Hey DTC fam,
Big week in the books.
Reformation filed for IPO and the numbers inside the S-1 are a master class in what patient, disciplined DTC brand building actually looks like. Prime Day wrapped with $26B in U.S. ecomm spend. And we hosted Commerce Unfiltered at Shopify HQ in New York, which was exactly the kind of conversation this community needed heading into the second half.
Let’s get into it.
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Brand Feature: Nowadays
If you have been looking for a summer drink that does not revolve around alcohol, Nowadays just made the decision a lot easier.
The brand is back with Lemonade for summer 2026, this time at 10mg THC per serving across two formats: a 750ml bottled spirit in limited quantities and a 16oz canned cocktail that runs through the season. No cannabis taste, no hangover, just a familiar summer flavor that actually delivers. Drink it straight, over ice, or mix it into something else. It works all three ways.
Nowadays has been one of the more thoughtfully built brands in the THC beverage space since launching in 2023 and the Lemonade drop is exactly what the category needs heading into the peak of summer. Available now at trynowadays.com, shipping to 35 plus states, and at select retailers.
Bottled Spirit (750ml): $79.99. Canned Cocktails: $36 for a six-pack.
What We’re Seeing
Reformation just filed for IPO and the business inside the filing is one of the more compelling DTC stories we have seen in a while. The brand has been building quietly for 17 years, runs almost entirely through its own channels, and has grown revenue double digits every quarter for five years straight. Profitable for most of its history. Marketing spend steady at about 9% of net revenue. And three quarters of new customers finding the brand through organic channels rather than paid ads. More on the full picture below.
Prime Day wrapped and the week produced $26B in U.S. ecommerce spending. That is up close to 10% from last year. The story is not just Amazon anymore. Walmart started its competing event a day early. Target ran its own parallel deals window. The whole week has become a consumer spending moment that benefits every channel, and brands that moved on it are sitting on velocity data that will influence their algorithmic rankings for the rest of the summer.
Ulta, Stitch Fix, and Tapestry each had something interesting to say about AI and omnichannel this week. The common theme across all three was the same: AI is not replacing the experience layer, it is accelerating the operational and personalization pieces so brands can focus where the human touch actually matters. Worth reading if you are building across channels right now. Read more here →
Big Story: The Reformation S-1 Is Required Reading for Anyone Building a DTC Brand
Reformation filed its IPO paperwork last week and honestly the document reads less like a standard SEC filing and more like a brand manifesto from a team that has been thinking carefully about what they are building for a long time.
Let us start with the numbers because they earn the attention. $507M in net revenue in 2025. Five straight years of double-digit quarterly growth. About 90% of sales coming directly through their own channels. Marketing holding at roughly 9% of net revenue for four years. Close to three quarters of new customers arriving through organic channels rather than paid digital. Average revenue per customer north of $420 in 2025. Gross margins at 60%.
That combination is genuinely rare in apparel. Most DTC brands in this category are either growing fast and burning through acquisition spend to do it or holding margin by keeping growth modest. Reformation has been doing both for a long time.
The scarcity model is the thing that made it possible. Limited drops. Products that actually sell out. A tight assortment that stays focused rather than expanding into everything. That discipline kept full-price selling at roughly 80% of DTC revenue consistently for years, which protects margin in a way that promotional brands simply cannot replicate.
The technology side of the business is also worth paying attention to. Reformation built a proprietary in-store experience called Retail X that integrates the digital and physical shopping experience in about 75% of their locations. Customers who shop across both channels spend significantly more than single-channel customers. That is not a coincidence. It is years of deliberate infrastructure investment paying off.
Now for the honest part. Net profit dropped meaningfully in 2025 and the brand swung to a loss in Q1 2026 as it invested ahead of growth. There is also a notable detail in the filing: the company borrowed $92M and paid out roughly $90M to existing shareholders about a week before filing the S-1. That is not unusual in PE-backed IPOs but the timing is worth noting.
The filing opens with “Being naked is the number one most sustainable option. We are number two.” For an SEC document that is a statement. And it tells you something real about how the brand thinks about its own voice, which is just as much a part of the story as the financials.
