Said differently, if your business is standalone e-commerce selling third-party brands, good luck. You can’t generate enough operating profit to scale beyond getting noticed, counter-attacked, and at best acquired.

The next generation of brands will still start with the story, but the other moats (logistics, distribution, sponsorships, etc) wither from there. We’ll see the next generation of “DTC” (direct to consumer) brands migrate to traditional retail channels, join large cross-brand data co-ops, shift marketing dollars to community management, and generat... See more