Gen Alpha Has More Money Than You
Welcome to Wednesday, futurists.
You may have noticed that we’ve been talking a lot more about stores in our content lately. That’s largely a reflection of what we’re hearing from you, our community. You’re either scaling your brick-and-mortar fleet, or are exploring how your brand will translate from digital channels to physical environments.
We’re also doing it because it’s a reflection of how we, individually and as a culture, interact with the world. We are nuanced and multidimensional, and we’re looking for new ways to interact, engage, and co-create with the brands we love.
That’s why we’ve created Field Notes: a new Future Commerce Plus offering that provides in-depth analysis and actionable critique of some of the industry’s most buzzed-about stores. The epicenter of Field Notes is our Senses Matrix, which will provide you with framework for identifying new ways to differentiate through sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste.
You can learn more about our Senses Matrix here, and even download a free copy of our SKIMS Field Notes so you can get a glimpse of the detailed analysis our partner, Kate Fannin, provides. Future Commerce Plus members have access to our entire collection of six stores, with more to come.
This is only the beginning of our journey exploring the magic of physical worldbuilding. Stay tuned for more, including our latest season of Step by Step, which will run Aug. 12-14. Store 2 Screen is an exploration of brands that embracing this new omnimodal landscape, where physical store spaces and service add a distinct value that nothing else can. We’ll be chatting with executives from Anthropologie, Rebag, and AKIRA to get their perspectives on how technology can enhance the power of human connection; something only brick-and-mortar can provide.
— Phillip
P.S. Vote for us for SXSW! Futurists, SXSW just opened its Panel Picker, and our two sessions are on the ballot. If our newsletter has ever sparked an idea or saved you a scroll-doom spiral, repay the favor with two quick taps. Hit the ❤️ next to “Serendipity Engines” and “Your Brand Is Echoing Itself to Death,” then share the links with a friend who loves good ideas. Ten seconds of voting = one giant leap for creative commerce!
Pocket Money Power. Gen Alpha influences nearly half of household spending with 8-14 year olds wielding $67 weekly allowances(?!?!) and directly spending $101 billion annually. These iPad natives aren't just choosing their own Roblox skins anymore; they're driving family purchase decisions, proving that the kids aren't just alright, they're essentially running the household P&L.
Social Media Singularity. Instagram announces reposts feature, allowing users to share reels and feed posts directly to their followers' feeds, creating yet another algorithmic echo chamber where your friends' questionable taste becomes your problem. The feature adds a dedicated "reposts" section to profiles and a new Friends tab on reels, essentially turning everyone into that one friend who forwards every single TikTok they've ever watched, except now it's sanctioned by Meta and impossible to escape.
Our Take: In just a handful of months, the entire social media game has been upended. Instagram is now indexed on Google, making your carefully curated grid searchable by anyone… even AI agents.
Meta's repost feature arrives at a fascinating moment: just as platforms are becoming more porous and searchable, they're simultaneously trying to create more insular, friend-to-friend sharing mechanics. This isn't about competing with TikTok's FYP anymore; it's about creating a defensive moat against the complete dissolution of platform boundaries as people create more conclaves and burrow into smaller in-groups.
Two factions have formed: You + Others, and You + The Algo. IG is trying to merge those two universes.
The repost feature feels less like innovation and more like a desperate attempt to keep users inside Meta's walled garden while the walls themselves are becoming transparent. Remember when we predicted the death of the algorithm in favor of human curation? This is it, except instead of tastemakers, we're getting your college roommate's questionable meme collection force-fed into your feed. The multiplayer brand future we wrote about is here, but now your aunt is playing, and she just discovered reaction videos.
One App to Rule Them All. Disney plans to fully integrate Hulu into Disney+ platform, phasing out the standalone app entirely because apparently managing two apps was harder than acquiring an entire media empire. The Mouse House now owns 100% of Hulu and has decided that toggling between platforms is more exhausting than explaining to your kids why Deadpool lives in the same app as Bluey.
Democratic Fragrance. Beardbrand empowers customers to vote on which of four limited-edition fragrances becomes permanent, proving that democracy works better for beard oil than Congress.
The brand released equal units of each scent and let their community decide the winner, a multiplayer brand moment that would make Future Commerce's own Phillip Jackson shed a single, perfectly groomed tear of joy.
Dyson's Greasy Pivot.. Dyson (the vacuum-and-hair-wrap company) launches Omega oils for haircare, including a hydrating hair oil and leave-in conditioning spray, pivoting from sucking to conditioning in their quest to dominate every electrical outlet in your bathroom. The move signals Dyson's continued push into consumables, because why stop at $600 hair dryers when you can sell $60 bottles of oil to go with them in perpetuity?
Bacon Naan and Boardrooms. L Catterton takes minority stake in Dishoom at £300m valuation, marking the Indian restaurant group's first private equity investment since 2010. The luxury-focused PE firm is betting Americans are ready for upscale Indian breakfast experiences and bacon naan rolls, because nothing says "authentic Mumbai café" like LVMH-adjacent capital backing your US expansion.
The Bard Would Be Appalled. The internet collectively rejects "sex and commerce" as interchangeable terminology (in NYT Connections, anyway), with users responding to the attempted neologism with appropriate horror and disdain. Ironically, it comes as the Florida State Attorney General sues a handful of defiant pornography sites for defying an eight-month-old law that requires physical identification of users on commercial porn sites.
Shakespeare thought these were interchangeable terms, though. Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1: Ophelia to Hamlet: “Could beauty . . . have better commerce than with honesty?”
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