This Week in M&A Issue #257
October 5, 2026
Hey ghouls and gals!
Today’s trend of the week is “Hobbyween”. 🧶
Halloween isn’t just about costumes and candy anymore. For some shoppers, it’s becoming a chance to pick up a new hobby.
Americans are expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, up from $13.1 billion in 2025.
A growing interest in hands-on, offline activities has given rise to “Hobbyween”. Michaels reported that searches for Halloween crochet kits jumped 583% year over year, while searches for analog hobbies increased 136%.
Selling craft kits, DIY projects, hobby supplies, and other products that give consumers something to make or do is a trick that could make Halloween a treat for online sellers.
Today we have for you:
- Amazon expands Seller Central beyond Amazon
- Shopify lets AI Agents complete purchases
And:
- The AI opportunities eCommerce owners are missing
- Google begins its fourth Spam Update of 2026
- How to check if AI can find your content
Alright, let’s dive in.
Amazon
Image Source: Giphy (Juan Billy)
Amazon Adds New AI, Lending and Fulfillment Features
Amazon used Amazon Accelerate 2026 to announce a long list of new features aimed at making it easier for sellers to run their businesses across multiple channels.
One of the biggest changes is an expansion of Seller Central beyond Amazon. Amazon says more than 95% of independent sellers sell across multiple channels, so the new tools are designed to bring more of that activity into one dashboard.
Sellers can connect other ecommerce accounts, import and link listings, view orders from different channels, and fulfill them through Amazon. They can also continue using their own warehouses or third-party fulfillment providers. The tools will roll out gradually over the coming months at no additional cost.
Amazon is also expanding Seller Assistant, its AI tool for merchants. It will monitor areas including inventory, pricing, advertising, demand and compliance, and, with permission, prepare or take actions for sellers.
That could give Amazon a much broader view of a merchant’s business, particularly when sales data from platforms such as Shopify, Walmart, TikTok and eBay is connected.
Amazon is also expanding its fulfillment network beyond its own marketplace. U.S. merchants using Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) can now offer fast, free Prime delivery on their own websites at no additional cost beyond standard MCF fees.
Customers don’t need an Amazon account or to change how they check out. Merchants keep their existing payment, customer service, and return processes, while Amazon verifies Prime eligibility after checkout and handles fulfillment.
Finally, Amazon says Amazon Lending will open to every seller by the end of 2026, removing the invitation requirement. New options include lines of credit and SBA 7(a) loans of up to $5 million, with sellers potentially able to use multiple financing products for different needs.
For now, these features are limited to the U.S., but Amazon says it plans to add more channels and capabilities.
The Opportunity podcast
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What AI Can Really Do for Your Ecommerce Business
AI can do a lot for your ecommerce business. But are you using it for the things that actually matter?
In this episode of The Opportunity Podcast, we sit down with Eric Bidinger, Co-founder and CEO of Luca AI, a tool that uses AI to analyze business data and help entrepreneurs identify opportunities to improve their businesses.
We dig into where AI is actually useful for ecommerce owners, from finding hidden profit opportunities and operational inefficiencies to analyzing inventory, margins, and cash flow.
We also discuss how AI could change the way ecommerce businesses approach growth capital, why small operational improvements can have a surprisingly large impact on profitability, and what happens when everyone has access to the same AI tools.
If you’re trying to figure out where AI can actually make a difference in your ecommerce business, this episode is definitely worth a listen.
eCommerce
AI Agents Can Now Complete Shopify Purchases
Shopify is making it easier for AI agents to do something that previously required a human shopper: complete an online purchase.
On September 28, Shopify announced that browser-based AI agents can now handle checkout on eligible Shopify stores, including purchases made through Shop Pay.
Shopify already allowed these agents to search products, check inventory, and add items to carts through WebMCP. The new update extends that functionality into checkout with three tools:
- get_checkout lets an agent read the current checkout.
- update_checkout lets it update details such as a delivery address or shipping option.
- complete_checkout allows it to submit the order after the shopper approves it.
The shopper still stays in control. They must review the order and total and authorize the purchase before it can be completed. Login requirements, 3D Secure challenges, and certain checkout extensions can also hand control back to the shopper. Agents can’t add or change products through these checkout tools.
There are some limitations. Standard three-page checkout supports WebMCP only with Shop Pay, while B2B, embedded, mobile SDK, draft order, and several other checkout types are excluded. The tools currently work in Chromium-based browsers.
Shopify is also expanding AI shopping partnerships. Meta’s Muse can shop and check out through Shop Pay, while Instinct supports product discovery, checkout, and order updates.
For merchants, this makes accurate product data, pricing, availability, policies, and checkout information increasingly important as more shopping happens through AI interfaces.
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Google Rolls Out a Longer-Than-Usual Spam Update
Google has started rolling out its fourth spam update of 2026, and this one comes with an unusually long timeline.
The September 2026 spam update began on September 24 at 09:15 PDT and applies globally across all languages. Google says the rollout could take up to two weeks, potentially running until around October 8.
That’s a much longer timeline than previous updates. March took 19.5 hours, June took about two days, and August took two days and 16 hours.
The impact is already showing up in search results. Search Engine Roundtable reported significant ranking drops across sites in different industries and countries, as well as increased ranking volatility between September 25 and 27, with several tracking tools showing particularly high movement on Saturday.
Google has not said what specific spam tactics this update targets. Early observations from SEO professionals have pointed to highly templated and programmatically generated pages, including some content produced at scale with AI. These are observations from the SEO community, not confirmed details from Google.
The policies also apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, which Google explicitly clarified in May. Practices such as scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse can affect visibility in these AI-powered search experiences too.
For site owners, it is too early to draw conclusions from a few days of data, as rankings may continue changing throughout the rollout. If traffic has dropped since September 24, monitor Search Console and wait for the update to finish before assessing the full impact.
AI & SEO
A Simple Test for AI Content Retrieval
AI search introduces a new problem for website owners: Can AI systems actually find and retrieve your content?
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools provide detailed information about how pages are discovered and indexed, but there is no equivalent reporting for many AI search systems.
SEO consultant Chris Green suggests a simple workaround: test whether a chatbot can retrieve a page using an exact snippet from its content.
The process is straightforward. Copy a distinctive passage from a page and ask a chatbot with search capabilities to return results containing that exact text. If the chatbot returns your URL and correctly attributes the passage to your page, that suggests the content is available through one of the search sources it uses.
If the page does not appear, there are several technical issues worth investigating. The page may not be discoverable through your site or sitemap, could be blocked by security tools or robots.txt, may not be crawlable, or could have indexing issues such as a noindex directive or canonical pointing elsewhere. The content may also be too generic to stand out in the underlying search results.
There is an important limitation: this is not a replacement for Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, or server logs. AI systems can use different sources, and a single test does not prove that a page is consistently retrievable. Green recommends testing several times with different snippets.
Most importantly, retrieval is only the first step. A page being retrievable does not mean an AI system will cite it or send traffic to it. If the content can be retrieved but is rarely surfaced, factors such as topical authority, content quality, and competition become more important.
Money Nomad
Looking for a side hustle?
Try Money Nomad, our sister marketplace built specifically for profitable side hustles and micro-businesses that are too small for Empire Flippers.
Check out this recent listing available on the Money Nomad Marketplace:
Listing #10180 – $22,500.00
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This portfolio of three established WordPress travel sites focuses on destination-driven storytelling and practical guides, generating $1,984/month in revenue through affiliate marketing (40%), display ads (38%), sponsored content, and digital products. The flagship site centers on a French city and boasts over 7,000 email subscribers with an impressive 50% open rate. Learn More
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