Let’s begin with Lua’s fundamentals.
Introduction Lua is a lightweight, high-performance scripting language that has become popular for embedded use in applications. Originally created in 1993 at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Lua was designed to be a highly customizable, procedural scripting language well-suited for embedding in other programs.
With its efficient C implementation, simple syntax, and extensible semantics, Lua has found wide use in game development, robotics, IoT, networking, and many other industrial applications. Let’s take a deeper look at what makes Lua such a versatile embedded scripting tool.
Key Features and Strengths Lua was engineered for efficient extensibility and embedding. Some of its key strengths and capabilities include:

• Speed and efficiency — Thecompact C implementation makes Lua fast and memory-efficient. Theinterpreters and JIT compilers produce highly optimized bytecode.
• Portability — Lua code can be built and run across various platforms like Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android etc. This flexibility is powered by its ANSI C codebase.
• Embeddability — Lua is implemented as a library rather than a standalone interpreter. This allows it to be deeply integrated and heavily customized within host applications.
• Extensibility — Lua semantics are extensible with mechanisms like metatables. Numerous modules and libraries extend the core language capabilities.
• Simple but powerful syntax and semantics — Lua uses an easy to learn procedural syntax with advanced construct like first-class functions, closures and prototypal inheritance.
• Automatic memory management — Lua features incremental garbage collection which makes memory management seamless.
• Lightweight open source implementation — The reference implementation is open source and usable in any free or commercial application.

Applications and Uses With its fast performance and tiny resource footprint,Lua has been embedded into software across domains including:

• Gaming — Roblox, Angry Birds, World of Warcraft, Garry’s Mod all use Lua for game logic.
• IoT and Robotics — Open source devices like NodeMCU and ESP32 integrate Lua for control.
• Networking — The Nginx web server and Cisco routers use Lua for configuration and scripting.
• Artificial Intelligence — Deep learning frameworks like Torch use Lua as a configuration language.
• Industrial Control Systems — Siemens incorporates Lua for programmable logic controllers.
• Space Science — Celestia space simulator uses Lua for its celestia script extensions.

Syntax and Coding Basics Lua syntax is simpleprocedural, similar to languages like Python. Some key aspects include:

• Dynamic typing — Variables are not declared with type, their type is determined at runtime.
• Tables as data structuring mechanism — Tables serve as arrays, sets, records similar to dicts in Python.
• Functions are first-class — Functions can be stored in variables, passed as arguments.
• Simple control flow — If/else, while, repeat until are used for flow control.
• Error handling via pcall() and assert()
• Global variables by default — Variables are global unless declared local.

Development Environment and Tools Lua is highly portable across platforms. The standard Lua binaries, compiler, interpreter and debuggerareavailable for installation on Windows, Linux, macOS and other environments. Some commonly usedLua development toolsinclude:

• LuaRocks — package manager for Lua modules
• Editors like VSCode, Atom, Sublime — with Lua plugins
• ZeroBrane Studio — debugger and IDE for Lua
• LÖVE — framework for building Lua-based games

Here is a simple code snippet showing Lua syntax:
Code:
function factorial(n) if n == 0 then return 1 else return n * factorial(n — 1) end end print(factorial(5)) — 120
This implements a factorial functionrecursively, calls it, and prints the result.
Pros and Cons of Lua Some pros and cons to consider when evaluating Lua:
Pros:

• Very fast and memory-efficient
• Easy to learn syntax and coding style
• Highly portable and customizable
• Active community with many libraries

Cons:

• Not suitable for large applications
• Very minimal standard libraries
• Unique syntax and a small user base

Lua is an extensible, embeddable scripting language that offers simplicity, speed, and customizability. Itsefficient C implementation and flexible semantics make Lua a great choice for extending applications across gaming, networking, robotics, AI, and industrial control systems. While not suited for large general purpose applications, Lua excels as a lightweight scripting solution easily tailored to specific use cases. Its vibrant community provides modules for diverse programming needs ranging from GUI interfaces to neural networks. Forembedded scripting, Lua provides an agile, productive, and high-performance option

