Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth eCommerce Is About to Evolve - Taylor Holiday's Keynote @ Stord Summit
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Sep 30, 2025 Taylor Holiday explores the evolution of DTC through four critical eras, highlighting the boom during COVID and the lean strategies of the Ozempic era. He discusses why self-funding can cap growth and reveals how brands are learning to operate efficiently amidst constraints. Innovative strategies like supplier financing and product-led growth emerge as key differentiators. As optimism builds for 2025, he emphasizes that the surviving brands have adapted and strengthened, setting the stage for a promising new chapter in e-commerce.
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COVID Created A Unique Return Environment
- The COVID era created an extreme but rational return-on-ad-acquisition environment that attracted massive capital.
- Capital flowed to the highest returns, making customer acquisition the best investment in 2020–21.
The Ozempic Era Forced Lean Survival
- The Ozempic era forced brands to prioritize EBITDA and lean operations as capital and cheap debt disappeared.
- This shift raised cost of capital, reduced media efficiency, and accelerated bankruptcies and layoffs across the sector.
Cash Conversion Limits Growth Rate
- Median eight-figure brands ran ~8% EBITDA with ~92-day cash conversion cycles, which constrains self-funded growth.
- At modest growth rates the cash needed for inventory kills free cash flow and caps scalable growth without external financing.