: Keeping the WhatsApp number visible throughout the stream.

• Layered incentives: They captured two types of buyers by offering exclusive show deals for impulse shoppers and general promo codes for those looking at other holidays.

• Gamification & Retention: The "Gouden Koffer" (Golden Suitcase), so users need to guess the suitcase code and its a surprise what is in there. End-of-show giveaways to let people keep on watching (and interacting_).

I exported part of the comments on Facebook of this stream and ran it through Gemini for a sentiment analysis, based on that, I think this live stream, was very good for the CorenDon brand as well, Gemini told me:

The sentiment of the livestream comments is overwhelmingly positive.

• Positive: 55 comments (55.6%)

• Neutral: 39 comments (39.4%)

• Negative: 5 comments (5.1%)

Technical/Clarification Comments: The few negative or neutral comments were mostly related to technical aspects (e.g., "Geluid is slecht" - Sound is bad) or seeking clarification on the terms of the deals.

High Emoji Usage: The chat was filled with positive emojis such as ☀️ (sun), ✈️ (airplane), 🍀 (four-leaf clover), and ❤️ (heart), indicating a vacation-ready mood.

Excitement for the Promotion: Most users expressed high excitement for the Corendon deals, particularly those involving Curaçao. Common words used include "Leuke actie" (Nice action), "Geweldig" (Great), and "Droom" (Dream).

Cool CorenDon, very very nice! Thanks

Details: https://nu.cw/2026/03/18/corendon-test-live-shopping-reizen-direct-geboekt-via-whatsapp-na-livestream/

Or https://www.emerce.nl/nieuws/corendon-boekt-rechtstreeks-via-whatsapp-uit-livestream-mensen-willen-dit

Stream: https://www.facebook.com/Corendon.nl/videos/1427760859078572

🇲🇾 Emerging spots paying more than Japan (and closing on the West)

Old story: US tops tech pay, Western Europe and Japan sit behind that, rest catch up slowly. But this is now really changing.
In Malaysia, senior tech roles now pay more than in Japan. Not everywhere, but slowly it’s happening. Same vibe in Poland: IT pay climbing fast. After tax and living costs, seniors sometimes net better savings than in parts of Western Europe (even Germany in some benchmarks). And bigger picture, Poland just overtook Switzerland in GDP rankings (top 20 now, per IMF). “The Poles are coming!” as I wrote in edition 129 entrepreneurial energy, e-commerce acquisitions, serious competition.

Details: https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/japan-s-key-tech-workers-are-now-cheaper-than-malaysia-s
And
https://wbj.pl/poland-overtakes-switzerland-in-global-gdp-rankings/post/146998

My previous post on Poland:

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading. Greetings from Berlin. Schönen Tag!

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

Ja ja, yes yes, Crossborder Alex here with the Crossborder E-commerce Sentiment Tracker!
Check it out it’s free and updated daily:

https://crossborder-ecommerce-sentiment-tracker.lovable.app/

I vibe coded this sentiment tracker in “Lovable” just for fun and to test some ideas.
Now you have a destination to go whenever you want the latest cross-border sentiment pulse.

Bonus: I added an “Opportunity Gauge” as well. Because when sentiment dips, that’s when the real opportunities pop up.

Lovable is really fun. I am even a “gold vibe coder” now at Lovable. I also made a “train tracker PWA” for Dutch Railways.
Especially useful if you travel back and forth the same route to see at a glance the next trains departing.
Very easy to vibe code, once you connect the API.
Check it out here (works best on mobile). Of course there is a language switch and a retro mode!

https://alextraintracker.lovable.app

So I guess micro apps or disposable apps of which I wrote before, really take off now.

🇰🇿 Kazakhstan a true Digital Powerhouse

Kazakhstan, you might not think about it much, but things are happening there. I stumbled upon a video that explains a lot about the startup culture there. The vibe seems exceptional and very energetic. Very cool! I need to put this destination on my visit list!

• InDrive, the second most-used ride-hailing app in the world, yes, it’s from Kazakhstan.

• The startup economy has grown 18 times since 2019 (over $26 billion).

• Astana hub is central asia’s biggest techno park

• Kazakhstan ranks among the highest countries in the world for startup conversion rate, yes, in the same league as the US, China, and Israel.

• Higgsfield became Kazakhstan’s first unicorn. ( A unicorn in under a year).

• It’s all part of the “Digital Kazakhstan” programme. The government operates like a startup, with 90% of services available online.

🚫Location Fees now passed on to advertisers in some European countries

I saw it the other day at work, we also had to take it into account: Meta announced "location fees" in some European countries.
These are derived from Digital Services Taxes (DSTs) levies that governments charge large platforms like Meta based on local ad revenue.
Meta used to absorb these costs. Now they're passing them on to advertisers, as a separate line item on top of your campaign budget.

I am of course against it. These fees were meant to make the big tech companies pay. Well turns out they don’t (as expected) Meta passes them straight to advertisers. European businesses and in the end consumers, get the bill.
Less ad budget means less reach, fewer promotions, and fewer deals finding their way to shoppers: online and in store.
For retailers, that translates directly into fewer customers walking through the door and fewer conversions at the till. Crossborder Alex votes against🗳️ !
It slows down digitalisation and consumer freedom. Not a great move at all.

The fees are:

• Austria: 5%

• France: 3%

• Italy: 3%

• Spain: 3%

• Türkiye: 5%

• United Kingdom: 2%

Fees are based on the location of the user receiving the ad.

Details: https://marketing4ecommerce.net/en/meta-location-fee/

🤖 Meta AI ads become sales assistants

I wrote about it earlier on my substack, and now it’s coming, they are testing it currently: business ads that generate a conversation and potentially a conversion.

Nick Blom shared details.

When someone sees your ad, they can now start a conversation directly inside the ad itself. An AI agent responds instantly using information from your website, product catalog and the ad content.

What the AI can do:

• Answer questions about products
• Recommend products
• Share links from your website
• Send promo codes or offers
• Collect email sign-ups

I think many companies are not ready for this. This has huge potential, but you need to have very good meta data. This means an excellent product feed and up to date and complete landingpages. Very interesting to see what happens to the business AI advice, when you advertise a product that gets negative public traction on the ad.

Details: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7437879332347437056/?originTrackingId=JuRuwg3kH9PklB07QNpweQ%3D%3D

🇧🇷 Mercado Libre: scratch promotion and awareness at e-commerce packaging

Let’s take a look at Brasil. Mercado Libre the leading e-commerce giant in Latin America, started a campaign in Brasil about “removing your personal data” when you throw away a package.

Upon receiving the order and removing their data from the label, an exclusive coupon will be revealed, connecting awareness to a direct benefit for the buyer.
Nice idea to have some kind of lottery/scratch promotion on packages.

I can immediatly think of many variants of this type of packaging promotion. Nice idea!

More details: https://lbbonline.com/news/Mercado-Livre-Makes-Data-Protection-a-Scratch-and-Save-Habit

Did you know Mercado Libre is actually winning (in some ways) from Amazon? Very interesting to follow:

“Latin America offers one of the biggest e-commerce growth opportunities in the world. Penetration is roughly half the level seen in the U.S., U.K., and China, and we see no structural reason why the region should not reach similar levels,” said the company in its letter to shareholders.

MercadoLibre isn’t just Amazon transplanted south. It’s a hybrid of e-commerce and fintech that Amazon itself has never truly built. And that difference could be what makes it one of the most important growth companies in Latin America.

Amazon relies on established banking systems in North America and Europe.
To make e-commerce work in Latin America -- where large parts of the population are unbanked -- it had to build its own financial rails. That gave rise to Mercado Pago, a payments platform that has evolved into a digital wallet, lender, and asset manager. By the end of 2024, it counted 61 million monthly active users, with a loan portfolio of $6.6 billion and customer assets of $10.6 billion.

https://www.thestreet.com/retail/this-latin-american-e-commerce-giant-is-beating-amazon-mercadolibre

https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/09/26/mercadolibre-is-the-amazon-of-latin-america-or-is/

🇦🇪 UAE remains a global e-commerce hub

The crossborder sentiment tracker (see first topic in this newsletter) sits at 60 neutral today when I write this. But not every market is neutral. Some are running ahead of the curve, and the UAE is one of them.

I’ve been a fan of the Emirati digital hub for a while now. It’s one of those markets that does things deliberately: strong regulatory clarity, fast tech adoption, world-class logistics. A strategy.

Standard Chartered ranked it among the most digitally ready markets for trade in the world. And when you add free zones and advanced supply chain infrastructure on top of that, you start to understand why it’s become less of a transit point and more of a control tower for international commerce. Probably a bit similar to what China is developing in Hainan.

That’s the kind of market that moves the needle on the crossborder alex opportunity gauge. Even when global sentiment is flat.

Specialised international reports indicate that the UAE is among the world’s most prepared markets for digital trade. A report by Standard Chartered showed that the country ranks among the leading global markets in terms of readiness for digital trade, thanks to the strength of its digital ecosystem, the clarity of its regulatory environment, and the rapid adoption of modern technologies by businesses—factors that are reshaping global trade routes.

Combined with free zones, digital trade platforms, and advanced logistics capabilities, the UAE has evolved beyond a transit point to become a regional control tower for international supply chains, he added.

Details: https://www.emirates247.com/business/uae-consolidates-its-position-as-global-hub-for-cross-border-e-commerce/37

Thank you for reading

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

I wrote about this before and more and more I see articles on this topic including -now- real life examples.
In many cases (not all) the interface can stop being the product due to MCP.

How to deal with it?

I think one should consider:

• Go API-first (and MCP-native -that if, if MCP takes off, could be API remains most important). Sounds a contradiction but I think in many cases it’s inevitable, so better be one of the early adaptors and figure it out.

• Stop building features, start shipping capabilities or outcomes. Especially important (I wrote also on this many times before) to think beyond features. Redefine the roadmap around “what can an agent compose here?” instead of “what new screen or feature, do we ship? I wrote about that already in a few newsletters among this one.

• Think about a hybrid approach: UI where it still wins, agents elsewhere. Also think about the fact that some extensions even let MCP servers push lightweight interactive UIs inside the agent chat.

• Monetize and differentiate the new way, maybe premium “agent-ready” tiers with richer context or higher limits?

• Experiment aggressively and stay agile. Run internal pilots like Revolut did. Encourage teams to connect Claude to your own APIs via MCP. you’ll discover product gaps in days, not quarters. Stay curious: new agent-to-agent protocols and extensions are coming. All fun to play with I think.

Details:

https://x.com/linasbeliunas/status/2029165197466976665

And in Lina’s newsletter:

Linas's Newsletter

AI Just Killed the User Interface 🧠🖥️

👋 Hey, Linas here! Welcome to another special issue of my daily newsletter. Each day, I focus on 3 stories that are making a difference in the financial technology space. Coupled with things worth watching & the most important money movements, it’s the only newsletter you need for all things when Finance meets Tech. If you’re reading this for the first time, it’s a brilliant opportunity to join a community of 370k+ FinTech leaders…

Read more

3 months ago · 50 likes · Linas Beliūnas

Earlier related posts from me:

Edition 119
Edition 129

🇺🇸 Amazon introduces Amazon Seller Canvas

This feature just rolled out a few days ago, free for all US and UK sellers via Amazon Seller Central. Basically it’s an evolution of the existing seller assistant AI tool, but now it’s enhanced. You can now ask things like “what if, I run a discount”.

I think pretty very cool! It will set a standard for seller support, I think.

Early reactions from sellers and industry folks (mostly from news coverage and X chatter):

• It’s being called a “game-changer” for turning raw data into quick, actionable visuals, especially helpful for performance analysis right now, with marketing optimization, inventory planning, and product launch tools coming soon.

• People like how it cuts down manual digging (hours → seconds) and supports “what-if” scenario testing without guesswork.

• Some compare it favorably to agentic AI trends, noting Amazon’s push to help sellers scale faster (e.g., reducing inventory costs or fixing account issues proactively).

• No major negative user complaints yet, it’s too fresh, and coverage is positive/optimistic, focusing on the real-time personalization and how it levels up support compared to traditional Seller Central reports.

I think smart move and it will help both sellers and consumers.

🇸🇬 Singapore free AI training and access for it’s citizens

I often wish, we in the Netherlands, had a little more of Singapore’s economic vision (and execution).
It’s all about productivity. One factor to be more productive is tech.
Singapore now offers it’s citizens free courses and AI access:

• The Government will offer free six-month premium AI tool subscriptions for selected SkillsFuture AI courses from the second half of 2026.

• This initiative aims to provide hands-on AI experience and build fluency for Singaporeans aged 25 and above, regardless of income.

• Subscriptions from providers like Google and Microsoft will align with course content, ensuring practical application for participants.

With these type of measures, Singapore ensures it remains one of the major global tech area’s in the world. Well done!

Details: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/singaporeans-to-receive-free-premium-ai-subscriptions-from-second-half-of-2026

Dubai has something similar, I wrote about this earlier in this post.

🇦🇹 Booking a hotel in Austrias so many opportunities for a better guest experience

As I am not flying to Asia due to the situation in the Middle East, and I do want to take a bit of holiday, I now go skiing in Austria. It’s been a few years since I was in Austria for the last time but in terms of hotel booking frustration, nothing really changed. They haven’t improved that experience at all.

Not a lot of hotels are bookable via booking.com or an other large platform. While I understand that, they haven’t invested at all in a good booking platform for all ski-resorts. Every ski resort has it’s own booking engine and they fail dramatically in user experience. I am already busy for 2 days trying to book a hotel and I still didn’t succeed.

• Most hotels that you can book through some kind of a portal are week basis, but it’s now outside season and I want not on a weekly basis but different. Impossible to get a good deal via the portal. I know, also from experience, that it is possible to get a good deal but you always need to do too much effort for that by manually asking and that’s very time consuming.

• This manual asking can go via a request form. Basically a quotation that is send to a pool of hoteliers and you get invididual offers back from each hotel.

• These offers come in emails that are very hard to read (tiny tiny font), not uniform and some do not have any details on how to book, so you have to “email” them first, and via that you never get a fast reply so you end up negotiating with many different hotels and pensions via e-mail.

• When I do find a hotel via this pool, often I need to go to a “geocities’ like webpage of that hotel (external not in the platform) to get more details or pictures. I also need to find the official hotel page via Google as it is not linked in the e-mail with the quotation.

• Now, I can speak and write German, but if you cannot, there is no easy language switch, which is very easy to create nowadays (Hi Clonable).

• If you do get e-mails with offers, they the template is not mobile friendly. Hard to read, way too much content and if you need additional support or if you have additional questions, you need to copy paste an e-mail adress from the footer of the e-mail.

In this case I am trying to book a hotel or pension in Serfaus ski resort but it’s the same at most ski resorts in Austria (maybe with one or two exceptions).

