Revenue's Finally Climbing (Without Discount Wars)

Your Weekly DTC Industry Roundup

Another week in the ecommerce trenches, and it's been a wild ride …

Performance is finally bouncing back after months of brutal conditions, but not everyone's celebrating. While some brands are seeing revenue climb without relying on heavy discounts, others are stuck in AI customer service hell that makes you want to throw your laptop out the window.

Here's everything you may have missed from the e-commerce world over the past week or so:

• Revenue growth is back (+5.47% YoY) and brands are pulling back on discounts for the first time in months
• Amazon just became everyone's fulfillment partner — including their biggest competitors like Walmart and Shopify
• Shopify's AI support created an endless loop that prevents merchants from ever talking to humans
• The Fed cut rates for the first time since 2022, which could juice holiday spending
• Plus, a simple product growth framework that's helping brands find their next big winner

Let's dive in …

Sponsor

Unlock Post-Purchase Profit Before BFCM Hits

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Market Performance

DTC Revenue Rebounds as Discount Wars Cool Down

After months of brutal margin compression, brands are finally seeing light …

New data shows revenue jumped +5.47% year-over-year over the last 28 days, with new customer revenue climbing +2.92%. That's a massive turnaround from earlier this year when that metric was down -1.50% and had everyone questioning if consumers were tapped out.

Even better? This growth came with less discounting. Brands offered 10.06% discounts compared to 9.58% last year — still up, but way less aggressive than the 11.17% year-over-year spike we saw in the first half of 2025.

Consumer sentiment is recovering too. The percentage of people preferring to save over spend hit record highs earlier this year, but it's dropping fast. Purchase intent is back to normal levels after bottoming out in January.

The takeaway? Customers are ready to spend again, and you don't need to slash prices to make it happen.

Read more details

Platform Wars

Amazon Becomes Everyone's Warehouse (Even Their Enemies)

Plot twist nobody saw coming …

Amazon just expanded Multi-Channel Fulfillment to support orders from Walmart, Shopify, and Shein. Yeah, you read that right — Amazon will now pick, pack, and ship orders for their biggest competitors.

For brands, this is huge. You can maintain one inventory pool across all sales channels while using Amazon's delivery network to reach customers everywhere they shop. Early data shows 19% fewer stockouts and 12% faster inventory turnover when using this setup.

Amazon's also launching Global Warehousing in major manufacturing hubs (starting with China and Vietnam), plus they're using AI to cut customs paperwork time by 50%.

This isn't just about convenience — it's Amazon positioning themselves as the infrastructure layer for all of ecommerce, regardless of where the sale happens.

Read full details

Customer Service

Shopify's AI Creates Customer Support Hell Loop

When AI customer service goes horribly wrong …

A Shopify merchant's nightmare went viral after documenting 20 failed attempts to reach human support. The AI system kept acknowledging it couldn't solve technical issues, then redirected users back to … more AI systems.

The merchant just needed help updating an Authorize.net payment gateway, basic stuff that required 30 seconds of human help. Instead, they got trapped in what the community called "AI loop hell" where different bots would deny access to humans despite admitting they couldn't help.

This isn't isolated. Even Shopify Plus customers paying $300+ monthly are reporting support quality has tanked since the company mandated AI usage across all departments in April.

The really surprising part? The Reddit community solved the problem in minutes while official support failed completely.

See the breakdown

Economic Trends

Fed Rate Cut Could Juice Holiday Spending

First rate cut since 2022 might save your Q4 …

The Federal Reserve dropped rates to 4.00-4.25% in mid-September, easing borrowing costs for both consumers and businesses. Retail economists see this as a positive signal for holiday spending, especially after a year of economic uncertainty.

Lower rates typically mean cheaper credit card debt, easier business loans, and more consumer spending power. The timing couldn't be better for brands gearing up for BFCM and holiday campaigns.

The cut came as inflation cooled and the labor market softened — exactly the conditions that usually lead to increased consumer spending. Whether it'll actually translate to higher sales remains to be seen, but early indicators look promising.

Track the impact

Growth Strategy

The Product Framework That's Printing Money

Stop launching products that flop …

Growth expert Mehtab just dropped a framework that's helping brands find their next big winners. His approach focuses on 12 key questions before developing anything new, starting with product-channel fit.

The money insight? Most brands think they have a $1B total addressable market, but when you factor in retail channel requirements and pricing constraints, it shrinks to $200M fast. Products that work on your website might bomb in retail because the economics don't work.

His framework covers everything from knockoff defensibility to seasonal balance to working capital requirements. The brands using this systematic approach are launching fewer products but seeing way higher success rates.

The best part? You can validate most ideas with 500 units and a landing page in 30 days before committing serious cash.

See more here

Podcast

Is Anyone Making Enough Creative?

In this week’s episode of The DTC Hotline, Richard “The Professor” Gaffin is joined by Tony “The Chopper” Chopp (VP of Paid Media) and Luke “The Weatherman” Austin (VP of Ecommerce Strategy) to answer the toughest operator questions … live from the Hotline.

They tackle:

• How to actually scale creative production (and why most brands get it wrong)
• What Loop Earplugs is doing right, and how to replicate their model
• Why relying on one team for all your ad creative will cap your performance
• What a balanced budget between creative and media spend really looks like
• How incrementality works (with metaphors involving McDonald’s scales, butcher shops, and Amazon)
• How to operate brands with long purchase windows without chasing your tail in Meta
• The case for the Profit Engineer and why the media ecosystem is collapsing (in a good way)

This is where your ecommerce questions get answered — direct, practical, and unfiltered.

📞 Call or text us your questions: 866-DTC-2263

Watch now

Final Thoughts

What This Means For You

Here's what smart operators are taking away from all this noise …

The revenue rebound shows consumer demand is real again, but the brands winning aren't the ones discounting hardest. They're the ones who stayed disciplined through the tough months and are now positioned to capture growth without destroying margins.

Amazon's multi-channel fulfillment expansion proves platform wars are evolving. Instead of trying to lock brands into exclusive relationships, the winners are becoming infrastructure layers that make money regardless of where sales happen.

The Shopify support nightmare is a warning shot about over-relying on AI without proper human backup systems. Efficiency gains mean nothing if you can't solve actual customer problems.

And that product framework? It's a reminder that growth comes from systematic thinking, not gut feelings or copying what worked for someone else.

The real pattern here is separation. Brands with solid fundamentals are pulling away from those still winging it. Consumer confidence is returning, but it's not evenly distributed.

While everyone else is debating whether the economy is strong or weak …

The winners are quietly building systems that work in both scenarios.