Ecom CFO Notebook - Q1 data check and why you should cut your forecast

Ecom CFO Notebook is a (mostly) strategic finance publication for $10M+ ecommerce operators.

What I write comes from the patterns, problems, and decisions from our client work at Ecom CFO - providing brands outsourced CFO, accounting, and financial operations.

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Back in January, we published our predictions for the year 2026 Revenue Planning Guide — our predictions for where the consumer was headed and how those predictions should shape how you think about revenue forecasting.

Our general rule of thumb for 2026: you better have a damn good reason for projecting over 10% growth.

Now it's Q1. Time to check our work.

Note - I’m publishing more video content, especially on the data heavy topics. If you prefer to listen instead of read, here’s the clip. Highly recommend you watch on 1.25 and excuse my slow, southern draw.

What we predicted for 2026

Two things drive spending for the US consumer: their ability to buy (the hard financial stuff — debt, purchasing power, inflation) and their market perception (how they actually feel about the economy).

We mapped this on a 2x2 matrix.

• High ability + high perception = high growth environment

• Low ability + low perception = no growth or decline.

Based on the data and my conversations with clients, I believe we were medium ability to buy, low market perception.

Based on the data, Shopify GMV data, and our benchmark report, 10% revenue growth was our general guidance for most brands (assuming you were operating the same core business, same channels, same model, just optimizing).

That was the January opinion.

Here's what happened since.

What’s happened since

• Three rate cuts from the Fed since Q4 2025

• A government shutdown

• The Iran and Venezuela conflicts

A lot of noise but what’s the data telling us?

On the consumer’s ability-to-buy metrics, we are largely on track.

Consumer debt service payments came in at 5.37% of income in Q3 — essentially where we projected (note: given Bureau of Labor Statistics staffing cuts, some of this data is lagging more than usual, but we're working with what we have).

Inflation followed a similar pattern: Q3 came in at 2.8%, Q4 at 2.7%, Q1 2026 at 2.4% against a projection of 2.3%.

Close enough to call it on track.

Shopify GMV also tracked well — $92B in Q3, $123.8B in Q4, both on track or beating estimates.

The consumer's ability to buy still looks okay. Wages are up relative to 2019. Debt loads are manageable. Inflation is flat to cooling.

The problem is sentiment. And sentiment looks horrendous.

We projected consumer sentiment would start recovering into the mid-60s through the beginning of 2026. It didn't. It went the other direction.

The disconnect is the whole story. The average consumer has the capacity to spend despite the noise.

But their perception is reality — the average consumer is going to be increasingly reluctant to spend on discretionary purchases, regardless of their bank account.

What this means for your forecast

If I was your CFO and you forecasted 10% growth for the year, I would trim that 2.5 to 5 percentage points … unless you as the founder can give me strong data to tell me I'm wrong.

Not because the ability-to-buy data is falling apart. But because sentiment is a key indicator of actual purchase behavior and it's been really bad for over a year now.

What’s worse - when consumer sentiment stays this low for this long, the real fear is it will drag the ability-to-buy with it.

And it's not just the macro data.

Anecdotally, I'm seeing bank lending get tighter. Banks are pulling lines of credit. Founders are driven to higher-interest alternative lenders or funding out of their own pockets.

I can't remember the last time a client of ours filed for bankruptcy. Until last month.

Unfortunately, there are more clients I'd put in the financially distressed category right now than I'd like to admit

Some brands went into this year carrying too much inventory already. In that environment, missing a too-optimistic forecast starts to compound and could put you in a hole that gets harder and harder to dig out of.

This doesn't mean stop pushing. Audit your email flows. Optimize your conversion. Unlock new channels. Do the AI stuff.

The macro environment isn't an excuse for flat execution — if anything, it's a reason to be sharper. But the organic lift a lot of brands were counting on isn't coming.

Meta gets more expensive. The algorithms keep changing. Tariff uncertainty. And now consumer sentiment is at a historic low. These are all headwinds stacking on top of each other.

More confirmation that easy mode is over.

Final Thoughts

My job as the leader of an advisory firm is to give our clients (and this industry) the best context possible for making good decisions.

I'm curating that context for you. You obviously have to trust me, but my incentives are aligned with yours.

Most brands we work with don't have a board. No one is raising their hand to identify red flags. No one is pushing back on the revenue assumptions. No one is asking "what if we're wrong?"

So let this newsletter be that voice. Look at your forecast. Look at the sentiment data. And ask yourself honestly: what does this mean for my business if Sam's right?

— Sam

Looking for more? Some of our most popular posts:

1. 2026 Annual Benchmark Report: Key insights from financials across 30+ companies – including revenue growth, margins, ad spend, and more.

2. 2026 Revenue Planning Guide: Our report on macroeconomic indicators, Shopify GMV trends, and same-store revenue benchmarks to give operators a clear, data-backed outlook for 2026.

3. The issue with KPIs: Everyone has tons of data, but doesn’t know what to do with it. This is my take on managing the right metrics.

4. Responsibility Map: I walk through how to define who owns, participates in, and supervises every key finance & accounting deliverable

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