Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 123
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.
🇹🇭 Thailand’s SME exporting to China with credibility labels and KOL’s
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.
🔍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
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🫡Open to new opportunities
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