In this episode, we kick things off with a Black Friday/Cyber Monday reality check.
On the surface, U.S. shoppers hit a record $11.8B on Black Friday (up ~9% YoY)… but we dig into how that money was spent. We talk about Buy Now, Pay Later usage surging to around 9% of purchases, 41% of users being Gen Z, and a wild 38% of households earning over $100K using BNPL for BFCM. Add in data showing roughly 95% of sales were financed and 67% of shoppers don’t plan to pay off their cards in 30 days, plus 25% of BNPL users now financing groceries, and the picture starts to look less like “vibes are back” and more like “the consumer is bleeding.”
From there, we pivot to a full-on love letter to Shopify. We unpack the Cyber Monday “outage” drama—why merchants couldn’t log in but checkouts still worked—and why, despite the Twitter outrage cycle, our take is: Tobi and Harley owe you nothing. We celebrate the insane BFCM live globe / pinball experience, the sheer volume of GMV flowing through Shopify, and why there’s still no realistic alternative for most DTC brands. Along the way, we touch on Meta’s Ray-Ban push and the insane built-in arbitrage when you own both the ad rails and the product.
Then we zoom out into survival and opportunity in 2025–2026 ecommerce:
Rising ad costs and why the math simply won’t work for a lot of brands without an unfair advantage
Why we both think live shopping is the next big frontier (TikTok Shop, Whatnot, HexClad’s builds, QVC 2.0 in vertical video)
The opportunity to build “live selling studios” packed with college-age hosts turning live selling into the new door-to-door sales career
Shereen’s line that “live shopping is the new storefront” and why brands are currently bombing it “like a bad Zoom call”
We also nerd out on Nano Banana Pro and the new wave of AI image tools that can create photo-realistic, iPhone-quality “shots” on demand—and what that means for one-person brands, creative testing, and the cost of photo shoots. Finally, we touch on supplements and formats: Gruns expanding into a full family of products with new sub-brands (and the branding risk of confusing names), and why we’re both bullish on strips as the next evolution beyond pills, powders, and gummies.
If you care about DTC, BFCM performance, the real state of the consumer, and how to stay alive (and even win) in a world of rising ad costs and AI disruption, this episode will give you plenty to think about—and a few plays to steal.
10 Takeaways from BFCM
Buy Now Pay Later services are here to stay.
Economic concerns grow as more consumers rely on financing options for everyday purchases, like groceries.
Shopify faced backend downtime during Cyber Monday, but everyone should be happy because we all made money.
Record spending during Black Friday was influenced by inflation and price increases rather than an all-time high in consumer confidence.
2026 is the year of live shopping.
Nano Banana Pro is a game changer, allowing anyone to create high-quality marketing materials quickly and affordably.
The 'one man brand' (or agency) is becoming more feasible with advancements in AI.
New product launches, like Gruns' pre-workout gummies, reflect the ambition to dominate their landscape (albeit’s the way they’ve chosen to do so is debatable).
The confused customer never buys.
Brands must stop being boring immediately.
Podcast Chapters
00:00 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Insights
05:03 The Rise of Buy Now Pay Later Services
09:17 Economic Disparities and Consumer Behavior
11:42 Shopify's Performance and User Experience
17:50 Record Spending and Inflation Concerns
23:45 The Future of Advertising and Live Shopping
26:32 The Rise of Live Shopping
31:03 Interactive Selling Strategies
35:03 AI in E-commerce: A Game Changer
41:11 Innovations in Supplement Delivery