Hello guys! Filip here, and welcome back to another video where today we're gonna be playing Dragonball Z final stand. And in this video - wait let me just close the office door; ok, so in, so in this video I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to try to get level 100, and, yeah level up as much as possible and guys if you have any uh good tactics on leveling up in uh game, uh put them in the description, oh wait there's no des - I'm gonna change my mode; to like, I choose what videos are family-friendly cause my descriptions turned off right now cause I changed my fam - my game; my status to, family-friendly, right now. Ok I'll just change that later, in the video so that y - comment section will be back. Guess I'm gonna use bone crush; don't really play this game that much because my - my - the mouse was hidden, and I didn't play it, k so let's change the mode. Let me just go here, click on my YouTube channel, YouTube studio, I don't need to learn more, and then go to, settings, umm... No wait it's changed so that I'm gonna; ohhh I think I didn't save it... ok never mind. We - guys what do you think of my um, bongo cat? Oh there's this guy again. Yeah you better run. Hehe! Haaa, idiot! Hehe! Ok so, let's buy, a, melee attack. I'm gonna buy one of my favourites if I can find it; meteor crash, level 70, ok. I need a couple of more, thing levels, and I've got da - and I've got meteor crash which is one of my favourites. Ka, I'm gonna use my kanayo-wayo-wave, and attack this little goon. Ah shoot; I can't you - really use any key right now, cause, uh; cause I changed - I turned off the music because I don't know if it's copyrighted, and I don't want to be copyright claimed, on, on this video cause, cause I just really don't. C'mon. Ok, killed him, k I need to recharge; gonna, check. Oooo, there's someone REALLY powerful over there. I think that's what that ball means. Cause this, is call - ; cause if you watch the Dragonball series you'd know that this can ping into where there's, where there's um, people. Cause it's es - cause everybody has a different amount of key; and, I think that bigger the - ball thingy, like this, is, that means the bigger the key there is I think. And I don't really want to go fighting super powerful people. K lemme use booone CRUSH! Okay. Okay he's just using it on me :(. Ughhh that dee-head. Cause there's this glitch that when you kill - when you - when you kill a player, and then you use Dragon throw on them - you can - you can heal them. And the glitch is actually reeeally good, you can use it in situations like let's say you're fighting Beerus. And you need to - and you need to gay - quickly revive your friends, you can just Dragon throw them, to health. It sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't, but, it mostly works, it's really good as well. I'm trying to get level 100 so then I can, so then I can go to space and, fight Freeza, who, who, and if you fight Freeza, you get, you get a MILLION XP. But that, but what, I played the game on like a different account that would just give you like 20 levels I beli - I - I ca- I can't really remember, I remember used to giving you 20 levels, but, and then later my account got hacked, I believe, cause I couldn't... go on it anymore. And then, I had to; I had to make this account, the RageTego account. Just to mark it - nuh nuh, just to, not to mark it my; um, clan, just - just cause um; JUST cause I needed an, account name for my new account and, RageTego was the perfect one. Cause..... Plus guys I'm gonna sss - I'm gonna use like; um... I'm gonna use, like this eh - really cool editor, which I've never used before. It's called Lightworks, it's basically the, Premiere Pro, of free version, like, thingy. Annnd, I had troubles, with um, getting the right file type, on - onto m - onto... I had just troubles with um, putting the video on there; and, the; and the earliest CSGO, in Roblox, video which I promised I would do more but then my account got hacked and you know - what happened then. Because I already told you, um. And then I had to start all over again I - I had no more skins, I got a really rare skin for the; M4-A1, S, which is my - which is my favourite gun. Right next to, the, um, I can't remember. I can't really remember all the gun names because how can you, remember, gun games? From a game you haven't played in a while, cause your parents hid your mouse, and you can't play, or your controller. Ok. Ok enough talking. Wooah, woah calm down! Calm down sir! Ok I've got one more evil, m - m; margin, may, m - may, and w - what... whatever, to kill. I'm gonna call them pink and blue people, or mustard people, because they can be, cause they can be yellow... Oh there's the mustard man. Hey! That guy's a jerk! Just b - because people have higher levels, they think that they can literally beat up ANYONE, so they're gonna act like jerks, so moral of the story, don't; I mean not sorry, the moral of this um, thingy... game. Never hang out with people who are stronger than you, they can beat you up, in a - in a matter of seconds. This guy's got kayo-ken, he's human. I think I've - we - yeah, I've only went up one level. Ehhhh! Eh stop being a jerk! STOP! STOP BEING SUCH A JERK! I'LL GET YOU WHEN I GET TO LEVEL ugh, 800, or something! Ok, lemme, my - lemme me, ugh, level up my melee resistance so that Beerus will be way easier when I - when I get to him. I can give you a random quest, you want one yeah? Um; save blues, evil Saiyans, Android 17s NOPE I'm not doing Android 17s. Earth is for humans, okay. I have to fight, no I'm not fighting those guys again! No, hell no! Um... Fi - Fe - Five evil Saiyans, let's see. Super Saiyans, na. I'm not gonna do super SaI - evil super Saiyans, yet, cause they're; POWERFUL. So for that I'm gonna do just Saiyans; cause when I get Robux, I'm gonna buy; the, God of destruction move set, whatever this is. The... Not buying it now, but I'm just... Yeah bum; buying this, this, and times two XP. So that then I can - get more XP, I might even buy, um, the M... Just to get - just to