One of the main reasons it’s currently so difficult is that most hotels and pensions still rigidly focus on weekly stays as the default. Shorter stays, mid-week bookings, or flexible alternate-(long) weekend options are usually only released when the hotel is (almost) certain that no full week guest will appear. This creates huge friction for travelers who want weekend trips, short getaways, last-minute plans and it leaves perfectly good rooms sitting empty as well.

I strongly believe AI could completely change this dynamic, to the benefit of both hotel owners and guests.

Using historical booking data, cancellation patterns, real-time weather forecasts, school holiday calendars, upcoming events, snow reliability predictions, and current demand signals, AI could intelligently and dynamically decide when it’s safe to open up non-weekly availability with very low risk of losing a higher-value weekly booking.

For example, the system could:

• Predict with high confidence that a particular week long slot is unlikely to book last-minute

• Automatically release attractive 2–5 night options at smart prices to fill those gaps.

This would make Austrian resorts dramatically more accessible, increase overall occupancy, boost hotel revenue, give travellers way more flexibility and ultimately bring many more people to the slopes who currently go elsewhere or don’t come at all.

Update: after 3 days of haggling I finally found a nice pension. Took me lots of time (too much to be honest)

🇳🇴 Norway: A Day in the Life of an Enshittificator

This is fun!
The “Enshitificator” campaign comes from the Norwegian consumer council, a government-funded organization that advocates for consumer rights in Norway.
In late February 2026, they launched a campaign centered on the concept of enshittification (a term popularized by Cory Doctorow describing how digital platforms and products start good to attract users, then degrade over time to extract more profit once users are locked in.
Fun to watch! So do so! And think about it when you develop products!

Thanks Niels, nice one!

Details: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree

🇮🇩 Meanwhile in Indonesia QRIS keeps expanding

Indonesia is expanding its QRIS payment method across the region and so will cross border e-commerce profit in that region. Important to follow for us crossborder e-commerce fans as the ASEAN frameworks expaning rapidly.

The planned expansion across APEC markets builds on existing interoperability arrangements within ASEAN and selected partner economies, including Japan. The initiative is expected to: accept interoperable digital payment, support local currency settlement mechanisms, reduced reliance on global card networks, and lower transaction and remittance costs.

“Indonesia’s payment digitalization has already reached South Korea, Japan, and parts of the Middle East. We will continue to promote it to other APEC countries,” Airlangga said after attending the APEC Business Council Meeting at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta on Saturday, February 7, 2026.

Details: https://research.hktdc.com/en/article/MjI2NDg2NDgxNA

https://en.tempo.co/read/2085808/indonesia-targets-qris-payment-expansion-across-apec-countries

🇨🇳 China/Shenzhen and open claw: one person companies

One of the nice things in China (especially on tech) is that the Chinese people are very open to new tech but also governments really support it. Here another example from Shenzhen, I city I have been to many, many times. If you haven’t been there it’s very difficult to understand what is happening there.

Shenzhen has just released policy measures to support OpenClaw / OPC.
The main measure is: zero-cost startup as its central highlight, the initiative extends an invitation to intelligent agent developers worldwide and entrepreneurs building OPCs (One Person Companies), aiming to make Longgang the top global destination for launching intelligent-agent startups.

Now compare this to most of Europe and especially the EU where I am 100% sure 99.99% of the policy makers never tried OPC themselves or anything that looks like it.

So look East for ideas especially those one person companies with Open Claw.

Thank you for reading! This week a shorter newsletter then normal. Normally I would have been on holiday and that messed up my agenda a bit. I simply had less time to write. Hope you enjoyed reading it though and I hope to see you in the next edition again.
Thank you for your subscribtion!

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

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👱The Risk of AI content, how human written content wins

I think we all have the same feeling: purely expanding with AI-generated content without any quality checks or improvements is not good. Still, I know many companies that do just that. Let this research be a warning! Quality content helps us all, and I think it’s a very human activity to decide what constitutes quality content and in what form. You can and should ask AI for help, but you should focus on the human element.

Important considerations while creating AI content

1. Loss of user trust

2. Google can detect poor quality AI content

3. Negative user signals

4. Site-wide quality impact

5. Future algorithm changes

Google's Quality Rater Guidelines suggest the company is moving toward content with genuine human experience and expertise.

Details (and the research details) here:

https://peec.ai/blog/the-real-risk-of-ai-generated-content

🔍 Google Patent: google generates AI landingpage & chatbot -if your landingpage has low quality-

Highly interesting:
Google just got a patent granted (see link below) for generating AI-built landing pages that replace yours when your site doesn't meet their quality threshold.
The system works like this: you search for something, Google returns results, and behind the scenes it calculates a "landing page score" for each result based on conversion rate, bounce rate, CTR, page design quality, and content quality.
If your score crosses a threshold (meaning your page is bad enough) Google generates its own AI page for your brand and inserts a navigation link to it directly in the search results.

That AI-generated page pulls from your product feed, includes a chatbot, shows call-to-action buttons to your PDPs, and is personalized to the user based on their entire search history. It's not a cached version of your site. It's a net new page Google built about your brand, for your customer, using your data.

That’s something isn’t it? It should make us digital marketers and product owners aware more aware of focusing on the user experience, achieving a user’s goal and to constantly innovate.

Details: https://patents.google.com/patent/US12536233B1/en

🇲🇾 Japanese goes shopping in Kuala Lumpur and is amazed by Malay shopping tech

And rightfully so!

🗎 AI prototyping masterclass with the co-founder of Wix

Now this, I think I could do all day: generating ideas to solve problems and build prototypes and discuss with team members.
This video discusses that topic and how to do use AI in prototyping.
It’s worth a watch, they use a tool called “Dazzle” which I didn’t know but seems very nice.
My main takeouts below but watch the video!

• His team at Wix used to assign three developers for weeks to build functional prototypes for major features. Now every single feature goes through AI prototyping before a line of production code gets written. The time cost went from weeks to minute

• The 90/10 Rule: Use the prototype to cover the main 90% of user flows and use the PRD to document the edge cases (like empty states or excessive data). Zero Questions: When the prototype and PRD work together, they should leave the developer with no remaining questions about the feature.

• The Product Requirements Document (PRD) is no longer just for humans to skim; it becomes a vital context document for the AI to ensure the prototype mirrors the intended logic.

• Building Context in "Discuss Mode": Use the AI's "discuss" or "plan" mode to talk through an entire stack or spec before generating code. This ensures the AI understands the context, such as defining "what is a sentiment analysis," before building it.

• Code-to-Agent Handoff: Engineers can download the prototype project and use AI agents (like Cursor) to "copy the experience" or logic directly into the production stack, saving significant development time

• The "Speed Dial" Approach: Product Leaders should ensure PMs have a few key customers on "speed dial" to quickly put these prototypes in their hands via a simple video call.

• The goal of these tools is to move from idea to user testing as fast as possible, as usability testing is much more effective on functional products than on "Frankenstein" or static designs.

• Precision in prompting is vital to avoid the "Genie" effect where the AI misinterprets a vague instruction. For example, instead of just asking for a feature, include specific details like "show how the sentiment was collected" to ensure the AI provides the necessary transparency.

• Prototyping as an ideation Standard: No feature should pass the ideation stage without at least a few functional prototypes to test variations.

Thank you great video!

🚣‍♂️ Kayak: another really nice campaign higlighting a problem solved

When I just started my newsletter, I already wrote about Kayak, a well known travel search engine. What I like is that they really also explain their features and how they solve their users problems in their ads, and I think that’s what makes them unique.

Take a look at this new campaign from them where they focus on a very specific audience: travelers aged 25-45 and on a problem that audience knows well: the stress and doubt that comes before the trip even starts.

Instead of selling the excitement of travel like most competitors do, KAYAK focuses on the booking moment itself. Their research found that 66% of travelers feel stressed when booking. Rather than ignore that, they built their whole new campaign around that called: “Got That Right.”

They created funny short videos, each showing a different problem their audience deals with. “Big Trip. Small Screen.” is about the frustration of booking a trip on your phone. “Momfluencer” makes fun of the flood of travel advice online that leaves people more confused than before. Both videos don’t just make you laugh, they also show how KAYAK actually solves these problems.

Another problem the campaign talks about as well, is having too many options and too much information. People don’t struggle because they can’t find options, they struggle because there are too many.
That’s exactly where their Smart Filters feature comes in. Instead of going through dozens of filter options yourself, you just describe what you want and KAYAK does the work for you. Simple as that.
They made a seperate ad for that feature. And that I like. Very useful in targeted campaings, I think.

Details and all video’s via: : https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/got-that-right

🇦🇪 How to build trust in the middle of a crisis

I would like to share the experience here of mr Tushar. It’s a story of how UAE and its aviation hubs, transform a geopolitical crisis into a powerful demonstration of brand trust.

It’s totally different from what happens here in Netherlands when the non happy flow is disturbed, I can remember these 2 recent cases in the Netherlands.

• Rotterdam Airport : Because of strict local noise ordinances and “curfew” rules, when flights were delayed into the late evening, the airport essentially “timed out.” Passengers were famously told they couldn’t stay in the terminal and were sent outside, often into the snow/cold to find their own transport or hotels, as the airport simply closed its doors for the night and even recommended to stranded passengers best to stay in the parking lot. Really happened not long ago.

• Schiphol: Just very recently, Schiphol faced a massive de-icing fluid shortage and a bottleneck that grounded over 3,200 flights. Passengers were left waiting on planes for hours only to be de-planed back into a terminal that was already at capacity. The advice given was often: “If your flight is cancelled, please leave the airport and go home.” For international transit passengers, that wasn’t an option, leading to the sight of hundreds sleeping on cots with very limited services available in the terminal and for a long time a total blackout on communicatinon of what to do. Now compare that with the experience of Tushar in the UAE.

I think it’s really cool to have the flexibility, low level autonomy, and processes in a global aviation hub to respond like these airports in the UAE, do in the middle of a huge crisis.
Would be great to work for organisations that are so customer/passenger friendly.

Thank you for reading!

That’s it for this edition. Next edition might be from Asia or maybe not. Let’s see how far I get.

Take care, be safe

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

I do promise I send out a newsletter as soon as I have nice pictures or videos during traveling, which I am sure I will find (already prepared a bit). So stay tuned! Nice inspirational videos and pictures will follow.

🇳🇱 Coolblue Yearbook 2025: sustained customer love

Every year, Coolblue, one of my favorite companies (because they are very much customer focused and a bit contrarian), publishes their yearbook. And it’s always very nice to browse through.

Coolblue describes 2025 as “een jaar voor in de boeken” (a year for the books), highlighting a record revenue of €2.563 billion (up 4.2% from the previous year), their highest-ever NPS (customer satisfaction score), strong growth especially in Germany, new store openings, and tons of operational improvements.

Check out all details at the link below. Unlike previous years there is no PDF anymore, but fo rall of us customer oriented marketers, its very nice to read:

https://aboutcoolblue.com/en/yearbook/the-coolblue-story/

🇳🇱 Three friends with no hospitality experience wildly successful with snack bar: ‘Because of ChatGPT’

I found this in a local Dutch newspaper:

Three friends that do not have any experience in hospitality, start a business with ChatGPT as a coach.

And they did so succesfully!

I think the usage of these kind of “digital advices” will only increase.

So what to do?
Get these new operators into your business orbit early: funnel via public agents like ChatGPT/Claude, or (smarter) build a specialised vertical one like in this case for “Horeca/Hospitality”.

Extra bonus it will increase the start of new businesses and that’s good for everyone.

A few citations, roughly translated from the article:

Running a snack bar without ever having worked in the hospitality industry? Don Bound (36) and two good childhood friends took up the challenge. But not on their own: “We asked ChatGPT almost everything.” And it works: “The turnover is increasing every day.”

Two weeks ago, their snack bar Snack and Slice opened. “The name was also coined by ChatGPT: a combination between pizza and snacks. It was already a hit with one prompt,” says Don, who studied communication.

ChatGPT turned out not to be infallible: “As a result, we had ordered containers for the fries that did not fit in the bags. But that was actually the only thing.”

Don emphasizes that ChatGPT is mainly supportive. “We come up with the creative ideas ourselves.” Although: “He gives good openings though.” In this way, he takes people on their hospitality adventure from the opening. Via the socials – TikTok, Instagram – everyone can follow live how they grow in the profession.

Original article (paywalled):

https://www.gelderlander.nl/koken-en-eten/drie-vrienden-zonder-horeca-ervaring-razend-succesvol-met-snackbar-door-chatgpt~aa5785d5

You can unpaywall and translate via “archive.is”

🇳🇱 Congratulations “Clonable” with 1 million euro funding

And we stay in the Netherlands, with a “Congratulations” to Clonable.
Niels, gefeliciteerd!

All the way back in edition 18, I wrote about “Clonable”, when I first met them and I still remember their enthusiasm and growht mindset.

Basically clonable is making impressive steps as a innovative SaaS platform that simplifies and accelerates online internationalization for webshops and websites. By allowing businesses to quickly “clone” their online presence into new languages and markets, often in just one day, the tool removes major barriers to cross-border e-commerce growth.

Check out the details in edition 18:

The next steps for Clonable:

In 2026, Clonable will take further steps outside the Benelux, with a focus on the DACH region and Scandinavia. The international expansion focuses on visibility through events, attracting international customers, and expanding the network of affiliates and resellers.

“Europe is a fragmented market with many languages, cultures, and rules. That is precisely why there is a need for a European platform that structurally simplifies internationalisation,” says Teun Onstenk of the Bossche Investeringsfonds.

It’s exciting to see a homegrown Dutch startup like this scale so effectively and help more retailers go international with ease. I can fully recommend this company!

Details via the friends from cross-border-magazine:

https://cross-border-magazine.com/clonable-raises-e1-million/

🧪 Pomelli (annoying name but great tool) launches photostudio for rapid fast product pictures

Google Labs has ‘Pomelli’, it’s been around for a bit now, and if you’re outside the US (or the few supported countries like Canada/Aus/NZ), you’ll probably need a VPN to access it. But, it’s good and super useful if you’re into product promotion.

I played around with it today, and their ‘Photoshoot’ feature (inside Pomelli) is seriously very nice!! You just upload one product photo, even a crappy, low-res one and in a few minutes it spits out a bunch of high-quality lifestyle shots, studio versions, in-use scenes, etc. No need for a real photographer or fancy setup.

I tested it with a not-so-great pic of an outdoor beer table setup, and the results came out looking very good, clean lighting, nice compositions, totally campaign ready, I would say.
Check out the video where I imported that rough outdoor table image and see what it generates.

I would say this is very useful especially for smaller organisation, because within minutes you have great assets. Great for ads, social posts, discoverability, performance marketing etc.
It saves a ton of time and money on visuals and it will pay off in your discoverability.

Try it yourself (but switch on a VPN switched to the US):

https://labs.google.com/u/0/pomelli/about

🇫🇷 Customer Matching 3.5 million euro fine in France

Important to know for everyone thinking about (or doing) “customer matching” in advertising in Europe. An -officially unknown- company got a fine from 3.5 million euro (Hi Intersport) for using customer matching at Meta without consent.

