Open tabs: The retail floor as a pop-up economy, DoorDash x Shopify, & ChatGPT vs. Sephora associates
Plus: What happens when you axe your entire assortment and focus on championing just one SKU.
From where we stand, the product news cycle holds the attention span of someone who just got out of a cold plunge. So naturally, every brand appears to be singing in perfect four-part harmony: where else can we be? 🎤 🎵
The brands grabbing our seven seconds of interest are finding footholds in unexpected territories, and moving so rapidly that no one has time to tell them their ideas are a little weird.
The world’s largest soda company trademarking a word that sounds like a Dad-sneeze, for example. Or shoes and salads carpooling to your place (HOV lane?).
Want to dive deeper into that and so much more? Join us along with fellow founders and operators in Philly tonight! We saved you a seat further down the scroll.
Would you be strong enough to axe 99% of your assortment and pivot your business to support (and champion!) a single SKU? An interesting look into what happens when you do just that.
DoorDash just integrated natively into Shopify's App Store, which means any brick-and-mortar Shopify merchant in the US can flip on same-day delivery in about as many clicks as it takes to add a sales channel.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup was a BIG retail moment, with Bank of America data showing consumer discretionary spending up 6.3% year over year in June and Target moving 2.4x more product in host market stores.
Brands like P.F. Candle Co. are inviting smaller brands to host pop-ups in its stores, outperforming normal weekends by 34%…A 10% hosting cut doesn't hurt either.
Kate Daykin of Pulse Check walked into Sephora, consulted ChatGPT instead of a store associate, and came home with a big glossy Q for retailers: why are customers talking to their phones instead of your humans?
The Endless Commerce x Philly DTC Happy Hour is tonight, July 22nd! 🎉
Got a brand? Have questions? Feel like flexing your fluency in EDI? Come on over — no pitches or agendas, just good convos with new friends, drinks, and light bites.
Sign up here, and see you soon!
Chris Kolbe spent 30+ years as a senior executive at Ralph Lauren, J.Crew, Original Penguin, Lands' End, and Kohl's. That means he knows exactly how the industry works, and what it's been getting away with.
After decades of watching apparel shift to petroleum-based synthetics, he left to build HyperNatural: a performance apparel brand made from bio-based materials. The flagship fabric, HyperCool Jade, is built from Supima cotton, jade stone, and crab shells.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like to bet your career on an idea your entire industry has totally ignored, this one's for you.
