The print-on-demand (POD) sector offers an attractive business model due to its low initial investment and absence of inventory. However, the true challenge for the entrepreneur is not starting, but achieving scalability and sustained profitability. This challenge intensifies during the peak season, which includes Black Friday and the Christmas period, a time when sales volume increases, but so do the logistical pressure and the price war.

Achieving success during this time, when all competitors are trying to secure their piece of the pie, requires a strategic approach and the use of advanced optimization tools.

In this article, we will analyze three essential strategic pillars for the peak season for POD companies and explore the advanced functionalities that free-to-use platforms like Gelato bring to the efficient management of these challenges.

In fact, to access even better benefits and functionalities, Gelato offers the Gelato+ subscription. This subscription, with an annual fee of only $19.99 per month, provides significant advantages that improve business profitability, such as discounts of up to 25% on the production cost of your products, which increases the margin.

Margin Management Under Discount Pressure

One of the main headaches during Black Friday is the need to offer competitive discounts without compromising the profitability of the business. There are still POD sellers who operate based on intuition when setting prices, which makes them vulnerable to losses when applying sales. The entrepreneur who guesses the price is taking an unnecessary financial risk.

To mitigate this risk, advanced sellers focus on two areas: reducing the cost of production and pricing intelligence. Collaboration with providers that offer premium subscription plans, such as the one proposed by Gelato+, can result in a direct reduction in the cost per unit, which automatically improves the available margin to offer deals to the customer.

Even more crucial is the implementation of a pricing intelligence system, such as the platform’s Price Navigator. This tool allows for simulating various discount scenarios in real-time and setting sales prices based on market data, ensuring that, even with the pressure of offers, the profit margin remains within pre-established goals. The result is a predictable revenue model that eliminates randomness in earnings.

Efficiency in Execution and Rapid Catalog Expansion

The holiday season is characterized by the speed with which gift trends emerge and disappear. The ability to quickly launch relevant products (winter collections, themed gift designs, or new product series) is a decisive competitive advantage.

However, manually creating product listings (titles, descriptions, and, most importantly, product photos) consumes an enormous amount of time. This inefficiency translates into occupied work hours that take away from more strategic tasks such as marketing and design.

This is where automation becomes a key scalability factor. AI-driven functionalities within advanced production platforms solve this bottleneck.

This AI can generate listings optimized for search engines and produce high-quality professional product photos in a matter of seconds. By delegating these tedious and repetitive tasks, the seller achieves instant results, allowing for a much more agile catalog expansion.

Professionalization and Brand Protection

Finally, the ability to compete with major brands and stop looking like an “amateur shop” is fundamental to securing the trust of the seasonal buyer. Investing in business tools is not a luxury but a necessity for professionalization.

The use of platforms that offer premium functionalities, such as those from Gelato+, guarantees a high-quality presentation that makes the business indistinguishable from major brands. These tools, which are usually high-cost if acquired separately (such as design or analysis software), allow the entrepreneur to focus on design while the system handles listing optimization and efficient order management.

As you can see, successful scalability in the POD peak season is not a matter of more work hours, but of process optimization and margin protection. Sellers who manage to go from barely breaking even to achieving predictable profits are those who invest in systems that provide pricing intelligence, listing automation, and cost advantages.

For entrepreneurs looking to gain that competitive edge in the holiday season, it is recommended to evaluate the potential of robust solutions. It is important to note that seasonal tool promotions, such as Gelato’s “Win the Season” offer, often have an end date (in this case, at the end of October), so the evaluation must be done in a timely manner.

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Amazon closed the third quarter of the year with outstanding results, particularly in the area of Amazon Web Services (AWS), where artificial intelligence is establishing itself as the driving force behind the company’s growth. Thus, Amazon reported revenues of $180.169 billion, representing a 13% increase compared to the same period in 2024.

From a financial perspective, the figures are even more impressive: net profit reached $21.2 billion, compared to $15.3 billion the previous year (+37.9%). Amazon explains that although operating income remained steady at $17.4 billion, it was affected by two extraordinary charges: a $2.5 billion legal settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and severance costs estimated at $1.8 billion. Excluding these impacts, the final result would have reached $21.7 billion, according to the company.

Despite this, the company announced plans to create “hundreds of thousands of temporary jobs” this holiday season, including 250,000 in the United States, 150,000 in India, and thousands more in Australia, Canada, France, Spain, and Central Europe.

