Will retail eat our online sales?

0 of 5

Retail didn’t eat online sales at any of the five

Hero still got most of its revenue from Amazon at its $630 million sale, and was first in its Amazon category in 2024. Bubble’s site became its community and launch channel at more than $100 million a year across 17,000-plus stores. Poppi was still the top-selling soft drink on Amazon past 30,000 stores. Liquid Death dropped its own fulfillment by choice and sent site shoppers to Amazon and retail, with $333 million of retail sales in 2024. The share shifted. The online business grew.

The cannibalization that is real is margin

What retail takes is margin: the retailer’s cut, trade spend, slotting fees and deductions. None of the five lost online demand to the shelf. A brand planning a retail push should model margin carefully and stop worrying that every shelf sale is a lost site sale.

13.9%

A store opening lifts online sales near it

Industry research from ICSC, across $848 billion of transactions, found a store opening lifts online sales in its trade area by 6.9%, and by 13.9% for direct-to-consumer brands. The two channels feed each other. A shelf is also an ad for the site.

Two thirds

The shelf reaches people the site never did

Two thirds of Harry’s early Target buyers had never bought a razor at Target. In its Target launch year Harry’s also added almost 500,000 subscribers at an 80% repeat rate, and Target.com sold the subscription, with 5% off for its store card holders. The shelf brought new buyers, and the subscription kept them.

7×

Media that sold off the shelf pointed at one fixture in one week

Hero’s TikTok videos named Target and asked customers to photograph the shelf, which “helped to double Hero’s sales goals at Target” at seven times the cost-efficiency of Instagram Stories; Target then expanded the range. Bubble put ambassadors’ faces on Walmart endcaps and ran a Snapchat filter and live TikTok in launch week. At Target it sent a 380,598-person list, with a 74% open rate, to one fixture in one week. The launches that worked reported that store’s sales afterward, not impressions.

824%

Retail media is bought for position

Hero’s Target attributed sales rose 824% ten months after joining the retailer’s ad network, per a vendor case study, and 247% across the newer retail media marketplaces, where the brand said it was “willing to accept a lower ROAS.” What these networks sell is rank in the retailer’s own search results and measurement against the retailer’s own transactions. Those attributed sales land in the buyer’s velocity dashboard, which is the number the buyer sees at the next review. The bases are large: more than 100 million Target Circle members, about 44 million Ulta members, more than 90 million CVS ExtraCare members, and Walmart’s online and in-store transactions.

$100,000

Amazon is the signal buyers read

Retailers “see Amazon success as validation.” Poppi’s founder posted one video about making “over $100,000 on Amazon while we were sleeping,” and the Amazon rank became a slide in its line reviews. TikTok carried most of Poppi’s paid media. A strong marketplace rank is evidence a buyer can use to say yes.

$12.99

One price everywhere, different counts by channel

Hero charges $12.99 for 36 patches on Amazon, its own site and every shelf, then varies the count: 72 on the site, 75 on Amazon. No channel is cheaper per pack, so no buyer asks for margin support against the brand’s own site. Bubble prices Walmart three cents under its site. Reviews travel too: Hero’s 36-count listing on Amazon carries 185,032 ratings and a Best Seller badge, which is what a buyer checks first.

4

The buyer judges the media by four numbers

ACV (how much of the retailer’s volume carries you), units per store per week against the category, household penetration and repeat. Doors are a count; the buyer manages to these. Harry’s had 10% of Target’s cartridge sales and about 50% of handles within four weeks, made that public within a month, and tripled sales and penetration by month eight. Those numbers sold Walmart. Poppi’s growth came from volume in existing stores, with repeat over 40%, and that growth is what PepsiCo paid $1.95 billion for.

Where the client started

The client already had more doors than one of the five had at its sale, at about a third of the revenue per door. The same product sold at three different prices across its own site and two retailers. The numbers a buyer manages to (Amazon share, household penetration, ACV and repeat) were not public, nor was any result from an earlier retail launch. Its biggest recent collaboration ran on a partner’s channels and never reached its own list.

Plan for margin pressure more than lost demand

Across five brands in three categories, retail grew the business and the online channel kept growing. The cost showed up as the retailer’s cut, trade spend and fees. Put your modeling effort there.

Give every channel a job

The site did things the shelf couldn’t: subscriptions, drops, community, founder content. A brand that gives its site a clear job stops competing with its own retailers.

Talk in the buyer’s numbers

Doors and impressions are your numbers. ACV, velocity, penetration and repeat are the buyer’s. Report in theirs, early and in public, and the next retailer has a reason to call.