The core issue was transferring personal data email addresses and/or phone numbers from over 10.5 million loyalty program members (”La Team”) to a social network (widely understood to be Meta/Facebook) for targeted advertising purposes, starting around 2018 and continuing for years.

So if you are active in the EU, be aware of this and if you want to use customer matching do ask for consent.
Having said that, I think, with new targeting techniques the tech giants have introduced (f.e. AndroMeda), customer matching is less and less relevant, so do use and optimize for the new targeting algorithmes and focuse less on customer matching in Europe.

Details:

https://cnil.fr/en/transfer-data-social-network-advertising-purposes-cnil-imposed-fine-eu35-million

🇧🇹 Bhutan happy but not with crypto payments

I’m intrigued by Bhutan, I have never been (it’s on the list), but what’s fascinating is they’re the only country officially prioritizing Gross National Happiness (GNH) over GDP as the real measure of progress.

They’ve got real policies in place to help citizens actually become happier: mindfulness and meditation baked into schools, values woven through education, free healthcare, cultural preservation, all aimed at holistic well-being, not just economic growth. I read a lot about it in the past.

But apparently, they’re not so happy with crypto payments (yet). Their big tourism crypto push, Binance Pay rolled out nationwide, has basically flopped. Merchants signed up, QR codes everywhere, but almost zero real use from tourists. Power outages, low literacy, spotty internet, and visitors just sticking to cash/cards get in the way.

It shows how “modern” tech innovations can crash into realities like infrastructure gaps or digital readiness, even in a society that’s laser-focused on happiness.

Details: https://restofworld.org/2026/bhutan-bitcoin-tourism-payment-adoption-failure/

🇨🇳 China: watch your takout being prepared by a machine in centralised kitchens via live streaming

TechBuzz China has an in depth article on China’s dark - or nowadays more open-kitchens.

A few months after launching its food delivery service, JD decided to change strategy (after Alibaba began investing heavily) and move up the food delivery supply chain. It opened its own kitchens, which are partially operated by cooking machines, robots, if you like. All kitchens also livestream their operations, which has become somewhat standard, as there is widespread distrust of food safety in China and ‘dark kitchens’ have a very bad reputation.

Data show that among businesses that implement kitchen livestreaming, repeat purchase rates are 15-20% higher than the platform average, and average order value is 10-15% higher than that of similar businesses. More notably, research shows that approximately two-thirds of customers, at the same price, will prioritise businesses offering livestreaming kitchen services.

7Fresh Kitchen said it aims to be not only a trustworthy, affordable takeout store but also a community pickup canteen that can withstand the test of time in offline traffic. It aims to solve two problems:

• Help consumers solve the food safety problems caused by ‘dark kitchens’ and make them delicious, cheap, clean and hygienic through supply chain innovation, so that low-quality restaurants are completely eliminated from the market.

• Help merchants who stick to the quality of their restaurants make money, and work with them to sell their signature dishes across the country to obtain sustained good returns.

The first store’s average daily orders exceeded 1,000 within a week of launch, and its three-day repurchase rate was 220% higher than the industry average.

goes deep into the businessmodel. Interesting for everyone in hospitality, restaurants and catering.

📹 YouTube introduces ABS (no not the anti lock braking system), but attributed branded searches.

OK, I admit, I hate YouTube for its ads, but I also like it because of its ads.
Now YouTube has a new feature that I think can help brands a lot, and also in some cases it reduces the need for paid brand recall research. This feature also helps to steer the discussion on “performance branding”.

Google is introducing Attributed Branded Searches (ABS). A new metric that tracks branded Google searches from users who previously saw your YouTube ads (within a 7-day window).

In simple terms:

📺 Someone watches your YouTube ad
🔎 Later they Google your brand
📊 That search is now measurable as campaign impact

It also resonates with what I say already for a long time, The consumer journey isn’t linear anymore. People stream → scroll → search → shop in chaotic loops. Don’t stay stuck in the traditional funnel(s).

If you do not have the feature yet, ask your Google Account manager, I understood it is not yet rolled out fully.

Details via Bia: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bia-camargo_how-do-we-prove-youtube-actually-drives-search-activity-7429770163849183232-rHVw/

That’s it for this edition. Next one will be from Asia! Thank you for reading liking and subscribing!

Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

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📱Nothing phone let’s you make your own apps

Vibe coding is fun, I’m liking it more and more. The trick, I think, is to really stretch these systems and try to get the most out of them. I constantly try to at least, and it’s fun to do.

A while ago, I wrote about the trend of “disposable apps,” and it feels like we’re going next level with the “Nothing Phone.” If you haven’t heard of it, Nothing phone was started by the founder of OnePlus (Carl Pei) and that matters because the guy actually has a vision and proven to execute it very well. I also like the name 😀.

Right now, Nothing has released a “playground” on their phones, where you can vibe code your own widgets.
It’s just widgets for now, but once this clicks, people will be vibe coding entire apps, on their own phone.

This is going to change how we use phones:

• App Store downloads might reduce for non financial and lower complex apps: Why go through the friction of a store when you can just manifest the tool you need exactly the way you want.

• UX becomes “uncontrolled”: We’re moving away from pixel-perfect designs forced on us by big tech. If you vibe code it, the UX is whatever you want it to be.

It’s a shift from being a user to being a creator of your own phone.

https://nothing.community/d/52739-essential-apps-enters-beta

🌎 Dara Denny’s 5 ad levels of AndroMeda maturity

You all know I like Dara’s videos a lot. Dara now has a new video that’s worth sharing and summarizing. It’s all about AndroMeda and how you can achieve success at Meta Ads. Success on Meta requires two things now: Creative Velocity and Creative Diversity. To help brands identify where they are and how to scale, Dara Denney has determined “5 Levels of Creative Diversity”. Here they are:

Ad Level 0: Statics vs. Videos At this entry level, brands are simply trying to move beyond using only images. While many start with statics, you must emerge into video to find long-term success. If you only distinguish your ads by whether they are “a static” or “a video,” you are still at level zero.

Ad Level 1: Format Expansion (Visual Diversity) This is where you seek visual diversity through different formats (e.g., UGC, green screen, TikTok response bubbles, or VSLs).

Ad Level 2: Awareness Expansion Here, you stop making every ad a direct “buy now” pitch. You must analyze where your customers are in their journey: Unaware, Solution-Aware, or Product-Aware. Many brands see ads “fall off a cliff” because they only target product-aware users; to scale, you must go upfunnel with educational content that introduces the product to new consumers.

Ad Level 3: Desire & Motivation Expansion This level taps into human psychology to create ads that feel like they were made specifically for the user. You expand your messaging by leaning into the 16 human desires or the Life Force 8 (concepts from the book Cashvertising).

Ad Level 4: Audience Segment & Use Case Expansion (Personas) At this stage, you begin marketing to entirely new groups of people. This involves identifying different personas who use your product for different reasons. For example, a single beauty product might target “mommies” wanting a quick routine, “Gen Z” looking for a no-makeup look, and “Millennials” focused on dry skin. Providing the Andromeda algorithm with diverse personas allows it to find new pockets of profit for your brand, really interesting this I think. I think you can use AI also to figure out new persona’s.

Ad Level 5: True Creative Diversity This is a mindset shift where content strategy is at the heart of everything the business does. This level is reached when a brand excels at all previous levels across a suite of products or when they capitalize on celebrity engagements and high-level creative operations. Think of episodic content, documentaries, or a highly specialized content style that lives beyond just paid placements. If your organic and paid strategies are working in tandem to put content at the center of your business, you have reached the top tier of the platform.

🇵🇱 The Poles are coming!

I have been to Poland quite some times. I worked with many Polish collegues in e-ecommerce, software development and customer service. What stood out to me as one Czech friend once said “In Poland everyone is a businessman/woman”.
I think that’s true and thats a compliment to Poland.
Earlier I wrote on how Poland’s GDP is surpassing that of some European countries.
Now we see the trend continuing when Bloomberg reports that Poland is increasing company takovers in Germany

Poland’s stage of development is beginning to resemble that of South Korea previously, according to Dominik Kopinski, a senior adviser at the Polish Economic Institute in Warsaw. The acquisitions by companies reflect Poland’s shifting away from being an emerging market, he said. The difference is that Poles are driven more by the pursuit of market share than by the acquisition of new technologies.

This means -there were already a lot- opportunities in e-commerce in Poland, but as I remember from working with Polish collegues and managing a Polish webshop, there is huge competition there, so really dive into your competition and (potential) customers.

Go for it Poland, details:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-11/poland-s-1-trillion-economic-boom-sparks-m-a-in-germany

📹 Search Engine Land on video as source of truth for AI

Earlier I wrote on this topic as well. Don’t underestimate video and repurposing content (especially but not only in B2B). Search Engine land explains why and how! I suggest this is a ‘must read’ for everyone in digital marketing and content.

To correct brand drift and prevent AI from distorting your brand message, your company must provide a canonical source of truth.

By producing authoritative videos (e.g., a demo that explicitly clarifies pricing), you provide strong semantic information through the transcript and visual proof. The video becomes the canonical source of truth that makes things clear, overriding opinions from Reddit and other sources.

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is developing a new provenance standard to verify authenticity. The organization, which includes members such as Google, Adobe, Microsoft, and OpenAI, provides the technical specifications that enable this data to be cryptographically verifiable.

• Identify the gap: Where is AI hallucinating elements of your story? Find the topics where your brand voice is missing or being misrepresented by outdated Reddit posts or competitor noise.

• Anchor with verified experts: Use real people with verifiable credentials. AI agents now cross-reference experts against LinkedIn data and professional knowledge graphs to weigh the authority of the content.

• Preserve the nuance: Marketing and legal departments often strip it from blog posts, making them generic. Video preserves the colloquial, detailed explanations that signal true expertise.

And there still is lots of hallucination in AI so this is really important if you take your brand and performance branding seriously.

Details:

https://searchengineland.com/why-video-is-the-canonical-source-of-truth-for-ai-and-your-brands-best-defense-468807

Related articles:

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed108

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed90

🇨🇳 China recognizes new cross border profession

I stumbled upon this article: a new profession for us crossborder fans: cross-border e-commerce operations manager.
To be honest it’s a profession in the direction I brainstormed with myself about many times. Someone who helps companies from China, sell in Europe. I reckon, I need to improve my mandarin skills from “beer order level” to “business level” 😅.

Zhang shuttles daily between two fronts: data and cargo ships. In the morning, she might be an analyst studying traffic trends. In the afternoon, she becomes a supervisor monitoring production schedules. Late at night, she turns into a customer service representative, verifying bill of lading information with overseas clients. This is the daily reality of cross-border e-commerce operations managers — monitoring backend data to identify market demand while ensuring each shipment clears customs smoothly.

Zhang has discovered that cultural differences permeate every aspect of business. East Asian consumers prefer individually packaged snack foods, valuing convenience and experience, while in Russia and Central Asia, walnuts are important daily ingredients, with substantial household consumption and food-processing demand making bulk wholesale trade more active. Understanding these nuances means going beyond market research reports to grasp local dietary culture, family structures and even holiday traditions.

According to the White Paper on Talent Cultivation for Cross-Border E-Commerce in China, the country’s talent gap in the sector reached 4 million people in 2025, and the shortage may continue to deepen.

I think very interesting such a job. Probably also it will increase in demand also beyond China these kind of jobs (like f.e. India or Vietnam).

Details in the people’s daily:

https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0209/c98649-20423973.html

🇻🇳 Quick dive in Vietnam’s new e-commerce law/definitions

I always like to read about e-commerce legistlation: how do countries setup legal boundary’s for e-commerce? Some countries in South East Asia are doing a good job on it, I think, by taking care of consumer protection, but at the same time not regulate too much (Hi Malaysia). I see clearly see lots of differences between continents, for example with live streaming/social selling and the definition of platforms.

Vietnam makes a difference between these type of e-commerce platforms🧐:

Direct e-commerce platform: A platform established by an organization or individual to directly sell goods or provide services (self-operated sales, where the platform owner is the seller).

Intermediary e-commerce platform A platform that allows other organizations or individuals to register accounts to introduce, sell goods, or provide services on that platform (e.g., traditional marketplaces connecting third-party sellers and buyers, including features like auctions or promotions).

Social network operating e-commerce: Social networks or media platforms that integrate e-commerce functions, such as online contact, ordering, buying/selling features, or livestream selling to facilitate transactions (this targets social commerce models like TikTok Shop or Facebook Marketplace integrations).

Integrated e-commerce platform: A platform that allows the integration of other e-commerce platforms or tools on it, acting as a connector for sharing data and combining functions (multi-functional or hybrid models, excluding pure support services like basic communication tools).

Some of the new rules are things like:

• Verify the identities of all sellers (stronger KYC-like requirements).

• Actively monitor and control content, especially in livestreams (e.g., suspend or remove violating content on authority request).

• Foreign e-commerce platforms (e.g., those targeting Vietnamese users via local language, domains, or high domestic traffic) must establish a legal presence in Vietnam (representative office or authorized entity).

• Stronger emphasis on data retention, product information transparency, and protection against fraud, counterfeits, and substandard goods.

Details:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1b0e2fd2-295a-482b-a5b2-e7af3193ca10

https://en.vietnamplus.vn/vietnams-e-commerce-set-for-safer-more-sustainable-growth-under-new-law-post337588.vnp

🚮Crappy Design: real life example how not to do it

Great example of bad UX or crappy design: If it looks like a button, people will treat it like a button. Humans are pattern-matching machines. With these things in design or signposting, test, I would say and /or adapt if you see it doesn’t work.
Always test: if someone glances at it for 0.5 seconds, do they know what to do?

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

After last week’s post about the Lovable Growth Model, I decided to give Lovable a try myself again. Last time I used the tool was about 8 months ago.
So much has changed! I was able to create in about a about an hour this website: a search engine for my substack archive.

For a long time I am dissatisfied with substack’s search engine. I use my newsletters also for myself, to find back information for daily use (at work for example). I hardly can find anything with substack’s own search engine.
With Lovable you can create your own search engine for your substack and vibe code your way to optimization.
I am (for now) satisfied with the result and improvements are just a few lines of vibe coding away.

Try it for yourself. Here is the URL to the search engine I developed to search only through my substack archive: https://cba-search.lovable.app/

I am really happy with lovable, I used it now not only to build this search engine, but also to make wireframes and prototypes of improvements for apps and websites.
It helps if you can make things interactive for the product teams. It’s much easier to bring over your idea by doing so especially in remote teams.

If you want to try also, use this referal link for lovable and you get 10 credits for free (and I also get 10): https://lovable.dev/invite/J9IFDPI
It’s fun and you learn a lot when you play with the tool.

