Returns are still the line that breaks DTC unit economics
Three years into the post-pandemic correction, returns remain the single biggest hidden cost in direct-to-consumer P&Ls. We look at what's actually working to bring them down.
Section
E-commerce
Marketplaces, DTC, and the economics of selling online.
The authentication arms race in luxury resale
As secondhand luxury volumes grow, the technology and cost of verifying that a handbag is real (and not a very good fake) is becoming the bottleneck.
E-commerceAmazon seller fee creep: the math for 2026
Between FBA increases, referral fee shifts, and the new low-inventory penalty, the all-in cost of selling on Amazon has quietly crept past the breakpoint for several mid-tier brands.
E-commerceCross-border e-commerce after de minimis: who got hit, who pivoted
The end of the $800 de minimis window reshuffled the cross-border map. We track who absorbed the cost, who restructured, and who lost the lane entirely.
E-commerceDTC subscription churn: 2026 benchmarks by category
We pulled together churn data across replenishment, curation, and content-bundle subscription models. The spread between best and worst quartile is wider than most operators think.
The 2025 Walmart–Amazon divergence: two playbooks, same customer
Walmart and Amazon now compete more directly than at any point in either company's history. We map where their 2025 strategies actually conflict and where they don't.
Holiday 2024 postmortem: a softer peak, a harder margin
Top-line numbers said the 2024 holiday season was fine. Margins said something else. We track where the gap shows up in the post-mortem decks operators are circulating internally.
Temu and Shein in 2024: the share grab nobody had a playbook for
Two Chinese e-commerce platforms reshaped US discretionary spending faster than mid-market retailers could respond. We look at what worked, what didn't, and what the second half of 2024 looks like.