The Cloud: Amazon’s Main Growth Driver

By segment, AWS once again served as the company’s engine of profitability, with sales of $33 billion, a year-over-year increase of 20%, and operating income of $11.4 billion. Currently, 18% of all the company’s revenue originates from this division. These strong results in Amazon’s cloud business are in line with the surge in AI popularity and correspond with what we have reported regarding the revenues of another giant like Google and its Cloud division.

With regard to its eCommerce business, in North America, sales grew by 11% to $106.3 billion, while the international business advanced by 14% to $40.9 billion, driven by a weaker dollar and expanded logistics capabilities.

“We continue to see strong momentum and growth at Amazon, as AI powers significant improvements across every aspect of our business,” stated Andy Jassy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Amazon. “AWS is growing at a pace we have not seen since 2022, accelerating once again to 20.2% year-over-year. We continue to witness high demand for both AI and foundational infrastructure, and we have focused on accelerating capacity, adding more than 3.8 gigawatts over the past 12 months.”

250 million customers already use rufus, Amazon’s AI assistant

However, the impact of artificial intelligence is not limited to the cloud business. In its retail division, Amazon reported that 250 million customers have used Rufus, its AI-powered shopping assistant, and that those who use it are 60% more likely to complete a purchase. The company has also launched new smart recommendation features, such as Help Me Decide, and has extended its content generation tools to over 1.3 million sellers.

Help Me Decide is a shopping tool introduced just a few days ago, powered by artificial intelligence, appearing in the Amazon mobile app or web version when you have been comparing several similar products. When you tap the “Help Me Decide” button, the system analyzes your browsing history, searches, previous purchases, and preferences to recommend a specific product best suited to your needs, along with a clear explanation of why that particular option is appropriate. Additionally, the feature presents a couple of alternative choices at various price points, should you wish to explore further options. For now, it is only available in the United States.

Future outlook

Looking ahead, the company expects fourth-quarter revenues, which will include those from the peak sales season (Black Friday and the Christmas period), to reach between $206 billion and $213 billion, which would represent growth of between 10% and 13% compared to the same period in 2024. Projected operating profit is set to be between $21 billion and $26 billion.

Beyond the numbers, this quarter confirms Amazon’s transformation into a company increasingly focused on artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. With investments in chips, software, and new cloud services, the Seattle-based group seeks not only to maintain its leadership in eCommerce, but also to establish itself as one of the most influential technology platforms worldwide.

Image: Gemini

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Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has released its results for the third quarter of 2025 (ended September 30, 2025), highlighting a year-over-year revenue growth of 16%, reaching the historic figure of $102.35 billion. This marks the first quarter in the company’s history with revenue exceeding $100 billion. Meanwhile, net income stood at $34.98 billion, an impressive 33% increase compared to the third quarter of 2024.

According to the company’s statement, this result was fueled by its comprehensive focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robust growth across all key business segments. Specifically, divisions such as Google Search & other, YouTube Ads, subscriptions, Google’s platforms and devices, and Google Cloud all reported double-digit growth rates.

Gemini has more than 650 million active monthly users

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, expressed his pride in the results: “Our comprehensive approach to AI is generating strong momentum, and we are rolling out solutions at high speed, including the global deployment of AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search in record time. In addition to being leaders in the rankings, our proprietary models, such as Gemini, are now processing 7 billion tokens per minute via direct API use by our clients.”

He also added “AI Overviews are driving significant growth in queries. This effect was even stronger in the third quarter, as users continue to realize that Google can answer more of their questions. It is particularly encouraging to see that this effect was even more pronounced among younger people.

We are also seeing that AI Mode is resonating well with users. In the United States, we have seen strong and steady growth in usage week after week since its launch, and queries doubled during the quarter. In the past quarter, we rolled out AI Mode globally in 40 languages in record time. It now has over 75 million daily active users. And we launched more than 100 product enhancements in the third quarter, an incredibly fast pace. Most importantly, AI Mode is already driving incremental growth in total queries for Search.”

Regarding Gemini, Pichai explained that “it now has more than 650 million active monthly users. We continue to drive strong growth in new businesses. Google Cloud accelerated, ending the quarter with $155 billion in backlog. And we have over 300 million paid subscriptions, led by Google One and YouTube Premium.”