👩🏼‍💼AG Consult: top tasks & b2b research

A few times I have seen a talk from AG Consult. They are always entertaining (with humor) and always very much focused on users and user behavior. They are also a bit contrarian, they have a different opinion (often) then what you read in the main stream marketing communication, and that makes it very interesting to get fresh and new perspectives. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any recent talk, nor did they publish one on YouTube.

But this week they send out an e-mail and it reminded me again of them. Just sharing some links from that email below.

The first article they shared is on B2B and on what questions to ask directly after onboarding a new customer. I will try to use this in my daily work also as I am currently working on an onboarding document:

Focus on the following directly after onboarding:

• Why did they choose to become your customer?

• What ultimately convinced them to make the decision?

• What were their biggest doubts during the decision-making process?

• Why do some prospects decide not to become your customers?

More details in this blog post: https://www.agconsult.com/en/usability-blog/marketing-and-sales-personal-without-personalisation/

Now this is also interesting, I think: Top Task Research. AG consult talks about this concept in this post: 60% of visitors come to your website for the same 4 top tasks

The blog post does not go into detail but AG consult did not invent the “Top Task Research” concept, so a quick search in Grok tells me how to set something like that up.

Grok says (shortened):

• Gather a long list of potential tasks (100–500 initially):

  • Brainstorm with stakeholders, content owners, support teams, call center logs, analytics (popular pages/searches), user feedback, competitor sites, etc.

  • Phrase them as user tasks/goals in plain language (e.g., “Apply for a permit”, “Find opening hours”, “Pay a bill”, “Check recycling rules”—not features like “View our calendar page”).

• Refine to a shortlist (usually 50–100 tasks):

• Run the voting survey:

  • Use any survey tool (e.g., Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Pollunit, Optimal Workshop’s tool).

  • Present the randomized list of tasks (random order to avoid bias).

  • Ask participants to select/rank their top ones common formats:

    • McGovern’s classic “crazy” version: Pick your top 5 (or sometimes top 3–10), and assign points (5 for #1, 4 for #2, etc.) or just select without ranking.

• Analyze the results:

  • Tally votes/points per task. & Create a “league table” (ranked list) from highest to lowest.

• Follow-up (optional but recommended):

  • Use the top tasks to redesign navigation, content, or test performance (e.g., Task Performance Indicator testing: give users the top tasks and measure success rate/time).

I think very useful information if you are helping a client or in many cases in daily work for us digital marketers, product managers etc.
If you want to read more about an organisation that actually did this research, checkout the Canada.ca site as they explain their “top task research”

https://blog.canada.ca/2023/03/22/top-tasks.html

🥁The Drum: the traditional marketing funnel is dead

I largely agree with this column from The Drum (linked below). I’ve been saying it for months: the traditional marketing funnel is no longer. The phases (awareness, consideration, conversion or alternatively see, think, do ) might still exist conceptually, but the sequence is totally scrambled. and that, my friends, isn’t always clear or linear anymore.

Many agencies still sell separate flights for each phase (believe me I know), but I think that’s no longer the best option. User behavior has changed, people bounce around feeds or platforms, get influenced by comments/creators, loop back etc. Plus, ad algorithms have evolved big time recently (Hi Andromeda) Meta’s AI that loves creative diversity and blurs top/bottom funnel lines into one campaign).

This column explains that exactly, flattening of the journey, and I’m happy to read it because it confirms what I wrote earlier. Check these earlier substack posts on this topic from me:

Checkout this post that backs it up:

And this post as well

That said, I don’t agree with everything in the column. There’s more to it. Social won’t replace it all.

Sure, social often feels like the new front door now, but it’s not just social taking over everything. Other channels, like CTV ads (Prime Video, connected TV), Amazon streaming, Google Discovery campaigns, or even brand mentions in AI overviews and LLMs, can still work great for awareness, trust, or sales, especially when people aren’t just scrolling feeds.

The Drum column you can find here:

https://www.thedrum.com/industry-insight/the-marketing-funnel-is-dead-social-media-ate-it

✅A re-marketing warning by Jon

Something to remember. Jon Loomer’s (a respected Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads expert, I follow already for a long time) primary point is that with newer tools like Advantage+ Audiences, Meta’s algorithm automatically prioritizes people who have already interacted with your brand. So creating a separate remarketing ad set is redundant and usually drives up your costs (CPMs).

📖 Fix the process first: why tech alone won’t save you (lessons from my coursera consulting teacher, John Kim)

A while ago, I followed a course on Coursera on “Consulting”. Really a nice course to be honest, and I still follow the teacher (John Kim) of that course (even bought his book). He regularly publishes on substack as well and I would like to share this post

Consultant's Mind

McKinsey: Reimagine who does the work

This McKinsey report, Agents, Robots, and Us (Jan 2026) was deserving of two blog posts. The first one here segregates the different combinations of work that will be done by humans, agents, and robots (and combinations therein). TLDR; change is coming. Be thoughtful how you stack your skills, by emphasizing flexibility and continuous learning…

Read more

3 months ago · 11 likes · 2 comments · ConsultantsMind

Read John’s article on AI and processes:

McKinsey took a look at 80 different use cases. As a simple example, a technology company had thousands of smaller accounts which were not getting attention from their inside sales force (of course, the accounts were small). With GenAI, the company had 4 different AI-agents: 1) prioritized the accounts by public & proprietary account data 2) outreach to the accounts to qualify them 3) managed follow up and stratified the leads (good, okay, bad) 4) schedule contact with a human employee. Results? Saved 30-50% of time, and raised revenue from these small-accounts 7-12%.

Change is tough. Change is glacial:

So McKinsey offers these questions to ask:

• Are you reimagining your business for future value?

• Are you leading AI as a core business transformation?

• Are you building a culture of experimentation and learning?

• Are you building trust and ensuring safety?

• Are you equipping your managers to lead teams of people, agents, and robots?

• Are you preparing your workers for new skills and roles?

Basically what the author writes is fix/redesign the process first before applying tech (speeding up broken processes fails faster) and how you can use ChatGPT to do exactly that.

The course I followed:
https://www.consultantsmind.com/coursera-management-consulting/

📖Book snippets: the most human company wins

I have read this book already twice, it was lying around on my desk today. Great book! I share here some book snippets. Important to understand how to differentiate in the age of AI with humans.

🇩🇪 Germany: AI answers viafax

We all know by know Germany is not the most digital nation on earth, despite many talented employees and citizens (believe me I know). But did you know Germany has a FAX AI business model? Yes! No AI overviews, AI Fax views. Send a fax with a question and it will reply back with a FAX with an AI answer.

So go see if you still have a fax machine somewhere and fax: https://simple-fax.de/fax-ki

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Time to share a Lenny podcast again. Lovabale seems to be a great company and I even got more enthusiastic when I saw this pod. I summarize my highlights below.

• Velocity of shipping: it is our number one core value Ship things you can talk about. Yeah, I so much like that!👍👍 It forces creativity and really understanding your customers.

• Emotional investment: Since building is now fast and cheap, companies can finally afford to invest in the "emotional feel" of software, ensuring users get energy from the interaction rather than finding it painful to use. Different mindset then tradiontal PM, focus on those outcomes it might be connecting features or journeys! Very nice and in alignment with more AI PM.

• User-Driven prioritisation: Elena notes that their shipping velocity is intended to make users feel that the product is changing every week based on their interaction and engagement. Also something I have been reading a lot about the past year but most companies still NOT do, They say they are user driven, but in practice QBR cycles and revenue assumptions usually win. Quarterly Business Reviews lock teams into predefined goals months in advance. Even when fresh user data points in a different direction, organisations rarely change course because they’ve already committed to specific outcomes internally. True user-driven development requires a completely different operating rhythm: shipping weekly (or faster), collecting signals continuously, and adjusting the roadmap in real time. I believe in the latter and I think we should advocate that way of prioritization. In the age of AI it’s even more important.

• Discord community: Lovable maintains a very active community on Discord with hundreds of thousands of members where users bounce ideas off each other and explore the product's capabilities. Also very good and I think, any company can do that, maybe not on Discord, maybe not even on your own website platform, but just use Meta, or YouTube or whatever platform fits to organise an active community. I can visualize that immidiatly as useful for many companies.

• At Lovable, the concept of "Brand as Product" means that the brand is not a separate marketing function but is entirely embedded within the software itself Elena Verna explains that because the company does not yet have a dedicated brand marketing team, all brand work is funneled directly into the product experience. To give the software a distinct personality, Verna works closely with designers to incorporate "love marks" and unique interactions. These are small, deliberate elements within the interface intended to make the product feel like it is "speaking" to the user. The goal is to move beyond simple utility and create an emotional connection where the user feels they are interacting with something unique rather than a generic tool. Yeah Lovable is a tech only company but even if you are not you can still use this vision to your advantage in your own digital channels.

• Lovable mentions having a full-time vibe coder on the team, who is “not technical at all” in the traditional sense. He is self-taught in AI tools and acts as an expert who pushes the limits of what the product can do.

• They also talk about “engagement retention” I have to remember that metric. Makes sense. (This tracks whether users who engage meaningfully keep returning over time , driver of lifetime value (LTV), loyalty, and sustainable revenue). They also made difference between organic and paid (makes also sense).

🫱If you are interested in this topic I share here below another talk from Elena Verna focused at “Growth Loops”. I can recommend to listen to that talk as well for every product manager and designer but for your convenience I also summarized the higlights, see the link to edition 113⬇️⬇️

🫱🫱Note: this is also a smart move to have a linkedin integration, it will attract users to lovable who wants such certificate diplayed on their profile:

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/28/linkedin-will-let-you-show-off-your-vibe-coding-chops-with-a-certificate/

🇨🇳 Shenzhen a city for tech lovers (I can confirm that)

For Western minds it’s often difficult to understand what is happening in Tier-1 cities in China. This video is really nicely made and as a regular Shenzhen visitor (I will be there again in early March) I can confirm this is 100% correct. Great watch for us tech lovers and also to understand life in a Tier-1 city in China.I personally like to watch always the UX of terminals used with all those robotic things, often we can learn a lot from it as I intend to do in March again when I am in that area. I will share my experiences of course in this newsletter.

The robot delivery spot in the video, in the parc is the same I visited earlier, if you want to read more about that, see this earlier newsletter:

📺YouTube Overtakes Reddit as Go-To Citation Source on AI Search

I try always not to cite the large legacy publications like AdWeek but this time I do. YouTube is often overlooked by traditional companies, but it’s the #2 search engine and now also a big “feeder” to AI tools. AdWeek explains it clearly:

According to Emberos, which analyzed tens of thousands of AI responses over the past six months, YouTube now appears about 40% more often than Reddit as a cited social source across major AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. The data found that Google’s AI Overviews cite YouTube (which is owned by Google) in roughly 18% to 25% of eligible answers, while ChatGPT shows a similar pattern, citing YouTube in nearly 18% of responses.

Besides that a relevant YT video embedded on page makes you must more thrustworthy.

Details: https://www.adweek.com/media/youtube-reddit-ai-search-engine-citations/

🔸Guy shows op at vacancies in a creative way at LinkedIN

Last week I was at an information event on “freelancing”, just to get myself informed on possibilities. Very well organised event, and they gave lot’s and lot’s of tips.
Just sharing one of them. This guy really stood out with a little “funny” but serious picture of a guy holding a sign “available now”.
Seems it works because you see him everywhere with this sign and everyone remembers. Nice creative idea.

Event organiser (dutch only) : https://www.salesmarketinggroup.nl/

🏭 One to save and act upon for B2B marketers

One to save and use if you are in B2B. I think it’s true and it connects with many best practices I read the past 6 months. It doesn’t mean the old playbook totally doesn’t work anymore, but a focus towards demand and intent is something you should try i.m.o.

So practically I think Pierre means content needs to help customers decide, not just buy cheaper.

Example : the goal is “app downloads”. In the old playbook you go just for “installs” You might said in the old playbook : now xx discount for a download.
In the new playbook you go for contextual value based on intent. So based on user data you add value in the app: “always the best possible prices for category x (as this user always purchases from this category)”, or “we help you save time by already providing your pre-arranged basket” in the app.

If you create public content, the app is embedded in the story’s not always the main CTA. I think this is very nice to brainstorm about with your product team. You will get to questions like:

• What could be a demand capture system for your organisation?

• How to identify “patterns” in user data and how to leverage that?

Go read Pierres post !

🫨Clawdbot euh Moltbot: the agentic future

If you haven’t checked out ClawdBot yet, do so. The whole internet is full of it the last days, just check YouTube for many many many ideas. Here a clip from the All-in guys who also go into the topic.

As Sacks says:

• This year will be the year of the personal assistant.

• Google's market opportunity is enourmous on this topic.

• A Shift in policy debates: Sacks suggests that the rise of AI agents will force policymakers to rethink their approach.

There is much more in the pod also with interesting information for startups and legacy organisations a like.

Try it yourself, Clawdbot know is Moltbot: https://openclaw.ai/
Full All-In Pod.

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

🇰🇵 North Korea a glimpse into their e-commerce ecosystem

As many I am fascinated by North Korea. I have been visiting the border area’s, both on the South Korean side an the Chinese side. The South Korean side is heavily guarded but on the Chinese side (I went to Dandong), is much more relaxed. You can buy North Korean beer, North Korean money and cigarettes and you can dance with North Korean restaurant staff. Yeah, that’s really possible. Below you see me dancing in a North Korean restaurant (with all North Korean staff). North Korean food & drinks and two times a performance, where guests can join, like I did.

The Youtube channel “In the Kimdom😅” made a video on e-commerce in North Korea! It gives us a glimpse on what is happening in North Korea and I think it’s very nice to watch for all of us crossborder e-commerce fans. Some higlights:

• What “Manmul Sang” is (” hint: North Korea’s Amazon”): Launched in 2015, this platform offers roughly 30,000 products, ranging from housewares to electronics. It’s a strictly a domestic-only catalog. Check it out yourself:

  http://www.manmulsang.com.kp/?lang=en

• The Okriu Platform: Originally a food delivery service for the famous Okryuguan restaurant, it evolved into a centralised marketplace for approximately 600 products.

• It explains the closed ecosystem: These platforms are only accessible via Kwangmyong, North Korea’s internal intranet. This “walled garden” uses numeric IPs and is completely sealed off from the global internet.

• Learn about the sate run courier system: for official e-commerce, the governments operate a nationwide logistics system using motorbikes for short-distance food delivery and vans for larger goods.

• The video also has a chapter on payments such as systems like prepaid cards (Narae and Koryo) or local-currency cards. The Ulim (Echo) mobile system allows users to pay via QR codes at registers.

Go watch the video crossborder fans!

🌎International SEO Technical how to deal with multi domain sites

Brodie has a good “tweet” or X on international SEO on the topic XML sitemaps/GSC. Brodie writes on multi-domain international expansions and problems that can occur if you do not set this up correct.

The important part is understanding why groups of pages are being flagged, and whether an action should be taken. An action isn’t always required.

