This Week in M&A Issue #250
August 17, 2026
Howdy partner!
Today’s trend of the week is “car products”. 🚗
Road trips are getting a serious upgrade.
According to Shopify sales data shared with Retail Brew, July saw people spending more on products designed to make their cars more comfortable, organized, and road-trip ready.
Vehicle dashboard accessories led the charge, with spending up 163%. Car shampoo followed at 96%, while bumper stickers increased 71%. Spending on car organizers rose 69%, and car chargers were up 68%.
For online business owners, this creates opportunities across practical road-trip accessories, car organization, cleaning products, and tech.
Selling products isn’t the only option. You can also create content around DIY car upgrades and cleaning hacks, or tap into affiliate commissions by reviewing popular car upgrade products.
Today we have for you:
- What Anthropic’s new invisible watermark means for your content
- The fastest-growing ecommerce categories through 2030
And:
- New EU packaging rules could force small sellers out of Europe
- TikTok launches new tool to track sales beyond TikTok Shop
- Sellers need to start preparing for peak season now
Alright, let’s dive in.
AI
Image Source: Giphy (Boomerang)
Claude Adds Watermark to AI Text: What It Means for Your Content
Anthropic has introduced an invisible watermark in text generated by some newer Claude models.
The change is linked to the EU AI Act, whose transparency requirements took effect on August 2nd. The rules require providers of generative AI systems to make AI-generated content detectable. Anthropic’s watermark applies globally, not just to users in Europe. Models launched from August 2nd include the marking from the start, while older models have until December 2 to comply.
The watermark is embedded in the text itself. Readers can’t see it, and it doesn’t affect meaning or readability. It can remain when content is copied and pasted and may survive some light editing.
For website owners, this raises questions about whether AI-generated content can be identified and what that could mean for SEO and the use of AI-generated content on their websites.
Businesses using Claude for blog posts, product descriptions, category pages, and other website copy may now be publishing content containing a machine-readable signal. Google is also developing its own content provenance technology through SynthID, while EU regulations are pushing the industry toward broader AI labeling.
There are important limitations, though. Anthropic says the watermark can disappear after heavy editing, paraphrasing, translation, or combining AI text with other material. Short passages may also contain too little information for reliable detection. A missing watermark does not prove that content was written entirely by a human.
This also doesn’t mean a new SEO penalty. There is currently no evidence that Google automatically penalizes pages because Claude generated the content or because a watermark is present. Google has consistently emphasized quality and usefulness over whether AI was used.
For business owners and publishers, this new technology doesn’t mean you should stop using AI. It means you need to think more carefully about where AI fits into your content process. The strongest approach is to use AI to speed up production while keeping human expertise, original insights and editorial judgment at the centre of what gets published.
ecommerce
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The eCommerce Categories Expected to Grow Fastest by 2030
Market intelligence platform ECDB recently published a report looking at which ecommerce categories are expected to grow the most between now and 2030.
The results were interesting.
It’s not smart gadgets or the latest tech products leading the growth. Instead, the strongest categories are everyday essentials.
Cleaning equipment is forecast to grow 23.8% annually between 2025 and 2030. Baked goods are projected to grow 20.8%, meal kits 19.1%, detergents 19%, and plants and seeds 16.9%.
These might not be the most exciting products, but that could be exactly what makes them attractive for ecommerce sellers.
These everyday essentials are evergreen, repeat purchases. A consumer might only buy a piece of furniture once every few years. Cleaning products, food, detergents and other household essentials need to be replaced much more often.
That creates more opportunities to bring customers back, increase retention and grow lifetime customer value.
Shopping online is also making these products easier to buy. Customers can compare prices, reorder in a few clicks and have products delivered to their door. Faster delivery and the growth of quick commerce are making online purchases even more convenient for groceries and other household essentials.
Subscriptions and automated reorder tools could take this a step further by making repeat purchases almost effortless.
Convenience is the name of the game. If building a more stable, profitable business is part of your five-year plan, selling these could be a smart place to start.
eCommerce
EU Packaging Rules Create a 27-Country Compliance Problem for Sellers
Selling products across Europe just became more complicated, especially for smaller ecommerce businesses.
The EU’s new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) came into effect on August 12, 2026.
It replaces the EU’s previous packaging directive with a single regulation covering all 27 member states. However, while the new rules are harmonized at EU level, registration and fees are still handled nationally.
