Retail makes comeback as Shopify bedroom brands take a dive

In 2020, the bedroom couple and the kids with a laptop were all the rage. There were all kinds of stores opening up, Shopify became a global brand overnight. Meta ads were easy, everyone was charging their card and making a shop overnight. Marketers called it e-commerce for all. In 2026, it seems like Shopify might be another target of them Bending Spoons.

They went back to shops. They went back to having a life away from the computer. The e-commerce for all boom is over. The big players and the brick and mortar are gaining again. The bedroom brand, the line that only ever existed as a browser tab, is taking the dive. The Shopify that became a global brand overnight is the leftover. That is the acquire.

The bedroom brand needed two things, and both are gone

A brand started in a bedroom in 2020 had two assets. A customer who could not leave the house, and a Facebook ad that could find her for almost nothing. Product from a contract manufacturer, a Shopify theme, an influencer face, cheap ads to a captive audience.

Apple took the second asset first. From April 2021, iPhones asked every user whether an app could track them, and most said no. Meta told investors the change would cost it USD 10bn in 2022. It had already warned small advertisers they could see a cut of over 60% of website sales from ads. The cheap ad that built the bedroom brand got expensive overnight.

Then the customer took the first asset back herself. Shops reopened. She went out. The brand that only existed as a tab was paying more to reach a person who was no longer sitting in front of it.

Samantha Ravndahl shut Auric in August. It launched in 2021 through Magic Dusk, an incubator built for influencer lines, the same year Apple took the targeting. Ravndahl has nearly a million YouTube subscribers and 1.9 million on Instagram, which in 2020 was the entire distribution plan. The closing note blamed "the ever-changing market conditions, unstable tariffs, and rising costs of production and shipping". The site is running a goodbye sale at 40% off.

Emily Heath Rudman launched Emilie Heathe in 2017 on under USD 200k, got into Neiman Marcus and Violet Grey, and spent years feeding ads and influencers. She at least got the cheap-ad years. A TikTok that reached 8.6 million views still did not move the business. She held a sunset party for the brand last June and now tells other founders it takes ten times more money than they think, USD 5mn to USD 10mn. "Getting into retailers now, it's not about press. It's what's your TikTok following?"

Finkelstein is celebrating a till

Shopify is still printing monster quarters. Harley Finkelstein's merchants processed USD 115.6bn in the second quarter, up 32%. Revenue was USD 3.6bn, up 34%. Stop at those two lines and you will tell yourself the 2020 story is still working.

Those two lines are the till. Point of sale, the card machine on a real counter, grew 32%, the same as the whole platform. "We're seeing particularly strong momentum with large complex retailers who are our fastest-growing segment." Arhaus started on Shopify as an online store and put its shops on it. The USD 25mn and up band is the fastest growing. He is describing shops that already had a door, putting more through the till.

The Census Bureau tells the same story from the other side. Online is 17.1% of American retail and still growing, 12.2% on last year. Nobody stopped buying online. The online sale moved to whoever also has a shop. The bedroom brand's share of that 17.1% is what is shrinking.

Brick and mortar is back

Jens Grede is taking Skims to 55 stores this year and past 100 by the end of 2027. "I want to do business the way that my customer wants to shop the brand." The question he gets most is when a store is opening near them. Fabletics crossed USD 1bn in 2025, and Adam Goldenberg is opening 25 more American stores and about 20 abroad because retail "has become an increasingly important growth driver". The brands that started on a phone and lived are paying rent for a room.

Placer.ai's July mall index had open-air visits up 5.1%. Dwell time had been falling from February to June even as visits rose. July reversed it. People are staying longer. Amazon ads reported another year of growth. Walmart's ad business grew 38% in a quarter when Walmart US comparable sales grew 2.6%. The shop floor is slow. The money is in the ad sitting on it, because that is where the person is.

E-commerce survived as a shelf inside a shop

E-commerce as a business of its own is dead on arrival now. It survived as a shelf inside a shop. The online sale still happens, 17.1% of everything sold in America, but it happens on the app of a company that also has a door and a till. Shopify knows it, which is why Finkelstein is selling card machines to Holt Renfrew. Skims and Fabletics know it, which is why the brands that were born online are signing leases. Rudman learned it the expensive way: she started on USD 200k and says the entry price is now USD 5mn to USD 10mn, which is roughly the price of a door.

What comes next is more goodbye sales. Every line launched in 2021 through an incubator, on an influencer's face and a Facebook budget, is running the same arithmetic Auric ran, and most of them will land where Auric landed. The ones that live will look like Skims, a shop and a till with an online store attached to it. We are calling Shopify as the next target for Bending Spoons to acquire, given the slowing growth and prospects on the 2020 brand. Harley is running the till. The leftover is the acquire. The e-commerce for all boom is over. Brick and mortar is back.