Beyond the Basket - 29/10/25

Wednesday 29th October | #61 | Join Free

Halloween is now part of the main event. 👻 Today’s issue looks at how early spend is reshaping retail’s peak season, why PayPal’s ChatGPT move signals the rise of AI commerce, and how Adobe and TikTok are turning creative automation into growth. Let’s dive in 👇 – Mike Callachan (BtB Founder)

In today’s beyond the basket:
🎃 Halloween spending surges, challenging retail’s Golden Quarter
💄 How Rhode Just Rewrote the Celebrity Brand Playbook
💳 PayPal becomes first payment wallet in ChatGPT
🖌️ Adobe adds AI Assistant to Express for conversational design
📱 TikTok adds AI tools to boost creator output

➕ Plus four deeper reads, on how AI is reshaping checkout and experience, and why ethical storytelling and smarter packaging still win where trust matters most.

TL;DR: UK consumer surveys show 41% believe Halloween now rivals Christmas in spend; projected Halloween spend for 2025 is ~£779 m, suggesting early-season demand is growing. 

Why it matters: The “Golden Quarter” (Q4) for many retailers has historically hinged on Black Friday → Christmas. But the data show Halloween is creeping into that big peak window: 59% plan to spend up to £100 this Halloween, and 37% say they’ll spend more than last year. That means brands need to treat late October not as a prelude but as part of their main seasonal surge.

Hailey Bieber’s skincare line just did what almost no celebrity brand ever pulls off, it proved it’s a real business.

When E.L.F. bought Rhode this month for nearly $1 billion, they didn’t just announce the deal. They opened the books, full P&L, margins and all, and the numbers are wild.

Rhode runs at a 34% EBITDA margin. Most DTC brands would kill for 10–15%.

The numbers behind the glow

Here’s how it breaks down: COGS: 19% | Delivery: 15% | Marketing: 11% | G&A: 17%

That £34 Glazing Milk? Costs about £4.50 to make. Rhode’s operating like a global beauty giant, not a three-year-old startup.

The real standout: marketing efficiency. Most beauty brands spend 30–50% of revenue on paid ads. Rhode spends just 11%, because Hailey is the marketing.

With 50M+ followers, every selfie is an ad. The result? A 9x marketing efficiency ratio, for every £1 Rhode spends, it generates £9 in revenue.

Why E.L.F. paid up

E.L.F. didn’t buy a celebrity brand, they bought a system. A blueprint for turning cultural capital into real business equity.

The old playbook: attach a famous face, overspend on ads, fade within three years.

The Rhode model: authentic founder involvement, tight cost structure, operational discipline, and profitability from day one.

Fold Rhode’s 17% G&A into E.L.F.’s existing setup and margins could push toward 40%. That’s not just a good acquisition, that’s a generational one.

Key Takeaway: Rhode proves hype doesn’t have to come at the expense of healthy economics. The magic wasn’t Hailey’s following, it was the financial discipline behind it. Influence opened the door; operations made it work.

If you’re building a brand with community or cultural pull, make sure the business still stands when the spotlight moves on.

TL;DR:  PayPal will power instant payments inside ChatGPT using the new Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), letting users shop and check out in chat.

Why it matters: This is the clearest signal yet that AI-driven shopping is moving from concept to channel. With 430 million PayPal users and 45 million merchants, this partnership gives small businesses a ready-made route into “chat-to-checkout” commerce, no custom integration required. For ecommerce operators, it’s another step toward AI replacing search and social as discovery engines.

TL;DR: Adobe has launched a new AI Assistant in Express, letting users create and edit designs by chatting, turning ideas into finished content in minutes.

Why it matters: For marketers and small ecommerce teams, this makes brand-ready design dramatically faster. The assistant understands prompts like “make this more tropical,” adjusts colours, images and fonts, and keeps everything on brand. It’s part of Adobe’s bigger agentic-AI push, blending creativity with automation.

TL;DR: TikTok’s rolling out new AI features, Smart Split to turn long videos into short clips, and AI Outline to generate trending hooks, titles, and scripts. It’s also upping creator subscription revenue shares to as high as 90%.

Why it matters: For brands and ecommerce creators, these tools make short-form production faster and trend discovery easier, meaning more content, less editing time. TikTok’s higher payout could also attract more high-quality creators, raising the bar for branded content.

Curated deep dives, longer reads and analysis shaping the future of ecommerce and digital marketing.

How small businesses are navigating tariffs and packaging costs
Packaging Dive (6 min read) Read here ›
Why rising material costs are forcing smaller brands to rethink packaging, from lightweight materials to modular designs that cut both cost and carbon.

AI agents are moving to the front of the checkout line
PYMNTS (5 min read) Read here ›
How “agentic AI” is turning chatbots into shopping assistants, guiding discovery, comparing prices, and completing purchases autonomously.

Disney, Shein, and why ethics still matter in retail
Insider Trends (7 min read) Read here ›
A sharp look at how consumers are rewarding brands that balance speed and scale with genuine ethical practice.

The next generation of customer experience
Inc. (6 min read) Read here ›
Practical insights on how AI, automation, and human touch-points are merging to define what modern customer experience really means.