E-commerce marketing · Industry brief

In H1 2026, global consumer and retail M&A reached £130 billion, up 12% year-over-year despite lower deal volume, reflecting dealmakers' shift toward large-cap transformative transactions over deal volume. Major deals included McCormick's £33 billion acquisition of Unilever Foods and LVMH's £630 million sale of Marc Jacobs, with consumer carve-outs surging 24% compared to H1 2025. Food & Beverage led by total and average deal values, while Apparel Retail showed the strongest year-on-year activity increase; lenders have renewed appetite for consumer businesses due to their resilient demand and cash-flow visibility relative to tech volatility.

The FTC issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on April 14, 2026, addressing fee transparency and personalized pricing disclosure in online food and grocery delivery platforms, with enforcement converging junk fee and surveillance pricing concerns. The agency settled with a major grocery delivery platform for $60 million in December 2025 over false "free delivery" claims and with GrubHub for $25 million in December 2024 for misleading cost representations. The FTC previously issued Section 6(b) orders to eight companies in July 2024 and confirmed surveillance pricing is widespread in a January 2025 report. Four states have enacted surveillance pricing restrictions: New Jersey's Fair Price Protection Act (signed July 23, 2026, effective approximately one year later) bans personalized algorithmic pricing for retail food stores and delivery platforms with penalties up to $50,000 per violation; Maryland's ban takes effect October 1, 2026; Connecticut requires disclosure labels and takes effect October 1, 2026; and New York's Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act survived a First Amendment challenge. The DOJ settled with RealPage in November 2025, restricting data sharing among algorithmic pricing vendor clients and establishing precedent for algorithmic collusion theories. The FTC revived Robinson-Patman Act enforcement with suits against a wine distributor in December 2024 and a food company in January 2025 for discriminatory pricing practices.

Three years after the FTC updated its Endorsement Guides for influencer marketing, the agency has issued warning letters to a dozen influencers and two trade associations but has not brought any enforcement actions targeting influencer campaigns. Private lawsuits are now testing influencer advertising practices as the FTC remains on the sidelines. (Source: Law360)

On 20 July 2026, the European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million for breaching the Digital Services Act by failing to adequately assess and mitigate systemic risks of illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products on its platform. The Commission found AliExpress had insufficient moderation capacity, inadequately assessed recommender and advertising systems, lacked proper measurement frameworks, operated a non-functioning detection system, failed to enforce seller penalties, and maintained an ineffective brand authorisation mechanism. The decision follows a €200 million fine to Temu in May 2026 for comparable failings. AliExpress must submit a remedial action plan by 20 October 2026; non-compliance may trigger periodic penalty payments. The rulings establish that platforms cannot satisfy risk-mitigation duties through downstream takedowns alone and must implement upstream controls including stronger seller verification, stricter category controls and faster enforcement. Manufacturers selling through EU marketplaces should now verify EU economic operator arrangements, complete technical documentation, review product categorisation and labelling, confirm sector-specific compliance obligations, and maintain post-market complaint and corrective action processes, as platforms are expected to tighten onboarding and listing requirements under enforcement pressure.