Search now accounts for more than half of total revenue

During the third quarter of 2025, the Google Search & other segment returned as the primary driver of revenue for the company, generating $56.567 billion (+14.5%).

Google Cloud experienced the highest percentage growth, posting a 34% year-over-year increase in revenue to reach $15.157 billion. Its main products, AI infrastructure and Generative AI solutions, drove the growth of this segment.

As Pichai explained in an open letter, “Our models are world leaders. Gemini 2.5 Pro, Veo, Genie 3, and our viral sensation, Nano Banana, are among the best in their class. More than 230 million videos have been generated with Veo 3, and more than 13 million developers have built with our generative models. We are looking forward with great anticipation to the launch of Gemini 3 later this year.

Our leadership in research is driving next-generation technologies. Last week, we announced that our Willow quantum chip had achieved a major breakthrough: it executed an algorithm 13,000 times faster than one of the world’s top supercomputers. And the result is verifiable, paving the way for future practical applications.”

Revenue from subscriptions, Google’s platforms and devices also performed well, reaching $12.870 billion (+20.7%), while YouTube Ads grew to $10.261 billion.

Headcount Growth

In contrast to the workforce reductions that have affected other large companies, Google has increased its headcount. By the end of the third quarter of 2025, the technology company had 190,167 employees, representing an increase compared to the 181,269 in the same period of 2024.

Image: Gemini

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Amazon is a vast company whose business spans areas as diverse as eCommerce/marketplace, advertising, logistics, hardware, artificial intelligence, and video and music streaming. However, among these business areas is one that, while less well-known to the general public, is of extreme importance both for the company itself and for thousands of other companies around the world. Are you familiar with Amazon Web Services?

A major AWS outage

The collapse of multiple services worldwide due to the outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) once again highlights the enormous dependence the global digital infrastructure has on Amazon’s cloud. On Monday, the disruption caused widespread failures and massive disconnections that affected millions of users in Spain and across the globe—and it is quite likely that you have been impacted as well.

What exactly happened?

As explained by Amazon itself, the failure originated in the AWS region US-EAST-1, located in Northern Virginia (United States), one of the most critical areas for Amazon’s global infrastructure. In fact, Amazon referred to an “increase in error rates and latency across various AWS services”, which resulted in cascading interruptions.

Around 11:30 AM Spanish time, AWS explained that there was “an issue with the Domain Name System (DNS) that prevented many services from locating and communicating with the DynamoDB database. This affected other services and global services that rely on US-EAST-1.” Shortly thereafter, AWS reported that “We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be successful.”

Imagine AWS as a gigantic office and DynamoDB as the central filing cabinet where everyone stores and retrieves crucial information: for another AWS service to use the cabinet, it needs its extension number or exact location. The DNS system (Domain Name System) serves as the telephone directory or internal directory of that office. When the error occurred, whenever an employee (another service) asked the directory, “What is the extension number for DynamoDB?” the directory could not provide the correct IP address.

Since the services could not obtain DynamoDB’s address, they were unable to locate or communicate with it, and many AWS services depend on DynamoDB for basic operations (such as identifying users, checking their permissions, or determining where to look for certain data). When they could not “find” the central filing cabinet, these services failed in succession. They were unable to perform their tasks and crashed. Given that the affected region (US-EAST-1) handles many of AWS’s functions, the failure spread to global services that, even if physically located elsewhere, still required that central address.

However, the situation did not resolve as simply as it might have seemed. Around 4:15 PM(CEST), AWS again warned of significant failures affecting multiple services, once more creating a sense of uncertainty throughout the sector. Nevertheless, according to reports from Down Detector, the chain reaction of disruptions was comparatively less severe.

Who was affected by the outage worldwide?

The failure demonstrated the high concentration of digital services that rely on Amazon’s platform, resulting in daily applications and platforms in Spain ceasing to function properly.

• Amazon Services: Both the Alexa voice assistant and the Prime Video streaming platform experienced connection issues.
• Online Payments: Redsys also faced problems. This is particularly serious for online commerce: it is the company that acts as the principal technological intermediary and manager of electronic payments in Spain, serving as the backbone that allows card transactions—whether in-store or online—to be conducted securely and quickly throughout the country.
• Video Games: Highly popular platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox.
• Productivity: Tools such as Canva, the language-learning application Duolingo, and the video call platform Zoom reported access errors or downtime. Some users also mentioned others such as Klaviyo, Asana, or Teachable.
• Artificial Intelligence: AI-based assistants and services such as Perplexity were also affected, as Perplexity’s CEO himself admitted in a tweet.

Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.

— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) October 20, 2025

The immense power of Amazon Web Services in today’s digital market

Amazon Web Services (AWS), launched in 2006, is a cloud services provider offering everything from infrastructure technologies such as computing, storage, and database management to emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. This enables existing applications to be migrated to the cloud more quickly, easily, and cost-effectively and allows for the creation of virtually anything one can imagine.

AWS provides cloud hosting and computing services to more than one million companies worldwide, including some of the largest corporations and many of the world’s most-visited websites, all of which depend on AWS to function properly—such as Amazon itself, Disney+, Tinder, Netflix, among others. Therefore, an outage of AWS servers can cause serious disruptions in the global digital business landscape, destabilizing not only Amazon’s internal operations but also the functions of hundreds of tools and websites, potentially compromising the overall stability of the digital ecosystem. At present, Amazon Web Services controls approximately one third of the global cloud market, placing it far ahead of its closest competitor, Microsoft’s Azure, as well as Google Cloud.

This enormous customer base resulted in net revenues for AWS rising by 19% year-over-year to $107.6 billion for Amazon during fiscal year 2024. 

The problem with global dependence on AWS

As previously mentioned, AWS’s worldwide popularity means that any type of unforeseen incident can substantially compromise the proper functioning of numerous websites across the globe. This was clearly demonstrated, for example, in December 2021, with the six-hour interruption of AWS services.

On December 11, Amazon’s cloud services provider experienced an outage that disrupted several of the company’s operations throughout parts of the United States. The outage lasted approximately six hours, affecting a range of websites, applications, and digital tools associated with the platform. Among those affected were smart products such as roombas, home assistants, security systems, and others. According to the company’s statement, the situation was caused by an error in an automated process.

“An automated activity intended to scale the capacity of one of the AWS services hosted on the primary AWS network triggered unexpected behavior from a large number of clients within the internal network. This resulted in a significant surge in connection activity that overwhelmed the networking devices between the internal network and the AWS primary network, causing delays in communications between these networks.”

According to the company’s report, the outage even affected Amazon’s own ability to identify the root cause at the time, as their monitoring tools and primary internal controls were themselves experiencing the effects of the outage.

Image: Depositphotos

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Zalando, the German online fashion giant, has announced a fundamental transformation of its business model, leaving behind a purely transactional approach to enter what the company refers to as the “new era of emotional commerce”. This strategy seeks to redefine online shopping by blending the efficiency of eCommerce with inspiration, entertainment, and social connection, elements that until now have been dominated by social platforms.

The core of this evolution is embodied in the expansion of its AI-powered discovery feed and the gradual launch of optional public customer profiles, featuring customizable and shareable boards initially available to selected customers with iOS devices across 22 markets.

From the moment a customer opens the app, the new feed transforms the experience, allowing them to swipe, scroll, and play personalized and interest-based content in real time. According to the company, this feed aims to unify Zalando’s most powerful experiences: from AI-based product recommendations and shoppable videos to live broadcasts, editorial inspiration campaigns, and high-quality content provided by brands and creators.

Robert Gentz, co-CEO and founder of Zalando, explains that the goal is to merge “the convenience of eCommerce, the entertainment of social networks, the connection of idea-sharing platforms, and the inspiration of editorial content into one single experience.” It is about making the platform not only easy to use but also “more engaging, relevant, and personal.”

• Zalando reports a strong first quarter and increases its revenue by 7.9% year-over-year

Commitment to emotional commerce

The shift to emotional commerce reflects a fundamental change in consumer behavior, especially among younger generations (such as Generation Z). Today, convenience alone is no longer enough. According to company data, 72% of purchasing decisions are made while users are seeking inspiration, and much of that inspiration happens online, through visual and narrative formats such as trending hashtags on social media.

For Zalando, emotional commerce is focused on three key pillars, that go beyond the transaction: inspiration, trust, and connection.

Connection and expression

This is where the new customer profile and the option to share boards come into play, offering curated product selections and content according to themes or trends, such as “New Boho.” In this way, users can select products, looks, and inspiration according to their personal style, from training plans to morning beauty routines.

