Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 106
Inspiration from across the world for retail enthusiasts, e-commerce professionals, marketing lovers and technology fans. Welcome back! I summarized some great links again, I stumbled upon this week.
Good morning! Lots of great crossborder marketing & retail news this week again! And more good news, I planned 2 Crossborder Alex retail trips abroad again! Soon more on this! Thank you for liking, subscribing and sharing!
🇯🇵 Costco Japan! How it started a story on localization and adaptation
This is a very nice article from Trung Phan on how Costco succeeded in Japan. A story on localization and adaptation:
I’ve read through a few threads of why Costco Japan members quit and a common complaint is that the warehouse is losing its American identity and cutting more deals with Japanese suppliers. Do too much of that and Costco Japan has less differentiation than its local competitors.
The Japanese shopper’s habit of communal buying led to an interesting new sales channel for Costco during COVID: the rise of mini-Costco stores inside of standalone retailers that sell Kirkland Signature items in small (non-bulk) quantities.
Costco Japan members deal with the bulk by splitting hauls with other members. This helps to explain why Japan — across Costco’s ~140m global members — has more members per warehouse than any other place in the world.
Details:
Interested in Japan? Checkout my LinkedIN post on my Japan travels: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/retail-inspiration-japan-alex-baar-clhwf/
I can also recommend this podcast on Costco, one of the best retail pod’s I have been listening to, it’s a (very) long one but you’ll know everything on Costco after listening: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco
📈Performance marketing cheat sheet → Pause vs Let Run decision
I like these quick cheat sheets, like this one above: pause vs run decisions on meta ad campaigns.
This cheat sheet might not fit all business models, it’s a good one to keep in mind.
In summary:
Rule of Thumb for 2025
•Testing stage → Be a merciless killer in 3/4 days
•Scaling stage → Be patient, let it run for
•Creative rotation → Always have new ads in pipeline.
Details and original source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aniruddha-mishra_should-you-pause-an-underperforming-ad-activity-7366326216171151361-5-jJ
🇲🇾 Malaysia: new e-commerce law seperate sellers/affiliates
Malaysia is introducing a new e-commerce law, and it looks like a good one to me. Good for e-commerce, good for consumers.
The law will clearly separate “sellers” from “affiliates.” In my view, this is very positive: it lowers the barrier for more affiliates to join in, which means more creativity in marketing, more marketing outings, and more sales opportunities for sellers. At the same time, consumers benefit because responsibility is clear, sellers remain accountable, while affiliates focus on marketing. That should build (even more) trust and confidence in Malaysia’s e-commerce ecosystem.
🇬🇧 Smart Trolleys arrive in the UK (finally)
China has had them for years, but now they are entering Europe, specifically in the UK. From what I’ve read, this setup is different from what I experienced in China. Basically, the Waitrose system uses large scanning devices that you attach to your trolley. You scan your loyalty card, and off you go. There’s no need to use an app in-store.
In China, the interactive shopping trolley is directly connected to an app, which makes the shopping experience more personalized and seamless. Waitrose, is also experimenting with features such as detailed product information after scanning, in-store wayfinding, promotions, and shopping list integration.
Retailers that embrace the digitalisation of the physical store will gain unparalleled insights that will enable them to share more accurate and real-time information and data with suppliers to drive even more efficiencies and profits.
🇮🇳 India: Zepto’s OOH campaign / activation
Wow this is nice. Currently I am working sometimes also on OOH advertising but I didn’t came up with this idea!
A collaboration between different companies in OOH. The collaboration in India was about buzz & visibility, a collaboration that boosted user generated content online and a different way of measuring success of a OOH campaign. Very nice!
So what happened here is:
Zepto, Bold Care, and Shaadi.com are all different companies in India. This OOH structure made it feel like brands were “talking to each other” on the hoardings.
Zepto teamed up with Shaadi.com to represent relationships and Bold Care to bring in intimacy, while tying everything back to its 10-minute delivery hook.
What made it special is that people online started making their own playful versions with other brands like Amul and Honey, turning the campaign into a viral user-generated trend. Very nice!
“We seeded the idea using playful name-based personalisation, turning category assortment into a canvas for people to see themselves in. It not only built recall for Zepto’s assortment but also proved that relevance can travel far without being forced.”
“We look at shares, recreations, playful adaptations, and tagged posts as key indicators of engagement. With this campaign, a lot of UGC pieces were created in just a few days, proving a deep connection with the idea. If the work makes someone smile or say ‘that’s so me’, the job is done.”
