Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 133
Goodmorning everyone! Another edition of my newsletter on everything I find interesting. Mostly on Global Marketing & Retail. Go check out this edition.
🌎Crossborder E-commerce sentiment tracker
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.
🇧🇷 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.
Thank you for reading
Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/
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