Alibaba, a major Chinese e-commerce company, has informed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that it intends to invest $2 billion there.

Michael Evans, the president of Alibaba, reportedly made the remarks during a meeting with Erdogan, according to a statement from the Turkish subsidiary of the company, reported Reuters. It made no mention of when the investment would be made.

Evans also stated that Alibaba had invested $1.4 billion in Turkey through its subsidiary Trendyol, one of Turkey’s most well-known e-commerce platforms, according to the statement.

Evans reportedly provided information about potential investments, including a data center, a logistics center, and an export operation center at Istanbul Airport, according to Trendyol, whose president Caglayan Cetin also met with Erdogan.

Mango, a Spanish family-owned apparel store, announced on Thursday that it has increased its online sales in 20 regions, most of which are in Africa.

Mango announced it will establish e-commerce operations with its brands for women, men, and children in Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mali, Uganda, and Madagascar, reported Reuters. Mango was already active in various countries in the region, with 54 franchise stores.

It will also begin operating online in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Bermuda. Mango established its online presence in Brazil earlier this year.

Expanding into Africa and Latin America could be a sign for other e-commerce brands to also start advertising in these emerging markets.

Digital retail media is expected to have an annual spending increase of more than 19% through 2027, according to a forecast by Insider Intelligence/eMarketer.

The graph shows retail digital ad spend growing from around $55 billion in 2024 to over $106 billion in 2027.

This demonstrates robust growth in e-commerce, which includes dropshipping.

TikTok has officially launched its online shopping feature in the United States after months of testing, according to a blog post published on Tuesday, as its Chinese owner ByteDance seeks to capitalize on the social media app’s popularity.

“TikTok Shop will now bring shoppable videos and LIVE streams directly to For You feeds across the country – and give brands, merchants, and creators the tools to sell directly through shoppable content on the TikTok app,” the company stated.

“Creators have a new way to monetize their creativity by sharing products in short videos and livestreams, and sellers can choose the Affiliate plan that’s the right fit for their brand,” the blog stated.

Other features of TikTok Shop include Fulfilled by TikTok, a shipping solution for TikTok stores, and a secure checkout using third-party payment processors.

Merchants can manage their TikTok Shop through Shopify with integrations to other e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento.

TikTok is integrating online shopping into its main app, trying to mimic the success of Asian platforms Shein and PDD Holdings’ Temu, according to Reuters.

In Instagram’s settings menu, you can toggle “Upload at Highest Quality,” which uploads pictures and videos to the highest quality.

This setting is automatically toggled off when you download the Instagram app, notes The Verge.

To do this, click the menu, choose Settings and Privacy, and then scroll down to Data Usage and Media Quality. Then, toggle Upload at Highest Quality to turn it on.

TikTok has messaging functions, yet no one considers TikTok to be a messaging app.

However, the firm’s parent company, ByteDance, is looking for several positions on a team named “TikTok Social,” which looks to be tasked with turning TikTok into a far more powerful messaging system, reported Axios.

According to sources at TikTok, there is worry that users are posting TikTok films externally on other social media and messaging applications when they wish to discuss them with friends.

In posts for positions for Android and iOS engineers in San Jose, California, TikTok says it is looking to build a platform that “enables users to meet and interact with their real-life friends seamlessly on TikTok and encourage them to share their life moments with each other and stay connected regardless of where they are.”

While TikTok presently supports direct texting, its usefulness is limited.

Gross payment value growth on US digital commerce platforms will slow this year, increasing only 9% compared to 25% last year, according to a projection by Insider Intelligence/eMarketer.

By 2025, the gross payment value will be $363.28 billion, more than doubling what it was in 2020.

According to the forecast, US digital commerce platforms will handle 57.7% of their retail e-commerce sales on behalf of their merchants in 2023.

Insider Intelligence/eMarketer anticipates that digital commerce platforms will extend their payment processing offerings in the future due to this tremendous revenue-generating potential.

Mavrck says that about 98% of creators use Instagram feed posts, Instagram Stories, and Instagram Reels.

According to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer, this means that Instagram is used by creators more than TikTok, Facebook, and other popular social networks.

About 60% of US social network users will use Instagram this year, indicating that the platform is still at the forefront of influencer marketing, according to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer.

Instagram is positioned to maintain its dominance thanks to the possibility of high-paying partnerships and its recently launched performance-based monetization model.

On the other hand, TikTok is not far behind Instagram, with 89.6% of US producers planning to share sponsored video content on the site this year. Its algorithm has been an enormous appeal for aspiring, video-first creators, allowing them to create audiences more quickly than on other platforms such as Instagram or YouTube.

As a result of regulatory scrutiny, Meta Platforms is exploring premium versions of Facebook and Instagram with no advertisements for users in the European Union (EU), reported the New York Times on Friday.

Those who pay for the subscriptions would not see advertisements. At the same time, Meta would continue to offer free versions of the applications with ads in the EU, according to the report, which cited three people with knowledge of the plans.

According to the article, the potential move might help Meta resist privacy concerns and other scrutiny from the EU by providing customers with an alternative to the company’s ad-based services, which rely on analyzing people’s data.

TikTok will surpass Facebook in terms of time spent in 2025, with US adults spending more than 5.19 billion total minutes per day on the platform, compared to 5.02 billion total minutes per day on Facebook, according to a prediction by Insider Intelligence/eMarketer.

According to the data, TikTok’s and Facebook’s combined minute figures will add up to an average of 19 minutes per adult each day by 2025.

TikTok’s increase in time spent on the platform is especially impressive given that it has fewer users than Facebook, noted the report by Insider Intelligence. In 2025, it predicts that 92.5 million US people will use TikTok, whereas 168.8 million will use Facebook.

According to Debra Aho Williamson, an Insider Intelligence analyst, advertisers should consider increasing TikTok spend.