Your Chain Wallet Has Been Disconnected: A Lament for Volcom
Welcome to Friday, futurists.
It’s a bit late to look back to Monday this week, but what the heck, why not?
I caught up to the 1993 classic Groundhog Day this week. Like Bill Murray's Phil Connors waking up to "I Got You Babe" for the umpteenth time, we find ourselves once again in that cyclical ritual of retail earnings season. Or should we say yearnings season – where every quarter we desperately search for signs that winter (recession) is either coming or going.
It's more like yearnings season because—at least if Amazon is a bellwether—the consumer sector is strong.
Meanwhile, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach sounded bullish in their own earnings call, saying that the consumer sector was strong, with affluent shoppers benefiting from wealth effects and mass-market buyers supported by labor markets.
This time around, our retail Punxsutawney Phil – Amazon – emerged from its earnings burrow to predict a spring of consumer confidence, showing a shadow-casting 10% growth, driven by holiday sales and advertising ( which accounted for a nearly 20% lift of its own).
This almost makes up for them naming their AI Rufus, which still rhymes with Dufus. Almost.
Despite what the hustle bros on LinkedIn and Twitter tell you, the “retail sector” is still just a handful of companies. Amazon, Walmart, and Costco accounted for 40–50% of U.S. retail sales growth in 2024.
All eyes now look to Walmart (Feb 20) and Costco (March 6) for key economic indicators for consumer confidence. The eCommerce sector? We’re looking to Shopify (Feb 11).
Watch out for that first step; it's a doozy!
— Phillip
The Great Mobile Order Reckoning. New CEO Brian Niccol keeps winning by doing the most obvious thing. In a shocking twist that surprises absolutely no one, Starbucks discovers infinite mobile orders don't equal infinite barista bandwidth. “The Starbucks Coffee Company” (that’s their new name) is now limiting mobile orders to a maximum of 12 items per order and is limiting some customizations.
Our Take: This will take some fun out of the r/starbucks subreddit. Half of the content there is unhinged mobile orders.
We’re So Back / It’s So Over. The action sports industry's last gasp of mall relevance comes crashing down as Billabong, Quiksilver, and Volcom shutter all U.S. locations. The closure of these surf-culture touchstones isn't just about retail economics—it's about the death of a particularly American breed of manufactured authenticity. Someone tell the ghost of Jean Baudrillard that the simulation of surf culture has finally crashed against the shores of late-stage retail.
Late Capitalism Never Tasted So Mid. Post Malone teams up with Oreo for a salted caramel Super Bowl flex. Posty trades his signature Bud Light for biscuits in the latest celebrity-snack-industrial-complex play, complete with AR experiences, because we apparently haven’t learned anything since the 2022 QR code mania.
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