For years, the ecommerce financing conversation has revolved around whether growing brands can get enough capital. More capital for inventory, marketing, expansion. 

But our 2026 research found that ecommerce brands don’t have a capital access problem. They have a capital agility problem.

When we asked 208 ecommerce finance and operations leaders which capital planning challenges had become harder for them over the past year, accessing external capital came dead last.

Instead, the top three challenges were:

1. Managing the cost of capital
2. Forecasting demand accurately
3. Managing the gap between paying suppliers and receiving revenue

In other words, accessing capital may not be the problem. Making sure the cost and timing of that capital align with unpredictable demand and cash flow is much harder. And nowhere is that need for financial agility clearer than with inventory.

93% of ecommerce operators changed their inventory strategy in the last year

Some brands are carrying more inventory than the prior year. Others are carrying less. Some are ordering earlier. Others are making smaller orders more often. While respondents seem to agree that the old approach needs adjusting, they don’t agree on how. No one size seems to fit all merchants.

That same pattern shows up across capital planning, customer acquisition, channel strategy, and growth itself, making clear that the new playbook for ecommerce growth today is about adaptability. 

The game has changed. Just having access to capital isn't enough anymore. Brands increasingly need funding flexibility to pivot quickly as conditions change.

6 New Plays For Ecommerce Growth 

Across the data, one pattern keeps surfacing: ecommerce brands are still pursuing growth, but the way they plan for it is changing. Inventory, acquisition, capital, and channel expansion have become more interconnected, making flexibility more valuable than any single “best” strategy. 

Here are the six data-driven plays for ecommerce growth in 2026 and beyond:

1. Capital is available. Coordination is harder.

The data repeatedly points to one challenge: synchronization.

Brands are trying to match inventory purchases with demand, supplier payments with future revenue, marketing investments with channel performance, and capital commitments with growth opportunities. 

And for many brands, capital needs aren't one-and-done. Clearco customer data shows that 27% of brands access additional funding more than once within 12 months. That makes sense in a business where inventory, marketing, and expansion opportunities don't all appear at once—or according to the same plan.

That helps explain why managing capital costs, forecasting demand, and navigating the supplier-to-revenue gap rank as the top three capital planning challenges today. 

What’s interesting is that most respondents can actually access capital reasonably quickly. Nearly 87% of respondents can access growth capital within four weeks, including 36% within the same week.

So the challenge isn't just availability of capital. It's having capital that fits the needs of the business. Funding might be available, but that doesn’t mean it has the right cost or structure, or leaves enough room for the next opportunity.

For ecommerce brands, that changes the question from “Can we get capital?” to “Will we have access to the right capital when the business needs it?” Consistent access to the right funding can give operators more flexibility to respond as business and growth needs change.

New Play #1: Coordinate your capital plan around decisions, not just dollars

Stop thinking about your capital plan as one number. Instead, map capital against the opportunities it needs to support by asking: 

• When does cash leave the business? 
• When does revenue come back? 
• What happens if demand arrives early, late, or in a completely different channel than expected?

The best capital strategy is one that preserves room for the next decision rather than locking the business into today's assumptions.

2. There is no single winning inventory strategy

93% of respondents made at least one significant change to their inventory planning, but brands are all moving in notably different directions. There is no common shift and no one size fits all:

• 44% are adjusting stock levels to manage tariff-related cost increases
• 39% are holding more safety stock because demand is unpredictable
• 38% are concentrating inventory investment in proven products
• 37% are placing inventory orders earlier
• 35% are holding less inventory and relying on faster replenishment
• 34% are ordering smaller quantities more frequently

More inventory! Less inventory! Earlier orders! Smaller orders!

What gives?

The answer is that these businesses are responding to different versions of the same problem: uncertainty.

A brand facing long supplier lead times may need more safety stock, while one with faster domestic replenishment may be better off staying lean. 

And the financial pressure behind these choices is real. Higher product, freight, tariff, or input costs are the biggest inventory-related capital constraint for the majority (38%) of respondents. 

New Play #2: Optimize your inventory strategy for the ability to adjust

A forecast can tell you what you think will happen. A flexible plan gives you options when it doesn’t. Instead of asking whether you should universally hold more or less inventory, build different plans for different products.

Proven SKUs may justify deeper inventory, greater safety stocks. Newer products with unpredictable demand may call for smaller, more frequent orders. 

The goal is not to predict every outcome perfectly. It's to avoid making one inventory decision that leaves the business unable to respond to the next one.

3. AI becomes a customer acquisition line item

This isn’t a story about AI having already taken over ecommerce acquisition. It’s a story about where operators think the next battle for discovery may happen.

While respondents spend the majority of their current acquisition spending on retail media networks today, that may soon no longer be the case. When we asked where ecommerce leaders expect to shift acquisition dollars over the next 12 months, AI- and agent-optimized discovery came first at 61%. It came out ahead of retail media networks, paid social, and paid search.

AI is also becoming part of the sales journey itself. Nearly half of respondents say AI agents, chatbots, or automated shopping assistants are involved in at least 15-30% of their sales today.

And adoption extends beyond marketing: 34% say AI is already core to how they forecast, plan capital, and manage inventory, while 44% use it for specific finance or operational functions.

Brands see AI as an important part of future growth, but AI remains under scrutiny, ranking third among areas where businesses reduced spending and third among cost centers facing the greatest margin pressure.