That means businesses now need to register in every EU country where they make packaged products available. For a business selling across all 27 member states, that can mean 27 separate registrations, national filings and fee arrangements.
There is also another cost. Businesses that are not established in a particular EU country generally need to appoint an authorised representative there for extended producer responsibility requirements. Again, that can mean one representative per country.
The costs can add up quickly.
A seller sending 40 packages a month into six countries faces the same basic registration and representation requirements as one sending 40,000. That makes the rules particularly difficult for smaller businesses operating across multiple European markets.
The regulation also affects online marketplaces. Platforms must collect registration information from covered producers, making compliance increasingly important for sellers who rely on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Zalando.
For ecommerce businesses, this adds another cost to expanding across Europe. Before entering a new country, sellers now need to look beyond demand, shipping and taxes and work out what packaging registrations and local representation will cost.
For some smaller businesses, selling in fewer European markets may end up making more financial sense than trying to cover all 27 countries.
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ecommerce
TikTok Expands Sales Tracking to Brand Websites and Shopify Stores
TikTok Shop has introduced a new report designed to show sellers how much revenue their activity on TikTok generates outside the platform.
TikTok published documentation for its Off-site Performance Analysis report on August 6. Its updated Off-site Performance Analysis tool tracks whether TikTok Shop activity contributes to sales on a brand’s own DTC or Shopify website.
This matters because a customer might discover a product on TikTok, leave the platform, and buy it directly from the brand. Previously, those sales could be difficult to connect back to TikTok.
The report uses the TikTok Pixel to measure this activity and provides three main metrics. Off-site GMV measures sales on the brand’s website following TikTok exposure. TTS GMV measures sales made directly through TikTok Shop. Off-site Effect compares the two to show how much off-platform revenue TikTok appears to be generating.
Sellers can also break down off-site sales by livestreams, videos and product cards. This could help brands identify which content is driving sales beyond TikTok, rather than judging content only by what happens inside the platform.
There is one major limitation: it cannot see sales made through Amazon, Walmart or physical stores. So if a customer discovers a product on TikTok but later buys it on Amazon, that sale won’t appear in the report.
TikTok acknowledges that this means the reported off-site impact will likely be lower than the actual impact. For multi-channel sellers, the number should therefore be viewed as an incomplete measurement, not a complete picture of TikTok’s contribution to revenue.
For brands that primarily sell through their own websites, the report could provide a clearer view of TikTok’s impact. For multi-channel businesses, it is useful data, but only one part of the picture.
eCommerce
5 Supply Chain Moves Sellers Should Make Before Peak Season
Peak shopping season is almost upon us.
Inventory planning is no longer something that can wait until the holiday rush gets closer. Supply chain decisions made now can directly affect inventory availability, shipping costs, and profitability during the most important part of the year.
To help you avoid stockouts, Chain Store Age outlined the five inventory planning moves sellers should make now.
1. Look Beyond Supplier Prices
The cheapest supplier is not always the lowest-cost option. You should calculate the full landed cost, including freight, tariffs, storage, handling and other supply chain expenses. This gives you a clearer picture of what each product will actually cost.
2. Get Inventory Timing Right
Ordering too late can result in stockouts, expensive expedited shipping, and missed sales. Ordering too early can tie up cash in inventory that sits in storage. You need to balance lead times with expected demand so products arrive when they are needed.
Also factor in deadlines for things like Amazon Black Friday promotions and other special holiday sales.
3. Build Transportation Flexibility
Avoid relying too heavily on one shipping method, carrier, or route. Having alternatives can provide more options if capacity becomes limited or transportation costs increase during peak season.
4. Plan Inventory and Warehouse Capacity Together
More inventory also means more pressure on warehouses. You need to consider storage space, labor, and fulfillment capacity before bringing in additional stock. Otherwise, an inventory increase can create operational bottlenecks when order volumes are already rising.
5. Use Data and Communicate Early
Review your supply chain data and communicate forecasts with suppliers, carriers, and logistics partners as early as possible. Earlier planning gives these partners more time to allocate capacity and respond to potential problems.
Peak season performance is heavily influenced by decisions made months before customers start buying. Reviewing supplier costs, inventory timing, transportation options and warehouse capacity now can reduce avoidable costs and give you more flexibility when demand increases.
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