Welcome again to the Retention Edge.

We’re back with the latest in ecommerce, marketing and retention, so you can stay ahead of the game.

This week:

Let's get into it.

USPS is adding a holiday surcharge from October 4

USPS filed for a temporary peak-season price increase on August 25, averaging about 6%. Pending approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission, it runs from October 4 to January 17, 2027 and covers Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select.

What you pay depends on weight and distance. On retail Priority Mail and Ground Advantage, Zones 1-4 go up $0.50 for a 0-3 lb parcel and $3.90 for 26-70 lb. Zones 5-9 Priority Mail goes up $1.00 at 0-3 lb and $9.10 at 26-70 lb.

This comes on top of the transportation increase USPS added in April. If you ship heavy items or long distances, check your free-shipping threshold before Q4 promotions start.

Canada turns on counter-tariffs of up to 50% on September 8

Canada is adding retaliatory tariffs (countering the latest tariffs imposed by the US) of up to 50% on US imports from September 8. The rates match US tariffs and cover steel, dairy products, appliances and agricultural equipment.

Canada is the first international market for a lot of US brands. If you sell there, your landed costs change in under two weeks. Check the product lists rather than assuming your SKUs are exempt.

Brands say margin is going in a thousand small pieces

At a dinner hosted by Modern Retail and Glossy, brand leaders from fashion, beauty, home and CPG said the same thing: margin is being eroded gradually by third-party fees, tariffs and rising operating costs, not by any single shock.

There's no one cost to fix here. It's why a lot of brands are reporting a decent top line and a worse bottom line. If you only review the big cost lines each quarter, the small ones are worth a look too.

Retail campaigns on Google AI Max saw 72% more invalid traffic

Lunio, an invalid traffic detection firm, studied more than 414 million clicks across Google Ads, Bing, LinkedIn, Meta and other platforms between October 2025 and June 2026.

Retail search campaigns with AI Max enabled saw 72% more invalid traffic than campaigns without it.

Retail AI Max invalid traffic rose from 2.46% in Q4 2025 to 5.28% in Q2 2026. Standard search campaigns fell from 3.72% to 3.07% over the same period. Lunio also puts Google Shopping invalid clicks at 7.51% in Q2 2026, about one in thirteen.

Google automatically converts two legacy campaign settings to AI Max in under three weeks. Based on Lunio's numbers, a retailer spending $10 million a year could end up wasting around $500,000.

AI search has cut organic traffic more than 10% across 54 advertisers

Digiday looked at Google Analytics data from agency group Brainlabs covering 54 clients: 24 US firms, 24 British brands and six elsewhere. They found that organic traffic fell by an average of more than 10% after AI Overviews launched.

Some sites are down much further. Ahrefs data in the piece shows drops as high as 58%. The worst hit are DTC-heavy brands like jeweler Kendra Scott, and categories people research for a long time before buying, such as cars and appliances.

Meta is removing the option to exclude placements from ad sets

Advertisers are seeing a notice in the Placements section: Meta is removing the ability to exclude individual placements. It also covers excluding platforms, devices and operating systems.

If you exclude placements to keep creative off surfaces where it doesn't perform, that option is going away. Meta is asking for more trust in its automated placement decisions at the same time as the AI Max numbers above.

Shein's $80 million Everlane deal is under national security review

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US has opened a national security review of Shein's $80 million purchase of Everlane. The deal closed in May, and Shein filed for review voluntarily afterwards, reportedly because Everlane's finances meant it had to move fast.

Shein launched its Hong Kong IPO on August 24, seeking up to $1.77 billion at a valuation of about $27 billion. That's down 72.5% from its 2022 peak.

Curology says Walmart shoppers convert to prescription skin care at 5x its online rate

Curology's $24.97 Prescription Acne Kit launched in 1,000 Walmart stores on July 6. It pairs a cleanser and moisturizer with a code for a 60-day supply of its prescription formula. Customers who buy it convert to a consultation and prescription at five times the rate Curology sees online.