Details in his X post:

🔍What AI Means for Brands: how to stay visible, relevant, and chosen

This is truly a great deck, again from Aleyda and I share it because it’s very usable for e-commerce strategy. Things constantly change and this is a very actual document that you can and should use in your strategy or for your clients.
Complete deck:
https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/what-ai-means-for-brands-how-to-stay-visible-relevant-and-chosen

☇Amazon still rules product discovery but for how long?

Now onto Amazon. The article I’m referring to below argues that Amazon still dominates “product discovery”, but they add an important nuance: for now. Cracks seems to be appearing with the rise of AI search, social commerce, and agent-driven shopping. I can imagine that but Amazon’s fundamentals are of course really strong especially, reviews, pricing, and the prime ecosystem reinforce its grip on discovery and conversion.
Many people don’t know but Amazon’s Vine Programme I think is a really smart idea. So far I have never read or saw any company who copied or adapted that idea. Basically Amazon Vine provides free products in exchange for reviews and thus sets the basics for product discovery.

I’ve seen disruption before in a much less glamorous category: carpets. Out of nowhere, a newcomer (Volero) entered the market with a focus on discoverability, filtering, and a smooth buying experience. They made ordering a carpet online simple and even enjoyable. And by doing that, they disrupted the industry in a small way, but still….

Amazon, “the biggest startup in the world,” operates on a completely different scale, of course. But the pattern is interesting. If you run a marketplace yourself, especially in a niche, there’s a lot to take from this. Discoverability can still be reinvented, and dominant players don’t stay untouchable forever. Let’s see how this plays out.

Details:

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/amazon-rules-product-discovery-for-now

Same topic, different source. Also product discovery & Amazon. I list these recommendations here as it can help sellers improve their listings and discoverability useful information also if you are an agency.

Specific searches such as "men’s lotion" display regular product grids, while broader queries like "men’s skin care" prompt Rufus to curate and label products as “Researched by AI.” This helps identify shoppers' purchase-ready versus research intents.

What this means for brands:

• Broad terms are no longer just a ranking battle: Inclusion in AI-curated routines matters more than position.

• Product role clarity is critical: If your listing doesn’t clearly state where it fits in a routine, Rufus decides for you.

• Assets must explain usage and order: Images and copy need to communicate how and when the product is used.

• Discovery is shifting to routines: Brands must think beyond single ASINs and position products within complete workflows.

Via Hunter’s insights

👍Revolut: keeps on innovating

I love this mindset! Everyone copies innovation the only way to stay ahead is to innovate faster / innovate more exactly as Revolut does.

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

Subscribe now

🇻🇳 Vietnam amends national advertising law in a good way

Vietnam amends their national advertising law. A law -different from the EU cookie law- that actually benefits (most) users:
Vietnam bans unskippable online video and animated ads longer than 5 seconds. Platforms must show a skip button by then. Static image ads must be immediately closable (no wait), and pop-ups can’t use misleading or fake close buttons. The goal is to protect consumers from frustrating ads, curb illegal promotions, and improve the digital experience, with additional strict rules on sensitive categories like health products and alcohol.

Even though I am a digital marketer, and I generally am interested in ads, I think this is a very good law. It might reduce “ad completion rates” but I think that only forces -us advertisers- to be more creative.
I expect very creative 5 second videos from Vietnam in the near future.
Also most likely new, less intruisive ad initiatives /formats will emerge from Vietnam.

More details: https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/28652-vienam-bans-unskippable-ads%252C-requires-skip-button-to-appear-after-5-seconds

🇩🇪 🇳🇱 Dutch vs German retailers in physical stores

This is a blog about retail and differences between countries or regions. Sometimes I read an article in another language, not available in English that is interesting. This article is such one.
You can translate it by any translation service, but basically it is about differences between German and Dutch retailers and Dutch retailers who succesfully expand to Germany, by doing things just a little bit different. Some translated citations from the article:

While the number of bankruptcies in Germany is increasing, Dutch retail chains like Rituals, Dille & Kamille, and Action are profiting in the German market. What is the secret behind their success? “Germans are sensitive to friendly service, a trendy store, and a relaxed atmosphere.”

How can the successful expansion of Dutch companies in Germany be explained?
“Germans are sensitive to service with a smile, a hip store, and a relaxed vibe,” says Van den Biggelaar, who has supported Dutch companies expanding into Germany for more than 25 years.

Rita Sack from Möbel-Hübner has little faith left in physical stores. But Coolblue opened its seventh German store in Hannover in November.
“The German consumer does not expect much. They aren’t used to much,” CEO Pieter Zwart said two years ago. Coolblue says it cleverly takes advantage of that.

Dutch jewellery chain My Jewellery and clothing brand Mr. Marvis are applying the same playbook, says Van den Biggelaar.
“They target a niche and offer great products—things that truly add something.”

Van den Biggelaar: “Adapt a bit to the German market—but do not deny your Dutch roots. Germans like to come to us precisely because we are more locker (relaxed).”

Details:

https://www.deondernemer.nl/actueel/duitse-ondernemers-failliet-coolblue-mr-marvis-action-dille-kamille-my-jewellery-rituals~70284f1

🥘🇨🇳 Alibaba’s Qwen and food ordering via voice commands

If you want to know how we are going to place our food delivery orders, maybe it will be like what is possible now in China.
Alibaba’s QWEN (by the way free to use, you can download it as an app on your phone or use desktop app) is now able to do grocery orders via voice:

Here’s how it works: you tell Qwen you want food delivery through voice or text. It pulls product data from Taobao Shangou helps you choose what to order, and completes payment through Alipay. You never leave the Qwen interface. This is the complete loop from intent to execution.

So it might be a trend that we use LLM’s to “direct apps” on our phone, as I also showed you earlier with another demo from China (really cool) and the US.

I think this means that companies should re-think how their app is positioned. If this trend continues one might need to:

• Put API first, so this means “headless” first then design.

• Many companies should put more effort in operational performance of the app (from speed, to error handling, to fewer screens).

• A difference can be made on the operational and fulfilment part. That’s what people who use an LLM to order via an app actually experience.

• But of course also make an app so user friendly, fun, innovative with added value that users want to keep on using it themselves! Take as example one of my favorite apps “Revolut” that keeps evolving with fresh, engaging features all the time. You really want to open this app.

Via Mario Castelli, Xie Xie Mario
Link to Qwen: https://qwen.ai/

🇺🇸 🇯🇵 🇩🇪 🥏Amazon Marketplace 2026 Trend Report

I believe this report is valuable for anyone involved in online marketplaces, not just Amazon sellers. It offers plenty of definitions and insights that could apply to your own platform, too.

Essentially, the report compares numerous Amazon marketplaces against each other and determines key success factors. Really valuable report and it also fits perfectly this newsletter because of the country comparisons.

Despite global reach, the U.S. remains the best launchpad for new Amazon brands, especially those in niche categories. Fast review velocity, buyer trust, and depth of demand create early traction that compounds into better rankings, cash flow, and ad performance.

Sellers who localize effectively and build compliant logistics systems unlock blue ocean opportunities in Europe, Canada, and beyond.

In second place, Japan offers impressive seller stability despite its smaller size. Around 15% of sellers who joined five years ago are still active today, far above other regions. Japan rewards sellers who adapt to local preferences and build trust with loyal customers.

Sellers who plan their expansion based on these insights—not just GMV—will find steadier growth and stronger results across Amazon’s global marketplaces.

• Treat inventory accuracy as your ad budget’s foundation

• Use data to iterate—don’t guess

• Localize if you expand

• Build patience into your strategy—it compounds

Total active sellers declined 25%, but million-dollar sellers doubled, meaning the platform is consolidating around fewer, but much stronger and more professional, competitors.

Amazon is now a retail ecosystem, not a gold rush. Those who master its complexity will own the next decade of ecommerce. (Success now demands institutional-level capabilities from day one (e.g., multi-disciplinary skills in SEO, advertising, inventory forecasting, fulfillment, data analytics, localization, and more)

Details: https://www.bellavix.com/what-you-cant-miss-insights-from-the-amazon-marketplace-trends-report-2026/

Direct report download URL: https://marketplacepulse.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d690a2717ca438fa2ccf2f903&id=577f1ec06b&e=2fb55ccef9&i=c33d613992, if it fails: https://www.marketplacepulse.com/reports/year-in-review-2025

🗑️The rise of micro apps or personal disposable software

The other week, a collegue of mine (Hi Naresh!) he vibe coded “Again a winner -The Amazing Prize Draw Tool-”. This was a one purpose tool to organize a prize draw at our company. We could make it really nice by adding some humor in it and do a live prize draw among all collegues.Turns out we were not the only one doing this. Micro apps are on the rise as Techcrunch calls it.

Because tools ranging from Claude Code to Lovable typically don’t require robust coding knowledge just to get to a functional app, we are witnessing the early rise of micro apps. These are apps that are extremely context-specific, address niche needs, and then “disappear when the need is no longer present,” Legand L. Burge III, a professor of computer science at Howard University, said.

Things will only get easier to vibe code so go try it out with Lovable, Claude Code or any other tool.
When I am at holiday with friends we use an app to keep track of expenses and split money, but this app at some point in time went from freemium to paid.
Now the solution is simple I vibe code my own app and I personalize it even for our holiday with some jokes only for our little holiday group.
I am waiting for a list of vibe coded apps as this might be a huge inspirator for creativity.

Checkout the details here:

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/16/the-rise-of-micro-apps-non-developers-are-writing-apps-instead-of-buying-them/

🤖 Rand : quote it, cite it, link it share it

This video I will use at work to inform people about the importance of “mentions” for your brand. I share it here also, I wrote about the topic already many times, but this video makes it simpler. A simple start on this topic.

1. Quote it

2. Cite it

3. Link it

4. Share it

Start with that.
Yes, I know it’s more complicated then that, that also information from your own site is taken into account and that with the query fanout technique you can get a lot of details on where LLM’s get their data from, but this video might be a very good start to get the basics explained in some organisations.

Specially for Rand because of this nice video:

Sparktoro is: An audience‑research tool that uncovers where your target audience spends time online. It identifies the podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, and social accounts they follow and surfaces the influencers who shape those opinions.

Details: https://www.similarweb.com/blog/marketing/marketing-strategy/best-competitor-analysis-tools/

🇹🇭 Never skip Thai Ads!

Never do that! They are so funny! I share this one with you, but you can find many on YouTube.
Want to know more on Thai commerce? I once wrote about it on my old blog you can find it here:

https://www.abaar.net/2023/04/retail-and-e-commerce-in-thailand.html

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

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📖ChannelEngine Marketplace shopping behavior report 2026

Channelengine is a great company, I have been there a few times and I also know some people there. Very knowledgable people especially in international e-commerce via marketplaces.
They just released there shoppingbehavior report and it’s just a short quick form entry away so check it out!
I think it aligns perfectly well with other trends in ecommerce like changing shopping journeys, particularly that are in the recent SEO trend reports: fragmented, trust-driven, and multi-channel paths to purchase.

Details and full report: https://www.channelengine.com/marketplace-shopping-behavior

More on changing journeys and trends in SEO in my previous newsletter:

🌍E-commerce in 2026: faces a structural reckoning in 2026

Well, its 2026, I guess time for many organisations to publish reports or overviews, so let’s do another one now we are at it.
I always try to see if I can find patterns between reports or outlooks, because then I think it’s more valuable.
Just like the marketplace report above, this overview, also aligns a bit with other things I read or experienced. What I found especially interesting in this article is:

Marketplace algorithms are now factoring operational performance — reliability of delivery promises, regional carrier capability, refund patterns and backorder frequency — directly into search ranking. (That’s interesting, Amazon had this for a while but now it seems to get mainstream for other marketplaces as well)

“The era where fulfillment was an expense center is over,” Steinz said. “In 2026, fulfillment becomes a demand accelerator or a demand suppressor. Nothing in between.”

“The mistake in 2025 was forcing every buyer through the same experience,” Owide said. “In 2026, separating these journeys — and measuring them separately — will be essential. If you put friction in front of a long-tail buyer, they won’t ask for a quote. They’ll find someone else in two clicks.”

This latter one is also very interesting, it’s a move to, maybe I can call it like “Coolblue does”: product journeys for some products or category’s at a marketplace and for others products or category’s to make sure the focus is at the most rapid purchase ever.
More on product Coolblue’s journey’s here
Take special attention in the article to the term “long tail buyer”, it basically comes from Chris Anderson’s 2004/2006 concept, I found out.
Instead of focusing only on a few blockbuster (”head”) products/customers that drive most revenue, the internet allows profitable sales from a huge number of niche, low-volume items/customers (the “long tail” of the demand curve).

So one can define:

• A long-tail one-off consumer/business (wants instant prices + easy buy)

• Or a contract buyer (wants account pricing, bulk options, approval workflows, tailor made product journey’s)

Forcing the second experience on the first type kills conversions, the warning: “If you put friction in front of a long-tail buyer, they won’t ask for a quote. They’ll find someone else in two clicks.”
That’s why I think in many cases a combination, depending on f.e. category is the way forward.

Details:

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2025/12/30/ecommerce-faces-a-structural-reckoning-in-2026/

🌍Africa’s growth could outpace Asia in 2026

Often most international e-commerce or economic news is focused at Asia, but Africa is really booming economically and that means there are also many opportunities in digital commerce. I share here this FT article on the situation in Africa. It’s paywalled but as you know there are ways around that (hint: www.archive.is).
One citation:

Africa will grow faster than Asia. If the 54 African economies manage to outpace their Asian counterparts, it would be the first time in modern history that this has happened.

Details in the FT: https://www.ft.com/content/204482a2-677c-42a0-bcec-a4cdac00eb92

I wrote earlier in my substack on Africa’s e-commerce potential, for example here:

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed55

✈️ +++Passenger Experience +++

Just watch and hope your airport provides these kind of services!

🇬🇧 Dishoom’s $400m Restaurant Playbook

Sometimes story’s on how businesses started or how they grow are very nice to read or listen to, for example this one with Howard Schultz on Starbucks.

This fellow substacker, Trung Phan has a great story on a UK-based Indian restaurant chain that’s now valued at around (~$400m). What makes it stand out?
The founders cleverly “gamified” the dining experience with a fun dice roll promotion inspired by Bombay’s old underground lottery (Matka), giving groups a 1-in-6 chance to score a free meal if they roll a 6. It keeps customers come back.

Reading this story for sure get’s you in “Creative Mode”.

<Creative mode ON>:

SatPost by Trung Phan

Dishoom's $400m Restaurant Playbook

Thanks for subscribing to SatPost…

Read more

5 months ago · 36 likes · 17 comments · Trungphan2

🇦🇺 Meat & Livestock Australia’s new lamb campaign focuses on national happiness

I’ve been following Meat & Livestock Australia for three or four years now. Every Australian summer they release their annual Summer Lamb commercial, yes actually annual, and people genuinely look forward to it.

