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Google has just put millions of product photographers out of work (but reduced your bill)

Author

Ada at Sellify
February 23, 2026

In partnership with

Happy Monday to all 10,000+ unstoppable Shopify builders! 

Ada here, with your weekly dose of ecommerce insights designed to boost your sales by at least 1% this week.

Here is what is inside today’s edition: 

  • Industry: Sidekick AI gets an administrative promotion 

  • Growth Hack: How to stop losing money on high risk orders Weekly 

  • Challenge: The 60 minute fraud-proofing Audit

  • Trend: Scalloped Rugs

Industry

Industry: Google has just put millions of product photographers out of work

Studio shoots are expensive, UGC isn’t always polished enough…and most Shopify stores don’t have a creative team on payroll.

Google Labs just dropped a tool inside Pomelli called Photoshoot, that basically takes any low-quality product snap and transforms it into a professional-grade studio or lifestyle shot.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Upload your product photo (yes, even a basic one).

  2. Pick a template (studio, lifestyle, etc.).

  3. It generates polished, on-brand visuals automatically.

You can also:

  • Swap backgrounds (e.g “put this in a forest”)

  • Restyle based on another image

  • Paste your product URL and generate a campaign around it

So, if you’ve been putting off a site refresh because of photography costs, the "I can't afford it" excuse just died

…still on AI to outpace your competition

Gaining AI visibility is the single greatest competitive advantage for your brand over the next 10 years…learn how

The science of discovery is shifting away from human search toward AI-mediated intent. The principles remain the same, but the "plumbing" has changed:

  • Protocol compliance

  • Data freshness (15-min cycles)

  • Structured context

  • Agentic trust equity

Yes, it’s complex, high-level infrastructure work. And many e-commerce store owners think they are "AI-ready" because they use ChatGPT to write product descriptions.

But they aren't seeing the revenue shift because they are still treating AI as a copy-pasting tool rather than a decision-making intermediary. If your data is "scraped" rather than "fed" via a protocol, you are invisible to the autonomous buyers of 2026.

Stop being a passive data silo. Ankur Modi, former Systems Architect at Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, is hosting an invite-only session for scaled brands on how to master the Agentic Protocol and ensure your brand (not your competitor) is the #1 recommended answer.

Register your interest

Growth hack

Most fraud losses do not come from stolen inventory. They come from payment timing. A Redditor recently shared:

When you "Auto Capture" payments, you are charged a transaction fee immediately. If that order is later flagged as fraud and you cancel it, most payment processors do not refund that initial fee.

The solution is a simple shift from "Automatic" to "Manual" payment capture. By setting your payments to manual, you authorize the charge but do not actually take the money until you verify the order risk. If a high-risk order comes in, you simply cancel the authorization. Since no funds were actually captured, no transaction fee is charged.

You can pair this with a Shopify Flow to make it hands-off. Set up a flow that automatically cancels any order flagged as "High Risk" before you ever see it. This keeps your store safe and your bank account free from those "ghost" fees that slowly drain your profits.

Tip: If you’re struggling to get organic traffic to your store, use an AI-powered tool to autogenerate SEO-optimized keywords to speed up your ascent to Page 1 on Google result pages.

Challenge

This week, take 60 minutes to protect your margins by making sure you aren't paying for fraudulent orders you never intend to ship.

Step 1 (15 mins): Go to Settings > Payments. Scroll down to "Payment capturing" and change your setting from "Automatic" to "Manual." This ensures you only pay fees on orders you approve.

Step 2 (20 mins): Install the Shopify Fraud Filter app. It is a free tool that allows you to set specific rules to automatically block or flag suspicious behavior before it hits your checkout.

Step 3 (25 mins): Create a simple Shopify Flow. If the "Fraud Analysis" is "High," set the action to "Cancel Order." This automates the rejection of high-risk transactions so you don't have to manually review every red flag.

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Scalloped Rugs

Interior design is shifting from sharp minimalism toward softer, expressive shapes. Scalloped rugs, area rugs with wavy, scalloped borders, have exploded on TikTok recently. They offer a bit of unexpected whimsy without being overwhelming, usually appearing in neutral tones or natural jute materials. Search interest for these rugs and runners is up 2.5x over the last two years, with top-rated versions bringing in $85,000 per month on Amazon.

How your store can ride this trend:

  • The Low-Risk Entry Point:  Large rugs are costly to ship, so start with scalloped runners, bath mats, or smaller accents. Customers are experimenting with small visual upgrades that refresh a space without a full redesign.

  • The Accessories Expansion: You do not need to sell furniture to participate. Scalloped trays, lamps, and pillows let shoppers build the aesthetic piece by piece while increasing your average order value.

  • The Natural Materials Angle: Jute and woven textures dominate viral listings. Emphasize durability and natural materials to position scalloped pieces as practical upgrades, not just decorative trends.

Till next Monday,

Ada