by stevenpdennis | May 24, 2022 | Digitally Native Vertical Brand, Direct to Consumer, Profitless Prosperity
Warby Parker’s disappointing earnings report is just more evidence of what I call the profitless prosperity of disruptor brands. They join a growing list of retail innovators that are posting strongly growing revenues while their profits continue to worsen. Given that...
by stevenpdennis | Apr 11, 2022 | Direct to Consumer, E-commerce, Harmonized
When it comes to the vast and complex world of retail, nothing in the past three decades has been more disruptive than the advent and wide-spread adoption of online shopping. Yet, the e-commerce of today is often vastly different from what began to re-define the...
by stevenpdennis | Mar 25, 2022 | Digitally Native Vertical Brand, Direct to Consumer, Profitless Prosperity
Warby Parker is the latest “digitally native vertical brand” (DNVB) to disappoint investors, continuing a striking, but increasingly familiar, pattern of profitless prosperity from disruptor brands. In just the past few weeks, Stitch Fix, Allbirds, Figs, and the...
by stevenpdennis | Mar 16, 2022 | Branding, Digitally Native Vertical Brand, Direct to Consumer
Last week Stitch Fix—the online personalized styling service—reported its quarterly earnings. Sales exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, but losses widened compared to a year earlier. The company also provided an outlook that suggested future growth would be difficult...
by stevenpdennis | Sep 14, 2020 | Collapse of the Middle, Direct to Consumer, Remarkable Retail
Traditional retail, at its core, relies largely on being a middleman. The typical multi-brand retailer sits between the manufacturing community and its target consumers, performing valuable intermediary tasks like selecting the right products for the markets it...
