We're live in Las Vegas. Here's everything happening this week.
It's Shoptalk week and the 1800DTC crew is on the ground at Mandalay Bay going all out. 10,000+ operators, founders, and vendors in one building, and this year's theme is Retail in the Age of AI. There's a lot to get into.
But first: come find us. We've got a packed week of events and you do not want to sit these out.
March 24-25 (for brands & vendors): Mandalay Bay Cabana
Come hang, make connections, drink something cold.
March 24th (for brands & vendors): Fight for Charity
Our CEO is stepping into the ring. You genuinely do not want to miss this one.
March 25th (for vendors): 1800DTC Breakfast @ Shoptalk
Start the day right with the people building the tools that power DTC.
March 25th (for brands): The Wild West Shoptalk Happy Hour
Last event of the week and we're going out strong.
If you're in Vegas, come find us. If you're not, we'll bring everything worth knowing back to the inbox next Tuesday.
Now, while everyone's here talking about the future of retail, the industry had a pretty big week. Here's what's moving.
Danone just dropped $1.2 billion on Huel this morning. A DTC-first, plant-based meal replacement brand scooped up by one of the largest food companies on the planet. Big CPG is done watching from the sidelines, and the brands built on owned customer relationships are the ones cashing out. Full breakdown in the Deep Dive.
Tariffs are still squeezing operators hard. 71% of DTC brands have already raised prices. The conversion rate hangover is coming. Vuori and Fabletics both launched denim collections the same week, which is less a fashion moment and more a category ceiling showing its face. And Comfrt is running one of the smartest PDP tests we've seen in a while with two add-to-cart buttons on the same product. All of it in Missed Calls.
Your weekly look at the DTC brands setting the bar and what operators can learn from their playbook.
Huel started in 2014 as a UK brand selling powdered meal replacements to people who wanted to eat healthy but couldn't be bothered to cook. The name is literally "human fuel." And this morning, Danone agreed to buy them for $1.2 billion.
74% average annual revenue growth since 2016 will do that.
So what made Huel the one that got the call? Three things worth paying attention to.
The DTC foundation. Huel built its business through direct online sales before expanding into 25,000+ retail locations. That means they own customer data, repeat purchase relationships, and margin structure that retail-first brands never get to build. Danone called out Huel's digital execution specifically in the announcement. Translation: we want that customer relationship infrastructure.
The timing. GLP-1 drugs have completely reshaped what consumers want: high protein, high fiber, nutrient-dense, convenient. That's Huel's whole pitch. Danone's portfolio (Oikos, Too Good) has been riding this domestically, and Huel is their vehicle to scale it globally.
And the omnichannel sequencing. Huel didn't reluctantly add retail when DTC slowed down. They built the DTC engine first, proved demand, then used retail as a growth accelerator. That's a different posture than most brands take, and it's a big part of why they were worth acquiring rather than just imitated.
Big CPG buying DTC brands isn't new. What's new is the profile of the brands getting nine-figure exits: defensible direct customer relationships, retail presence built on top of that foundation, and a category with real macro tailwinds. That's not luck. That's a playbook.
💡Operator Takeaway: The brands getting acquired at unicorn valuations right now own the customer relationship first and use retail as distribution. Not the other way around. Build your DTC engine like the exit depends on it. Because it does.
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The DTC world moves fast. These are the stories worth your attention. The ones showing where strategy, spend, and consumer trends are headed next.
Most brands treat pre-orders like a confession. Sorry, we're out of stock, but if you want to wait... Comfrt flipped that entirely.
Credit: @DaveDiederen via X
On their product detail page, they're running two add-to-cart buttons simultaneously for the same item: €73.95 for in-stock (ships now), and €48.95 for pre-order (ships June 5). A €25 discount for 10 weeks of patience. That's it. That's the whole mechanic.
What's clever isn't the discount. It's what the structure does. It captures buyers who were about to bounce on price. It generates revenue before inventory even arrives. And it gives you real-time data on exactly how price-sensitive your audience is, split-tested live on your own PDP. The pre-order button isn't a fallback. It's a conversion lever. And for any brand sitting on backorder right now, this is one of the lower-lift tests you can run before your next restock.
If you've been hoping the tariff situation would quietly resolve itself: it hasn't. Broad import duties of 15 to 30% across electronics and apparel, with particular focus on China-sourced goods, are still compressing margins across the DTC ecosystem. The de minimis exemption (which previously let shipments under $800 into the US duty-free) is gone for key Asian import countries. Every shipment now clears customs with a bill attached.
The brands feeling it hardest are exactly who you'd expect: smaller operators with thinner cash buffers, no leverage with suppliers to renegotiate, and customer bases that are already price-sensitive. Survey data from DTC operators shows 49% have seen significant increases in landed product costs. 71% have responded by raising prices. The next shoe to drop: conversion rate pressure as those price increases hit the storefront.
For operators actively navigating this right now, diversifying your supplier base away from China-only sourcing, shifting to DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) shipping for international orders, and being transparent with customers about pricing changes are the three most cited moves that are actually working.
Vuori officially dropped its first women's denim collection this week: a vintage wide-leg jean and oversized denim jacket at $198 and $188 respectively. The brand blended premium denim with Tencel lyocell for a soft, stretchy, vintage feel. Sounds nice. But here's the context: Fabletics launched its own denim collection earlier this month with 11 styles ranging from $80 to $175.
Two athleisure brands, same week, same category. This is what a category ceiling looks like in real time. When brands with $5B+ valuations start chasing denim (a market that Levi's, Madewell, and a thousand DTC brands already own) it tells you they're running out of adjacencies that don't require competing directly against entrenched players. The question for Vuori isn't whether the jeans are good. It's whether "athleisure brand makes jeans" is a compelling enough reason for a consumer to choose them over someone who's been doing this for 150 years.
Between Vuori in denim, Fabletics in denim, lululemon fighting a proxy battle with its own founder, and Alo expanding into lifestyle, activewear brands are collectively having an existential moment. None of these moves are random. They're all responding to the same signal: the consumer who bought into athleisure during the pandemic era has graduated. They still want comfort and performance. But they want it in more contexts than the gym and the grocery run.
The brands that read this correctly are expanding their lifestyle footprint without abandoning what made them credible in the first place. The ones that get it wrong end up with a pair of $200 jeans that nobody asked for. The difference is whether the expansion is led by consumer insight or by a CFO's growth deck.
10,000+ attendees. 200+ speakers. The theme this year is Retail in the Age of AI. If you're not in Las Vegas this week, the important stuff to watch for: how serious operators are actually implementing AI in commerce (versus just talking about it), what the Shopify ecosystem is building around agentic tools, and whether anyone has a coherent answer to the question of what brand discovery looks like when an AI agent does the shopping.
The 1800DTC crew is on the ground all week. We'll be distilling everything worth knowing for next week's send.
Category expansion, tariff pressure, and AI commerce are converging right now into one uncomfortable reality: the brands that survive the next 18 months are the ones with structural advantages. Owned customer relationships, supply chain flexibility, and product credibility that can't be copied with an ad budget. Build accordingly.
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