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Good morning,
Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:
You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Transwestern, Mor Furniture, and 12d Synergy. 👋
☕ Lavazza's Partnership With Walmart Marketplace & WFS Brews Rapid Growth
📈 Lavazza, a coffee brand, saw more than 200% growth in Walmart Marketplace sales within 18 months of leveraging Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS).*
*Data provided by Lavazza.
Since joining WFS, Lavazza has:
💪 Let WFS do the heavy lifting while you focus on scaling your way.
* sponsored
💰 From Platform Limbo To Tariffs
If 2024 was about efficiency, 2025 was all about resilience.
Trade wars reshaped supply chains. Platforms became unstable overnight. AI advanced faster than most teams could operationalize.
And through it all, ecommerce brands were forced to adapt in real time or fall behind.
From tariffs and TikTok bans to AI disruption and record-breaking BFCM results, here's a rewind of some of the biggest news stories that shaped ecommerce this year so far. 👇
📵 TikTok Goes Dark (Briefly)
TikTok was banned in the U.S., triggering panic, 911 calls, and a wave of “TikTok refugees” migrating to alternative platforms like RedNote.
The shutdown lasted just 14 hours before the U.S. administration issued the first of multiple extensions.
Although there has been talk of U.S. investors stepping in to save TikTok, its fate still remains uncertain.
🤖 The AI Race Heats Up
China stunned the market with DeepSeek, a fully autonomous AI agent positioned as a lower-cost alternative to ChatGPT.
The launch intensified global competition and accelerated AI adoption across ecommerce, media, and operations.
📦 Tariffs Return as the Defining Story
Tariffs dominated headlines all year long:
For brands, pricing pressure and margin volatility became the new normal.
🔍 Google Reinvents Search
Google rolled out major updates: AI Overviews expanded and AI Mode launched, marking the biggest change to Google’s search experience in years.
At the same time, Google confirmed third-party cookies are staying, reinforcing the need for brands to double down on first-party data anyway.
🧠 ChatGPT Becomes A Major Ecommerce Player
ChatGPT launched shopping features and is reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate products.
💄 A Billion-Dollar DTC Exit
Hailey Bieber’s skincare brand Rhode sold to e.l.f. Beauty for $1B, proving premium DTC brands with cultural relevance can still command massive exits.
⚖️ Supreme Court Weighs In on Tariffs
The Supreme Court reviewed the legality of the tariffs, opening the door to potential refunds if overturned, a closely watched decision for import-heavy brands.
🛍️ BFCM Breaks Records (Again)
Despite economic uncertainty, consumers are still spending:
What did we learn in 2025? Stability is far from guaranteed.
Platforms shift, policies change, and costs rise fast.
🎧 Building The Omnipresent Brand (Part 2): Where Is The Line?
Aves continues the three-part series by going all the way back to 1916 to explain why Dadaism exists at all and why this 100-year-old art movement relates to what's happening right now in internet culture, AI, and DTC advertising.
What you’ll learn:
✔️ Why periods of chaos always produce absurd art (and absurd ads)
✔️ How meme culture mirrors Dadaism more than traditional advertising
✔️ What AI content is forcing brands to reckon with about originality
✔️ Understanding the “line” of your brand
🎧 Want to dive in? Click here to listen on Spotify.
Products failing to convert?
You may need to swap the first image in your carousel.
CRO expert Dave Diederen shares that the first image sets the tone for the PDP and how a bland shot can cost you.
🎧 How an AI CMO Can Jump Your Revenue 25%
In this episode of the DTC Podcast, we sit down with Josip Begic, CEO and co-founder of Lebesgue, to unpack how AI is reshaping ecommerce from attribution and diagnostics to a brand‑new top‑of‑funnel channel most teams aren’t tracking yet.
Josip shares how Lebesgue tracks your brand’s and competitors’ data, then uses Henri AI to not only analyze performance but also explain what to do next.
Rather than hyper-focusing on one channel (e.g. Meta, Google, email), Henri AI analyzes the entire system to spot hidden breakpoints and pivot before revenue drops.
What you’ll learn:
▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube here.
🎧 Or click here to listen on Spotify.
📥 Got a B2B Biz?
Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 150k brand leaders and founders this year. Talk to our team to learn more.
DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.
Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.
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