Mia Sato
You wouldn’t 3D print a Labubu.
Or would you? The weird little toys are a nightmare to buy so we took matters into our own hands.
Online Shopping
E-commerce giants of the late ’90s and early ’00s like Amazon and eBay changed how the world shopped. Some of those companies have stuck around, but a new generation of commerce platforms is quickly gaining ground. Ultracheap retailers like Temu, Shein, and AliExpress are winning over customers, luring them in with bargain bin prices on products shipped directly from manufacturers in China. Shopping has also become a core part of business for social media companies — your TikTok feed is both a stream of videos and an endless shelf of products for sale. The Verge’s online shopping section covers how and what we buy and the forces driving this sprawling and opaque market.
On The Vergecast: TV is on the decline, so celebrities are riding the subway and going to chicken shops. Plus, how Chicago became the epicenter of ‘Schedule A’ lawsuits against online storefronts.
Mia Sato
Emma Roth
FICO’s new credit scores include data from BNPL loans.
The scoring models, which incorporate loan history from buy now, pay later services, like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, will exist alongside FICO’s standard credit score.
FICO trained the models on over 500,000 BNPL loans from Affirm, and users with five or more loans “typically saw their scores increase or remain stable,” according to the WSJ. However, the publication notes that credit bureaus still have to decide whether to share this information with borrowers and lenders.
Andrew J. Hawkins
Emma Roth
Amazon and Walmart are reportedly considering getting into stablecoins.
The retail giants are looking into ways they could use or issue stablecoins — a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar or another asset, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. As noted by the WSJ, the move could allow Amazon and Walmart to receive payments faster, while avoiding fees from credit card transactions.
Mia Sato
The Honey exposé fallout continues.
Six months after the coupon hunting extension Honey was accused of cheating shoppers and influencers, it appears the PayPal-owned tool is still losing users. According to 9to5Google, the number of Chrome extension users continues to drop — at one point 20 million people used the extension. Now, that number is down to 15 million.
Mia Sato
Big box retailers are hiking prices.
In the midst of Donald Trump’s tariff chaos, prices are rising at retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Home Depot, according to data provided to The Verge by Bright Data, which tracks prices week over week. As of May 11th, for example, 21.5 percent of the 1.5 million tracked Amazon products had increased in price. Check out an interactive chart here.
Image: Bright Data
Tina Nguyen
Not even fancy D.C. lobbyists could save Shein from the tariffs.
As Donald Trump eliminates the exemption for shipments valued at $800 or less, Wired published a closer look at how Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion retailer that relied on that exemption to keep their prices dirt-cheap, tried to lobby their way out of it: spending millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists, hiring Trump administration alumni, and even sending their president, Donald Tang, to schmooze with the China hawks at the MAGA think tanks. (It didn’t work.)
Mia Sato
Temu has stopped shipping orders from China.
Drop-shipping packages straight from China to shoppers’ homes was kind of the whole point of retailers like Temu. In response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, Temu now tells Wired that it’s switching to a “local fulfillment model” where orders come from US warehouses. With the de minimis exception officially dead (at least for now), it’s no surprise that retailers are scrambling — especially sites like Temu, whose wide product offerings depended on the exception.
Emma Roth
Some Amazon sellers are raising their prices.
Zulay Kitchen, which makes and sells kitchen gadgets, told CNBC that the company is “temporarily raising” the price of some of its products as it works to move production to India, Mexico, and other locations not subject to Trump’s 145 percent tariff on China.
Another seller, Pure Daily Care, plans to “stagger price increases” while trying to stretch existing inventory in case the US and China reach an agreement, CNBC reports.
Mia Sato
Tariffs could change Etsy.
The marketplace runs on small businesses all over the world — but Donald Trump’s tariffs are causing uncertainty. In a blog post today, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said the company will add features like shopping pages surfacing domestic sellers, which could be useful for shoppers who want to avoid tariffs.
Etsy also updated its seller handbook with a tariff section providing advice. It’s an interesting look into the many moving parts of global trade that are upended by Trump’s trade war.
Mia Sato
Shein’s supply chain uncertainties.
Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to blow up Shein’s supply chain, which heavily depends on Chinese manufacturing. Bloomberg reports that the Chinese government didn’t like Shein’s plans to move some of its manufacturing out of China — Shein wants to avoid tariffs as much as it can, and the Chinese government reportedly is looking to minimize manufacturing job losses.
China Urges Shein to Halt Supply-Chain Shift After Tariffs
[bloomberg.com]
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Mia Sato
Your packages from China are about to get more expensive.
Donald Trump suspended a 100-year-old law this week that companies shipping online orders directly from China depended on. The de minimis exemption was used as a loophole by Temu, Shein, Amazon, and countless drop shipping operations. Check out my explainer below.
Mia Sato
Wrada, Wedni, Whanel.
Would you buy a designer handbag from Walmart? Through a partnership with Rebag, shoppers can buy secondhand luxury accessories like Louis Vuitton wallets and Chanel shoulder bags from Walmart’s site.
The move may be in part a response to Hermés Birkin lookalikes — “The Walmart Birkin” — that went viral earlier this month and quickly sold out.
Mia Sato
Temu is testing boosted product listings.
The ultra cheap retailer giving Amazon a run for its money is piloting an ads system for merchants, The Information reports. Similar to Amazon’s system, sellers can pay for increased visibility in search results as well as display ads on Temu’s site.
Temu Pilots Amazon-Like Search Ad Business, Plans App Store
[The Information]
Mia Sato
Mia Sato
How Shein plans to re-enter India.
After being banned from India in 2020 along with other Chinese apps, Shein won a rare exception — but it comes with strict parameters.
Among them: the fast fashion giant must hand over customer data to its Indian partner Reliance Retail. Shein products will also be produced locally, with government security audits.
Emma Roth
Temu is the most downloaded iPhone app of the year — again.
The ultra-cheap online shopping app was also Apple’s most popular app in the US in 2023. On this year’s list, Temu is followed by Threads, TikTok, and ChatGPT.
Screenshot: The Verge
Mia Sato
The dropshippers are once again on it.
NBC News reports that merchants on platforms like Etsy, eBay, and Redbubble are selling t-shirts, stickers and other products inspired by the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week.
Like clockwork, we see breaking news events followed by the immediate availability of merchandise thanks to dropshippers and print on demand services. It happened after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, too.