get more powerful, but for now I don't need to. This guy's nearly ha - up their game. Wait, lemme just change my character. Caramel super... Torn G... G you up, porn... Real bork.. Ok I can't find it. Came-o-mayo him. I need to charge. Ah, shoot. I do really need to buy the original Goku gear. So; so also guys um follow me on Twitch, at PISSGAMER, where I'm gonna make a... text. Um, gonna name it sub. K... On the pink font... Comic sans... Ok and it's gonna r -... YouTu... on YouTu, B... At le... Ug... Plays... Oom plays... And... and... L... Ont... Twitch... At... PI, - PI double S, GAMER... Ok - oh shoot it's massive! Have to do this... and this... Gonna... Bring it, down... n - n - Down... Along... And then a - and then it should work. So guys please sub; and follow; if you see aaa, - ok where am I; if you see a, account, that has a diamond as it's logo a - in - I made it back then, when I, used to be a super-realistic DANTDM fan. But not anymore (kinda). Ok so let's; check the shop. Oh this guy's a level 92 and he's got super Saiyan 3. How? Look for the; Goku top. Oh wait is that... is that it? No. I know that when a - when a; a thing has, 50 players or something, they ca - they are allowed - there's a Dragonball here. Wait guys, um, I'm gonna check how you can get Dragonballs, soo, stay tuned for a little bit. Guys I'm just gonna fly around, watch the video, and, train a little bit, I'm gonna pause the recording, soo; see ya! So guys, I tried um, looking for, ways to level up, I also got bored so I watched uh, how I can, get Dragonballs, cause I know, that you can get them, in the game, and then wish for, getting more XP and Zenny. So let's just kill those, evil Saiyans. but first let's just have a look in the shop again, let's see. Hmm. I might take out Scouter. Character... Halo... And the Picalar capable of the blue... and then the blue Scouter and then... The Scouter's actually really useful when you're fighting against... (Oh my.) Woah. They're over a million. For the right help. Help me level up. Pls. These guys! Eh I'm going to so - someone who's less of a jerk. Oo this guy. Twenty four - twenty four hun... So when - so basically when you're fighting so - wait, I'm just going to tell you guys something. So when you're fighting someone, you, - the - key to winning against them, is um... Having a Scouter, and als, - having a Scouter with you, putting on the Scouter and seeing their power level, and then trying to a - and then trying to adjust to their - to your enemy's power level. These are, player - players? Who these guys are? Wait... GG hay, he forgot it's lunch day... Sure... Here's lunch. Oh. Start a new game, redo character, no. I have no idea how to level up quickly; I'm gonna have a look at more YouTube videos, sooo, please stand by. So guys, um, yeah I've been, - I've been grinding for a little bit, cause I've got nothing else to do. Sorry I did it off-camera. And sorry if this video's a little bit too short, than my usual ones. K let's just finish this, and... Let's just finish this, and then I'll end the video. Shh!! Sorry guys, my mum is in the room, she's... annoying as always. Crap. Kay. Plus guys how do you like my, um... thing? Bongo cat! Thank you, thank you. Thank you ma man. Got 7 more Sible breads, to kill. So lemme just... Woah. K so, let's buy... Oh I can't. I need eight thousand for that. K. Trying to get level, eight ay - eighty for now, so I can then, - so I that then, I can go, - so then I can buy um... Full Saiyan. Full-power Super Saiyan. So that then I can, - I can have a second form, cause; cause it's actually not worth it, buying, ascended Super Saiyan, because he gets replaced by Super Saiyan two, so it's not really worth it. This one's more worth it; eh - you transform at full HP and full key to go Super Saiyan full-power. There's also this. Makes you invincible to an attack for a short period; there's ultra-instinct transform where a low k - health and key. This one; Kayo Ken Ten Super Saiyan blue, hold... hold X and then press H... This one is just press H to transform... These are the same. These guys so powerful. Those guys by the way I used to have Super Saiyan 3, on my original account - this one. I was a - I was - I was a - level 260 I had um; I had 10,000 Zenny and I was um grinding Beerus to get more Zenny. And then... You know what happened. Aah, shoot, oh no wait. Can I? Oh. I know why I got knocked out. Cause the guy; is just too powerful for me. So can't wait to edit this on my new editor. I had to change it to an MOV file, cause the MOV files are the only file types that work. And yeah. Yeah let's just kill four more S, - Sabijarets, as a, Subordiread. K. Oh why why why? Gottem. Gotta kill this dude. Ok killed him - now we have to kill this guy. Gonna buy myself some Sensei beans after this. K, I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna Came-o-mayo him, and do that. I really want to do those; cla, - I wanna - GG. Ok gottem. Wooah. I need to, - recharge, this guy is gonna to fire in fro - for me - for now. So I can recharge. Nice one mate. So then, stats. One more level - ohhh, I was t - I was too low, that's why. Spirit-breaking cannon... Turret, bombs, swords... Pyramid slash... Emperor's age, creating a blade and a shield in front, - of you. And that's only 400 Zenny and I need level 250. I should've bought that! Power impact... Gorde slicer... Super death beam, holy wrath... Final came... Final shine supernova... Big bang Came-o-mayo, Warp Came-o-mayo, Final flash... I can actually - ohh no, I can't - I was about to say I could actually buy Final flash. I'm gonna, - kill this guy. When I said this guy, I don't mean the guy who's helping me, I mean the... Z... Zabij, bre - bread do, whatever. So wolverbread. O. Ok I think I gottem. Hallo. K... K guys let's go buy some Sensei beans... Or should I buy the... You know what guys? I'm gonna leave Paul, in uh, description. And you guys are, - I'm gonna leave the Paul in the I - icon. And you guys get to vote which one I - I should buy. K, so, guys, this was an, - a wonderful experience -

