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Introducing THE FUTURE NOW

PLUS: Dashboards as an Aesthetic
November 8, 2024

Our last member-exclusive brief is now available to everyone. 

Welcome to Friday, futurists. 

A shorter letter today as we have a few pieces for you to catch up on before the weekend. But first, if you’re in Miami and you’re a brand leader we have an opportunity for you to join me at our Miami eCommerce Summit Salon, taking place on Wednesday evening. 

Reply to this email for consideration. 

Next week Thursday, I am hosting our first collaborative fiction experience for executives in the Travel and Hosptiality industry. There’s more information below, please read through and consider joining us for our first installment of THE FUTURE NOW.

🆓Today, we’re dropping the gate on last week’s record-breaking analysis of CPI data from contributor Amy Silino. Our first interactive report shows the effects of compounding interest and how it directly relates to the state of the ‘vibecession.’ Check it out, it’s worth your time. 

🧠If you’re not a member of Future Commerce Plus, you’re missing out on exclusive briefings and bonus content that you won’t find anywhere else, including our entire playback of 2024’s VISIONS Summit content

👋If you haven’t completed your profile, we’d love to get to know you. By completing your profile we’ll be able to better target you for content that is personalized for your role and opportunities in your regions. 

📖Weekend Reads. The internet enabled people in Wisconsin to buy anything and everything from a store in New York; but you can’t shop the same way you can in New York. This has been the Madison Avenue Problem. Until now. The ‘third epoch of AI,’ unlocks a new, more native, experience altogether. Check out Mike Mallazzo’s third installment of TABULA RASA, a new column for Future Commerce subscribers.

— Phillip

Shopify's BFCM Dashboard: Shopify achieved a peak of $1.6MM in sales per minute on Black Friday 2023, celebrated on the “world’s largest outdoor ad unit.” The visual of its BFCM dashboard on the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas underscored Shopify's dominance in holiday sales​. Now, Shopify gives us a peek behind the scenes of how it was done on their engineering blog.

Our Take: Shopify wasn’t the only commerce business that launched a BFCM dashboard; Stripe also had a hacker terminal that showed their transaction volume for developers in the same holiday season 2023. 

Call it the “Spotify Wrapped”-ification of everything, we now have data literacy in tandem with a heightened visual experience around those very dashboards. They have become an aesthetic: highly visual, data-driven, and sharable. 

But the larger meta-trend is that dashboards and analytics of consumption are breaking into both business and consumer media. Every brand—from Starbucks to Spotify—is helping consumers measure (and compete) over their consumption.

Pictured: Lengthy shopper journeys are culminating on Pinterest. Data: Future Commerce Insights.

Pinterest’s Rising Influence on eCommerce: With Pinterest's Q3 earnings showcasing an 18% revenue increase and 11% more active users, shoppers are increasingly turning to the platform for longer shopping journeys. 42% of Gen Z users are "always shopping" on the platform, and the likelihood of buying saved items is 7X higher. Our New ModesReport stated that visual discovery platforms like Pinterest are pivotal in the buyer journey. These apps deliver tailored recommendations and dynamic content that drive consumer choice with minimal friction, helping brands capitalize on intent-driven shopping​.

AI Replacing Journalists? Perplexity’s CEO stirred controversy by offering the AI-powered Perplexity as a replacement for striking New York Times staff. This type of posturing will be a growing concern as AI is employed in sensitive fields like journalism. We expect this to intensify the debate on technology’s place in the news​, especially as every industry wrestles with the human impact of AI-driven productivity tools vs. organized labor.

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