“This is a first step toward a greater sense of community at Zalando, where customers can explore and share their motivations in one place. Boards reflect how people shop: not by categories, but by moods, aesthetics, and lifestyles. 76% of Zalando’s customers are already shopping across multiple categories, and these customers spend more and return more often.”

Inspiration

Through the new feed, Zalando will prioritize editorial content, using images, videos, and AI-powered digital twins of models. The company aims to make products more appealing and, most importantly, to respond to fashion trends in an ultrafast manner (in less than 24 hours), keeping content fresh and culturally relevant.

“We are taking innovation even further with digital twins: high-fidelity replicas of real models. They reflect a model’s appearance and movement, allowing us to create high-quality campaign images efficiently while maintaining accuracy and authenticity. By combining digital twins with product photoshoots, we create seamless experiences that guide customers from inspiration to confident purchasing decisions,” representatives from Zalando explain.

Trust

However, building community and content is not the only focus. Zalando seeks to reinforce trust in the shopping experience, especially by ensuring the customer selects the correct size. This is addressed through the redesign of its Size Profile. This tool unifies body measurements and the virtual fitting room in a single flow, simplifying selection and, according to Zalando’s data, reducing the return rate by up to 10%. Additionally, features such as the augmented reality (AR) shoe fitting tool allow customers to visualize how items will look on their own feet, providing visual certainty before making a purchase.

“This year, we will implement these immersive experiences for 10,000 footwear items, with plans to grow to 35,000 in 2026 and to 70,000 by 2027. As we expand, augmented reality will enhance how customers explore footwear online, making the experience more visual, engaging, and secure,” they explain.

Building a community

The launch of customer profiles that allow sharing of style boards marks a social milestone for the platform. For the first time, Zalando users will be able to view and share with other customers, interacting through their style and fashion suggestions.

Anne Pascual, Senior Vice President of Product Design at Zalando, notes that this “mirrors an experience that occurs offline every day: people seeking advice and sharing wardrobe recommendations.” By allowing customers to turn their personal inspiration into a shared experience, Zalando fosters a community connected by common interests and aesthetics.

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Mango has notified its customers of a security incident affecting a portion of their personal data. As outlined in the mass email sent to customers of the popular fashion brand, the unauthorized access occurred in one of the external marketing services used by the company, and not directly within Mango’s corporate systems.

Which customer data have been affected?

The company has emphasized that the compromised information is limited to contact data used for marketing campaigns. The exposed data are as follows:

• First name (without surnames).
• Country and Postal Code.
• Email address.
• Contact telephone number.

In this regard, Mango has sought to reassure affected individuals, assuring them that higher-risk information remains secure. The email highlighted that under no circumstance have your banking information, credit card details, identification/passport numbers, login credentials, or passwords been compromised.

Furthermore, the fashion company assures that its internal corporate infrastructure and systems have not been compromised, and that the company’s operations continue as normal.

Upon becoming aware of the incident, Mango reported that it activated “all security protocols immediately” and proceeded with the official notification. In accordance with current regulations (GDPR), the fashion chain has reported the breach to the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) as well as to the relevant authorities.

Recommendations for affected customers

Since contact information, especially email addresses and telephone numbers, have been exposed, the principal risk for customers is an increase in fraud attempts and identity theft. That is, while the security breach exposed limited data, it is highly valuable for potential phishing attacks, which would allow attackers to craft fraudulent communications that appear much more legitimate and credible.

Thus, a prudent recommendation for affected customers would be to pay careful attention to future communications from the company and to remember that Mango will never request your passwords, complete credit card numbers, PIN codes, or identification numbers via email, SMS, or telephone call.

In any case, the company has established a dedicated contact channel for customers with questions about the incident: personaldata@mango.com or by phone at +34 900 150 543.

The full email sent by Mango on the afternoon of October 14 reads as follows:

“In line with our commitment to the security and privacy of our customers, MANGO would like to inform you that one of our external marketing services has suffered unauthorized access to certain customers’ personal data.

The exposed information is limited to personal contact data used in marketing campaigns: exclusively your first name (your surnames have not been compromised), country, postal code, email address, and telephone number. We want to inform you that everything is functioning normally and that Mango’s infrastructure and corporate systems have not been compromised.

Under no circumstances have your banking information, credit card details, identification/passport numbers, login credentials, or passwords been compromised.

