High-Income Consumers Are Commercially Exhausted
Open with Joy ☼ June 2026
Your customer is insta-jaded and can't TikTok take it any longer.
They've been promised solutions across every scroll, shelf, and checkout page. And now those purchases are living rent free in their closet, cabinets, and conscience…unused.
They're buying cashmere from Quince and finding your product on Poshmark for half the price.
They still want free shipping. They're also the reason free shipping is getting harder to offer.
Chatty is the new WOM.
This is Open With Joy, a monthly resource for leaders of premium, customer-centric, scaling modern consumer brands. The latest on consumer behavior, DTC operations, supply chain, and the tech that keeps us growing.
Let’s go.
On the radar for June
High-Income Shoppers Are Pulling Back
What happened: Morning Consult recorded a 17.8-point drop in high-income consumer confidence between December 2025 and February 2026 (the largest since COVID). Among households earning $100k or more, discretionary spending across apparel, wellness, and personal care is where the pullback is landing hardest.
Why it matters: The threshold for curiosity and first-time purchases is collapsing. Consumers are being drained at every stage. They are fatigued by the onslaught of reels telling them what their problem is, the subsequent purchase that promised to solve it but turned out to be meh, and the growing pile of one-hit transactions that is literally living rent-free in their brain and physical space. People are just commercially exhausted.
Alexia's take: Customer acquisition needs to produce fans, not just buyers. The market is saturated with purchases that extract more than they deliver. Every touchpoint from the ad, the checkout, the unboxing, and the learning curve all cost the customer something. Given the proliferation of cheap, cookie-cutter private-label goods, customers have learned that the investment rarely matches the delivery.
What you can do: More than ever, this is the opportunity for premium brands to differentiate and lock in fans with exceptional CX. That’s what Best Buds CX is here for.
Value and Resale Are Outperforming
What happened: Consumer Edge transaction data shows the same exhausted buyer from the story above making a new set of decisions. Quince and Uniqlo for essentials. Depop and Poshmark for the lower-stakes bet. Full-price, brand-story-heavy, aspirational premium for almost nothing. Spending at the top and the value end is holding. The middle is hollowing out.
Why it matters: This customer hasn't left. They've gotten smarter. A new-with-tags find on Poshmark at $40 carries a fraction of the emotional risk of a $140 first-time brand purchase. Quince cashmere at $50 raises the question of what the $244 version is actually charging for. The calculation is the same whether it's a supplement, a skincare line, or a jacket.
Alexia's take: This hits home for me. I’m a true fan of Coyuchi and Avocado Green. However, I also just purchased some bedding from Quince.
An interesting assignment for you: Search your brand on Poshmark or a resale equivalent. Also, take a look to see if there is a dupe on Quince? Thoughts?
Surcharges Are Now 33% of Your Average Shipping Cost
What happened: FedEx and UPS each raised rates 5.9% for 2026. But the headline increase is only part of what you're actually paying. Surcharges inclusive of residential delivery, fuel, additional handling, delivery area now account for roughly 33% of the average shipping cost. USPS added a separate increase on top.
Why it matters: The customer from the last two stories is harder to win and more expensive to lose. Shipping costs eating into your margin aren't just an ops problem, they're coming out of the budget you need to deliver the experience that turns a first-time buyer into a fan.
Alexia's take: Can you afford free shipping? Can you afford not to have free shipping?
Your takeaway: Your 3PL, broker, or carrier aggregator can send you a full surcharge breakdown by shipment. Take a look. Ask what is negotiable.
Customers Are Outsourcing Confident Conversions to AI
What happened: At Google I/O this week, Google launched Universal Cart, a persistent shopping hub that lets customers add products from any store directly inside Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail. Target, Walmart, Sephora, and Wayfair are already in. The Universal Commerce Protocol behind it includes Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Shopify's Agentic Storefronts puts your products directly into ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot with one setup in your admin.
Why it matters: The customer featured in this newsletter isn't just raising the bar for what earns their dollar, they're outsourcing the confidence. AI comparison shopping is the logical endpoint of purchase fatigue. If the machine vets it, the risk of another disappointing buy goes down. The agents doing that vetting are reading your product data, catalog metadata, inventory signals, sizing attributes and not your brand story. Google analyzes 47 attributes to determine placement in AI shopping results. Products with complete schema markup see 47% higher inclusion rates. Messy data means the agent moves on. Clean data means you show up.
Alexia's take: This is the first new customer acquisition channel in a while that doesn't require a paid media budget. Worth ten minutes in your Shopify admin to turn it on.
Your takeaway: Create a special project to audit your meta-data for optimal AI discoverability. We created a cheatsheet to get you started.
In other news
With love, Best Buds
Open With Joy is brought to you by Best Buds CX, a fractional COO partnering with bold brands built on core values. We implement customer-retaining operations across the business that empower teams to operate at their highest potential so you can reclaim your time, energy, and ambition. Learn more.
