In August of this year, BuzzFeed’s commerce group quietly migrated their apparel merchandising operations away from Shopify Plus. Around this same time, BuzzFeed Reviews launched to compete against the growing strength of affiliate sales-driven publishers like the Wirecutteror Gear Patrol. There is overwhelming data citing a direct relationship between affiliate sales and advertising sales momentum.
As customer acquisition costs continue to rise, younger direct-to-consumer brands are fleeing the constraints of online top funnel advertising for unconventional ways of reaching new consumers. Physical retail has been widely reported on as an alternative to top funnel customer acquisition. With the help of the Alibaba Group, we’ve steered a few well-suited brands towards one of the most promising growth opportunities: Chinese eCommerce. In this report, we detail why Chinese commerce needs to be top of mind for qualified brands looking to expand.
On Tesla’s Model 3 and the Target One demographic. In June of 2018, The Atlantic published an article that articulated a macroeconomic trend that I’ve long felt was a credible undercurrent in retail. There is this cohort of consumers that isn’t quite 1%, yet isn’t quite middle class. These consumers are young executives, they are doctors, lawyers, bankers. The Atlantic goes on to illustrate the data behind their assertion that we are living in what progressive economists are beginning to call “Gilded Age 2.0.” And while politics can influence economic conclusions, there are conclusions that cannot be argued: retail is polarizing its consumer targets.