The takeaway for operators: Reformation’s results did not come from a clever campaign or a viral moment. They came from building channel ownership deliberately, keeping acquisition costs low by earning trust rather than buying it, and protecting margin through product discipline over a long time. Those things are available to any brand in any category willing to be patient enough to build them.
Quick Hits
Frozen One closed a $5.75M seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures, the consumer fund behind Graza, Olipop, and Warby Parker, less than a quarter after its $2M raise in March.
Raising again this fast is not something that happens unless the business is showing the right signals. The new round also brings in a COO from Van Leeuwen and a sales leader who helped build Onnit ahead of its acquisition. The protein ice cream category is genuinely heating up and Frozen One is now one of the better-resourced brands in it.
Thorne s reportedly drawing acquisition interest from Unilever, P&G, and Haleon at a $4B valuation.
Three of the largest consumer health companies in the world competing for the same premium supplement brand at that price is a signal about where institutional conviction in the functional wellness category actually sits. Whoever closes this deal is making a serious long-term bet on how consumers are going to buy health products for the next decade.
Apothekary raised $16M in new Series A financing and is now in Ulta Beauty, Whole Foods, and The Vitamin Shoppe.
The adaptogen brand has been building a real DTC base around plant-based alternatives to alcohol and pharmaceuticals since Shizu Okusa founded it. The equity piece was led by Shiseido’s LIFT Ventures, which is the kind of strategic investor that brings more than capital to the table in the beauty and wellness space. Targeting $40M in sales this year. The retail push is clearly just getting started.
Oat Haus just partnered with Kylie Kelce on a limited-edition granola butter, and SmartSweets launched fruit snacks.
Two moves from two brands that know how to work a cultural moment. Kelce’s audience is exactly who Oat Haus wants and the match is clean. SmartSweets going after the fruit snack format is the brand systematically taking on every better-for-you confectionery category worth owning, which is a strategy worth watching as they build out the portfolio.
King's Hawaiian just entered the convenience channel with single-serve Soft Pretzel Bites at 830 Sheetz locations.
A brand best known for its rolls moving into impulse-purchase snack format at convenience stores is a channel expansion that most people would not have predicted. The convenience channel has been one of the more interesting distribution opportunities for established food brands this year and King’s Hawaiian just made its first move into it.
From the Community: Commerce Unfiltered Recap
We hosted Commerce Unfiltered at Shopify HQ in New York last Tuesday and the conversation was exactly what we hoped it would be.
The panel covered what has actually happened in commerce over the first half of 2026. AI was a big part of the discussion but not in the way you might expect. The most useful parts of the night were not about the tools themselves. They were about where brands are getting distracted by the shiny version of AI versus where they are finding real, practical leverage with it.
The moment that hit hardest: as AI gets more accessible, the brands that win are the ones with things it cannot replicate. Real community. Genuine customer relationships. A brand voice that people actually trust. The technology makes you faster. It does not make people care about you.
Thank you to Ben Sharf, Taylor Prokes, and Arda Bulak for keeping it honest and unfiltered. And to Refersion and Shopify for making the evening possible.
More coming in the second half. Stay tuned.
Event Roundup
RSVP — Ecomm Coffee Collective: Fancy Food Edition | June 30 | New York, NY | 9 AM- 12 PM EDT
RSVP — Claude & Coffee NYC. For the builders, not spectators. | June 30 | New York, NY | 10 AM- 12 PM EDT
RSVP — The Buyer Changed. Your Checkout Didn’t. | July 8 | New York, NY | 8:30 - 10:30 AM EDT
RSVP — Chicago Quarterly Ecom Happy Hour - Snack Run | July 9 | Chicago, Illinois | 5:30 - 8 PM EDT
That is Signals for Issue 025.
Reformation just showed what 20 quarters of disciplined DTC looks like on paper. What is the number in your business that you think tells that kind of story? Hit reply.
See you Thursday.
— Zach and the 1800Hotline Team
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Great post as always Z!!