Here are a few of the big findings from our recent Cash‑Unlocks Benchmark Analysis 2025.
The Problem
Founders in ecommerce have desperately needed cash that’s locked up and inefficiently deployed in their businesses.
Our Unique Position
As one of the only CFO and accounting firms specializing in ecommerce, we have the advantage of seeing financial statements across dozens of brands ranging from $1M to $100M+.
Our position gives us unfair insight into how the market’s changing, and we want to share that knowledge with the community.
We teamed up with David Segal and Highbeam to figure out what’s really going on. Together, we built a new report that shows how to identify and attack locked-up cash inside DTC brands.
Real numbers from real companies. Because once you can see the problem, you can actually do something about it.
How We Built the Report
We didn’t just pull generic industry benchmarks from a database and call it a day. We hand-selected five actual clients across a range of revenue sizes to reflect the patterns we’re seeing across the entire client base. Each revenue cohort (under $10M, $10–50M, and $50M+) has at least one representative in the data.
Too many reports cherry-pick high performers or average everything out into something meaningless. We built this so real brands could see themselves in the data.
We also layered in public comps (like Warby Parker) for context, but only where it actually helps. For example, we included inventory turnover benchmarks, since that metric is helpful across company sizes. But we skipped months of runway because comparing a $20M founder-run business to Lululemon’s treasury doesn’t tell you anything.
We built this report so you can look at the numbers and say, “Yeah… that’s us.”
Not to make you panic. But to help you see what’s actually going on so you can know if it’s worth fixing
Summary
We analyzed five real brands across revenue tiers to see where cash is getting stuck. The report looks at three key metrics: inventory turns, months of runway, and working capital (current ratio).
Here’s what immediately stood out to me:
- Inventory is a liability — average turns were just 1.7×. One brand didn’t turn inventory even once all year. Massive opportunity to unlock cash – every extra turn frees up real working capital.
- The cheapest capital is the cash you already own — sweep idle dollars to interest-bearing accounts and you might unlock another full time hire or marketing initiative.
- High months of runway are not badges of honor — define what’s right for the business and do something with the remainder.