I've had stats for this thing written down for a long while, but never got to test them. The recent release of Weapon Labs means that I finally get to see how it performs, and I feel like I have the idea in a pretty good spot.
Basically, this gun fires highly-penetrating darts at extreme speed with low recoil in a quick burst, but has inverted damage--you need two bursts at minimum to kill up close. At range is where it gets interesting, though: out past ~120 studs, you can kill with two torso shots and one headshot. Combined with the low recoil, it can be a real menace at medium to long ranges.
https://reddit.com/link/1coasa8/video/o9vh3bhgdhzc1/player
A simple description isn't enough to get the idea across, though, so here are the stats I used. To test it out yourself, just copy and paste the data in the linked text file into the respective tabs in the weapon editor for an AUG A1. Even made some semi-custom animations to fit the gun better!
Let me know what you think: is it overtuned a bit? Underpowered, maybe? Tried to make it a side-grade to the G11 that trades close range power for long-range forgiveness, but I'm unsure how well I've accomplished that.

While I know there are wayyy bigger issues at hand, I’ve been thinking about the avatar editor system. Firstly - everything starts at $300 and only goes up… why? Second, there should be an update to what there is in the closet, because it’s literally never been updated and all the items suck/are old.
I have seen better versions of an editor where we can switch to view things in our inventory and see the entire catalog of Roblox. Could it be that hard with a giant company like Spilled Coffee and Coeptus on the team to figure it out? Correct me if I’m wrong on that, but this update would help a lot of role players, especially those on mobile, because they can’t use the code system when they can’t leave the game every thirty minutes.
We could also use more closets, but that’s besides my point.

https://preview.redd.it/clium59jvfzc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=524fcd24777b85c3525bbe2f01cd7eb688e1084e

Hi everyone I'm a small content creator on Tik Tok that is hoping to grow more and a skilled editor would be a game changer for me. I have various ideas for content and post daily but I'm not so talented at editing videos I can edit but most likely not as well yall can haha. My handle is CreeperFab on Tik Tok, I earn money off all videos that are longer than a minute in duration per thousand views.
I am offering a % of earnings each video that you edit gets. Workload consist of editing a video daily (always less than 2 minutes) Pay is monthly (Tik Tok only pays out creators the 15th of each month)
If you are interested in joining me in a side hustle to earn a little more money each month shoot me a DM!

How can I make sure that when a player joins, he will have the clothes of my choice in Roblox Studio?
And
What's the best way to make a map for the game? In the terrain editor or where to do it?

