Google Tests a Buy Button for Flipkart Inside Gemini, Best Buy Turns Its TVs Into an Ad Network + 3 More Stories
2 min read · September 27, 2026 · Covering September 26 · 5 stories from 5 sources
Yesterday in ecommerce: Google let Gemini shoppers buy straight from Flipkart without leaving the chat, and Instacart made the case for dropping online markups entirely. Five stories, about two minutes.
01AI & Agents
Google tests a Buy button for Flipkart inside Gemini
Google is testing a "Buy" button on select Flipkart listings inside Gemini and AI Mode search in India, taking shoppers straight to a Flipkart-branded checkout without leaving the AI chat. The test covers only some users and a narrow set of products, including smartphones and electronics, timed with India's festive season, with a wider rollout planned for October. It builds on Google's open Universal Commerce Protocol; Google invested $350 million in Walmart-owned Flipkart in 2024.
For your store:AI assistants are starting to complete purchases on a partner's site. Check whether your feed is ready for an AI agent to buy from it.
Best Buy Ads unveiled Best Buy CTV, pairing its shopper data, TV-ownership records and purchase-intent signals with connected-TV inventory from partners including Amazon Fire TV, LG and Roku, sold on its own Insignia sets and other streaming apps. The company says its ads already beat other major media platforms on return on ad spend by 17%, per a Circana analysis of $2.3 billion in spend, while accounting for only 17% of it. Multi-touch attribution launches September 30.
For your store:Retailers are turning their own customer data into ad inventory. Watch whether marketplaces you sell on start offering similar targeted ad slots.
Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said retailers with price parity to their own shelves grow online sales 10 points faster, and 90% of US shoppers on Instacart now have access to at least one no-markup retailer. "Affordability is the number one reason that people churn off online grocery," Rogers said. Separately, DoorDash said 4.5 million shoppers added SNAP benefit cards, now accepted at 75,000 stores, with 85% of users new to those stores.
For your store:Affordability, not selection, often keeps online shoppers from coming back. Check whether your online prices quietly run higher than what's on your shelf.
Wayfair pairs a new ad blitz with a credit upgrade
Wayfair launched "Wayfair Delivers," a brand campaign starring NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford and his family that debuted during Monday Night Football, and lifted its sports ad spend fivefold. Days earlier, Moody's upgraded Wayfair's corporate rating to B1 from B3, citing improved credit metrics: debt to EBITDA fell to 5.4x from 7.0x, with $1.1 billion in cash and about $433 million in free cash flow over the past year.
For your store:A cleaner balance sheet is buying Wayfair room to spend on brand awareness, not just performance ads. Growth and financial discipline aren't opposites.
NYC unlocks public restrooms with a tap card, no app required
New York City is installing 17 modular public bathrooms across its five boroughs, run by Throne Labs under a one-year, $4 million pilot. Visitors unlock a stall by text message, QR code, an app, or a free tap card handed out by local partners, with no purchase needed. Each visit is capped at 10 minutes, with warnings at 5 and 8 minutes, and digital entry data helps Throne Labs schedule cleaning and flag misuse.
For your store:A free tap card beats forcing an app download or account just to complete a simple action. Check where your own checkout still demands one.
The Daily Checkout is a daily summary written by KonvertiQ. Every story links to its original source, where you will find full reporting and context. Covered today: Grocery Dive, Marketing Dive, MediaPost, PYMNTS, TechCrunch.