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The Hidden Patterns Shaping Global Commerce in 2025

This week inside EVOLVE, we welcomed Hendrik Laubscher, founder of Blue Cape Ventures and author of Around the World in Commerce, now in its 336th edition. His work is followed by some of the most senior operators, marketplace leaders and strategic thinkers across the world because Hendrik studies commerce the way very few do: not through isolated markets or short-term trends, but through the long arc of behavior, logistics, incentives and platform economics.

Hendrik’s relevance comes from his ability to understand why something is happening, not just what is happening. He sees commerce as interconnected systems shaped by history, infrastructure and human psychology. During our session, he offered EVOLVE a level of clarity that is rare at a time when most conversations about AI and commerce sit somewhere between hype and unrealistic expectations

One of his opening lines set the tone immediately:

That was the beginning of a very honest analysis of how global commerce is actually shifting.

Did you miss this expert session?

AI will accelerate patterns, not reinvent them

A recurring theme across Hendrik’s work is that AI is not transformative in the way people expect. Instead of reinventing commerce, AI accelerates existing patterns. Companies with strong pricing, relevant products, and operational discipline will scale faster. Companies without those fundamentals will expose their weaknesses at a higher speed. Hendrik summarised it clearly:

One non-obvious insight he stressed is that AI adoption is often led by companies who understand unit economics deeply, not those who talk about AI the loudest. In other words, AI magnifies operational truth. It does not compensate for the absence of it.

This is consistent with what we see inside EVOLVE: The senior leaders who are making real progress with AI are the ones who already run disciplined operations. They are not looking for AI to rescue them. They are using it to expand what already works.

Commerce keeps recycling itself under new terminology

Another important observation Hendrik made is that many of the “new” models we celebrate today are simply old behaviors returning under new labels. The industry has always moved in cycles. What is now called agentic commerce or recommendation-driven commerce is at its core an iteration of affiliate behavior from fifteen years ago. What is now presented as closed-loop ecosystems existed in different forms long before the terminology became fashionable.

Hendrik noted something most executives miss:

This is the type of clarity our community values. It removes noise and replaces it with structure.

The regions shaping the next decade are not Western

One of the strongest messages from this session is that the most meaningful innovation in commerce is not coming from the West. It is emerging from China, LATAM, Africa and Southeast Asia, where constraints force creativity and where platforms are not simply marketplaces but full-stack operating systems.

Hendrik explained how companies like Temu, Shein, Pinduoduo, Mercado Libre and Jumia have built end-to-end ecosystems that integrate logistics, payments, credit, advertising, last-mile delivery and customer service. These companies are not testing models; they are exporting them globally.
His point was direct:

For EVOLVE, this global lens is foundational. Our members operate across markets where the rules, infrastructure and customer expectations differ dramatically. Hendrik’s insights reinforce why a community like ours needs global perspective, not provincial thinking.

Europe’s real issue is structural friction

Hendrik did not shy away from Europe’s challenges. The continent has the talent and consumer base, but suffers from structural fragmentation. Regulation, cultural diversity, slower adoption speed, and the absence of unified logistics infrastructures create friction that hampers innovation.

He made an important distinction: Europe’s problem is not competence. It is coherence. The ability to scale quickly across borders is limited by structural friction, while other regions iterate far faster because they operate within more uniform market conditions.

Marketplaces are not channels. They are infrastructure.

One of Hendrik’s clearest and most important statements was this:

This is a difficult idea for many Western brands to accept. Marketplaces now control customer acquisition, discovery, logistics, trust, payments, returns, financing, and visibility. A brand’s future advantage will not be in owning the customer outright, but in knowing how to operate inside and outside these systems with sophistication.

This is a shift we see reflected across EVOLVE. The most senior operators in our community no longer think about “selling on Amazon” or “working with Mercado Libre.” They think in terms of ecosystem positioning, relevance, profitability, and cultural context.

Why this session matters for EVOLVE

Hendrik offered something extremely valuable: a reminder that commerce is not driven by trends or tools, but by deep patterns that repeat across regions and decades.

Our mission at EVOLVE is to bring clarity to a world that is increasingly chaotic.

To help senior leaders operate with a global lens. To become the most trusted and global house of senior commerce experts.

This session validated why our model works.


We bring together senior professionals who understand that leadership is no longer about controlling one market, one function, or one narrative.

It is about navigating ecosystems, understanding context, and learning from the places where innovation is actually happening.

Hendrik’s perspective reinforces what we believe:
Clarity is a competitive advantage.
Perspective is part of leadership.
And proximity accelerates everything.

A few pictures of our week, Carlos was at the Websummit and Gustavo in São Paulo, delivering a workshop in partnership with Aiphoria

Final reflection

If someone invests time to read our newsletter, it must create value. Hendrik delivered that value with honesty, data, and a global understanding that very few in the industry possess.

This is the standard we commit to.
Depth over noise.
Clarity over hype.
Human insight over automation.

Curated. Personable. Global.

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