It's Black Friday and as chaotic as it gets, there’s still a bit of magic in it.
The late nights, the spreadsheets, the ads you have stared at for so long they barely look like words any more… and then that lovely moment when the orders start rolling in and you can actually see it working.
Now let’s be honest, who else has Shopify’s global BFCM live map?
It is eCom’s answer to the Santa tracker.
You are refreshing stock levels and tweaking campaigns on one screen, and on the other you are watching the globe light up as orders drop in around the world, knowing that some of those little flashes are your brand’s sales contributing to the picture.
With all the noise and chaos of BFCM, there is something strangely calming about that view, a reminder that real people are out there, clicking checkout and making all the work worth it.
Watch it here.
We’re collecting quick-fire predictions from across our community to bring you the ultimate DTC Live magazine.
So, what do you think will define eCommerce and DTC next year? Add yours with the chance to feature.
At DTC Live London, we were joined by Aine Kilkenny, co-founder of Riley, the organic period care company on a mission to give women a more positive period.
“We started our business over four years ago because of our own personal frustration. We couldn’t find period products on the market that were 100% organic cotton, that didn’t have any chlorine bleach, and that were better for the environment.”
Aine and her co-founders launched Riley not with a full product line, but with a simple validation strategy. Inspired by the Lean Startup method, they built a landing page with nothing behind it and used social media to drive interest.
“Without doing a lot of work and spending a lot of money, we knew that we were capturing data and getting interest in our product.”
The data confirmed it. They weren’t the only ones looking for a better alternative to mainstream pads and tampons.
Riley launched from Áine’s garage in West Cork, fulfilling early orders themselves. Within the first year, they hit just under £100K in revenue. Year two? Just under £1 million.
“We launched our business out of my garage... we were packing ourselves.”
A big part of that growth came from strong earned media and a well-planned influencer campaign that helped the brand break through early.
But that kind of traction brings challenges.
“Like any DTC business when you’re starting off, you just don’t have the cash. It’s amazing to be getting all these orders... but on the other side, you’re looking at a huge cash flow problem.”
The brand also struggled with operational growing pains.
“We ran out of packaging. We ran out of stock in our first couple of months.”
To keep up with demand and scale sustainably, they raised two rounds of funding: £500K in the first, and £1.5M in the second, £2 million total. But with a male-dominated investment landscape, fundraising meant more than just pitching performance.
“Most investors are male… and menstruation is a female problem. We really had to explain our story and make them understand what we were going through... it was something that the majority of the investors we pitched to had never been through before.”
That meant being clear, concise, and confident in their message.
“If I get my period in the office and there’s no period products, what am I supposed to do? And they’re like, oh yeah, makes sense.”
The team also made a habit of asking investors who said no why, and then asked for introductions to others in their network. That process directly led to several angel investor relationships.
Beyond DTC, Riley also now supplies businesses with period care, making access more equitable in office spaces.
“We provide into B2B corporates like Salesforce, Google, Amazon... to be able to get our product into as many people’s hands as possible.”
And while education remains a key part of their mission, they’re not afraid to call out what’s still on shelves.
“The average pad is made of 90% plastic and there can be up to 26 hormone-disrupting chemicals in mainstream period products.”
Watch the full session here.
Direct mail is quietly having a moment…
The Drum has already called it, direct mail is making a comeback. And on the ground, it’s easy to see why. Digital feels crowded, inboxes are overloaded and paid social is noisier, which makes a well designed piece of mail feel strangely fresh.
Even at home, the shift is obvious. Within the DTC Live team, in the space of a week, letterboxes are filling up with campaigns from brands like The White Company, Barking Heads, Astrid & Miyu and ARNE.
These pieces don’t disappear like impressions. They sit on kitchen counters and coffee tables, picked up and put down again over days.
At the premium end, Ralph Lauren seems to be everywhere in London right now, with pop ups across the city.
Some activations are even handing out free Ralph Lauren newspaper-style newsletters, whilst you grab your coffee, the kind you can frame or leave out as decor, keeping the brand in constant view and top of mind.
For DTC brands that care about brand building, not just buying traffic, it all points in the same direction, high-trust, high-attention, more human channels.
If digital is starting to feel saturated, the answer might not be another ad set on Meta, it might be showing up somewhere different.
