“We Literally NEVER Do This” (and other BFCM lies)
We literally never do this, futurists.
The discourse leading up to this year’s BFCM in the eCommerce community is finally saying the quiet part out loud: the early DTC giants were ego-driven brand-obsessed giants who believed that they knew better about the nature of human consumption than those who came before us. By omitting 25% of the 4 P’s of marketing, early eCom native brands traded sales growth for smug bragging rights.
We’re glad that era’s behind us, but the fossil record remains; like the stigma to your peer group of leading with discounts. That’s why your inbox is flooded this year with “we never do this.” Yes you do, and saying you don’t erodes trust with your customer.
🔮The Rub: Except, we’ve never ever offered discounts, so we can say it in earnest. So forgive us as we join in the grand tradition of Black Friday, on the first anniversary of our premium subscription, we’re offering our first-ever sale on premium membership.
🛍️First-time members can join Future Commerce Plus for just $10 for your first three months with the code BLACKFRIDAY24. Enter this code on the one-step checkout where you input payment details.
🧐Why join? Well, today we publish the titillating conclusion to Mike Mallazzo’s four-part series: TABULA RASA. This epic conclusion is exclusive to our Future Commerce Plus members through Giving Tuesday. Don’t want to wait? Join now.
Plus, save everyday on merch and print from our shop, including our forthcoming LORE Journal.
— Phillip
P.S. We’re excited to have THE Kate Fannin (Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Esteé Lauder) join us on the podcast to talk about “Return on Experience,” a phrase coined by Jane Lauder, and how to measure and attribute experiential investment at every scale. Listen on Apple or Spotify.
Member Exclusive: China's Long March to Main Street
Mike Mallazzo for Future Commerce
For years, we've talked about China as the world's factory floor—a simplistic narrative that missed the bigger picture. As American commerce operators perfect their TikTok strategies and fret about Temu's Super Bowl ads, a more profound shift is quietly reshaping the industry: Chinese companies aren't just making our products anymore—they're selling, marketing, and culturizing them.
The great game of commerce has moved from arbitrage to geopolitics, and the stakes are no longer just market share, but the very soul of how America shops.
Welcome to commerce's new world order, where your margin is Beijing's opportunity.
Digital Rebellion in the Metaverse. Roblox now encourages its users to bypass app stores when topping up their digital currency, offering a 25% Robux bonus for direct purchases. Rising fees for digital transactions through app store policies mean platforms like Roblox are challenging platform hegemony. This move echoes our predictions about platform independence from last year's forecast episode, reminding us that we’re trending towards Omnimodal customer journeys.
Luxury's Failed Power Couple. The Capri-Tapestry merger collapse signals shifting winds in luxury retail consolidation and fears around upcoming trade policies despite an incoming ‘low-regulatory policy’ administration. Tapestry will fare well post-breakup, primarily due to the strength of the Coach brand with Gen Z.
Doorbell Auteur. Nostalgia aesthetics continue to march forward. Following the trend of Swifties uploading Eras Tour footage taken on 3DS cameras, and copycat PSVITA concert footage, now Jack Harlow weighs in. Harlow’s newest music video features content made on a Ring doorbell video camera, embodying the "lo-fi luxury" trend we've been tracking in our newsletter.
Gifts That Keep on Giving (Us Something to Talk About). The Future Commerce 2024 Gift Guide reads less like a shopping list and more like a cultural anthropologist's field notes on the evolution of contemporary consumption. From the playfully cautionary "Do Not Feed Alligators Coffee" subscription (a missive equally at home in a Florida park or a Portland café) to the monastically meditative Onyx Coffee Advent Calendar, this year's selections chart the increasing sophistication of what we once dismissively called "everyday consumables.”
$50,000 AI Challenge: Solved. An AI agent designed to guard its funds with strict instructions never to transfer them fell victim to a crafty user who persuaded it to send $50,000. The prompt injection and ‘red teaming’ skills are emergent fields in cybersecurity, while AI researchers are engaged in creating systems that can resist external manipulation.
AI vs Scammers. An AI “grandmother” turns the tables on phone fraudsters through delightfully mundane conversation. A virtual English granny, Daisy Harris, powered by AI, is “wreaking havoc” on phone scammers by engaging them in rambling, time-wasting conversations. “Can you repeat that?” Of course, gran.
The Great Firewall Down Under. Australia bans social media for under-16s in a bold but questionable move. The rule will require ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent children from creating accounts, and violations will incur hefty fines of $49.5MM AUD (about $32MM USD) for incidents where the rule is broken. The experience of a ‘monocultural internet’ is slowly withering, while a generation of protections for children and anti-screen-time parenting strategies (like ‘lo-fi girl protocol’) is now emerging.
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