Immediately upon becoming aware of this situation, MANGO activated all security protocols. In accordance with current regulations and following our internal policies, MANGO has notified the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) and the authorities.

As a preventive measure, we are issuing this communication and recommend that all our customers remain vigilant for any suspicious communications or requests for unusual actions by email or telephone.

MANGO makes available the email address of our Customer Service Department (personaldata@mango.com) and telephone number (900 150 543) for any additional questions, and we regret any inconvenience this isolated incident may have caused you.

As always, we wish to thank you for your trust and continued loyalty to our brand.”

Image: Gemini

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Ben & Jerry’s has always been synonymous with social activism, high-quality products, and a brand identity built around progressive causes. However, co-founder Jerry Greenfield highlights a deeper conflict between authentic brand values and the structural pressures of being part of a global giant like Unilever.

And, as a consequence, he has left.

Why Jerry Greenfield left Ben & Jerry’s

Jerry Greenfield stated publicly that Ben & Jerry’s has lost its autonomy to speak out on important social issues. In an open letter, shared by its colleague Ben Cohen on X, he said he could no longer work “in good faith” for a company that has been “silenced” by Unilever. The flashpoint was the brand’s decision to stop selling its ice cream in Israeli settlements—a move that sparked tension with its parent company over the extent to which its social mission could be publicly expressed.

After 47 years, Jerry has made the difficult decision to step down from the company we built together. I’m sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerry’s. His legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced by @MagnumGlobal #FreeBenAndJerrys pic.twitter.com/EZXGRjs76a

— Ben Cohen (@YoBenCohen) September 17, 2025

This conflict is not new. It dates back to the original merger agreement with Unilever over two decades ago, which explicitly protected Ben & Jerry’s social mission. Both Greenfield and his co-founder Ben Cohen agree that this agreement has been disregarded.

“That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever (…) It is profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence is gone.“

What this departure means for Ben & Jerry’s

• • Loss of consumer trust: Purpose-driven consumers feel betrayed when a brand no longer walks the talk. Ben & Jerry’s storytelling has long been its strongest differentiator. When authenticity fades, so does emotional connection.
  • Internal culture under pressure: Employees who joined the company for its values—social justice, activism, inclusion—are now faced with tough questions. Is the mission real, or just marketing? This can impact morale, talent retention, and creative energy behind socially conscious campaigns.
  • Legal and contractual risk: The brand has taken legal action, claiming Unilever violated the original merger terms by restricting its social voice. If the courts side with Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever could face penalties, forced structural changes, or even lose some control over the brand.
  • Crisis communication in eCommerce: Online, the conversation is already raging—across social media, reviews, and communities. Every muted post or sanitized campaign risks being seen as censorship. This demands transparency, quick responses, and a consistent message across digital platforms and eCommerce touchpoints.

What Ben & Jerry’s can do (and lessons for other brands)

• Redefine its visible social mission, with public, verifiable commitments, transparency reports, and real-world action. Messaging without substance will only backfire.
• Create internal participation channels for founders, employees, and even customers to help shape decisions related to ethical positions or cause marketing.
• Strengthen content strategy that reflects its mission—from social media and newsletters to partnerships and product storytelling—while staying within legal limits and brand guidelines.
• Manage the crisis with clarity: publicly address Greenfield’s exit, acknowledge the concerns, and explain what has changed, and how the brand will protect its legacy. This needs to be reflected on the eCommerce site, product packaging, and corporate messaging.

History of Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry’s began in 1978, when Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield invested $12,000 to open their first ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont.

Their business quickly expanded: within a few years they started selling ice cream in pints to local stores, opened franchised scoop shops, added flavors like “Cherry Garcia,” and established the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation to donate a share of profits to community projects. In 2000 the company was acquired by Unilever, but retained an independent Board of Directors to protect its social mission, quality, and brand integrity. Over the decades, Ben & Jerry’s has pursued fair trade sourcing, activism, and expanding non-dairy options.

 

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Una publicación compartida de Ben & Jerry’s (@benandjerrys)

The Ben & Jerry’s vs. Unilever case is a cautionary tale for any purpose-led brand. It proves that a social mission isn’t just a marketing strategy—it’s a strategic core that requires value alignment, governance, and operational freedom to live and breathe. When that breaks down, credibility—a brand’s most valuable asset in today’s market—starts to crumble.

