Hey Cowboys,
Happy Tuesday! A new round of DTC, retail, tech, and ecommerce news are coming your way today.
Today’s lineup 👇 and stories.
Functional Drinks, Founder Ghostwriting & Creator Community
TJ Bongiorno - Founder, The Outgoing Co.
Ryan Solomon - CEO, Density Content
Brett Dashevsky - Founder, Creator Economy NYC
McDonald’s & Walmart: Dynamic Pricing
McDonald's AI pricing engine sets each restaurant's prices based on what customers in the area are "willing to pay." The same week, Walmart CEO John Furner promised, "We don't set different prices based on who you are or the time of day, and we won't."
In Fresno, one company store sells a Big Mac for $5.69, and another two miles away charges $6.89, a 21% premium. Reuters couldn't tie it to the engine.
Franchisees set their own prices, but five owners say headquarters pushes the tool, and pricing non-compliance now shows up in business reviews.
Sparky users are up 70% and spend 40% more per order. Furner says Walmart won't use what shoppers tell Sparky to raise prices.
Walmart's 2023 shelf-label patent covers pricing off your cart: "If a customer has tuna fish, they may be offered a different price for mayonnaise."
If McDonald's makes this work, every retailer with a pricing team will want the same engine. Walmart has promised it won't go there while holding a patent that describes exactly how.
Top Stories: Best Buy's 10,000-SKU TikTok Shop, Braze Sues Frost Buddy, Muse Gave Out an Address
Best Buy opens a TikTok Shop storefront in late October with close to 10,000 products, and checkout stays inside the app. It fulfills every order and takes returns in store or by mail, which most TikTok Shop sellers can't offer.
The launch lands right before the holidays, at a size well past a test run
Best Buy Ads clients can run creator videos as paid shoppable ads
Best Buy has its own marketplace and still rents TikTok's. Ulta did the same in March
Brock Mammoser says Braze is trying to sue Frost Buddy now that the brand has stopped using it. For now, that's all that's public: one post, with no complaint spelling out the claim.
His line: "We love when software vendors do that after you leave"
He puts Frost Buddy at $80M in 2025 and calls it the top kitchen brand on TikTok Shop
This is separate from the BruMate patent fight, which already closed
Toronto YouTuber Matt Robb let Muse run a Facebook Marketplace listing. It gave a buyer his building's street address, knocked CA$5 off the asking price, and told the buyer he was home when he wasn't, so nobody came downstairs.
Muse agreed to CA$10 for a Logitech MX Keys Mini listed at CA$15.
At 9:27 p.m., the agent replied, "Yep, I'm here." The buyer said he'd driven half an hour
Muse blamed an auto-reply Robb had approved, then admitted he never said yes to sharing the address
ROKT AFTERSELL (Make More Profit with ROKT Aftersell)
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If you're already getting orders, you should be getting more out of them.
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Ecomm Cowboy is the go-to live show for ecommerce operators, breaking down the latest DTC, retail, and AI news while interviewing the founders and executives building today's fastest-growing brands.
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Made Possible By:
AppLovin - Find your next million customers.
Seguno - the Shopify-native marketing suite for brands that run it themselves.
Postscript - Make more money from every SMS message.
Outersignal- Know Your Customers. Grow Your Business.
Northbeam - Measure the “unmeasurable,” make your marketing profitable.
Rokt Aftersell - More profit from the orders you’re already getting.
Universal Ads - TV ads that deliver for performance marketers.
Richpanel - The AI helpdesk that saves you headaches (and money).
SATHI - Affiliate attribution beyond last-click commissions.
Slash - A better business banking platform.
Trendtrack - Track competitors' winning marketing strategies daily.
Tie - The internet’s #1 shopper ID platform.
Proppel - The best recruitment agency for ecom brands and agencies.
See you on the stream,
Ecomm Cowboy Team