Online business in 2026 is no longer just about choosing a model (dropshipping, affiliate, SaaS) and launching advertising campaigns. The algorithmic intermediation layer between the seller and the buyer has thickened to the point of altering the fundamentals of acquisition. Any strategy that ignores this structural shift accumulates a backlog that is difficult to overcome.
Agentic commerce: making your offer readable by AI agents
According to Fevad and KPMG, the term used is agentic commerce: an intermediation where AI agents filter offers before the customer even sees the store. The data is telling: 58% of buyers already use AI agents as decision aids before purchase, 27% at the time of transaction, and 35% after purchase for follow-up.
In practical terms, this means that a product description written solely for the human eye loses visibility against recommendation algorithms. We recommend structuring each listing with machine-readable data: standardized attributes (weight, dimensions, composition, compatibility), unambiguous delivery and return conditions, verified customer reviews with aggregated scores.
Price transparency becomes a ranking criterion for these agents. A price displayed excluding taxes, hidden fees, or an opaque payment tunnel leads to an immediate drop in filtered results. Those who delve deeper into business on Les Carnets du Web find this observation applied to several verticals of French e-commerce.
DSA and DMA: European regulatory constraints on platforms
The Digital Services Act is fully applicable from February 17, 2024, to all online intermediary service providers operating in the EU. The Digital Markets Act targets gatekeepers (large platforms) and imposes obligations for interoperability, non-discrimination, and algorithmic transparency.
An online business backed by a marketplace must audit its regulatory dependence. If your main channel is a designated gatekeeper platform, the DMA can change the conditions for indexing, data collection, or targeted advertising overnight. We observe that the majority of French digital entrepreneurs have not yet mapped this risk.
DMA points of vigilance for an e-commerce merchant
- Check if your main marketplace is on the list of gatekeepers designated by the European Commission, which conditions the rules for data sharing and ranking
- Anticipate the obligation to offer alternative payment systems on certain platforms, reducing captivity but also negotiated margins
- Document your own content moderation practices and complaint handling, as the DSA imposes transparency obligations even on small players
Ignoring these texts is akin to building a business model on foundations that the regulator can crack at any moment.
Customer acquisition: going beyond the SEO, SEA, social media triptych
The classic reflex remains to distribute the budget between organic search, paid advertising, and content on social networks. This approach still works, but its marginal return is decreasing in saturated niches.
Optimization for answer engines is the underutilized lever of 2026. Transactional queries are gradually migrating towards conversational interfaces. A site whose content is structured in machine-readable data (tagged FAQs, comparison tables, complete technical sheets) captures qualified traffic that competing pages, optimized for keywords alone, miss.
Affiliate marketing remains a profitable channel as long as you select partners aligned with your segment. The key is not the volume of links but the contextual relevance of each recommendation. An affiliate specialized in your niche converts significantly better than a generalist with a large audience.
Content and value creation for the digital market
The sale of digital products (training, templates, tools) has a structural advantage: nearly zero marginal distribution cost after initial production. This allows for market testing with limited investment before iterating.
We recommend validating demand through a presale or a landing page before producing the full content. Too many entrepreneurs invest months in an online training course without having verified that their target audience would pay for this specific expertise.
Tools and technical infrastructure for a sustainable online project
The choice of the technical stack determines scalability. A CMS coupled with a customer relationship management (CRM) tool and a payment solution compliant with DSP2 forms the minimal foundation. Adding a behavioral analysis layer (heatmaps, session recordings) allows for identifying friction points in the conversion funnel.
- Prefer a headless architecture if you are targeting multiple sales channels (website, mobile app, marketplaces) to centralize the product catalog
- Automate customer review management with a tool that solicits feedback post-purchase and aggregates ratings, which directly feeds into readability by AI agents
- Implement tracking of net margin by acquisition channel, not just revenue, to allocate marketing budgets accurately
The profitability of a digital activity is measured by the net margin per channel, not by gross sales volume. A channel that generates revenue but consumes it all in acquisition costs has no strategic value.
This dynamic mechanically attracts more competition. Entrepreneurs who structure their offers for AI agents, master their regulatory exposure, and measure their profitability by channel have an operational advantage that simple marketing execution cannot compensate for.
