Half of this week's stories are about Amazon. It now wants to handle sellers' Walmart and Shopify orders inside its own software, and it has the right to buy into its newest freight partner over the next seven years. Oura and OpenAI both put off going public, and Reuters got hold of Anthropic's prospectus, which shows retailers building on Claude how much their supplier owes for computing.

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Since late September, US sellers can run their eBay, Shopify, TikTok, and Walmart sales inside Seller Central at no charge. A Shopify order can ship through Multi-Channel Fulfillment, with tracking sent back to Shopify automatically.

Amazon says more than 95% of its independent sellers already sell elsewhere, and I believe it. A free dashboard puts an Amazon shipping button next to every one of those outside orders. Amazon says off-Amazon data won't feed its retail decisions, though the EU charged it in 2020 over its use of non-public seller data and Amazon settled in 2022. Established sellers will mostly keep their Walmart numbers out of Amazon's software, while smaller sellers short on tools may take the deal.

Oura was due to price on NASDAQ last Tuesday, aiming to raise up to $2.2B at a valuation as high as $15B. It postponed, citing an uncertain market, and has set no new date. I expect more postponements as long as private investors keep paying prices public investors won't. OpenAI has already ruled out listing in 2026 and is reportedly raising privately at $1.2T.

Retailers building customer service or ad tools on Claude can now read their supplier's financials, because Reuters obtained Anthropic's prospectus. Revenue grew about 12 times last year to $4.6B, against a net loss of about $42B, though roughly $34B of that is an accounting charge on financing that could convert to shares. The filing lists roughly $518B in cloud and infrastructure commitments, and two customers made up nearly a quarter of revenue.

Amazon asked Meta to remove it from Muse, Meta's new shopping agent, saying it was never consulted. Amazon wants agents to identify themselves and accept a retailer's decision about taking part, which is a fair rule, though its own Buy For Me lists products from brands' websites without asking and makes brands email Amazon to opt out. I'd like to see Amazon's reply when a brand sends it the same letter it sent Meta.

Brand Finance says $73B of the $278B held by the world's most valuable food brands is at risk from GLP-1 drugs, with Lay's most exposed at $6.88B. I hold that loosely because brand value is a modeled figure from a firm that sells the models. I give more weight to a Cornell study built on actual shopping baskets, which found grocery spending falls 6% in households where someone is taking the drugs.

PepsiCo also owns Gatorade and Aquafina, which the report lists as gainers. Whether those can grow fast enough to cover Lay's is what Pepsi investors should be asking.

Kuehne+Nagel signed a long-term deal with Amazon on September 21 that covers logistics for AWS data centers from construction through expansion. Amazon gets a call option on Kuehne+Nagel shares, vesting against undisclosed milestones over up to seven years. Klaus-Michael Kühne, the controlling shareholder, died in August, and Amazon launched Amazon Supply Chain Services in May to sell its own freight network to other shippers.

Amazon asked Meta to get permission before its agent shops on Amazon.com, and in the same few weeks it began offering sellers a free way to run their Walmart and Shopify orders through Seller Central. Sellers get to decide how much of their business they route through Amazon. I'd like to know how many connect those accounts over the next few months.

Nike's first-quarter revenue fell 4% to $11.21B, about $107M below the consensus estimate. The full-year guide is the bigger problem. Nike now expects fiscal 2027 revenue to decline by a high single digit percentage, and analysts had been modelling a drop of around 2%. Q1 came in at minus 4%, so the remaining quarters have to be weaker than that for Nike to land where it says it will.

North America grew 2%, with wholesale there up 9%. Nike Direct fell 8% and digital sales fell 13%. For years Nike pulled product away from retail partners to sell direct, and in this quarter wholesale is what held North America up.

Nike also announced a restructuring plan with job cuts starting in 2027. Nike hasn't said when it expects China to stop shrinking, and the full-year guide doesn't assume it happens soon.