shopify

More Shopify stores are closing than opening in mid-2025. That stat alone has rattled DTC circles—and the 20–25% YoY revenue dip for smaller brands in June only confirms what operators have felt all quarter: this isn’t just a summer slowdown, it’s a real shakeout . “The dip in Shopify [growth] for the first time in a long time is painful.” — Rishabh Jain via The DTC Times After years of easy growth, cheap ads, and pandemic-fueled demand, a wave of unsustainable brands is folding. The DTC ecosy

Amazon turned Prime Day into a 96-hour event this year (July 8–11), and the rest of the internet had to play catch-up. With $23.8B in projected U.S. online spend across all retailers—a 28.4% jump YoY—it was less a shopping holiday and more a mid-summer retail land grab (Adobe). But the extended format changed shopper behavior. Day 1 sales were down 41% for one major Amazon partner, thanks to what they called the “treasure hunt effect”—customers browsing, waiting, and pulling the trigger later i

The numbers don’t lie. After a relatively strong Q1, many DTC brands on Shopify are watching sales stall out this summer. But is it just another sluggish July—or the start of a broader reset? From rising tariffs and margin pressure to consumer confidence cratering, the mid-2025 picture is muddier than most expected. And while some operators are still growing, others are quietly pulling back, shelving product launches, or shutting down entirely. Here’s what the data is telling us—and what to do

DTC operators love their acronyms: LTV, CAC, MER. But here’s one that actually deserves a spot in your playbook: P2P. Peer-to-peer sales isn’t about affiliates. It’s not multi-level marketing. And it’s definitely not new. You’ve seen it happen a thousand times—someone raves about a product in a WhatsApp group or answers a “where’d you get that?” comment in a TikTok reply. P2P is just people convincing people to buy. What’s changed is how DTC brands are now designing for those moments—using too

Most DTC brands are trying to squeeze 10% growth out of bloated acquisition costs. A few are casually racing to $50 million. In a June 19 breakdown, Eli Weiss dissected the new class of rocketship brands—DTC startups hitting $30–$50M in revenue within one or two years (Eli Weiss). Think AG1, OLIPOP, Create, Mixtiles. No gimmicks. No massive funding rounds. Just smart execution on boring fundamentals. We revisited that playbook in light of July’s market headwinds—and the pattern still holds. He

The “your customers won’t download it” era of branded apps is over. In the past week alone, multiple Shopify operators have shared wins from rolling out mobile apps—not just to look more polished, but to unlock free push messaging, simplify reorders, and drive loyalty on autopilot. One founder summed it up: “Push notifications are the strongest weapon in our arsenal” (Tapcart). With over 70% of Shopify checkouts now happening on mobile (eCommerce Fastlane), and SMS/email retention costs clim

When a brand hits $100M in revenue with a third of its team overseas, people pay attention. That’s exactly what True Classic pulled off—cutting traditional hiring costs while scaling at speed by pairing offshore talent with AI. And they’re not the only ones. In late June 2025, one theme kept surfacing across ecom summits and founder threads: lean teams are going global. Operators are building “cyborg orgs”—part AI, part overseas firepower—to out-execute bloated competitors without blowing their

If you’re still throwing $10K+ at polished ads in 2025, you’re playing last year’s game. Shopify brands are getting smarter. They’re ditching big-budget influencer deals and stale Facebook creative for something leaner, more scalable, and more believable: micro-influencer UGC. According to StackInfluence, 86% of U.S. marketers are now betting on micro-influencers—and for good reason. Performance is stronger, content is fresher, and customers trust it more. “A lot of UGC ads are just ‘acting g

The cookie’s crumbling—and for Shopify brands, that's not a punchline. Google will phase out third-party cookies by the end of 2024 (CookieInformation), and platforms like Apple and Meta are tightening data privacy even further. The days of cheap, passive tracking are gone. The smart DTC brands? They're not panicking. They’re pivoting—by collecting and activating zero-party data: information customers choose to share. That shift isn’t just compliant—it’s a retention superpower. Why Zero-Party

Tariffs are up. Ad costs are rising. And mid-sized DTC brands are feeling the squeeze. If you're not actively tightening your pricing strategy in 2025, you're already behind. The good news? Small moves—upsells, bundles, pricing psychology—can drive big profit. The 2025 Margin Crunch: Why Pricing Strategy Just Got Urgent Margins are under pressure from every angle: IssueImpact on DTC BrandsTariffs10–145% increase in import costsAd CostsOngoing CAC inflation across channelsInflationHigher pr

In 2025, bloated app stacks are quietly eroding margins. DTC brands are realizing that “more tools” doesn’t mean more growth—just more drag. Thanks to Shopify’s Summer ’25 Edition, you no longer need to duct-tape half your backend together. The best operators are simplifying, not stacking (Tapcart). Why It’s Time to Audit Your Shopify Stack Running a mid-sized Shopify store often means juggling dozens of apps—most of which promise revenue, few of which deliver. Operators are now flipping the

Customer acquisition costs keep climbing. And yet, for most brands, 70–80% of first-time buyers never come back (Eli Weiss). That stat alone is a red flag for any operator chasing profitability post-iOS14. The math is simple: if you’re not converting the customers you already paid for, your margins are leaking. Retention isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s where the margin lives. The One-and-Done Problem Here’s what DTC brands are really facing: * 80–90% of customers buy once and disappear (Eli We