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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.
Apple finally unfolded. The iPhone Duo, its first folding iPhone, headlined Wednesday's "Surprise and shine" event alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, new Watches, and AirPods 5. GSMArena's week in review has the full rundown, and the business angle is in the headlines below.
Here's what caught our attention in the world of e-commerce this week 👇
1/ DTC Headlines
Apple's new era opened with a $2,000 foldable
-> John Ternus led his first keynote as CEO, debuting the book-style iPhone Duo at around $2,000.
-> The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, and the standard iPhone 18 slips to spring.
-> The foldable is the show now. Premium hardware keeps getting more premium.
Inside Apple's first Ternus-era launch →
Gas prices just set a Labor Day record
-> $4.15 a gallon, the first holiday ever above $4. Diesel hit an all-time $5.90.
-> Prices are up roughly 30% year over year on the Iran war and the Hormuz closure.
-> Fuel is a tax on discretionary spend, and diesel is a tax on your freight bill.
What record pump prices mean for retail →
Oura filed for its IPO, and the numbers are excellent
-> Revenue jumped 74% to $1.21B in nine months, with 5 million paid subscribers.
-> It's profitable and targeting a $16B+ valuation on the Nasdaq under "OURA."
-> Hardware plus subscription is the DTC model that actually IPOs.
Reformation's first public earnings landed strong
-> Revenue rose 24% to $155.2M, the 21st straight quarter of double-digit growth.
-> Active customers grew 23%, and the 70-store fleet doubles over five years.
-> The IPO fizzled. The business didn't.
Inside Reformation's expansion plan →
Amazon is spending $230M on Whole Foods workers
-> Higher pay and expanded benefits for 100,000+ store employees, starting September 28.
-> Average total compensation passes $29 an hour, with $5-copay health plans and 20 weeks of parental leave.
-> Retention economics beat turnover economics. The frontline labor market is still tight.
What Amazon's investment covers →
Holiday sales will top $1 trillion for the first time
-> Bain forecasts 4.5% growth, with nonstore sales up 9%, triple the in-store pace.
-> 24% of shoppers plan to start holiday discovery in AI tools, up 17% from last year.
-> Plan for an online-heavy, AI-assisted season.
Read Bain's full holiday outlook →
J. Peterman has folded
-> The Seinfeld-famous catalog brand stopped taking orders, and its phones are disconnected.
-> Ohio's attorney general is suing over undelivered orders and denied refunds.
-> The end of an era for catalog DTC. Pour one out for the horseman's duster.
The strange end of J. Peterman →
A crib with radar was the sleeper hit of IFA
-> Monai's Sleepod tracks breathing, heart rate, and temperature with camera, radar, and thermal sensors. No wearable.
-> It alerts for a covered face or climb-out attempts, and folds into a suitcase shape at one button.
-> Baby tech is quietly becoming the most advanced consumer hardware category.
Nike is out of the S&P 100, and everyone has a rebuild plan
-> Nike exits the index September 21 after 18 years, with roughly $230B in value gone since 2021.
-> Cuts founder Steven Borrelli's viral 8-point rebuild plan calls for restoring wholesale, re-centering athletes, and leading with conviction.
-> His culture-war prescriptions drew as much heat as agreement. Judge the plan for yourself.
Read the full Nike rebuild thread →
2/ Shopify
Meta's new AI agent can shop and check out from Shopify stores
-> Muse, Meta's do-everything assistant, searches Shopify Catalog and completes checkout in-app with Shop Pay.
-> Merchants were live at launch with zero setup. Shop Pay wallet saving comes next.
-> Two weeks, two AI platforms wired into Shopify checkout. Agentic commerce is compounding.
What Muse means for Shopify merchants →
3/ What We Found Interesting
OpenAI's AI cracked a $1 million math problem, and started a fight
-> About 10,000 AI agents produced a 165-page proof of the Navier-Stokes problem in 88 hours.
-> Two mathematicians had posted related work the night before, after a year of research. A credit dispute erupted.
-> AI is now solving century-old problems. The etiquette hasn't caught up.
The full story behind the disputed proof →
Deloitte: e-commerce will outgrow retail again this holiday
-> Online sales are forecast up 7.5% to 8.4%, reaching as much as $318.9B, against 4% to 4.8% overall.
-> Total holiday spending hits a projected $1.7 trillion.
-> The AI lean is real: shoppers researching with digital tools are driving the gap.
See the full Deloitte forecast →
Teens now trust AI recommendations more than their friends
-> 31% of teens trust AI product picks over a friend's, and 23% over their parents', per Mastercard's 26,000-person survey.
-> 27% would let a fully AI-run assistant shop for them. Only 16% of their parents would.
-> Your next customers trust the machine. Be what the machine recommends.
Read the generational AI shopping data →
4/ What We Found Helpful
10 things we learned watching 1,000 customer videos
-> We reviewed 1,000 customer videos and pulled out the patterns that separate converters from wallpaper.
-> Real hooks, real lighting, real scripts: what actually holds attention and sells.
-> Steal the checklist before your next UGC brief.
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