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Hi ShopifyeCommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
Amazon is delaying its controversial new low inventory fee for the second time as it looks to satiate the hundreds of thousands of sellers it outraged with the original announcement. The company announced via its seller forum that it would be extending the grace period through May 14th. In addition to the delay, Amazon made some general changes to the upcoming fee structure such as the fee will not apply to products that have sold fewer than 20 units in the last week, any fees incurred due to excessive inbounding and processing times caused by Amazon will be refunded, and Amazon will provide an exception to the fee on products that are part of Prime-exclusive sales for the four weeks following Prime Day.
Shein has been courting brands like Colgate-Palmolive, Hasbro, Suntory Beverage & Food, and Bella Aurora in an attempt to sell more household names on its platform. The company, which is known for selling its own cheap clothing and accessories, is moving into other categories like beauty and household items to better compete with Amazon on its turf. So far Shein has given brands and retailers access to its platform in nine European countries, United States, Brazil and Mexico. Shein says that the inspiration for adding new categories is that customers were already searching for those types of products and brands across its platform.
Kohl's is re-entering the same-day delivery business — this time leveraging the Instacart app and its network of drivers. The company says that Instacart enables 109M US households to obtain delivery in as fast as an hour from 1,172 Kohl's stores across the U.S. Customers ordering Kohl's deliveries on Instacart can still earn their Kohl's Rewards loyalty points, as well as place orders for either same-day or scheduled delivery, with the same prices as in-store. Product categories eligible for same-day delivery include accessories, home goods, beauty & skincare items, and pet supplies.
As part of its mission to enhance its e-commerce business, Nordstrom introduced a new digital marketplace on its website, initially showcasing a selection of products from Mulberry, Adore Me, Cynthia Rowley, and DXL. This move catches Nordstrom up to retailers like Macy's, Walmart, and Michaels, which have all created third-party marketplaces in recent years. As opposed to casting a wide net, Nordstrom is being very particular about which sellers to allow on its marketplace, carefully selecting brand partners “to ensure that our marketplace experience drives the relevance and inspiration that Nordstrom customers expect from us.”
Walmart is now able to sell physical goods directly to users inside Roblox for the first time. The introduction of real-life e-commerce of tangible items is a milestone for Roblox, which aims to become an all-encompassing destination for virtual life. Virtual users are greeted with a new storefront that showcases virtual copies of physical items sold at real-life Walmart stores. The customer can try out the virtual item on their avatar. Customers can then load a virtual browser window inside Roblox that imitates the experience of shopping on Walmart's website. From there they follow the traditional form of entering their payment and shipping details within the virtual checkout. (Missed opportunity! They should have had the virtual avatar fumble with a self-checkout kiosk while an angry Walmart employee avatar stares them down. LOL)
Roblox also expanded access to its video ad inventory to all advertisers last week, following a six-month beta test. Advertisers can now purchase video ads through Roblox's self-serve tool, with plans to allow advertisers to purchase ads through PubMatic in the near future. Video ads in Roblox take the form of screens and billboards embedded within Roblox’s virtual worlds. The launch of video ads is part of Roblox’s aim to get brands to view it as a full advertising platform rather than a testing ground for their innovation budgets.
Amazon reported its first-quarter earnings last week and it turns out the company is doing really well. CEO Andy Jassy and CFO Brian Olsavsky informed investors of several company milestones on its recent earnings call such as tripling its profit from $3.2B to $10.4B in the same period YoY. Net sales at its online store rose 7% to $54.7B and at physical stores rose 6.3% to $5.2B. Ad sales overall rose 24% to $11.8B.
Walmart is planning to close all 51 of its health centers across five states, changing course from its originally stated plan of expanding to 75 locations this year. The company also plans to end its telehealth services, citing operational costs and reimbursement complexities that made its healthcare business unsustainable. All centers stopped accepting new patients last week, however, Walmart said it would continue to care for existing patients during the transition, as well as help its healthcare associates transition to other roles as it winds down the business. The company plans on keeping open its 3,000 vision centers and 4,600 pharmacies, which will continue to offer health screenings and testing.
Amazon, Starbucks, and McDonald's executives say US consumers are becoming more prudent with their spending — now looking for deals, seeking lower priced items, and being more particular about where they spend their money. Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said, “We continue to feel the impact of a more cautious consumer, particularly with our more occasional customer,” noting that it had affected traffic and sales across the industry. “Many customers are being more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money, particularly with stimulus savings mostly spent.” (Mostly spent? LOL. How long does he think that $1200 lasted?) Or maybe the true story is that consumers have ALWAYS been prudent with their spending, and these corporations simply took their price increases too far so people went elsewhere? Maybe the country is NOT headed into a recession and we're all just sick of your price gouging?
Travis Hess is joining BigCommerce as the company's new president, charged with leading its global strategic and operational expansion. Hess has spent more than 15 years in senior leadership positions at e-commerce companies, most recently as managing director of Accenture, and he's also served on partner advisory boards for Shopify, Klaviyo, SAP/Hybrid, and Rackspace.
Social media overtook paid search as the world's largest advertising channel, with Western platforms growing the fastest driven by Chinese brands targeting US and European audiences. Social media ads are forecasted to reach $247.3B this year, up 14.3% from a year ago, with TikTok estimated to earn $23.1B of that.
16% of U.S. parents surveyed said their Gen Alpha children have an online-shopping addiction, with 22% saying their kids prefer online shopping to other forms of entertainment including watching TV. Almost half said their kids buy themselves clothes online, and 32% said their kids are interested in beauty products. Sounds to me like 16% of U.S. parents could use a lesson on parenting.
