Hey DTC Friends!
Welcome to Issue 001 of 1800 Hotline on Substack. If you have been reading CPG Connect, the old Hotline, or following 1800DTC, this is now where it all lives. One newsletter, twice a week, covering what is actually moving across DTC, retail, ecommerce, and CPG.
This week Sephora launched inside ChatGPT, Andie hit every Target in the country, the resale market dropped a report that should be on every operator’s radar, Hot Ones expanded into BBQ, and activewear proved it is not really activewear anymore. Lots to get into. Let’s go.
But first, take a second to fill out this form. It helps us connect the right people, surface opportunities for brands looking to grow, and give back to the community we are building together.
I want to be straight with you on why this one made sense to feature.
Packaging is one of those things that every DTC and CPG operator thinks about at some point and then either figures out the hard way or keeps putting off. EcoEnclose works with high-volume brands to find packaging that actually fits your brand, your budget, and your sustainability goals. They plan it, swatch it, test it, certify it, QC it, and get it to you on time.
What I like about how they work is they do not just hand you a catalog and disappear. They own the whole process. They catch problems early, find savings, and push you toward more sustainable choices without making it feel like a lecture. Timeline management, compliance checks, quality control, all handled.
If packaging is on your list for 2026, worth a conversation.
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Brand Shoutout: Hot Ones BBQ
First We Feast and HEATONIST just launched a new line of spicy BBQ sauces, hitting shelves at Walmart, Kroger, Jewel Osco, and HEB today and going live at hotones.com this week. Two years after proving out its hot sauce line at major retail, the brand is expanding its condiment footprint right into grill season.
What makes this worth watching is the playbook underneath it. Hot Ones has 15+ million YouTube subscribers and a genuinely loyal audience. They did not go wide fast. They proved the product, built the fan base, and used that attention to earn shelf space at scale. Brands with strong media-native followings converting that into CPG retail presence is a model that is going to keep showing up.
What We Are Seeing
AI is becoming the new storefront. Sephora just launched inside ChatGPT. Retailers that get embedded in AI interfaces now are positioning themselves to own discovery before traditional search and social even enter the picture. This is not a future story. It is happening now.
Resale is taking direct market share. The U.S. secondhand apparel market grew nearly four times faster than traditional retail clothing in 2025. This is not vintage shopping. It is a structural shift with Gen Z and millennials leading the charge and a $78.8B U.S. market projected by 2030.
DTC at mass retail is a real playbook now. Andie’s Target launch is one of the cleaner examples we have seen of a premium DTC brand entering mass retail without losing what made it work in the first place. 2,000 stores, exclusive collection, accessible price point. More on this below.
Platform & Distribution
Shopify launched “Tinker,” a free AI creative app with 100+ tools, and simultaneously made all Shopify merchants accessible via Agentic Storefronts through ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode, and the Gemini app. For brands on Shopify, this is a meaningful distribution unlock, your products are now natively discoverable inside the AI shopping layer without additional integration work.
Amazon is testing a program allowing shoppers to use Prime shipping benefits on third-party websites without logging in. If this rolls out broadly, it reshapes how Prime functions as a conversion tool for DTC brands, potentially reducing checkout friction on owned sites.
The Amazon vs. Walmart battle is accelerating on two fronts: Walmart’s retail media network is gaining advertiser share while Amazon deepens AI integration across its shopping experience. Retail media and AI differentiation are the new moat. Not just price or selection.
Aldi US launched a new website and app powered by Instacart’s Storefront Pro platform, reinforcing Instacart’s role as the white-label digital backbone for traditional grocers.
DTC Brand Moves
The era of pure-play DTC is giving way to DTC 3.0, an omnichannel-first model built on community, brand differentiation, and physical presence.
Ruggable publicly stepped back from performance marketing in favor of brand-led creative strategy. A major DTC player publicly moving away from pure performance is a market signal. Brand building is back on the agenda!
Mejuri has now opened 50+ physical retail locations eight years after its first store. DTC and brick-and-mortar are not either/or. Physical retail drives brand equity for digitally native brands.
Vuori, Rothy’s, and Away have all evolved beyond their digital-native origins, navigating threats from copycat brands, generative AI, and changing acquisition economics.
The brands thriving are omnichannel-first with strong community and product differentiation.
M&A + CPG Consolidation
Q1 2026 was defined by sweeping consolidation across CPG and retail data infrastructure. A few moves every operator should understand:
Unilever + McCormick ($65B+). Unilever announced a spin-off of its food business to merge with McCormick, combining Hellmann’s, Knorr, and Cholula under McCormick CEO Brendan Foley. The largest CPG food deal of Q1 2026 is reshaping pantry staples at scale.
