You need another email like you need a hole in the head.
Worse, you need another DTC newsletter like you need 39 more.
Stuffed with trends you won’t read, podcasts you won’t listen to, and webinars you won’t attend, your inbox cries out with a single plea: Unsubscribe.
And you know what? You should.
That’s why we didn’t slam together another “top 10” listicle. Instead, we vetted, organized, and distilled …
Future Commerce is the best eCommerce newsletter. And every other DTC newsletter agrees — not to mention every list of the top emails you should subscribe to. Why?
Because Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange’s commentary on commerce and culture is ridiculously insightful? Because every send highlights breaking eCommerce news? Because its hits your inbox not once, not twice, but three times every week?
Of course. All that makes Future Commerce one of the most-popular eCommerce newsletters of 2023. But the real magic lies in Phillip and Brian’s deep wisdom in letting Aaron Orendorff write for them and optimize their content for search engines (SEO).
We organized the best eCommerce newsletters into five categories + a few simple steps to manage them.
There’s something for everyone — from commerce-meets-culture to “by operators, for operators” to our favorite picks well beyond the norm.
Click any of the categories to jump down. Or grab the whole list + a step-by-step guide to get the most out of whatever you subscribe to (while saving your inbox’s sanity).
Team Forerunner runs The CQ by a deceptively simple formula: IQ + EQ = Consumer Quotient. To be sure, it provides readers with a balanced mix of news, industry experts, and thought leadership. But it does so with a depth of insider access few possess.
Backed by investments in a who’s-who portfolio, the exceptional feature of The CQ is its exploratory nature — a fearless mapping of uncharted territories that propels subscribers to look further out and deeper down.
By day, Matt Klein serves as the Head of Global Foresight at Reddit. By night, he operates ZINE — best known for providing analysis on internet culture, including recurring themes of creator fatigue, audience capture, sympathetic entanglement, and meta trends (the trending of trends themselves).
Earlier this year, ZINE was awarded a Webby for Klein’s outstanding work as an independent newsletter media creator.
Steered by the deft hands of Ana Andjelic, Sociology of Business examines consumer behavior and the evolution of brand strategy. It majors on shifts in consumer tastes along with how these impel the “modern aspiration economy” — a concept that reimagines status symbols in contemporary culture.
With Andjelic’s wealth of knowledge in strategy, sociology, and brand revivals, she offers insights grounded in sociological principles … supplemented with visual aids such as 2x2 quadrant breakdowns.
A potent mix of Ben Thompson-esque depth with Bill Simmons’ raw storytelling, Packy McCormick is anything but tiresome. Long-form articles appear Mondays or Tuesdays; Fridays, a hit of “optimism” — sponsored guides, guest posts, and updates on its capital investments.
Fostering a vibrant community from technology, finance, and design, Not Boring is edutainment in the best sense of the word.
What good is a newsletter list with only a passing nod to Ben Thompson … sans the man himself? Sharpened by experiences at Apple, Microsoft, and Automattic, Stratechery has set the standard for over a decade on long-form dissections business, technology, media, and their societal implications.
While much can be gained from Ben’s free articles, Stratechery Plus unlocks three additional titles, daily updates, a library of interviews, and a members’ forum.
Launched in 2016 by editor-in-chief Paul Munford, Lean Luxe is an IYKYK Venn diagram overlapping commerce, popular culture, and incisive commentary. Original reporting meets curated news, its summaries major on “rigorously defining” modern luxury but don’t limit themselves to that topic.
In addition, Lean Luxe’s once invitation-only Slack group is now a paid-membership community — high engagement; research, product, and media drops; plus opportunities for small-to-medium IRL gatherings.
Culture Porn by Cultique is a “weekly playlist” + “insights & inspo” rundown of pop media, pop content, and (of course) pop culture. It delivers quick-hitting, short-form summaries that, despite their brevity, never lack interpretive value.
The special feature of Culture Porn lies in its unique name — indicative of founders Linda Ong and Sarah Unger’s intense fascination. Touching upon but not dominated by consumer behavior, it provides breadth and freshness to augment business-only publications.
Covering the interlock of music, media, and money, Dan Runcie keeps pace with the movements forerunning and foreshadowing business. Offering meticulously researched narratives, its lessons range from monetizing audiences to cultural exegesis to sustaining enterprise (brand) value.
Trapital is the publication artists deserve and executives need, dissecting strategies unlike any other outlet.
Previously Editor in Chief at Recode and Business Insider’s employee number two, Dan Frommer chronicles the interplay between technology and commerce. The New Consumer’s keen gaze falls on innovative “companies, people, products, and trends” … drawing lessons from success as well as failure.
Expect a critical, yet-never-cynical viewpoint. While full access costs $200 a year, Frommer rotates free Consumer Trends Reports on a quarterly basis.
After a long hiatus, Emily Singer is back! Her eye for brands with a “soul,” unique activations, and transparency makes the newsletter feel like a personal DTC diary, blending industry announcements with heartfelt reflections.