The 2026 edition plays on Australia dropping out of the Top 10 of the World Happiness Index, flipping the idea by saying real happiness isn’t a ranking, it’s shared moments, often around one of Australia’s top activities, BBQ.
The familiar face delivering the message is Sam Kekovich, a former footballer and long-time “Lambassador” who has become inseparable from the campaign. His presence alone signals: this is the lamb ad.

I like that the ad, sells lamb, but it also subtly promotes Australia itself, making it feel bigger than just another product ad.

• Making a campaign truly annual creates anticipation and cultural relevance, not fatigue.

• Consistency (same timing, same character, new insight) builds brand memory far better than constant reinvention.

Watch the video, it’s fun to watch!

Details: https://marketech-apac.com/meat-livestock-australias-new-lamb-campaign-focuses-on-national-happiness/

🇺🇸 Amazon aims to make AI-assisted discovery a standard part of shopping

It’s more and more clear that Amazon aims to make AI-assisted discovery a standard part of shopping, shifting how customers explore products from traditional keyword searches. This can and will also impact your brand and your consumer’s journey’s. Wether it is at Amazon itself or that Amazon might set a standard it’s worth understanding what is happening and to adapt.

• Rufus Auto-Opens on Search: The AI assistant loads automatically without waiting for user interaction.

• Persistent Left Navigation Placement: Rufus now consistently occupies screen space during browsing.

• Traffic Source Agnostic: Users coming from Google are also directed into the Rufus experience.

• Increased Adoption Efforts: This is the most assertive rollout of Rufus to date.

So for example, but not limited to, I think, that PDP’s are becoming training data for Rufus, so this means you really need to think about how to optimize PDP’s both for consumers and Rufus.
Brand stories are going to matter more as well, but in a way Rufus can understand them.
This exactly fits into the narrative of brand connections news that I read the other day on Google Ads. Google Ads also is testing with “brand links”. I read that on LinkedIn:

Thanks Hunter for the insights.
Thanks Bia for the news

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

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I hate it when organisations only place news on Facebook, as I hardly use it anymore and almost never login (except for Meta Business manager for ads).
But now, as an exception, I logged in to read this news article about Thai commerce. It’s interesting, so Thailand is actively collaborating with Tmall (Chinese marketplace) spotlighting Thai products that carry official credibility labels (Thai SELECT, Thailand Trust Mark etc.). They mostly do that via KOL-led livestream commerce. Totally different then here in the West. I think it’s smart, these marks act like trust accelerators in cross-border e-commerce (especially in livestream where decisions are fast). With a little tweak, it might work also for Thai sellers at European platforms.

While reading on Thai commerce, I also found this site, again interesting! It’s a trade portal from Thailand. Warning⚠️: horrible interface and UX but valuable information:

Details:

https://www.thaitrade.com
and
https://www.facebook.com/nbtworld

🔍SEOFOMO Organic Traditional & AI Search Trends for 2026 (ugly infographic, good article)

Yeah its out the search trends report, a good read that tells where you can focus at this year in SEO.
The page is also full of citations and quotes from SEO professionals. A must read for everyone preparing for 2026.
A few takeouts:

• SEO is not dead

• Fundamentals still matter

• Brand, trust, and multi-channel presence matter more than ever

• AI search and traditional search are complementary systems, serving different stages of the user journey

• Volume beats quality

• Velocity leads to visibility

• AI rewards mass content production

• Reframing organic search as a visibility and influence channel, not just traffic

  • Shifting KPIs from clicks to:

    • Brand mentions

    • Citations in AI answers

    • Assisted conversions

    • Branded search lift

“It’s now evident that traffic metrics alone no longer tell the story. Visibility, citations, brand mention lift, and assisted conversions are becoming the real KPIs. AI summaries and zero-click experiences are eroding CTR even when rankings remain stable, pushing us to rethink “success.” This aligns with what many are observing that organic traffic is declining not because SEO is failing, but because search interfaces are changing.”

Many teams shifted planning away from individual keywords toward:

Topic clusters

Intent journeys

Entity relationships

“Core journeys” tied directly to revenue-relevant outcomes

Details:

https://hub.seofomo.co/surveys/organic-search-trends/

📦And so it begins…shopify merchant received over 50 orders from ChatGPT!

I wrote earlier about the Shopify (for example here) and the OpenAI integration (here). It seems like it is taking off now, at least in some niches. I link to the article below with a true story of someone suddenly receiving orders via ChatGPT.
Warning ⚠️⚠️,I discovered on mobile, the article, has lot’s and lot’s of ads, on desktop it’s doable, but I cite here the most important parts of the article as well:

Hoel shrugged it off at the time. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, when he checked again, that he realized the ChatGPT reference wasn’t an anomaly. Over the past six months, Shopify has attributed more than 50 orders to the generative artificial intelligence platform, which is believed to have brought customers to Hoel’s website. ChatGPT has since become his sixth-largest source of referral traffic, with a conversion rate five times higher than the average across all traffic sources.

“The first and key thing is that the users are going to be able to provide their own preferences, and ChatGPT is going to understand their history, their preferences and their context, and it will memorize that,” said Nayebi. “Any recommendation is going to be based on your preferences.”

It was two months ago that Rick Klouwenberg, who runs a jewelry e-commerce shop on Shopify from the Netherlands, first realized that customers were discovering his business through AI.

A customer emailed him after finding his shop by asking ChatGPT to search for cheap Moissanite jewelry. She wanted more information about a ring’s size and quality, and later placed an $80 (USD) order.

Details: https://www.thestar.com/business/technology/this-shopify-merchant-received-over-50-orders-from-chatgpt-is-ai-the-future-of-retail/article_d30e60dd-b62b-4463-b3fb-cd819ec2f3d1.html

🔍SEO in 2026, the AI evolution nice infographic and article

Ok, yet another post on SEO, but an important one, this time with a nice infographic to share at work, with clients, or on social media.
I think it’s a how to say in “cool words”: a rock solid article and infographic.

In essence:

• Challenges & Opportunities: Expect traffic declines, tool consolidation, and agentic search; adapt via experimentation, collaboration, and business-aligned metrics.

• Technical & Content Shifts: Prioritize structured data, entity optimization, human expertise, and full-stack skills; use AI for efficiency, not shortcuts.

• Brand & Authority: Brands win through consistent mentions, expertise, and trust signals, replacing links as the top currency.

Details: https://www.takeitoffline.co.uk/blog/2026-seo-predictions

🇺🇸 Trader Joe goes crossborder: spot the opportunities!

This is fascinating to watch, I think and honestly just very cool. This is pure (arbitrage) trading, which I like. Trader Joe’s is a US brand with no stores outside the US, yet it’s accidentally driving cross-border e-commerce with its canvas tote bags. In the US, these bags cost just $2.99. Outside the US, they pop up on platforms like eBay, Depop, Karrot, and Coupang for crazy prices, sometimes listed at $10,000 or even $50,000. Of course, those extreme prices are mostly hype. Sellers list them for attention, memes, or the small hope that someone actually buys one (which almost never happens). But the bags do sell internationally at solid markups. Many go for $20–$100, and limited editions can reach $200–$400 during peak hype.

It’s amazing how organic trade works. A simple grocery bag from a brand that doesn’t even exist abroad turns into a global status item and gives sellers opportunities, you just have to be in time and spot the opportunity.
Go on holiday to the US buy a few of those bags and sell them locally and you have earned half your holiday back 😉

Details:

https://www.wsj.com/style/fashion/trader-joes-tote-bags-international-market-ebay-071a0f55

✈️48 hours at tech embedded Daxing Airport

As you know by now, I like airports (a lot). I even dreamt of having an apartment in one. Always busy, always something to do, easy access to everywhere.

This girl stayed at an airport for 48 hours and shows exactly that.

It’s all about Daxing Airport in Beijing, and it really is a great airport, packed with technology, things like facial recognition and biometrics throughout the journey, highly automated baggage handling, seamless self-service flows, food prices as in downton, and strong rail integration (around 30 minutes to Beijing West Station).

So take a look at her experiences and imagine a Beijinger traveling abroad to a far less advanced airport (excluding some top Asian and Middle Eastern ones).

With Chinese expectations for seamless, tech-rich experiences rising ever higher, just like with their high-speed trains (and stations), most Western European airports (with a few exceptions) simply don’t deliver this level of quality, localisation, or digital integration. And this doesn’t stop at airports. Whether you’re an airport, a taxi company, or any travel-related service: if you want to attract Chinese travelers, you need to localise and digitise, from payments and apps to language, flows, and on site commerce. (ah yes and free hot water machines😉) Checkout the video:

🇦🇷 Coffeeshop in Argentina! Creativity creates customers

It’s fun if people are creative. This is such an example, although I remember something a bit similar from Shanghai when I lived there, this seems a different variant.

Lesson: creativity works even if you copy and slightly adapt.

🤖 Product Management: evaluation framework

I share this one here, to put on my “to watch” list. George from PM world already made a summary, I share it here above and below the video, so go watch the video as I will do this week. This seems to be very interesting for everyone in PM.

Original source: https://www.prodmgmt.world

Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing. It goes a long way. Thanks a million!

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

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Let’s start:

🇺🇸 AI’s impact on shopping journey’s, 1000 respondents research

Research came out, 1000 US consumers were asked how they use AI and shop. I think important to follow these kind of topics, so you can know which direction it is going and have a first mover advantage.
Let’s take a look:

• AI is primarily a top-of-funnel tool; 77% of consumers prefer to click through to a merchant's website to finish a purchase rather than buying directly within the AI platform. Now I wonder if it remains that way, but for now very interesting, so it’s still very very important to create/maintain a great shopping platform and brand.

• Price is a major motivator, with 57% of consumers stating they are "sick of hunting for deals" and want AI to handle price comparisons for them. This of course makes sense. That’s why I think (and I wrote on that earlier), more and more AI will hunt your deals and not only cross platforms but also inside platforms by giving context aware discounts.

• Loyalty is being redefined by utility, as 31% of all shoppers (and 40% of Gen Z) would buy from an unfamiliar brand if an AI platform surfaced a better deal. This makes also sense, people might (although it might not always be true) trust AI more, so it’s easier to switch. Because of this I think it is also very important to make sure all your structured data is top notch and you also build a strong online brand presence.

• Physical retail faces a significant challenge, with 30% of consumers saying they expect to visit brick-and-mortar stores less often due to AI planning their shopping. This one I did not see coming but it can make sense. However I think AI can also help to get people to stores. As we often see in Asia (like JD malls in China or “Community malls in Thailand) giving more reasons to visit malls or shopping areas might counter this. In case of NL (and some other European countries) the extremely high parking tarrifs should also be removed/lowered.

Checkout the full report here:

https://www.futurecommerce.com/posts/1-000-consumers-told-us-how-they-use-ai-to-shop-retailers-arent-ready-yet

🇮🇳 India: private AI teaching groups booming

Sometimes testing or setting up something doesn’t require a lot. Take these Indian teachers for example, instead of setting up courses at Udemy for example they simply create Facebook and WhatsApp groups. Much simpler and also much closer to their target group.

I think this is valid in many cases. If you source products you can easily test it before you buy, via communities or advertising. If you want to create a movement you start at facebook or meetup.

“The biggest misconception is that small business owners in developing countries will be the last to adopt AI. I’m seeing the opposite,” said Dutt. “They are adopting it first because for them, even a small improvement in efficiency makes a big difference.”

I think that’s true, I have seen that also in China where the large tech giangs specially focuse on barrier free entry to AI for “papa and mama stores” for example.

“People assume AI education must look like a computer science degree, but most small business owners and freelancers need only 5% of that — the part that saves time or brings revenue,” he said. “These low-cost tutors are making AI less intimidating and more practical. It suggests that AI adoption in developing economies is happening bottom-up, not top-down.”

To me, that’s a good thing, innovation often thrives when it happens bottom-up, We’re seeing this play out in places like India and China, where small businesses and freelancers are leaping ahead with practical, low-cost AI uses. In Europe, though, adoption feels more top-down and cautious, shaped by regulations and enterprise led initiatives. I believe more in the bottom up version. That’s why I think it would be great if European companies for example embrace more AI initiatives, let people spend 10 or 20% of their time on AI initiatives, try and learn locally.

Details:

https://restofworld.org/2025/indian-tutors-ai-skills/

🧪Meta Andromeda Strategy: A Systematic Framework for Creative Testing and Scaling

I like to read and see how you can tweak or beat or get the best out of an algoritm. I wrote about it earlier, Meta’s AndroMeda. I think many organisations are not ready for this or busy with it, but you can take a huge advantage. This video also dives into that. I think the video has a bit too much self promotion but still it is in line with what I read elsewhere. My takeouts:

• Messaging now controls targeting: In the modern "post-Andromeda" landscape, targeting is no longer effectively controlled at the adset level; instead, the messaging within your creative determines who sees your ads, making granular adset targeting an archaic practice.

• Prioritise messaging diversification: You should launch with 25–30 totally unique creative assets that provide different reasons for a customer to convert, rather than just swapping hooks on the same video body.

• The "one size fits all" copy strategy: To keep the process manageable, use the same five headlines and five pieces of body copy across all 30 ads; these should be written broadly enough to apply to every creative

• Discard the belief that every ad needs reach: It is an outdated belief that every creative deserves distribution; it is normal for one to three ads to receive all the reach while the others get little to no spend.

• Utilise a simplified campaign structure: The sources recommend a cold campaign containing three specific adset stacks: a broad stack, an interest stack, and a lookalike stack, all containing the same 25–30 ads.

• Test then scale using ABO: Use Ad Set Budget Optimization (ABO) to control distribution during the testing phase, identify the 1–3 winners, and scale them until you hit a performance limit.

• Identifying the "spending ceiling": When scaling, you will eventually hit a ceiling where costs rise and results drop; at this point, you should reduce the spend back to that stable "foundational" level. The duplication and extraction process: Once you hit a ceiling, duplicate the adset and remove the winners that received the reach, keeping the ads that received no distribution so they can be tested again in a new environment.

• The quality control filter: If your winning ads bring in results but the leads are of poor quality, treat them as losers; duplicate the adset, remove the high-reach "bad" performers, and shift your messaging.

• Keep creative "on the side": You must constantly have a backlog of prepared ads ready to go so that you can relaunch or replace creatives immediately without waiting 24–48 hours for filming and editing.

• Disable AI creative features: To maintain control, turn off almost all "Advantage+" AI creative enhancements, such as site links, though the feature that highlights positive comments is considered beneficial

Take a look at the video for all details. More on AndroMeda in earlier posts I wrote:

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed115

And

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed106

🇰🇷 🇹🇷 Korea: How One K-Pop star got 25 containers of Turkish chocolate to South Korea

I have been to Korea, really liked it there, but I have never really understood the K-Pop phenomenan. Well except “Gangnam style”😅. But read this story how a K-Pop star’s social post resulted in 25 containers of chocolate to South Korea:

• A Korean taxi driver in Seoul (referred to as “ahjussi” in Taehyung’s live, confirming he’s likely Korean, not Turkish as some mistranslated sources claim) gave Kim Taehyung (BTS’s V) a Christmas gift of chestnut-flavored Tuvana Turkish chocolate during a ride on December 22, 2025.

