TikTok Shop closed the first half of 2026 with US$50.3 billion in global GMV, up 92 percent, and the US reclaiming its place as its largest market. The platform is now live in ten European markets, but Germany, France, Spain and Italy together generated roughly €499 million in 90 days, about 70 percent of it through affiliated creators. For Chinese brands weighing TikTok Shop Europe as their next channel, the early numbers are both a signal and a warning.

Mixue Bingcheng's overseas store count shrank for the first time in 2025, down a net 428 to 4,467. The easy read is that its low-price playbook finally failed abroad. The real story is more interesting: the pullback was an active restructuring in Indonesia and Vietnam, where new stores now earn 1.7 times the revenue of old ones, while the group's revenue still grew 35%. Low price was never Mixue's sin. It is an industrial output built on a vertically integrated supply chain.

Pop Mart reported 23.8% revenue growth for the first half of 2026, and its share price fell anyway. Overseas sales declined 11%, the Americas shrank despite a wave of new store openings, and THE MONSTERS, the family behind Labubu, saw its share of revenue drop from 34.7% to 26%. Greater China, meanwhile, grew 47.3%. Why the overseas engine stalled, what separates a viral IP from a durable brand, and what Sanrio’s recovery from Hello Kitty dependence suggests about the road ah

Chinese shoppers used to fly to Paris to buy handbags. Now foreigners fly to Shanghai to buy Songmont. The 2013-founded label built by two designers from Shanxi has become Tmall's top handbag brand, filled its 600-square-metre flagship with overseas customers, and drew LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault through its doors. This is how a slow brand became the fastest story in accessible luxury.

A DTC brand breakdown of Wild using the WWW.HER framework (customer, product, marketing, brand story). The Wild refillable deodorant model turned bathroom plastic into the UK's No.1 refill brand, £46.9m in revenue, and a 2025 sale to Unilever, with a female-skewing audience at its core. Here is what sustainable and Chinese brands going global can take from it.