Chips + Dips’ affinity for familiarity versus the impulse to break patterns adds an intriguing dimension. (BONUS: You can also hear from Singer herself in this episode of the Future Commerce podcast.)
One of the few eCommerce influencers to reach beyond “DTC Twitter,” Nik Sharma serves up a Sunday feast for investors, operators, and marketers alike. His briefings often cover multi-thousand-word explorations — think: hands-on CEO knowledge from managing CPG brands with a special emphasis on content marketing.
As a bonus, the welcome email comes with a 39-slide deck on “How to Launch a Successful DTC Brand.”
Crafted by Alex Greifeld, a former fashion designer turned eCommerce operator, this bi-monthly bulletin delivers a refreshing perspective on profitable scaling. It rejects the common playbook and cultivates a first-principles approach steeped in praxis over dogma.
No Best Practices deconstructs commerce conventions, unearthing the reality beneath buzzwords and debunking hype. At the same time, it also packs a practical punch with definitive issues on retention, analytics, and even (gasp) marketing strategy.
Having helped eCommerce companies like Glossier, Warby Parker, Branch, and more, Bainbridge’s briefs track key metrics from publicly traded “DTC first” companies. It’s meticulously vetted for investors, doubling as a toolkit for founders on overcoming business-related challenges.
Infused with co-founders Ben Tregoe and Austin Gardner-Smith’s entrepreneurial spirit, DTC Benchmarks places its emphasis on market analysis in enterprise-level finances and accounting.
Created by the multi-talented Ari Murray — whose brand-side perigee includes names like about-face by Halsey, Kourtney Kardashians’ Poosh, Pressed Juicery, SnackNation, and more — Go to Millions hits inbox with rich content on go-to-market strategies for seven-figure-and-beyond digital retailers.
It’s simultaneously a tactical reservoir and a friendly chat — sprinkled with humor, and brimming with authenticity.
A luminary in the arena of DTC growth, Cody Plofker shares front-line wisdom as the CRO of Jones Road Beauty; namely, holistic performance marketing with an eye to paid media, landing pages, and the economics of growth.
Heralded as a “revolutionary” by two others on this list (Nik Sharma and Eli Weiss), Cody’s blend of customer-centricity meets bottom-line results makes him a valuable resource for C-level marketers or anyone wanting to grow their eCommerce business.
The retention yin to Plofker’s acquisition yang, Eli Weiss is the Senior Director of CX & Retention at Jones Road Beauty. The two also co-host one of the best eCommerce podcasts: Down to Chat (DTC). Weiss’ emails index on strengthening customer relationships throughout the funnel tethered to driving whole-business outcomes.
Over eight years as a brand-side operator forms the backbone of everything All Things CX & Retention sends … from full-scale playbooks to techniques + tips to case studies.
Sean Frank is right: “If you like my threads” … you’ll devour his weekly newsletter. Never one to pull his punches — or let a little thing like proofreading get in the way of pushing top-notch content — Unsponsored Ecom is the unfiltered thoughts of nine-figure eCommerce juggernaut The Ridge’s CEO.
Don’t let bombastic subject lines coupled with profanity-laced prose fool you. Beneath the good-humored bravado, there lies a heart that beats for entrepreneurs and DTC success.
CPG aficionado, Nate Rosen, stocks a packed pantry on everything consumer packaged goods: product launches, collaborations, news, and M&A activity. It connects the dots, brimming with industry narratives; delivered in an accessible, engaging style.
If you care about developments in food, beverage, and beyond — not to mention macro and micro-level shifts — you’ll devour Express Checkout.
Part leadership lessons, part customer obsession, Matt Bertulli is a copywriter’s copywriter — a marketer’s marketer. CEO of Lomi and Pela Case (two brands at opposite ends of the price-point spectrum), each email sets itself upon one topic with ruthless singularity.
Against a backdrop of roundups and rundowns, No Competition stands out: Whether it’s one question, one lesson, or one sentence.
Every week, Chris Meade — co-founder of CROSSNET and Good Sport — pulls back the curtain on bootstrapping startups. His guidance isn’t textbook theory; it’s distilled wisdom from personal trials and triumphs in the crucible of growth.
As a beacon of honesty and resilience, Crossed Commerce guides consumer-product companies up ascendant paths through online, retail, and marketplace sales — embodying the essence of lean.
39 newsletters is a lot. Want to save the list for later along with how to make the most of them?
Founded by Pilothouse, this thrice-weekly, gif-packed resource sidesteps news in favor of serial breakdowns, content and creative, copy writing tips, as well as in-depth playbooks drawn from the fastest-growing DTC brands.
With a focus on social platforms and email marketing, each DTC Newsletter provides tactical (often technical) advice to enhance digital marketing campaigns.