There's almost no overlap with its existing subscribers, so these are new customers rather than existing ones switching channel. Curology also picked store locations in what it calls "dermatologist deserts," where people have little access to in-person dermatology.

The shelf isn't just building awareness here. It's converting better than their website, because it reaches people the website never did.

Bath & Body Works says its Amazon sales tripled

Bath & Body Works reported Q2 net sales down 2.3% to $1.5 billion. CEO Daniel Heaf called it on-plan for a multi-year turnaround. Part of that plan is new channels: the brand launched on Amazon in February and in Ulta stores in July.

Heaf said Amazon sales tripled in Q2 versus Q1, with more new-to-brand customers who are younger and more affluent, at a higher average unit retail than its own channels.

That's the opposite of what most brands fear from a marketplace, which is cannibalizing good customers at a worse margin.

More celebrity-led brands are shutting down

Más+, Lionel Messi's sports drink, has been withdrawn. Unwell, Alex Cooper's drinks line, is being discontinued this fall. They follow Kim Kardashian's Skkn, folded into Skims in 2025, Gwen Stefani's Gxve Beauty earlier this year, and Drew Barrymore's Flower Beauty last year.

Modern Retail's read is that a famous name gets you a trial, but not trust that lasts forever. A big audience gets the first order. It doesn't get the second one, and it doesn't fix weak product-market fit.

GLP-1 drugs are changing apparel assortment

Bloomberg reports that retailers are cutting back on extended sizing as GLP-1 use grows. It opens with a shopper who couldn't find a Size 24 and found the plus-size section had disappeared from a retailer's site.

If you sell apparel, your size curve is a demand forecast, and the assumptions behind it are changing.

How E.l.f. built a repeatable TikTok Live playbook

E.l.f. launched E.l.f. Hair with a livestream hosted by beauty influencer Yonna Jay and cosmetic chemist Erica Douglas, known as Sister Scientist. It became the biggest day-one category launch in the company's history.

US consumers spent $15.8 billion on TikTok Shop in 2025 and $11.8 billion in the first half of 2026, per Emarketer. Consumer Edge puts TikTok at 2% of US online retail, ahead of Target and Costco. TikTok says nearly a third of US adults have watched its live shopping, and Social/Tale puts conversion on those streams around 10%, against 2% to 3% for ecommerce sites.

E.l.f. runs Live as a staffed, scheduled channel rather than a one-off campaign. That's the part other brands can copy.

Ipsy is selling marketing services to beauty brands

Ipsy is launching Ipsy Marketing Solutions, which sells brands access to its first-party data, product-trial system and creator network, from event sponsorships to paid media. Brands pay a fee, and it's live in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Ipsy has millions of subscribers who take a quiz to get matched with products, leave feedback and post content. The company says customers wrote 5 million product reviews last year.

A subscription box is turning into a media business. It's the same move retailers made with retail media, at a smaller scale.

What DTC's been talking about on social media this week.

When does media buying become "agentic"?

Taylor Holiday asked what the test is: how much does a system have to run on its own before you call it agentic, and which jobs count. Structure, budget, bid, creative, measurement, optimization. Andrew Faris made the practical version of the point, noting that incremental tROAS bids launch unusually conservative where standard attribution tROAS is usually too aggressive.

Make AI write the brief, not the asset.

Chase Dimond shared his prompt for AI email copy, and the trick is that it forbids writing the email: give each source one job, then ask for the audience, offer, objection, proof with a source for every claim, and what's missing. Jimmy Kim got to the same place on creative briefs, arguing AI is good at being short because it has no ego to protect.

Visual consistency isn't a moat anymore.

Sarah Levinger argued that the 20-page brand style guide worked when media was scarce and attention was captive. Now that anyone can copy your visual identity with a three-word prompt, she says a fixed visual style doesn't defend anything, and repeating it in a fast feed costs you through ad blindness.

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That’s all for this week.

I’ll be back in touch soon, keeping an eye on what’s happening in the ecommerce and retail world, so you can keep yours on growing your business.

Until then,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: shoot me a DM on LinkedIn if you’re interested in what a custom mobile app could do for your brand.