Welcome to the Moast newsletter. We spend the week collecting news, trends, and other content that we think would be interesting to e-commerce founders and CMOs. Our goal is to provide value without sounding like a promo for our app. Helpful wether you use Moast or not.

Danone just acquired Huel for $1.15B — the 12-year-old UK meal replacement brand that went from breakeven to ~$25M in adjusted EBITDA in a single year. The deal was priced at roughly 4.6x revenue, which looks more like a supplement multiple than a food one, and Drew Fallon thinks that's the most interesting part.

Anyway, lots more happening this week. Here's what else caught our attention 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

Build-A-Bear Just Launched at Walmart — 1,500+ Stores

→ Mini Beans, Micro Mini Beans, Tan Bear & Bluey collab hit Walmart.

→ A major distribution shift for a brand built on in-store experience.

→ Even experience-first brands rethink wholesale with the right partner.

See how Build-A-Bear is using Walmart to reach new shoppers →

Ernesta Raises $20M to Scale Custom Rugs Nationwide

→ Founded by Peloton co-founders, raised $20M to go from 6 to 30 showrooms.

→ Building the first tech-enabled national brand in a $34B fragmented market.

→ Classic playbook: validate DTC online, then expand into physical showrooms.

How Ernesta is taking on a $34B market with a DTC-first approach →

Urban Outfitters x Vans: On Rotation Comes to Five Stores

→ UO's "On Rotation" concept partners with Vans' 60th anniversary campaign.

→ First time live musicians join — footwear is now UO's fastest-growing category.

→ Collab-plus-experience is becoming the Gen Z retail playbook.

Why On Rotation is one of the smartest Gen Z retail experiments right now →

Amazon Launches 1-Hour Delivery in Hundreds of U.S. Cities

→ 1-hour in hundreds of cities, 3-hour in 2,000+ towns, 90K+ products covered.

→ Prime: $9.99 for 1-hour / $4.99 for 3-hour. Non-members pay more.

→ Brands competing on convenience — not experience — are most at risk.

What Amazon's speed push means for retailers competing on convenience →

Nuuly Just Had Its Best Quarter Ever

→ Revenue up 43% in Q4, active subscribers up 40% year-over-year.

→ URBN committing 40% of $385M capex to logistics to fuel Nuuly's growth.

→ Rental as a brand loyalty engine is no longer a theory — it's working at scale.

Inside the logistics bet fuelling Nuuly's 43% growth →

Meta Is Making Ads Look Less Like Ads — Regulators Are Watching

→ Meta's updated disclosure labels reduce visual cues that signal paid content.

→ EC has already fined Meta €200M — this change will attract more scrutiny.

→ Expect different performance dynamics by market if a regional rollback is forced.

Why Meta's ad label tweak could mean different rules by region →

Gap Is Going to Coachella — With a Hoodie House and an Exclusive Drop

→ Gap is Coachella 2026's exclusive apparel sponsor with its "Hoodie House" concept.

→ Festivalgoers customise a limited-edition $100 hoodie with patches on-site.

→ When your hero product becomes the experience — that's brand marketing done right.

How Gap is using Coachella to reposition the hoodie as a cultural object →

2/ Shopify

Shopify + Google AI Integration Drives 15X Order Growth

→ After integrating with Google AI Mode via the Universal Commerce Protocol, Shopify reported a 15-fold jump in AI-powered search orders.

→ Shoppers are now completing purchases directly inside Google's AI conversations — no redirect, no browser tab, no checkout friction.

→ If you're on Shopify, your products are already eligible. The question is whether your listings are optimized for AI-first discovery.

Find out how the Google AI integration is changing how people buy →

Shopify Sidekick Can Now Write Analytics Queries — And Simulate Shoppers

→ Two new Sidekick features dropped: it can now write ShopifyQL queries for payments and web performance data, and merchants can run AI shopper simulations before pushing live changes.

→ The shopper simulation tool lets you model how different buyer personas will behave on your site before you test on real customers.

→ Both features are live in admin now — if you haven't opened Sidekick in a while, it's worth another look.

Check out what Sidekick can do that it couldn't three months ago →

3/ What We Found Interesting

96% of E-Commerce Retailers Have Already Invested in Agentic AI

→ LogicBroker survey: 96% invested in AI; top use cases are discovery & chatbots.

→ 47% plan $1M+ more spend — but Gartner says AI resolution costs exceed $3 by 2030.

→ Best ROI: AI in the background (pricing, forecasting) not customer-facing bots.

What 600+ e-commerce leaders are spending on agentic AI — and what's working →

Pinterest's Spring 2026 Trend Report Is Out

→ Pinterest's saves and searches are a 6–8 week leading indicator for retail demand.

→ Brands using this data stay ahead of trend cycles rather than chasing them.

→ Essential reading if you're planning Q2 campaigns or product launches.

See what Pinterest's Spring 2026 Trend Report predicts for the season →

Pokémon Go Players Built a 30-Billion-Image AI Dataset Without Knowing It

→ Niantic's AR scans produced 30B+ real-world images now powering delivery robots.

→ 143M players thought they were earning rewards — they were mapping the world.

→ "Free" products always have a price. What is your loyalty program collecting?

The greatest data heist in history — disguised as a mobile game →

4/ What We Found Helpful

Facebook Overhauled Its Originality Guidelines and Added Impersonation Detection

→ New rules affect how content is ranked, monetized, and removed on Facebook.

→ Reposted or repurposed content without original additions could lose visibility.

→ Worth reviewing before your next content drop if Facebook is an acquisition channel.

What Facebook's new originality guidelines mean for your content strategy →

ChatGPT Can Now Generate Video — Here's What Sora Actually Does

→ OpenAI integrated Sora into ChatGPT — generate video from text or images directly.

→ Immediate use case: product demos, UGC-style ads, branded video at low cost.

→ Quality is still evolving, but the time-to-first-draft is now measured in seconds.

See what ChatGPT's Sora video generation can do for your brand →

Our guide on how Shopify brands can measure shoppable video ROI

→ Most brands run video without ever connecting it to revenue — this guide fixes that.

→ Covers conversion lift comparisons and a calculator to project gains before investing.

→ Essential if you're running UGC without a clear ROI number attached to it.

Calculate the ROI of shoppable video for your Shopify store →