Modern Retail, a Digiday imprint steered by CEO Nick Friese, comes in two forms: (1) daily doses or (2) weekly summaries. The prime territory is retail’s metamorphosis in an Amazon-ruled + AI-disrupted world, striking a chord between authoritative and trending.
With regular contributions from Cale Weissman and Anna Hensel, it gives readers a broad understanding of what’s happening coupled with why.
Every day, Retail Brew delivers a delightfully witty digest covering (as you might expect) all things retail. Ideal for busy professionals who want to stay in the know without scouring the internet.
Much like its namesake, Morning Brew, the emails shine with wry humor, occasional “deep dives,” and distilled complexity — relatable analogies, pop-culture references, and clever puns.
Run by Common Thread Collective, the DTC Index is a trove of data. eCommerce industry benchmarks include store-level metrics (like revenue, spend, CAC, and AOV) as well as channel-specific performance from Facebook, Google, and Klaivyo.
Where it triumphs, however, is on two fronts. First, verticalized data from different product categories. Second, CTC data scientist, Steve Rekuc’s interpretation — not just the what but also the why and how to respond.
Few eCommerce email newsletters about eCommerce emails could live up to a headline like: “The weekly email marketing newsletter from a $100M eCommerce email marketer.” Chase Diamond does. It’s a near-masterclass in retention, automation, and proven templates.
Echoing a mentor’s tone, it empowers owners and marketers to build their email lists, improve open rates, and increase conversion rates through powerful calls to action.
Before closing out with a handful of newsletters beyond the norm, there are a few staples — bread-’n-butter publishers — whose commitment to eCommerce news and occasional reports deserve mention.
Likewise, though the world of Amazon is often dominated by drop shippers and less-than-reputable “gurus,” three emails rise above the waves:
An exploration of life’s inner and outer spaces, Erin Falter dances between introspection, self-questioning, and the grind of jobs, careers, and relationships. It’s not just a newsletter but a blueprint — using feedback from worldly ambitions to spur inner development.
With compelling teachings and resources for career navigation, WorkWork is a hub for the courageous who find growth inevitable.
Journalist Jonah Weiner and design scout Erin Wylie have built Blackbird Spyplane into the internet’s crunchiest source of “unbeatable recon” for compulsive jawns-coppers with zero chill. From celebrating small creators to interviews with Jerry Seinfeld and Kate Berlant, it’s an immersive, 90s-aesthetic-fueled vibe published twice a month.
More than a touchpoint for the latest trends influencing fashion and design, BBSP is a cultural icon.
Matt Mulder, a DC veteran with 15 years in law and politics, explores how public policy shapes the destiny of future companies. With political acumen, it uncovers industry trends, separates signal from noise, and paves the path to unlikely opportunities.
Retailers seeking to understand the ripple effects of policy changes in the marketplace be advised. First, Muldering isn’t for the faint-of-bipartisan heart. Second, issues are only free for seven days after posting.
‘86 baby Andy Rosenberg welcomes all generations to indulge in nostalgia as well as both “deep(ish)” and “less deep(ish) Millennial stuff.” Back by more than 15 in omnichannel marketing, his chatty forays into news, trends, and business are soaked in thoughtful reflections on growing older amidst an always-younger world.
Curb Your Millennialism is a laughter-infused, Millennial-oriented perspective on the evolving retail scene with product, commercial, and people spotlights.
Ryan Broderick, Buzzfeed News editor and co-host of “Internet Explorer,” is the perfect guide into the fascinating world of online culture and emergent subcultures. A celebration of web1 — like AIM, Kazaa, and various message boards — that never shies away from the weird, the wonderful, and the meme-filled nooks and crannies of web2 on through web3.
While it acknowledges the vastness and unpredictability of the internet, Garbage Day remains optimistic about its possibilities and the journey down the rabbit holes that come with exploring them.
Currently the Senior Editor for the Institute for Progress, Santi Ruiz draws from a well of cultural savvy, historical acumen, and religious fervor … culminating in multi-timbral essays on how people believe and behave, and how the past informs the present.
Regress Studies’ literary bend makes it an unlikely entry on an eCommerce newsletter list. But that’s precisely the point: To find respite in service of new avenues toward success.
Present company excluded — though we’d be delighted if you said, “Future Commerce!” — what is the wrong question.
A far better inquiry would be: How can you get the most out of the best eCommerce emails?
Lest you put another 39 holes in your inbox’s already crowded head, let’s end with five simple steps to follow every time you subscribe to a newsletter.
1. Create one or more Labels in Gmail
2. Select the email and tap: “Filter messages like these”
3. In the box that pops up, click: “Create a filter”
4. Check two boxes: “Apply the label” + “Also apply”
5. “Archive” will then remove it from your Inbox without deleting it
This way, you’ll still get notified … but can easily toss new emails into the right folder to read, consume, and learn on your own timetable later.
Finally, if we left your favorite eCommerce, DTC, or beyond-the-norm newsletter on our list, be sure to let us know. After all, 40 is a much more well-rounded number than 39.
