Joe & Bella

Way to go Jimmy Zollo! Last week at the CoCreate Pitch Challenge you pitched with passion and showed off Joe & Bella's shirts and pants, as well as our broader mission to make dressing easier for all. We're all so honored to be recognized as a Top 10 Winner! Want to know why the Sharks loved our products? Check them out for yourself at JoeAndBella.com!

👀 👀 👀 #CoCreatePitch

ChatGPT wants your checkout – what happens to brand control? OpenAI is piloting a checkout feature inside ChatGPT — allowing users to complete purchases directly in the interface. For retail brands, this is not just a new sales channel; it’s a structural shift in how digital commerce is intermediated. According to the Financial Times, OpenAI (USA) is showing early prototypes to brands, with the offer: integrate your checkout, and pay a commission per transaction. No launch date or fee structure has been confirmed yet. For startups, the opportunity is double-edged. Joe & Bella and Springrose, both in the adaptive apparel space, are already optimizing their site copy to be legible and compelling to AI models. They know: how ChatGPT interprets your brand will drive purchase behavior — not your visuals, not your UX, not your ad budget. But the risks are substantial. If visibility becomes monetized, smaller brands could be locked out. As Katie Diasti from viv for your v puts it: “Will the biggest ad budget decide what’s the safest product?” Another open question: who owns the customer relationship? Nicole Cuervo from Springrose asks whether brands will even get customer data from sales on ChatGPT. And if ChatGPT gets the product details wrong? The reputational hit lands on the brand — not the platform. Founders are preparing, but much remains uncertain. What’s clear is that ChatGPT is shifting from AI assistant to transactional platform — a move that could redraw the digital shelf as we know it. #retail #ecommerce #fmcg #omnichannel #marketing #aiinretail #generativeai #chatgpt #startups #retailtech #onlineshopping #sales #consumertrends #digitalcommerce #conversionrate #brandstrategy #contentmarketing #futureofretail #usretail #northamerica #openai #fashiontech #adaptivefashion #dataownership #affiliatemarketing #customerdata #marketplaces #retailplatforms #smallbusiness #digitaldisruption #aicommerce

Will OpenAI's ChatGPT checkout feature disrupt traditional DTC customer acquisition? The prototype is certainly forcing founders to confront fundamental questions about AI-controlled commerce infrastructure. viv for your v saw a 400% traffic bump when ChatGPT started recommending their products after a study about heavy metals in tampons. It demonstrates the recommendation engine's capacity for contextual product discovery - but also reveals how brands are becoming dependent on algorithmic curation they might not be able to fully control Three potential technical implications: 🔍 The need for Natural language optimisation: Joe & Bella is A/B testing whether structured data (bullet points) or conversational formats perform better with large language models. This shift from keyword optimisation to semantic understanding might fundamentally change the way we approach content strategy. 📊 Data portability becomes critical. Nicole Cuervo, the founder from Springrose identified the key issue: "Are we getting any of that consumer information and data from sales on ChatGPT?" In AI-mediated commerce, first-party data collection moves from the brand's domain to the AI platform's infrastructure. 💰 Economic moats favor scale. Liz Williams from The Checkroom correctly identified the pay-to-play dynamic: "I don't see it being a space that I could compete in, especially against Amazon and H&M." Commission-based AI commerce creates the same advertising auction dynamics we see in Google Ads. The strategic shift: Success in AI commerce will require brands to optimise for AI training data quality - creating content that models genuinely want to surface because it provides user value. This means understanding how transformer architectures weight different signals: semantic relevance over keyword density, contextual accuracy over promotional language, and comprehensive information architecture over fragmented product specs. Read more in Modern Retail #ECommerce #AI #DTCStrategy

We’re so honored to have played a role in Charter Senior Living’s charity drive. Their goal this year is to raise $250,000 for the Alzheimer Association’s Longest Day campaign. So over the weekend, if you’d like to contribute, use code CHARTER at checkout for 10% of your purchase to be donated to their charity drive. You can also donate directly to their campaign here: https://lnkd.in/gppbPST7 Let's find to END ALZ together! https://lnkd.in/g2Fhza3P #endalz #longestday #alzheimers #caregiving #caregivers #dementia   Charter Senior Living Alzheimer's Association® SageAge

We’re so honored to have played a role in Charter Senior Living’s charity drive. Their goal this year is to raise $250,000 for the Alzheimer Association’s Longest Day campaign. So over the weekend, if you’d like to contribute, use code CHARTER at checkout for 10% of your purchase to be donated to their charity drive. You can also donate directly to their campaign here: https://lnkd.in/gppbPST7 Let's find to END ALZ together! https://lnkd.in/g2Fhza3P #endalz #longestday #alzheimers #caregiving #caregivers #dementia   Charter Senior Living Alzheimer's Association® SageAge

We’re so honored to have played a role in Charter Senior Living’s charity drive. Their goal this year is to raise $250,000 for the Alzheimer Association’s Longest Day campaign. So over the weekend, if you’d like to contribute, use code CHARTER at checkout for 10% of your purchase to be donated to their charity drive. You can also donate directly to their campaign here: https://lnkd.in/gppbPST7 Let's find to END ALZ together! https://lnkd.in/g2Fhza3P #endalz #longestday #alzheimers #caregiving #caregivers #dementia   Charter Senior Living Alzheimer's Association® SageAge

What to Look for in a Retirement Community https://lnkd.in/g7-up-j9 Investopia #seniorliving #seniorcare #retirementcommunity #retirement #olderadults #independentliving

Yesterday, Joe & Bella hosted an absolutely amazing fashion show at Residences at Wellpoint, a beautiful senior-living community in Huntsville, Alabama that's part of Charter Senior Living. Thank you to the amazing team at SageAge and everyone involved in creating this uplifting and joyous event. The residents who modeled were so wonderful. I don't think I stopped smiling the whole time I was there! Our fashion show is part of Charter's annual Longest Day fundraiser on behalf of the Alzheimer's Association® We'll have some more fantastic content to share of this event soon! #seniorliving #seniorcare

I often write about big picture topics like trade, US-China, geopolitics and how they are rattling markets but I had the opportunity this week to shine a light on the real-world impact of the policy uncertainty on small businesses like Haand Pottery, Learning Resources and Jimmy Zollo's Joe & Bella. https://lnkd.in/esFQwDCA