TikTok said in its latest safety report that it blocked 37M attempted product listings and 2M seller registrations from July to December 2023. The company said it also remove 133k individual products after they were listed on the site and deactivated the accounts of more than one million sellers because of policy violations.
Wix launched a new feature called Wix Proposals that helps users create attractive proposals to convert leads into new clients, collect digital signatures, and manage setting up payments. The feature is powered by the Prospero business proposal platform, which is now integrated directly with Wix’s business management tools.
The Canada Revenue Agency wants to obtain large troves of Shopify merchant information including bank account info, total transaction value, birth dates, and social insurance numbers in order to check if they've paid all their taxes. Shopify has been fighting the “outrageous” request for over a year now, also arguing that it doesn't keep much of the requested information on hand, which the CRA doesn't believe.
Sam's Club is turning to AI to speed up the process of exiting its stores, allowing customers who pay either at a register or through the Scan & Go mobile app to walk out of the store through large scanners instead of having their purchases double-checked manually by employees. Since unveiling the technology this past January, Sam's Club deployed the scanners at over 120 stores in the US, with plans to expand to all its stores by the end of the year.
Kajabi, the platform for content creators to sell online courses, launched a no-code mobile app offering that lets users host their own customized native app through the App Store and Google Play. The platform previously offered a mobile app for hosting online courses, but this new product allows creators to control the user experience, send push notifications, add custom links to the menus, offer in-app purchases, and more.
Federal prosecutors are investigating the internal practices at Block, with suspicions that its subsidiary Square processed thousands of transactions involving countries subject to economic sanctions as well as multiple crypto transactions for terrorist groups. Most of the transactions discussed with prosecutors were not reported to the government as required, and Block did not correct the company processes when it was alerted to the issues.
Speaking of Block, the company announced its strategy of regularly purchasing Bitcoin for its corporate balance sheet using a dollar cost averaging strategy. The company plans to allocate 10% of its monthly gross profit from Bitcoin products towards investments in the cryptocurrency itself.
The Save Mart Companies which operates Save Mart, Lucky, and FoodMaxx grocery stores, is deploying Instacart Caper Carts, which use computer vision and AI to automatically identify items as they are placed in the cart, at select Save Mart and Lucky stores in the coming months, followed by a broader rollout later this year. The company is also implementing the Instacart FoodStorm order management system, which enables Caper Cart customers to place orders for made-to-order items like fried chicken or custom cakes and pies directly on the cart screen while they shop and receive a notification once it's ready.
ToysRUs.co.uk is seeking a partner for its e-commerce site, which launched in 2022. The company confirmed to suppliers that it is “transitioning to a non-transactional website” as it seeks a new e-commerce partner, but that the website will “continue to promote the Toys R Us brand including our much-loved mascot Geoffrey, while also fully supporting the opening of TOys R Us stores at WHSmith throughout the UK.” Really Toys R Us — an e-commerce partner? Haven't you been down that road before and been majorly burned?
Carvana, the online used car retailer, told investors on an earnings call that it became the most profitable public automotive retailer in the US for the first time after setting new all-time company record this past quarter. The record performance impacted its inventory, with the average time from posting a vehicle on its website to a customer purchasing it decreasing to 13 days in March.
Sam Ash Music, the 100-year-old family operated music instruments retailer, is closing all 42 of its remaining stores nationwide. The company noted on its website that the “unfortunate news also presents a fantastic opportunity for great deals” and marked down all of its products with sale prices that are still higher than what you can buy the same products for on Amazon right now.
Rue21 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its third time in the past twenty years and began the process of closing all 540 of its stores. The company has assets worth up to $500M and liabilities of almost an equal amount, according to its submitted documents. Sounds like a great acquisition target for Overstock! LOL.
A professor from Columbia University asked US courts to affirm the legality of Unfollow Everything 2.0, a browser extension that makes it easier to stop following friends, groups, and pages on Facebook. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the browser extension does not violate Meta's TOS, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or California's Computer Data access and Fraud Act, also arguing that through Section 230, US lawmakers sought “to promote the development of filtering tools that enable users to curate their online experiences and avoid content they would rather not see.” The developer of the original Unfollow Everything was banned from Facebook in 2021 and never released version 2.0 because Meta threatened to sue him if he did.
Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Babylist have pulled weighted infant sleepwear like swaddles, blankets, and sleep-sacks from their shelves amid ongoing concerns over the safety of the products and after receiving a letter from the Consumer Product Safety Commission asking major retailers to remove them from stores. Studies haven’t been able to irrefutably demonstrate the risks of weighted infant sleepwear, however, experts are adamant that weighted products are not safe for infants and claim that the proposed benefit does not outweigh the danger — which is pretty much the same argument lawmakers are using to force the sale of TikTok.
Remember that couple from Utah who accidentally shipped their cat to Amazon in a return package? Well, the cat and her family have since been reunited. After she was discovered, an Amazon employee took the cat to a vet where her microchip was scanned. The couple was contacted and promptly flew to California the next day, rented a car, and drove back home with the cat.
Plus 10 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including T-Mobile completing its $1.35B acquisition of Ka’ena Corporation, the parent company of Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile. The deal was first announced last March, and the FTC finally approved the deal over a year later. Ryan Reynolds will continue to serve as Mint’s ambassador, and the company will continue to offer its $15/month 5GB data plan.
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/amazons-fee-delays-sheins-everything-store-nordstroms-marketplace/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com

