Anchor Ally target-brand research

1. Executive summary

The thesis in one sentence: Atmosphere's natural anchors are brands with millions of customers in the world's largest consumer market and no address in the physical world. They will not sign a ten-year lease with Simon, but they pay Best Buy for shelf space, Amazon for ads and Meta for CPMs every year. We sell them a "physical channel" that is cheaper and more measurable than where those budgets go today.

Four findings

1. Homelessness is measurable and enormous. Anker generates 90.3% of its revenue on Amazon; Zenni has sold more than 50 million frames and has no stores; Bambu Lab did ~$1.5 billion in 2025 revenue with a 10-million-monthly-user community and no U.S. storefront; Jellycat grew 41% in the U.S. with no stores of its own. For these brands, "physical presence" is not a lease decision — it is a marketing-channel decision.
2. The evidence chain is ready. A store opening lifts online sales in its trade area by 6.9%; a closing cuts them 11.5% (ICSC). E-commerce CAC rose 40–60% between 2023 and 2025; Meta CPMs hit a record $22.98. Returns reached $850 billion in 2025; Gen Z makes 7.7 online returns a year. Best Buy earns in-store space revenue from Samsung, Google, Lovesac, Tesla and Starlink.
3. Most of what sits inside Best Buy is an anchor candidate — Best Buy itself is not. (a) Brands that pay Best Buy for space → category anchors; (b) brands sold on Best Buy's shelf with no storefront of their own → Cup League anchors; (c) the ~1,000 third-party sellers on Best Buy Marketplace → the Nest.
4. The biggest anchors are not brands; they are rails. Etsy, Faire, Depop (now eBay), StockX/GOAT, ThredUp, MakerWorld, Best Buy Marketplace — each is the door to tens of thousands of storefront-less sellers.

Summary of the scored pool

Decision requested from the Council: reposition the Anchor Ally program's identity from the "Fortune 500 + Turkish home-and-living" narrative to "the physical channel for homeless brands"; open the first outreach wave with three rails (Etsy/Faire, Depop/StockX, MakerWorld) + one screen partner from the Best Buy (a) group + five Cup League brands.

2. The evidence set behind the win-win claim

A brand has four options today for reaching the physical world: its own store, a big retailer's shelf, OOH advertising, or nothing. The table prices each option with sourced data and matches it to Atmosphere's answer across the seven revenue lines.

Our difference from Simon/Macerich in one line: they lease square footage and earn on one revenue line; we place a brand across seven revenue lines and the brand buys each one, by the day or the hour, measured.

3. The Best Buy thesis: what is inside the box

Best Buy Marketplace grew 7x in three years in Canada, where roughly a third of site orders now come from 3P sellers; Best Buy US launched its Mirakl-powered marketplace in 2025. So even Best Buy chose to become a rail — but its rail is not physical. Atmosphere can be the only structure offering a physical rail to Best Buy's (b) and (c) groups.

Smart glasses: the Best Buy group's 2026 explosion

EssilorLuxottica sold more than 7 million Meta smart glasses in 2025 (2023–24 combined was 2 million); Meta delayed the international launch because it could not meet U.S. demand; Samsung unveiled Galaxy Glasses in July 2026; Google is launching Android XR glasses with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster in fall 2026. This turns the Fair Map's "Eyewear" lot into a "smart-glasses demo zone": four major platforms are simultaneously seeking trial points and none has enough physical inventory.

4. Four anchor types and the offer to each

5. Fair Map categories: candidate brands

Priority (A/B/C) comes from the weighted score (GZ 20 · CC 15 · HL 20 · TR 20 · LF 15 · FS 10) — open the live matrix to change weights or scores. 2026 = sourced current data; Verify = general knowledge requiring field validation.

Books

Coffee

Ceramics

Candles · Candles & scent

Gadgets · Gadgets / Best Buy group

Sneakers

Apparel

Spices

Handmade · Handmade / rails

Eyewear · Eyewear & smart glasses

Local food

Tea · Tea, matcha & boba

Toys · Toys & collectibles

Leather

Bikes · Bikes & e-mobility

Vintage · Vintage & resale

Jewelry

Streetwear

Wellness

Sauces · Sauces & gourmet

Skincare

Denim

3D-printed · 3D printing & makers

Art prints

Home goods

6. The A list and the "not on your list" twelve

The 23 rows the scoring rates A:

The unexpected twelve — and what each brings us

• Depop (eBay) and StockX/GOAT — 58% of Gen Z prioritize secondhand over new; both platforms are looking for physical swap/authentication space. Return: weekend queues + authentication-desk transaction revenue.
• Etsy and Faire — Every Handmade lot is already an Etsy/Faire seller. Return: Lots 001–1000 filled with one agreement; Faire's ads business becomes a media rail for us.
• Bambu Lab + MakerWorld — ~$1.5B revenue, 10M monthly users, 83% retention; no U.S. storefront. Return: the anchor of the Garage nest and a maker community that comes back every week.
• Jellycat — No stores of its own, 41% U.S. growth, Gen Z's "comfort" brand. Return: queues + a drop calendar + Stage.
• Madhappy — Café + store + magazine + mental-health foundation: it is itself a third-place brand. Return: the face of the "belonging" narrative and an LVMH connection.
• Zenni + Meta Ray-Ban + Warby/Google + Samsung — Turns the eyewear lot into a smart-glasses demo zone. Return: four platforms' trial budgets in one area.
• Chagee — Nine Southern California stores in one year, cultural programming with Laufey. Return: teahouse anchor + Stage content; overlaps the PoC cities exactly.
• Lectric / Rad / Super73 — E-bikes sold without a test ride are returns. Return: the first brand cluster that turns the parking lot into a test track.
• Quince and Ruggable — Online-only, heavy / return-prone categories. Return: the highest-volume users of showroom + BoH + the returns line.
• The Best Buy (b) group (Anker, Roborock, DJI, Oura) — Billion-dollar, single-channel dependent. Return: demo-arena occupancy + PingPod's first corporate buyers.
• East Fork, Our Place, Burlap & Barrel, Diaspora, Graza — The conscious consumer's kitchen cluster; combined with Beko it becomes a "kitchen stage."
• Remedy Place / Othership / Function Health — Wellness formats that sell memberships; they turn the mezzanine into a membership engine.

7. The offer package: a Simon lease vs. an Atmosphere lot

Contract formats: (1) Category captain — low rent + revenue share + traffic commitment; (2) Cup League — revenue share including the Full Service Suite + a PingPod package; (3) Rail-anchor — integration + per-booking revenue share (+ an equity option for Faire); (4) Nest — table-day listing, self-serve via OffNdOn.

Outreach sequence (days 0–90)

8. Category clusters for the pilot cities

9. Risks

• Verification gap: 106 of the 142 rows rest on general knowledge ("Verify"); each brand's 2026 store count, channel share and expansion plan must be validated before contact. 36 rows are sourced in this report.
• Rail exclusivities: Depop now belongs to eBay; StockX and GOAT compete; Faire has its own ads business. Rail agreements may exclude one another; media-ally's "no rail above one-third of booked demand" rule must hold.
• Hype risk: Jellycat, Pop Mart, Labubu, matcha — drop culture is cyclical. Category-captain selection needs at least one "boring but constant" traffic source (grocery, IKEA, a returns point).
• Best Buy (a) group conflict: Samsung and Google may both want "powered by"; the sponsor-ally report's split — "the door to automotive, the screens to technology" — must be written into contract.
• The RaaS 1.0 legacy: The Showfields/Neighborhood Goods closures left trust damage among Cup League brands; supplier-payment assurance and transparent revenue reporting must be part of the offer.

10. Sources

Internal

• Fair Map · Live Occupancy (Atmosphere site screen, 1 Sep 2026); sponsor-ally.netlify.app (Decision File Part 4, 31 Aug 2026); media-ally.netlify.app (Founders' Council Handbook Vol. 2, 31 Aug 2026); briefs.fifthwallpe.com; Investment Teaser (Jul 2026); Anchor Ally Program (Apr 2025); ALA Executive Deck; concept video.

Open source

• ICSC — Halo Effect I (2018) and Halo Effect III (Dec 2023).
• Swell / Mobiloud / Retainful / Ringly / Talk Shop — DTC CAC benchmarks (Mar–Jun 2026).
• NRF & Happy Returns — 2025 Retail Returns Landscape (Oct 2025); UPS — Return Bar reaches 10,000 locations (Apr 2026).
• Grips Intelligence — Anker channel share (2026 YTD). Supply Chain Dive — Best Buy vendor spending (Mar 2024). Modern Retail / eDesk / Best Buy Corporate — Best Buy Marketplace (Aug 2025 – Feb 2026).
• EssilorLuxottica Q4 2025 & H1 2026 (CNBC, UploadVR, Basic Tutorials); Android Police (Jan 2026); Dymesty — smart-glasses release calendar (Jun 2026).
• KrAsia / Tom's Hardware via Yahoo / 3DPrint.com / BigGo — Bambu Lab 2025 results (Feb–Jun 2026). Fortune — Jellycat (Feb 2025). Restaurant Business / PRNewswire / Double V — Chagee U.S. (Apr–Jun 2026).
• eBay–Etsy PR (18 Feb 2026); ThredUp 14th Resale Report (Apr 2026); Retail Dive — StockX vintage (Jul 2026); Fast Company — Depop (Feb 2026).
• Forbes — Zenni (Sep 2025). Madhappy.com; FashionNetwork (Nov 2023). Cosmetics Business — Sukoshi (Dec 2025). Chain Store Age — Pop Mart (Jan 2026). eMarketer — malls and Gen Z (Aug 2026). LiveLaunch (BusinessWire, Jun 2026).