• Taehyung, impressed, immediately went live on Weverse (Weverse is a global fandom platform) for about 3 minutes to show it off and express his delight, calling it “Turkish chocolate” with a smile.

• This casual endorsement went viral among fans, causing Tuvana’s stocks to sell out in Korea within seconds (reported as 13 seconds in some outlets), with massive demand spiking online and in stores.

• The Korean distributor then urgently ordered 25 containers from the Turkish producer, Tayaş Gida, to restock and meet the export surge, leading to millions in sales for the brand.

0 budget, huge effect by just making quality chocolates (and a little K-Pop luck)

Want to know more about South Korea? Do read my newsletter(s) on that topic

📈SEO : Exploding topics: find out what is searched for in the (near) future

Now this is also something that can pay off, I think if you spend some amount of time weekly in analysing trends. There are tools for it available but you can also build it yourself with N8N for example.

A while ago I spoke a guy who worked for a large retailer in the Netherlands. They sourced products from SE Asia (especially clothes) and at the moment they sourced it they use AI to already create the product listing as complete as possible, even thought it might still take months before the product is actually in the stores an available online. But this approach gave this company the advantage to already create demand an SEO authority.

Exploding topics is something similar but with a little more research.

Basically it changes SEO from waiting until people start Googling for a keyword to start ranking “now” when hardly anyone searches for it yet.

You can use this for products but of course also for services and especially events. It comes down to:

• Identify emerging topics before they become popular

  • Use Google Trends, Exploding Topics, AnswerThePublic, or Keyword Tool Dominator to spot rising interest.

  • Look at related searches that are growing but still have very low volume (e.g., 10–100 searches/month).

  • Watch Reddit, TikTok, Twitter/X, industry forums, and product review sites for early buzz.

• Create content for those low-volume, future-popular terms

  • Write in depth guides, comparisons, listicles, or “ultimate” resources targeting those early stage keywords.

  • Make the content extremely helpful and comprehensive so Google sees it as the best answer even when volume is tiny.

• Optimize aggressively for those terms

  • Use the exact keyword in title, H1, URL, first paragraph, and naturally throughout.

  • Build internal links from your high-authority pages to these new pages.

• Monitor and double down

  • Track rankings and traffic weekly using tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console.

  • When you see the search volume starting to climb (even from 50 → 500 searches/month), publish more related content, update the original page, and push harder for backlinks.

  • By the time the keyword hits 5,000–10,000 searches/month, you’re already #1–3 and competitors are playing catch up.

Search engine land dives into it including some examples read via the link ⬇️.

https://searchengineland.com/build-search-visibility-before-demand-exists-466516

😅Time for a laugh: how not to design a logo

Haha, this one is “remarkable”. Take a look at this logo. This company’s URL can be any combination of these letters.😅😅. Good luck figuring that out when the car drives past you.

🎨App UX in 2025 but also useful in 2026

It’s almost 2026, so we can do a quick look backwards. 🔙. I found this article/publications on apps an UX in 2025. I think it’s a good article but it lacks screenshots, very strange for a topic on UX by the way.
Nevertheless I do recommend to read it if you are into app development and design, as it does explain best practices, that I think are quite good.

For me most interesting are these two (but the article has much more, so do read it).

• Unlike agencies that create pretty mockups, Groto ships AI interfaces that drive measurable business outcomes. So how I read it not features, outcomes, agents that give an outcome. But also:

  • “AI task breakdowns that show progress”
    Instead of a spinner, show steps like: Analyzing → Drafting → Checking → Ready to review. This reduces uncertainty and drop-off.

  • “Clear undo paths for every AI decision”
    Let users revert: Undo, restore previous version, view changes, edit before applying. This increases trust and willingness to proceed.

  • “Progressive disclosure”
    Show only what’s needed right now; reveal advanced settings later. Example: start with “Generate draft,” then optionally reveal tone, length, constraints, sources, etc.

• Task-first navigation hierarchy

  • Shrink headers, elevate primary actions, use dynamic islands for status updates. iA Writer and Arc Search demonstrate how reducing navigation chrome improves task focus.

Apps like iA Writer and Arc Search show that reducing navigation chrome dramatically improves focus and completion.

Most apps still waste mobile screen space with large headers, permanent navigation, and UI users already understand. Task-first design flips this: content and actions come first, UI comes second.

What actually works (and is easy to copy, I think or to test):

• Collapse headers on scroll to give content more space

• Make one action visually dominant per screen

• Replace full-screen loaders with inline status pills

• Hide navigation until users signal they need it

• Treat UI as temporary, not permanent

Why this matters

On mobile, every pixel counts. Less UI friction means faster browsing, easier comparison, and higher completion, especially in search-heavy, AI-assisted, and decision driven flows like retail.

The key question isn’t “what should we show?” but:

“What is the user trying to do right now, and what can we remove?”

Details:

https://www.letsgroto.com/blog/top-10-best-app-designs-in-2025-ux-ideas-from-ai-driven-products

Thank you!!

Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing! I wish you all a great day and hope you liked this edition.

Alex

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

Today is the shortest day here in the western hemisphere. After today, the days will lengthen again (yay)! The holidays are coming! Be safe and enjoy them!

🇪🇺 EU-Google probe and what it means for SEO

The European Commission has launched a formal antitrust investigation into Google. Now wether you are for or against is, one should dig into this as it has an effect on SEO, if you are active in Europe. Great thing is that Search Engine Land, did that for us. Read along:

Even before any formal EU decision, leading teams are shifting from “rank for the keyword” to “be the primary entity answer wherever the model looks.”

That involves:

• Strengthening entity clarity with schema, consistent NAP, and structured data so AI systems can associate queries, topics, and attributes with your brand.

• Auditing how your brand appears in AI Overviews, major chatbots, and vertical AI tools, then tracking inclusion, sentiment, and factual accuracy as emerging visibility KPIs.

• Reviewing robots.txt. Blocking may protect IP but reduce exposure, while remaining open may increase AI visibility while raising licensing and valuation questions.

• Educating leadership that traffic is no longer the only outcome of visibility. Being cited, summarized, or used as a grounding source in AI outputs has value, but that value must be defined and measured internally.

• As legal and technical frameworks evolve, the strategic challenge is to remain machine-readable and rights-aware, asserting control over how content is used while ensuring the brand remains present wherever AI answers are trusted most.

A must follow topic. In general for “real” SEOers it’s what we always said: “produce real, high quality content”. That will always work, yes also in the AI (zero click) world.

https://searchengineland.com/google-vs-publishers-what-the-eu-probe-means-for-seo-ai-answers-and-content-rights-466431

More details: https://mashable.com/article/data-center-investments-reach-61-billion-dollars

🇨🇳 Meanwhile in China, Hainan —> Dubai/Singapore/Switzerland on steroids?

Never been to Hainan, still on my list, and these new measures announced for Hainan make my visit go up on the priority list. Hainan will get lots of advantages for entrepeneurs! China is basically building a "greatest hits" of global free zones: Singapore's tax regime, Switzerland's medical access, Dubai's visa policy, all in one giant tropical island attached to the 1.4 billion people Chinese consumer market.

Very nice and this might become a great or even the greatest place to live and work!

• Commerce: You can now import most products in the world (74% of all goods) entirely duty free into Hainan. And, if you transform the product and add 30% value locally, you can then send it to the rest of mainland China completely tariff-free.

• Taxes: They also have insanely low corporate tax rates: 15%, lower than Hong Kong (16.5%) and Singapore (17%) or the rest of the mainland (25%).

• Health: Basically the rule is that if a medicine or medical device is approved by regulatory agencies anywhere in the world, it can be used in Hainan - even if banned on the mainland. Which undoubtedly makes it THE place in the world with the widest range of medical treatments available.

• No firewall: (yeah): Companies registered in Hainan can apply for unrestricted global internet access

• Open Education: Foreign universities can open campuses without a Chinese partner

• Visa Free: 86 countries get visa-free entry, probably one of the most open places in the world

• Money: Special accounts let money flow freely to and from overseas - normal mainland forex restrictions don't apply

https://english.news.cn/20251218/2401027382914aee9b07f007dba8b060/c.html

And: Arnoud Bertrand

🆒Cool story: how to come up with unique product ideas and sell them

Creative thinking often means combining familiar ideas in unexpected ways. Exactly what this guy did! Very nice and motiviating story I think. A story of testing on social media, listening to the audience and quickly developing and improving.

“I didn’t know if it was that good of an idea, but I just posted it on Instagram to see how it would do,” he said. “The video went wild.”

Then, he paid close attention to what his audience was saying about the product. One comment popped up over and over again: “Make it hold two cans,” he said. “So that’s what I did from there, and that did even better.”

Satterlee believes in creating a product quickly and iterating from there, rather than spending months trying to perfect it.

Details:

https://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-built-six-figure-ecommerce-business-with-3d-printers-2025-12

🤖AI product management metrics and how to deal with them

As you know by know, I am also very much interested in product management, in developing great products that resonate with users.
As we are more and more heading towards “AI product management” (see details here), I will share more on that topic the coming weeks.

Traditional PM assumption (”predict and prevent failures”) contrasts with the reality of AI products: you can’t fully predict or prevent all failure modes upfront because LLMs show failure patterns that you only discover after you ship the product. So an AI PM must accept there will be failures shipped. It’s how you deal with it.

So a AI PM needs to:

• Discover failure mode patterns through error analysis.

• Once you identify a failure mode, you must decide what to do with it. If the failure isn’t critical or can’t be fully fixed:

  • Measure it regularly with evals (async)

  • Track progress/regression -

  • Monitor human model agreement for LLM-as-judge evals

• If the failure is critical, use guardrails (sync): - Fix it live - Or block the response.

• Continuous Improvement. Quality isn’t a one-time feature. It’s a loop. You don’t try to predict failures. You trace them, then decide how to respond.

Source:

😎Fintech time for a glimpse into a possible future

Imagine the future of payments: a smart card that lets you swipe between USDC, BTC, ETH, SOL, or any currency, stable or volatile, and pay anywhere, instantly.
No intermediaries dictating your assets. Freedom: full self-custody, seamless liquidity. Cool isn’t it?

🏆Greg Isenberg sharing a mental model: build around moments

Greg Isenberg had a nice topic in his newsletter this week. Basically it’s about the topic, that many profitable internet businesses that used to need a team, now need one extremely motivated person, AI, and an organic content machine.

It also emphasis the creation of organic content and a community. Unfortunately, despite, Greg’s organic information story, it’s still not possible to share his newsletter in an easy way, so I copy paste a few highlights below.
Do subscribe to his newsletter, I would say for future content on this topic.

The real shift is that judgment can now live inside software.

Before, software mostly moved data around. Humans still had to interpret, decide, and follow up.
Now, that thinking can be embedded directly into products, and agents can execute it continuously.

This enables businesses built around moments, not platforms.

These moments happen constantly, and they now support real products.
You see this clearly in tools that deliver clarity at exactly the right time.

1. An app that reads a lease and highlights the three clauses that matter for this renter, with plain-language explanations.

2. A product that looks at Stripe data and explains why revenue moved last month and what levers to pull next.

3. A mobile app that reviews photos of a home and suggests which repairs deserve attention first and why.

4. Software that listens to a meeting recording and produces a short list of decisions, owners, and follow-ups.

Each of these replaces a small piece of thinking that used to require experience or a paid expert. The product doesn’t do everything. It does one thing well, at the moment it matters.

If you build an organic content machine, you will have an unfair advantage.

So I think it’s a very smart and nice way of thinking. How I see it, this model of “moments” can be used everywhere. From large retail apps to small cross-border marketing ideas or small micromoments.
The product doesn’t (always) win by having more features, it wins by showing up at the right moment with the right judgment for example:

• A customer is stuck choosing between products

• Someone hesitates before checking out

Most apps respond in that case with even more filters or “hover overs” but if you think about “moments” you can respond with contextual judgement, like:

• “Here’s what matters right now.” (for most professional kitchens, acidity and consistency matter more than origin. This one is the safest choice for daily use.)

• “People like you usually choose this.”

• “You’re about to miss X.” (restaurants ordering this usually add frying oil.
  You haven’t added it yet.) This is contextual, and on operational failure not directly selling).

Basically context-aware guidance at the exact moment of doubt.

Great way of thinking!

Greg’s newsletter: https://www.gregisenberg.com/

🇨🇳 🇩🇪 Cultural differences between China and the West (Germany)

I stumbled upon this website that shows artwork from a Chinese-German artist about cultural differences between West and East. I recognize them all! Checkout the post, I cannot share a screenshot due to copyright reasons but the link has plenty of examples.

Details and source: https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/east-meets-west-cultural-differences-illustrations/
The book: https://www.amazon.com/Yang-Liu-East-meets-West/dp/383655402X?tag=digitalsynops-20

😅 Smart brand name: “Original”

Always buy the original!😅

Thank you!!

Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing! I wish you all a great day and hope you liked this edition.

Alex

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

🇿🇦 Makro South Africa’s Ad Scan campaign! Very cleverly done!

Wow, that’s very very nice! This is a combination between a growth hack, creativity and innovation.
Makro South Africa invented “The Ad Scan” basically it takes advantage of the many ad’s we see in our daily life.
Scan any ad with the Makro Ad Scan and you get an offer at Makro for that product.

The extra good thing is that they convert media spend to actual savings for their customers!
Probably a big booster for their app downloads as well! Checkout the video!

🎨 Paul Boag: Building Internal UX Credibility Through External Validation

I follow Paul Boag already for years and I also have several of his books about UX.
I would like to share this post of him and also refer to an older post. Paul writes about something that I think happens in many organisations: not enough trust in internal experts for example on UX. Paul dives into that and gives tips, how to counter that.

External benchmarking gives you objective comparisons that stakeholders understand. This works the same way NPS scores do in marketing: they let you measure your performance against competitors in your sector and beyond.

Refering to the citation above, I can recommend Paul’s suggestion on the “system usability scale”, even in the age of AI.
This research method makes it also very easy to compare your app, or website, to a competitor in terms of usage.
I do think nowadays in, a more and more agentic world, it should be used as a starting point and combined with additional, AI specific UX research methods or metrics, such as (but not limited to) “context recall accuracy”.

Thanks Paul for this post!

Details: https://boagworld.com/emails/external-validation/

🕺DISCO: Vibe code “apps” for single use activities in a browser

I always read, and usually try tools, that show the direction of were we are heading with e-commerce and digital usage and customer experience.
Last week I wrote about Doubao assistant which I think is highly interesting to learn more about, so check out that video.
This week something different: “the DISCO browser🕺”, a new browser by Google that shows a direction things might be going.