New Play #3: Treat AI discovery as a measurable acquisition channel

Ecommerce teams don't need to move budget simply because AI is attracting attention, but you do need to start measuring whether AI-assisted discovery is affecting your customer journey.

Track referral traffic, assisted conversions, conversion behavior, and changes in how your customers discover products. As AI moves from experimentation to budget allocation, the brands that understand its actual contribution are better positioned to decide where to aim additional dollars.

4. The growth problem is shifting from acquiring demand to fulfilling it profitably

For much of the DTC era, CAC dominated the growth conversation. Our findings suggest the center of gravity is moving.

When we asked respondents to identify the single biggest source of uncertainty in their growth planning, 30% chose tariffs and supply chain costs.

Only 8% chose CAC inflation.

That makes tariffs and supply chain costs almost four times as likely to be named the biggest uncertainty.

Margin pressure tells a similar story. Tariffs and duties ranked first, while paid acquisition and marketing ranked last among the ten cost centers we asked about.

This doesn't mean CAC has stopped mattering; instead, it shows that the economics of growth have become broader. You can acquire a customer efficiently and still struggle to make the sale profitable once freight, tariffs, product costs, fulfillment, financing, and inventory carrying costs enter the equation.

New Play #4: Stop evaluating growth at the top of the funnel

A campaign with attractive ROAS doesn’t automatically mean profitable growth, especially when inventory, tariffs, fulfillment, and financing costs erase the upside.

Operators should evaluate growth opportunities across the entire cycle: acquisition cost, product margin, inventory commitment, fulfillment expense, cash timing, and expected payback.

The question isn't simply, "Can we generate more demand?" but rather "Can we fulfill that demand profitably?"

5. Capital stacks are becoming portfolios

Ecommerce businesses aren't relying on one universal source of growth capital.

Instead, respondents report using a wide combination:

• 63% use cash generated by the business
• 47% use traditional bank lines of credit
• 41% use corporate credit cards
• 40% use equity or investor capital
• 38% use revenue-based financing or ecommerce-specific lenders
• 36% remain at least partly founder-funded
• 20% use venture debt

Because respondents could select multiple answers, the important conclusion isn't that one source has “won.” It's that modern ecommerce businesses are operating with diversified capital stacks rather than a single funding model.

That makes sense as businesses become more complex. A long-term strategic initiative may warrant a different type of funding than an inventory purchase. A repeatable marketing investment may have a different payback profile than a retail expansion, and thus demand a different kind of capital product.

The question then becomes less about finding one source of capital that can do everything (rare!), and more about building diversified funding sources where different capital products work alongside one another. A bank line, equity, revenue-based financing, and business-generated cash don't have to be either/or choices. They can be complementary sources of capital used at the same time to fund different needs across the business.

Multiple funding sources isn’t a haphazard approach to capital planning. Instead, it’s a reflection of how varied ecommerce financing needs have become as business complexity has increased.

New Play #5: Build a capital stack where every source has a job

Rather than asking which type of financing is categorically best, operators should think about how different sources of capital can work together. Assess each funding need and then match it with a capital source based on accessibility, cost, duration, payback period, collateral requirements, and impact on future flexibility.

The goal isn't to find one source that can fund everything, or necessarily to minimize the number of capital sources. It's to build a complementary funding stack where each source has a clear role and fits alongside the others.

6. DTC is shifting to omnichannel 

While DTC remains the primary model for our respondents, where brands plan to grow over the next 12 months tells a broader story.

Amazon leads planned channel investment at 44%, followed closely by wholesale or retail partners at 42%. Only 13% say they aren’t expanding into any additional channels.

While DTC isn’t disappearing, it’s increasingly becoming a starting point rather than the entire growth model.

That expansion creates opportunity, but it also changes cash conversion—how cash comes in and out of the business. Wholesale channels can require bigger inventory commitments and much longer waits for payment. Amazon means marketplace economics. International growth can add logistics, duties, and currency complexity. Physical retail brings an entirely different cost structure.

When we asked respondents about the biggest financing gap created by expanding beyond DTC, 35% cited fulfillment and logistics costs, 22% larger upfront inventory investments, and 20% longer payment terms with retail partners.

Omnichannel expansion can solve one kind of risk—dependence on a single sales channel—but also create another: more complex working capital demands.

New Play #6: Build the financial model before adding the channel

Before expanding into retail, wholesale, marketplaces, or international markets, map the new cash cycle.

How much additional inventory is required? When do suppliers need payment? When will the channel pay you? What fulfillment costs arrive before revenue? How much working capital will be tied up during that gap?

Channel expansion should create more ways to grow; not create a cash constraint that slows the rest of the business.

Build Agility Into Your Playbook

The clearest lesson from this year's research isn't that ecommerce brands should hold more inventory, spend more on AI, or expand into a specific channel.

It's that growth is becoming less predictable at the same time that a brand’s financial decisions are becoming more interconnected:

• Cash affects customer acquisition
• Channel expansion affects inventory investment
• Tariffs affect margin
• Demand affects all of the above

That's why the most important next step for operators is to pressure test their plans for change.

Ask what happens if demand exceeds the forecast. If it falls short. If inventory costs increase. If a retailer order suddenly arrives. If a marketing channel begins outperforming. Or if cash stays tied up longer than expected.

The brands best positioned for what comes next won't necessarily be the ones that predict every move correctly. They'll be the ones with enough financial agility to make the next move when the play changes.