Image: Ben & Jerry’s

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The global smart glasses market experienced a 110% year-over-year growth in the first half of 2025, according to data from Counterpoint. These figures demonstrate the increasing adoption of this technology by users worldwide.

Furthermore, this growth has been especially driven by the high demand for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and the entry of new competitors such as Xiaomi and TCL-RayNeo, which have stimulated competition in an increasingly dynamic sector.

Rise of AI Glasses and decline of Smart Audio Glasses

One of the most notable highlights from Counterpoint’s report is that AI-powered glasses accounted for 78% of global shipments in the first half of 2025, compared to 46% during the same period in 2024 and 66% in the second half of that year. The AI smart glasses segment grew by over 250% year-over-year, offering features that extend far beyond connectivity: photo and video capture, object recognition, real-time translation, as well as encyclopedia-style queries.

Meanwhile, the market for smart audio glasses (which comprise the majority of smart glasses and are operated by brands such as Huawei, Amazon, and Mijia) experienced a decline in the first half of 2025. The primary reason for this is the growing consumer preference for AI-enabled glasses, which are capable of providing advanced functions that surpass mere music playback or calling capabilities.

Meta achieved a 73% market share in the first half of 2025

The study reveals that Meta has established itself as the undisputed leader, commanding a 73% market share in the first half of 2025. The shipments of its Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses grew by more than 200% year-over-year, driven by the production capacity of Luxottica, its strategic partner.

Flora Tang, Senior Research Analyst at Counterpoint, explained: “Shipments of Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses increased by over 200% year-over-year during the period, reflecting robust market demand and the expanded manufacturing capacity of Luxottica, Meta’s key production partner.”

Meta is about to unveil its new hypernova glasses

According to Counterpoint, the global smart glasses market is expected to continue growing throughout the remainder of this year, as well as in 2026 and subsequent years. Regarding the more immediate future of this market, it could be particularly stimulated by Meta’s upcoming launch: its “Hypernova” model.

In recent days, there has been speculation that the technology giant may introduce its new smart glasses during its annual Meta Connect 2025 conference, which is scheduled for September 17 and 18. These glasses will be the most advanced model produced by the company, featuring new functionalities and a revamped interface that will also be operable via a neural wristband.

With respect to the price of this new device, Bloomberg revealed that it will be approximately $800 (about €684.50). This represents a significant reduction compared to Meta’s initial projections, which estimated the price of the “Hypernova” glasses would exceed $1,000. Furthermore, it was disclosed that these will weigh approximately 70 grams, 20 more than Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses.

New and strong competitors

Additionally, while Meta is the key player in this market, we must not lose sight of other manufacturers that have also excelled during the first half of 2025. This is the case for Xiaomi, which debuted with its Xiaomi AI Glasses, becoming the fourth best-selling model globally and the third within the AI category, despite having been on the market for just one week. This surge was fueled by technology enthusiasts and Mi fans in China.

Moreover, brands such as TCL-RayNeo with its RayNeo V3 series, Thunderobot with the AURA Smart Glasses, and Kopin Solos with the AirGo V line have also stood out.

Photo: Flux Schnell

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Juvencio Maeztu, until now Deputy CEO, has been appointed CEO of Ingka Group (IKEA), the principal retail company of the Swedish giant. Maeztu, who began his career at IKEA as a store manager in Spain, will succeed Jesper Brodin, who is stepping down after eight years. This appointment marks a significant milestone, as it is the first time that the global leadership of the company will rest with an individual who is not of Swedish nationality.

To put the significance of this appointment into context, Ingka Group is the largest franchisee of IKEA. With operations in 31 markets, it accounts for 90% of the brand’s global sales, both physical (stores and shopping centers) and online. The remaining 10% is in the hands of franchisees such as Al-Futtaim Group, which operates IKEA stores in countries such as Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, or the Falabella Group, responsible for stores in South America, including Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

The new CEO will not only lead retail operations but will also oversee the group’s investment and innovation strategy, as well as the management of the brand’s shopping centers.

The leadership change will become effective on November 5, 2025. Jesper Brodin, who has spent 30 years with the company, will remain within the organization until February 2026 in order to ensure a smooth transition and will subsequently join the IKEA Foundation as a senior advisor.