Basically this browser vibe codes apps for you based on your search question.
Watch the example Google provided in the video above. I can immediatly think of many use cases.

It’s available in Google Labs, but you have to join a waitlist (with many questions) and MAC only for now. I subscribed to the wait list, if I get access I will make a demo for this newsletter.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/842000/google-disco-browser-ai-experiment

https://labs.google/disco

🧱Physical (and digital) retail block: inspiration & figures

Baoom. An omnichannel retail block in my newsletter, let’s dive in⬇️

Let’s start with the infographic below. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll know that Costco uses e-commerce mainly as a supporting channel, not as the center of its strategy. Walmart does the exact opposite.

Two contrasting approaches, both delivering results, but with very different bets on digital commerce.

While we’re at it, going in-store, Costco has a surprisingly elegant addition: a finger scanner for employees.
As one customer puts it:

I think it is genius - small finger scanner that helped the associate scan all the items in my cart and THEN magically it talked to the handheld device and the connected experience where it showed up at the Self checkout screen when I scanned my membership card. All I had to do was a quick review and pay with the tap of my card.

Source of the employee finger scanner image.

And finally, something I already saw in China two or three years ago, but that now seems to be making its way into Europe: small in store robots.

These robots move through the aisles, highlight promotions, strengthen brand presence, and can even act as a retail media channel. It’s a mix of in store activation, advertising, and experience, subtle, but hard to miss. I am sure we will see much more of this in Europe the next few years.

Details: https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/37537502/uk-supermarket-unleashes-robots-roam-aisles-speak-shoppers/
More details and sources via: https://www.icelandretailmedia.com/

🔍 Aleyda : Focus on Awesomeness

I often cite Aleya on SEO related topics, as I think she is really good. Recently she published this article with info from the Search Central Zurich 2025 conference and takeouts from conferences are often very interesting.

My takeouts of the blog post:

• There’s no GEO without implementing SEO fundamental. Makes sense, right but a good citation to remember.

• LLM.txt don’t matter. Then we also know that!

• When asked about the metrics that we should look at for GEO, Google shared that not only for GEO but in general, we should look for the behavior and patterns in CTR and impressions; ideally exporting Search Console data via Big Query to avoid filtering, to establish patterns without limitations and using this data with Google Analytics data to better establish what’s having a real impact. Cool idea that I shoul try sometime with a BI collegue!

• On Google Discover: That’s why the key recommendation is to continue optimizing for high quality interactions on Search to appear on Discover and avoid traffic volatility since users are Google’s #1 asset and utility on search is a hugely reliable signal for interest and intent. I love Google Discover it works really well. Just often the clicks to a paywalled article are annoying, but on the other hand they are often very relevant to my.

• Google Shopping: Schema is key, use the new Merchant API & beware of CSR JS for Shopping Related Schema.

• Google Product Studio: Generate product title and image optimizations at scale. This I didn’t know, its in Beta appearantly, but this can be very helpful for many organisations).

• To avoid hyper fixating on things, and that done is better than perfect. Music to my ears!
  We should focus on what matters more for the bigger picture, beyond those areas that are changing, and what actually drives impact for a great user experience.

Check out the details here: https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/what-we-learned-google-search-central-zurich-2025/

🤩Meanwhile in Japan, look at this ice cream vending machine!

Japan is awesome, I’ve traveled there a lot and just love it! Vending machines are literally everywhere, with millions across the country (one for about every 25 people). You can buy drinks, snacks, umbrellas an many other things from a vening machine. It’s fun and easy, did so many times.
But check out this ice cream one: a robot arm makes a perfect ice cream, combines that with a fun holographic cartoons. It’s not just ice cream, it’s a little show! With so many machines around, they have to stand out, and this one does it perfectly. Kawaii!

🇺🇸 Instacart order groceries directly from ChatGPT, more then a single feature

Instacart and open OpenAI are integrating deeper, it seems to be the first app, to have a checkout directly integrated in the chat. Another example of a possible direction of commerce.

“With the Instacart app directly in ChatGPT, users can go from meal planning to checkout in a single, seamless conversation,” said Nick Turley, VP, Head of ChatGPT. “It’s another step toward bringing our vision to life—where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives.”

Details: https://openai.com/index/instacart-partnership/

🦓Stripe introuces the Agentic Commerce Suite

Also important to know: on December 11, Stripe launched its Agentic Commerce Suite. With this release, Stripe merchants can easily make their products discoverable by AI agents, starting with ChatGPT. Beyond discovery, the suite enables a streamlined, agent-initiated checkout flow, allowing AI agents to complete purchases on behalf of users with minimal friction. Looks like things are speeding up. This integration from stripe makes it much easier for SME’s to be discovered by LLM’s.

To get started, you simply connect your product catalog to Stripe and then, in the Stripe Dashboard, select which AI agents you’d like to sell through. From there, Stripe helps with discovery, checkout, payments, and fraud detection, and will send you order events so you can continue using your existing commerce stack. All components of the Agentic Commerce Suite are modular by default, so you can pick and choose what best meets the needs of your business.

Details: https://stripe.com/blog/agentic-commerce-suite
And: https://www.connectingthedotsinfin.tech/

🤣 Ad Hook, never thought of this one 🤣

I like being creative, thinking about “Ad Hooks”, but I never, would have thought of this one🤣. But hey, maybe it works for certain types of audiences! Always try!

Thank you!!

Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing! I wish you all a great day and hope you liked this edition.

Alex

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive

🇨🇳 The “Doubao Assistant” full agentic takeover of your phone

Wow, look at this! The Doubao assistant from Bytedance, China. Will this be the future of phone usage? If that’s the case (which I can imagine), a lot of traditional screen based UX will become less important.

The Doubao Assistant is how to say, a digital assistant, a butler. But this goes way beyon what we have seen so far in the West.
It’s like if Siri or Google Assistant evolved into a full-AI agent, that does the work, not just suggests it.
Just look at the demo, it’s what’s coming and will have impact on app and web experiences.

This is a battle just starting. China has a few major e-commerce players and you see in this case -again, it happened before- they work against each other because WeChat has blocked access from Doubao Assistant to it’s ecosystem. Just like Amazon blocks third party agent access (unlike WalMart).
We are watching the birth of the agentic layer in real time, it’s going to be one of the bumpiest, most protectionist tech transitions ever.
Watch the video it’s amazing!🤩🤩

🇺🇸 From affiliate marketing to flexible storefronts

Nice idea! flexibile storefront for creators. Sephora build just that.
Unlike for example China with their superapps ecosystem, in the West that’s not the case, so how do you make it easier to shop from social posts? With flexible storefronts.

No more affiliate links. Creators now curate personalized shops inside Sephora.com, driving 4-6x higher engagement and keeping everything seamless for shoppers.

I think a mart way of trying to get back control from walled-garden shops like TikTok Shop, Instagram Shopping, and “Amazon’s influencer storefronts” (that are also pretty nicely setup), where the risk is losing the full customer journey (and data) to platform fees, algorithms, and impulse-buy distractions.

Application to the My Sephora Storefront program is open only in the U.S. to creators who have at least 3,000 followers on either YouTube, TikTok or Instagram. According to Mitchell, Sephora will offer participants a 15% commission with a 15-day attribution window.

Details: https://creators.sephora.com/

https://www.glossy.co/beauty/sephora-strategies-with-its-new-storefront-platform-sephora-comes-for-a-piece-of-the-creator-economy/

🇺🇸 Meta Agency Awards: Best ad campaigns takeaways

I share here again a video of Dara Denney, also for myself to remember some takeouts for when I need them in daily work, I can easily refer back to it. This video is on Meta’s best ads awards and it gives insights on how to create well performing ads. I share here some takeouts and screenshots for mine and your convenience:

Performance campaign of the year (heretic perfume & nosferatu)

• Success was attributed to creative diversity, utilizing a range of assets rather than just two or three (AndroMeda).

• The assets included creator content and shorter clips borrowed from the film.

• The top-performing ad was a piece of creator content.

• The messaging was bang-on for the target persona.

• Content at every touch point was part of a cohesive brand universe.

• The PR push behind the Nosferatu film served as an important top-of-funnel awareness generator.

Best Use of AI (monks and headspace)

• AI was utilized in some capacity at every single point in the creative production process, including research, briefing, pre-production, production, post-production, and asset analysis. (see screenshots below)

• The agency created 460 campaign assets for this single campaign, which spanned 20 different unique use cases. Very nice and great for AndroMeda. Tip for everyone to focus on creative diversity!

• This massive asset production took only one-third the amount of time of a normal production cycle.

• The campaign achieved strong results, including a 62% increase in conversion rate and 13% more signups.

• Success was driven by a combination of: offering personalized creative options that addressed a wide, wide range of relatable use cases.

Best Creator Campaign (dentsu and chili’s)

• The campaign utilized a high-reach offering called a “Meta Moment Maker”.

• Meta Moment Maker campaigns are designed to deliver high-impact, short burst media activations to maximize reach, share of voice, and brand outcomes during key moments.

• These activations drive audience saturation across Stories, Reels, and in-stream video, typically within a short flight (e.g., 3 days).

• Using great creator content combined with partnership ads under the Meta Moment Maker umbrella, the campaign was able to reach 46 million people.

Reels Campaign of the Year (thrive and build-a-bear)

• Problem: The core challenge was using digital advertising to effectively drive in-store retail traffic. I always like these use cases, if you also do, read on😉

• Goal: Strategically convince people on social media to go to a physical Build-A-Bear location.

• Results: Achieved a 14:1 return on retail investment (ROI), measured through a geo holdout study.

• The creative developed was entirely UGC (User-Generated Content).

• The campaign utilized compilations of UGC to show different unique use cases, demonstrating the versatility of the experience.

• Specific unique use cases showcased included: online shopping, birthdays, a rainy day activity, a personal experience of choosing a bear, Valentine’s Day, and a spring break activity. The creative had a low-fi look, intentionally feeling like real parents recording their children.

Dara points out:

.A key strategic question for brands derived from this success is:
“How do your customers create and share digital moments?”

🤖Sistrix blog on AI mentions/citations

In short (check link for all the details)

• Answer-centric content design: (The Listicle. The Step-By-Step Tutorial. Data Collection (comparison tools and table). The FAQ block).

• Explicit authority and recency: The Trustworthiness Stamp (authority). The Freshness Signal.

• Strict machine readability: The Digital Identification (meta data). The Roadmap (table of contents). The Chapters (logical division).

The outcome is surprisingly clear: what counts is not the topic or budget; the common ground is the structure.

Web pages that are cited by AIs are not linear texts, they are databases of responses. They use a clear structure to signal to the AI: “I am a trustworthy, up-to-date source and this is your answer, already perfectly segmented.“

A citation is the small link symbol that the AI Mode places at the end of a sentence or paragraph. It works similarly to a footnote and indicates which website was used as a source for the previously given information.

A mention (brand reference), on the other hand, is the referencing by name of your brand, product or website directly in the text of the AI response (e.g. “we recommend experts such as CNET…“)

While a mention oftentimes presumes an existing high brand authority, the citation is the fundamental, technically optimised way to be recognised as a trustworthy source.

https://www.sistrix.com/blog/the-path-to-ai-citations-what-the-top-100-most-cited-websites-are-doing-right/

🌐Intercultural communication: building trust

As you know in e-commerce: Trust sells.
I think cultural differences in a broad way, is a very, very interesting topic, so I always like to learn of best practices in that.
Just found this short pod (30 min) on this topic.
I highlight a few takeouts. Information you can use when you are a marketplace seller in sourcing, but also you can use it when you develop a business or international advertising or UI strategy.

• Trust across cultures is not only about how much people trust others in general, but also how difficult it is to enter that circle of trust. Some countries show high generalized trust, yet have a very narrow trust radius, meaning outsiders need significant time, effort, and relationship-building before being trusted. Others may start with lower trust, but allow trust to grow faster through demonstrated actions and cooperation. Trust radius matters more than trust level.

  • Trust radius = how wide the circle is that people allow into trust after interaction.

  • A country can have high generalized trust but a very narrow trust radius.

  Listen to the pod for examples. I think very interesting so after a first interaction a question could be: How can I expand the trust ratio?

The five aspects of trust (as defined in the podcast)

• Format of cooperation
  Whether trust can be built transactionally or requires relationship-building and physical presence. This has impact on the time to market.

• Grounds of trust
  Whether a culture “loans” initial trust (Sweden, Denmark) or requires it to be earned before cooperation.

• Rank sensitivity (power distance)
  How important titles, hierarchy, and seniority are in building trust and starting talks.

• Trust transferability
  Whether trust transfers between colleagues and representatives of the same company.

• Time to market
  How trust affects the speed at which negotiations and cooperation can realistically begin.

Some citations from the podcast:

In the Caucasus, hospitality is primarily a social norm and matter of politeness, not an indicator of trust or business commitment. Being invited for food, drinks, or generous hosting is expected behavior and does not signal a deeper relationship or readiness to cooperate. In contrast, in Ukraine hospitality usually functions as a result of trust, not a starting point. Inviting someone to a restaurant or home typically happens after communication and interaction, and acts as a gift and signal of established trust, not just courtesy.

In neutral cultures (e.g. Germany, Austria, Nordics, United States, Japan), emotions are expected to be controlled in professional settings. Expressing frustration or strong emotion during negotiations is often perceived as unprofessional and can harm credibility, regardless of good intentions. In affective cultures (e.g. Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Turkey, Spain), emotional expression serves as a signal of engagement, trust, and willingness to cooperate. In these cultures, showing little or no emotion may appear unusual and can be interpreted as disinterest, distance, or suspicion.

More on this topic? I wrote earlier about “Erin Meyers, cultural insights” here:

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed21

and here:

https://www.crossborderalex.com/p/global-digital-marketing-and-retail-ed52

🗲 Disruption Beats legacy -yeah!!-

I have little sympathy for traditional banks. For decades they extracted large profits from their customers while delivering slow, uninspiring products. Innovation was minimal, customer experience was secondary, and arrogance often replaced urgency.

That is why I genuinely like the disruption happening in financial services today. Companies like Revolut (my favorite) have shown what is possible when you start with technology, customer experience, and speed as first principles.

Reading the FT article this week, I found it telling that a traditional bank CEOs now openly acknowledge that fintechs have “raised the bar” for product quality.
Would they be able to catchup? I don’t think so.

Details: https://www.ft.com/content/1e333c04-147f-41dd-be0b-b24589be87e2

Thanks Max, for the link tip.

😅Time for a smile: kudo’s for a creator

Whoever created these, deserves success! Great, great idea!

Etsy has them: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1301062432/google-slides-slides-funny-unisex-slip

Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing! I wish you all a great day and hope you liked this edition.

Alex

🫡Open to new opportunities

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/

Checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :

Newsletter Archive