Hi ecommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
Amazon is delaying its controversial new low inventory fee for the second time as it looks to satiate the hundreds of thousands of sellers it outraged with the original announcement. The company announced via its seller forum that it would be extending the grace period through May 14th. In addition to the delay, Amazon made some general changes to the upcoming fee structure such as the fee will not apply to products that have sold fewer than 20 units in the last week, any fees incurred due to excessive inbounding and processing times caused by Amazon will be refunded, and Amazon will provide an exception to the fee on products that are part of Prime-exclusive sales for the four weeks following Prime Day.
Shein has been courting brands like Colgate-Palmolive, Hasbro, Suntory Beverage & Food, and Bella Aurora in an attempt to sell more household names on its platform. The company, which is known for selling its own cheap clothing and accessories, is moving into other categories like beauty and household items to better compete with Amazon on its turf. So far Shein has given brands and retailers access to its platform in nine European countries, United States, Brazil and Mexico. Shein says that the inspiration for adding new categories is that customers were already searching for those types of products and brands across its platform.
Kohl's is re-entering the same-day delivery business — this time leveraging the Instacart app and its network of drivers. The company says that Instacart enables 109M US households to obtain delivery in as fast as an hour from 1,172 Kohl's stores across the U.S. Customers ordering Kohl's deliveries on Instacart can still earn their Kohl's Rewards loyalty points, as well as place orders for either same-day or scheduled delivery, with the same prices as in-store. Product categories eligible for same-day delivery include accessories, home goods, beauty & skincare items, and pet supplies.
As part of its mission to enhance its e-commerce business, Nordstrom introduced a new digital marketplace on its website, initially showcasing a selection of products from Mulberry, Adore Me, Cynthia Rowley, and DXL. This move catches Nordstrom up to retailers like Macy's, Walmart, and Michaels, which have all created third-party marketplaces in recent years. As opposed to casting a wide net, Nordstrom is being very particular about which sellers to allow on its marketplace, carefully selecting brand partners “to ensure that our marketplace experience drives the relevance and inspiration that Nordstrom customers expect from us.”
Walmart is now able to sell physical goods directly to users inside Roblox for the first time. The introduction of real-life e-commerce of tangible items is a milestone for Roblox, which aims to become an all-encompassing destination for virtual life. Virtual users are greeted with a new storefront that showcases virtual copies of physical items sold at real-life Walmart stores. The customer can try out the virtual item on their avatar. Customers can then load a virtual browser window inside Roblox that imitates the experience of shopping on Walmart's website. From there they follow the traditional form of entering their payment and shipping details within the virtual checkout. (Missed opportunity! They should have had the virtual avatar fumble with a self-checkout kiosk while an angry Walmart employee avatar stares them down. LOL)
Roblox also expanded access to its video ad inventory to all advertisers last week, following a six-month beta test. Advertisers can now purchase video ads through Roblox's self-serve tool, with plans to allow advertisers to purchase ads through PubMatic in the near future. Video ads in Roblox take the form of screens and billboards embedded within Roblox’s virtual worlds. The launch of video ads is part of Roblox’s aim to get brands to view it as a full advertising platform rather than a testing ground for their innovation budgets.
Amazon reported its first-quarter earnings last week and it turns out the company is doing really well. CEO Andy Jassy and CFO Brian Olsavsky informed investors of several company milestones on its recent earnings call such as tripling its profit from $3.2B to $10.4B in the same period YoY. Net sales at its online store rose 7% to $54.7B and at physical stores rose 6.3% to $5.2B. Ad sales overall rose 24% to $11.8B.
Walmart is planning to close all 51 of its health centers across five states, changing course from its originally stated plan of expanding to 75 locations this year. The company also plans to end its telehealth services, citing operational costs and reimbursement complexities that made its healthcare business unsustainable. All centers stopped accepting new patients last week, however, Walmart said it would continue to care for existing patients during the transition, as well as help its healthcare associates transition to other roles as it winds down the business. The company plans on keeping open its 3,000 vision centers and 4,600 pharmacies, which will continue to offer health screenings and testing.
Amazon, Starbucks, and McDonald's executives say US consumers are becoming more prudent with their spending — now looking for deals, seeking lower priced items, and being more particular about where they spend their money. Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said, “We continue to feel the impact of a more cautious consumer, particularly with our more occasional customer,” noting that it had affected traffic and sales across the industry. “Many customers are being more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money, particularly with stimulus savings mostly spent.” (Mostly spent? LOL. How long does he think that $1200 lasted?) Or maybe the true story is that consumers have ALWAYS been prudent with their spending, and these corporations simply took their price increases too far so people went elsewhere? Maybe the country is NOT headed into a recession and we're all just sick of your price gouging?
Travis Hess is joining BigCommerce as the company's new president, charged with leading its global strategic and operational expansion. Hess has spent more than 15 years in senior leadership positions at e-commerce companies, most recently as managing director of Accenture, and he's also served on partner advisory boards for Shopify, Klaviyo, SAP/Hybrid, and Rackspace.
Social media overtook paid search as the world's largest advertising channel, with Western platforms growing the fastest driven by Chinese brands targeting US and European audiences. Social media ads are forecasted to reach $247.3B this year, up 14.3% from a year ago, with TikTok estimated to earn $23.1B of that.
16% of U.S. parents surveyed said their Gen Alpha children have an online-shopping addiction, with 22% saying their kids prefer online shopping to other forms of entertainment including watching TV. Almost half said their kids buy themselves clothes online, and 32% said their kids are interested in beauty products. Sounds to me like 16% of U.S. parents could use a lesson on parenting.