A 25-year career and “outstanding leadership”

The election of Juvencio Maeztu (pictured on the right in the photo at the top of this article) has been endorsed by the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ingka Holding, Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, who emphasized his extensive experience and “outstanding leadership.” Maeztu began his journey at IKEA in the brand’s store in Alcorcón (Madrid) in 2001 and has held various roles over the last decade at the company’s offices in Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, including his tenure as Managing Director at IKEA India for over six years. His experience in the retail sector and his entrepreneurial mindset are seen by the company as key strengths for the future challenges of the organization.

Juvencio is an economist and holds an MBA from IESE Business School, is married, has two children, lives in the Netherlands, and has promptly expressed his gratitude and enthusiasm: “I am deeply excited and enthusiastic about the future of IKEA. The depth of our vision and our commitment to affordability and low prices mean much more than a business idea: it is our responsibility to the many people.”

The vision for the future: sustainability and omnichannel expansion

Brodin, the outgoing CEO, has been the main driver behind the transformation of IKEA into an omnichannel company, expanding into new markets and cities with formats more tailored to customer needs. He has also successfully made sustainability a central pillar of the business model, a legacy that Maeztu has pledged to uphold.

In his farewell, Jesper Brodin expressed optimism about the company’s future under Maeztu’s leadership, highlighting his “profound commitment to the business, to people, and to the planet.”

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The artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has just launched a financial missile: an offer of $34.4 billion to acquire Google Chrome, the browser with over 3.5 billion users and 60% of the global market share. The amount offered is twice the valuation of Perplexity and comes just as a judge in the United States could force Google to sell its browser as an antitrust measure.

The proposal is backed by large investment funds and positions the startup as the favorite in a race that OpenAI had already attempted to enter this past April, also expressing interest in acquiring the browser should the Department of Justice (DOJ) mandate its sale. Google, for its part, insists that it does not intend to divest Chrome… unless compelled to do so by the courts.

Perplexity, the startup aspiring to join the major leagues

Founded in 2022 in San Francisco, Perplexity is recognized for its AI-powered search engine, Comet, and has positioned itself as one of the most promising alternatives to OpenAI. Earlier this year, it raised $100 million in a funding round that valued the company at $18 billion, but it is now offering nearly double that amount for Chrome.

According to its Chief Commercial Officer, Dmitry Shevelenko, the plan is fully financed by “several large investment funds” (whose identities have not been disclosed). The letter sent to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, makes the objective clear: to place Chrome in the hands of an independent and capable operator, without altering the user experience. They have even promised to invest EUR 2.727 billion in Chrome and Chromium over the next two years and to retain a significant portion of the current team’s talent.

The offer is enticing, although it does not reach the highest valuation Chrome has achieved, according to various experts. It is also true that the amount, far from being definitive, is subject to a wide range of opinions. For example, at the end of last year, Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, estimated the company’s value at $20 billion, based on its dominant user base and its role within Google’s ecosystem. However, Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, stated in an antitrust trial that Chrome could be worth up to $50 billion.

OpenAI was the first to express interest

Months before this development, OpenAI had already revealed its interest in acquiring Chrome should Google be forced to sell it. Nick Turley, Head of Product of ChatGPT, confirmed this during the antitrust trial, although no specific amount was ever mentioned. The company sought to integrate Google’s search technology into ChatGPT, but the proposal was rejected. Turley argued that access to this data would substantially improve the product, as search is a fundamental component of its service.

The fact that Perplexity is now making a concrete and rather tempting offer is not only a strategic move but also a way to position itself ahead of OpenAI in future negotiations.

What could happen if Chrome changes ownership

Chrome is not merely a browser: it is a central component of Google’s advertising and data ecosystem. Should it fall under the control of another operator:

• The competitive landscape in search and advertising would shift significantly.
• Opportunities could arise to integrate additional AI-based features into the browsing experience.
• It would undermine a key pillar in Google’s strategy to drive traffic to its search engine.

Perplexity claims that it would not introduce “discreet” changes nor would it compromise the security or privacy of users, presenting the transaction as a benefit for both consumers and advertisers.

Google does not wish to sell

Google maintains that separating Chrome and Android from its infrastructure would harm security, increase costs, and negatively impact businesses relying on its platforms. It has also warned of potential risks to United States national security.

The company is preparing an appeal should the judge ultimately order the sale, but time is of the essence, and a final decision could be reached within a matter of weeks.

Image: Depositphotos and Canva

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