TreeHouse Foods acquired for $2.9B. UK private equity firm Investindustrial acquired TreeHouse Foods, the largest US private-label manufacturer. Private-label manufacturing is now a PE target. Expect more consolidation in store-brand manufacturing, which has direct implications for brands competing on shelf against private label.
The Big Story: Sephora Just Launched Inside ChatGPT
A week ago Sephora announced its app inside ChatGPT, piloting in the U.S. with plans to expand globally. Customers can discover and shop products through natural conversation, link their Beauty Insider loyalty accounts for personalized recommendations, and soon complete full checkout without ever leaving the chat.
Here is the thing about this that operators should actually sit with. Where search engines and social once owned discovery, AI interfaces are becoming the new front door to commerce. Sephora is not the only one moving here. Glossier and Skims are now available through ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout. Gap just unveiled AI-powered fit recommendations and conversational checkout at Shoptalk. This is a category-wide shift, not a single brand story.
For DTC and CPG brands, the question is not whether AI shopping becomes mainstream. It is whether you are positioned to show up when it does. The brands that are discoverable inside AI ecosystems will have a structural CAC advantage that compounds over time.
Three things worth taking from this:
Discovery is migrating. Start thinking now about how your catalog, your product descriptions, and your brand presence show up inside AI-driven recommendation layers.
Beauty is the test case. The category has always run on consultation, trust, and personalization. AI is a natural fit. The frameworks being built here will move fast into food, apparel, wellness, and home.
First-party data is the moat. Sephora’s ability to personalize through Beauty Insider is what separates this from a generic chatbot experience. If you are not building a customer data layer, this is the reminder to start.
Quick Hits
Andie x Target is live today. The DTC swimwear brand launched a 49-piece exclusive collection across all 2,000 Target stores and Target.com. One-pieces at $50, bikini separates starting at $32. Core Andie line retails from $125 to $160. Every style was created exclusively for the collaboration with zero overlap on the main site. Founder Melanie Travis said Target is by far their largest wholesale account, many times over. Clean execution of a channel expansion strategy that a lot of brands get wrong. → Full story
Activewear is having an identity crisis. As of January, activewear sales in the U.S. were up 2% year over year while nonactive apparel was down 2%. Jeans grew 4%. Fabletics and Vuori both dropped denim collections this year. The lines are dissolving and the brands winning are the ones willing to follow the consumer instead of defend the category. → Retail Dive
Reddit is getting serious about commerce. At Shoptalk, Reddit announced expanded shopping features that let brands drive product discovery and purchase intent directly within communities. Reddit’s user base is highly intent-driven, especially in product research threads. Worth watching if your category benefits from peer recommendation and consideration-stage discovery.
Data Drop
59% of U.S. consumers shopped secondhand in 2025. That is up 7 points in just three years.
More than half of American shoppers are active participants in the resale economy right now. And nearly half of them are finding secondhand products through social feeds and content creators, not dedicated resale platforms. That means the discovery layer for secondhand has already moved into the channels where DTC brands live and advertise.
48% of secondhand shoppers said they use AI tools during their resale journey. 63% said they are comfortable with agentic buying. That number is going to keep climbing.
The brands that get ahead of this are not just avoiding a competitive threat. They are building a new acquisition and retention surface that most of their competitors are not thinking about yet.
Source: ThredUp 2026 Resale Report, conducted by GlobalData, survey of 3,268 U.S. adults
On the Radar — Events Worth Your Time
Ecom Elevated Spring — April 15 and 16 | Salt Lake City
Utah’s premier ecommerce conference is back at Le Méridien Downtown. Two days of real operator sessions and connections. Built for founders and brand leaders who want to level up, not sit through a trade show.
1800DTC readers get 35% off with code 1800DTC.
GROW LA — April 22 | West Hollywood
We are heading to GROW LA on April 22 and you should come.
40 speakers from Amazon, Crocs, CUTS, Caraway, Fabletics, Wayfair, and e.l.f. Beauty. 30 tactical sessions. 800 attendees. One day built around what ecom leaders are actually winning with right now, plus a strong showcase of AI tools worth knowing about.
I will be there in person. If you are going, please shoot me a note (zach@1800dtc.com).
That is Issue 001. Welcome to the new home.
One question before you go: which of these stories is most relevant to what you are building right now? AI discovery, resale, DTC-to-retail, Hot Ones style CPG expansion, or the activewear category shift? Hit reply. We read everything and your answers shape what we cover next.
See you Thursday.
— Zach & the 1800 Hotline Team
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The first-party data point in the Sephora section is the most important one for DTC operators. The brands that will show up well inside AI discovery layers are the ones with clean customer data and strong lifecycle infrastructure today, not ones scrambling to build it when the shift is already complete.