Hey Cowboys,
Happy Wednesday! Let's get into today’s show.
Today’s lineup 👇 and stories.
The Lineup
Nate Lagos - Founder, Shootin’ Doubles
Brian Krug - Director of Customer Success, Seguno
Zach Zelner - Co-Founder, OuterSignal
Lukas Pakter - Founder, Trybe
Shopify Acquires Shop.com: $100M
Market America confirmed this week it sold the Shop.com domain to Shopify, and domain investor Drew Rosener says the deal closed at $100 million for the domain alone. Market America held Shop.com for 15 years before handing it over and has since moved its own e-commerce operations to MarketAmerica.com, which now runs on Shopify's platform.
Rosener says he learned of the deal months ago from someone outside the transaction, and Market America hasn't disclosed terms itself.
At $100M for the domain alone, the sale would top AI.com's $70M sale from earlier this year as the largest publicly disclosed domain-only deal.
Rosener's take: "Your domain = your brand = the last moat."
If a three-letter dot-com goes for nine figures, the land grab in e-commerce isn't just platforms and ad inventory anymore. It addresses people who already trust.
Top Stories: Target's Price Cuts, Lululemon's Slide, Why CX Matters
Target has just cut prices on 2,000 items. The Holiday Price War Has Started.
Target cut prices on about 2,000 items across home and apparel, part of 10,000 total price cuts over the past year. Women's long-sleeve tees dropped from $15 to $12, and kids' rain and winter boots are down an average of 15% year over year.
CMO Cara Sylvester: "We've demonstrated that this year. We'll continue to do that across the board, and we're looking to bring new, affordable options throughout our assortment."
CEO Michael Fiddelke: "Price matters to consumers right now."
Consumer sentiment hit a four-month low in September, and Target's October Circle Deal Days event runs head to head with Amazon's Big Deal Days.
Lululemon & Dying Retail
Matt Epstein says Lululemon's bulk gift card sales to corporate perk platforms are propping up revenue while masking a drop in store traffic.
His read: when in-store sales drop, Lululemon can't discount on the rack without hurting the brand. So it sells bulk gift cards at 50% off to platforms like BILL, which then hands out $200 cards just to get someone on a demo (the ad he's pointing to is a real BILL Spend & Expense promo offering exactly that).
His line: "Lulu pulls revenue forward, props up the quarter, and hides the drop in demand. Brilliant financial engineering, a terrible sign for the business."
He's short $LULU, trading at $96.71 on September 29, down slightly on the day.
America.gov: Why CX Matters
The State Department is pointing to its new America.gov passport process as a customer experience case study: no printed forms, no drugstore photo, no appointment, no line, and no third-party fee for something that should already be free.
Secretary Rubio: "No printing forms, no drugstore hostage photo, no appointment, no line, no middleman that you're paying to do something that should be available to you."
New passports will also ship in redesigned gold and white packaging instead of standard mail. Rubio: "For something as important and dignified as the US passport, it will arrive the way you would expect it to."
The whole process is meant to run through America.gov instead of the usual paperwork and wait.
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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