My take:
I immediatly started tho think, wouldn’t this be also a great idea with marketplaces to collaborate with sellers or vendors? Like this “conversation”. So you have three brands centered around Amazon Amazon delivers it, Anker acknowledges the pain point, OnePlus solves it the best and fastest way possible.
Board 1: Amazon
"Always fast delivery for all your electronics"
Board 2: Anker (electronic accesoires brand active on Amazon, showing a powerbank):
"Because many phones die faster than you think"
Board 3: OnePlus (smartphones):
"OnePlus phones charge back to 80% in just minutes, also with powerbanks”
🪝Dara Denney on “hooks” and the new Andromedia algorithm at Meta
I was watching one of Dara’s new video’s and I want to highlight a few takeouts:
Dara refers to the new “Andromedia”, Meta’s AI-driven demand generation product. This new development requires a bit different approach to your creatives as well. Basically you need to target also higher up in the funnel. The new Andromedia doesn’t target narrow, intent-driven audiences. It works best when you feed it broad signals (creative, product feed, value propositions). That means it’s catching people before they actively search for you. This only means you need to have more creatives and test more and faster.
I think it’s really nice Dara gives examples where she uses customer reviews i.c.w. chatgpt, to create hooks. I just highlight a few hooks here, but watch the video, it’s all in there.
Investment Hook:
When to use: When you want to build trust with customers by showing the creator's or brand's journey, especially if that journey involved failed attempts before finding the solution (your product/service)
How it works: Explains the time or money invested to find a solution
Scam Hook:
When to use: When you need a visceral trigger word to immediately stop viewers in their tracks
Ideal for creating curiosity and playing on "loss aversion" (fear of being cheated)
How it works: Uses phrases like "I thought this was a scam" to create unresolved tension, compelling users to watch to resolve the mystery
POV (point of view) You hate X hook:
When to use: When leveraging the popular "POV" format (seen in 10-15% of top-performing creative)
Effective when combined with "hate" as a powerful trigger word to resonate with specific strong feelings
How it works: Can be as simple as "I hate XYZ"
Why did no one tell me hook:
When to use: To create cognitive dissonance by implying the audience might be misled, thereby forcing engagement to resolve tension.
Also effective for positioning the creator as an authority offering "insider knowledge"
How it works: Suggests a gap in the audience's knowledge that the creator will fill
Beyond verbal/text hooks, remember the true hook structure involves all four elements within the first 3 seconds: text overlay, sound, visual, and overall vibe (lighting, font choices)
https://www.aspire.io/blog/meta-andromeda-and-why-it-matters-for-marketers
📌Cheat sheet for better product decisions
Another cheat sheet! Thank you
this is a great one. The font is hard to read, but that’s good, because it forces you to read it closely😅!Every PM and designer should memorize this chart. It clears up the 4 product risks, and finally ends the confusion between desirability, feasibility, viability, and usability.
🌐Shanghai Cooperation Organisation crossborder digital plans
The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) is a Eurasian alliance focused on security, economic, and increasingly technological cooperation among China, Russia, India, and other regional powers. Aside from politics, this is very interesting to follow business wise as well, because lots of technological agreements are made there that can really boost digital innovation and user experiences. It’s very possible that these developments go much faster than in Europe. Lot’s of crossborder digital opportunities, I see😃!
Projects facilitating cross-border e-commerce among SCO countries offer vivid examples of digital economy cooperation. These range from establishing cross-border logistics systems in Uzbekistan's upgraded e-commerce network to collaboration between a cross-border digital trade industrial park in north China's Tianjin and Uzbekistan enterprises.
A People's Daily report indicated that so far, China has launched 10 Luban Workshops in SCO countries, focusing on training in digital technologies such as AI, big data, blockchain, cloud computing, and 5G, thereby nurturing a significant pool of digital technology professionals.
Chinese digital payment platforms WeChat Pay, Alipay and Ant Group-linked services have connected with Kazakh firms, and China UnionPay cards have been locally issued in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Some more details:
https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0829/c98649-20359361.html
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202509/1342342.shtml
Or the full “Duran”video from the snippet.
Thank you!
That’s about it for this edition. Email length nearly reached according to substack’s editor. Thank you for reading, see you next week, I already selected some great news articles for next edition. So rest me to say:
Warm greetings, connect via: Alex Baar
Or checkout my archive of previous newsletters if you want to read more :