TikTok said in its latest safety report that it blocked 37M attempted product listings and 2M seller registrations from July to December 2023. The company said it also remove 133k individual products after they were listed on the site and deactivated the accounts of more than one million sellers because of policy violations.
Wix launched a new feature called Wix Proposals that helps users create attractive proposals to convert leads into new clients, collect digital signatures, and manage setting up payments. The feature is powered by the Prospero business proposal platform, which is now integrated directly with Wix’s business management tools.
The Canada Revenue Agency wants to obtain large troves of Shopify merchant information including bank account info, total transaction value, birth dates, and social insurance numbers in order to check if they've paid all their taxes. Shopify has been fighting the “outrageous” request for over a year now, also arguing that it doesn't keep much of the requested information on hand, which the CRA doesn't believe.
Sam's Club is turning to AI to speed up the process of exiting its stores, allowing customers who pay either at a register or through the Scan & Go mobile app to walk out of the store through large scanners instead of having their purchases double-checked manually by employees. Since unveiling the technology this past January, Sam's Club deployed the scanners at over 120 stores in the US, with plans to expand to all its stores by the end of the year.
Kajabi, the platform for content creators to sell online courses, launched a no-code mobile app offering that lets users host their own customized native app through the App Store and Google Play. The platform previously offered a mobile app for hosting online courses, but this new product allows creators to control the user experience, send push notifications, add custom links to the menus, offer in-app purchases, and more.
Federal prosecutors are investigating the internal practices at Block, with suspicions that its subsidiary Square processed thousands of transactions involving countries subject to economic sanctions as well as multiple crypto transactions for terrorist groups. Most of the transactions discussed with prosecutors were not reported to the government as required, and Block did not correct the company processes when it was alerted to the issues.
Speaking of Block, the company announced its strategy of regularly purchasing Bitcoin for its corporate balance sheet using a dollar cost averaging strategy. The company plans to allocate 10% of its monthly gross profit from Bitcoin products towards investments in the cryptocurrency itself.
The Save Mart Companies which operates Save Mart, Lucky, and FoodMaxx grocery stores, is deploying Instacart Caper Carts, which use computer vision and AI to automatically identify items as they are placed in the cart, at select Save Mart and Lucky stores in the coming months, followed by a broader rollout later this year. The company is also implementing the Instacart FoodStorm order management system, which enables Caper Cart customers to place orders for made-to-order items like fried chicken or custom cakes and pies directly on the cart screen while they shop and receive a notification once it's ready.
ToysRUs.co.uk is seeking a partner for its e-commerce site, which launched in 2022. The company confirmed to suppliers that it is “transitioning to a non-transactional website” as it seeks a new e-commerce partner, but that the website will “continue to promote the Toys R Us brand including our much-loved mascot Geoffrey, while also fully supporting the opening of TOys R Us stores at WHSmith throughout the UK.” Really Toys R Us — an e-commerce partner? Haven't you been down that road before and been majorly burned?
Carvana, the online used car retailer, told investors on an earnings call that it became the most profitable public automotive retailer in the US for the first time after setting new all-time company record this past quarter. The record performance impacted its inventory, with the average time from posting a vehicle on its website to a customer purchasing it decreasing to 13 days in March.
Sam Ash Music, the 100-year-old family operated music instruments retailer, is closing all 42 of its remaining stores nationwide. The company noted on its website that the “unfortunate news also presents a fantastic opportunity for great deals” and marked down all of its products with sale prices that are still higher than what you can buy the same products for on Amazon right now.
Rue21 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its third time in the past twenty years and began the process of closing all 540 of its stores. The company has assets worth up to $500M and liabilities of almost an equal amount, according to its submitted documents. Sounds like a great acquisition target for Overstock! LOL.
A professor from Columbia University asked US courts to affirm the legality of Unfollow Everything 2.0, a browser extension that makes it easier to stop following friends, groups, and pages on Facebook. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the browser extension does not violate Meta's TOS, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or California's Computer Data access and Fraud Act, also arguing that through Section 230, US lawmakers sought “to promote the development of filtering tools that enable users to curate their online experiences and avoid content they would rather not see.” The developer of the original Unfollow Everything was banned from Facebook in 2021 and never released version 2.0 because Meta threatened to sue him if he did.
Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Babylist have pulled weighted infant sleepwear like swaddles, blankets, and sleep-sacks from their shelves amid ongoing concerns over the safety of the products and after receiving a letter from the Consumer Product Safety Commission asking major retailers to remove them from stores. Studies haven’t been able to irrefutably demonstrate the risks of weighted infant sleepwear, however, experts are adamant that weighted products are not safe for infants and claim that the proposed benefit does not outweigh the danger — which is pretty much the same argument lawmakers are using to force the sale of TikTok.
Remember that couple from Utah who accidentally shipped their cat to Amazon in a return package? Well, the cat and her family have since been reunited. After she was discovered, an Amazon employee took the cat to a vet where her microchip was scanned. The couple was contacted and promptly flew to California the next day, rented a car, and drove back home with the cat.
Plus 10 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including T-Mobile completing its $1.35B acquisition of Ka’ena Corporation, the parent company of Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile. The deal was first announced last March, and the FTC finally approved the deal over a year later. Ryan Reynolds will continue to serve as Mint’s ambassador, and the company will continue to offer its $15/month 5GB data plan.
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.