Two numbers. Same company. Same month.
10,900,000 people follow it on TikTok.
65 of its stores closed between late April and mid-October.
10,000,000 were watching. Not enough were returning.
Hi, I’m Jeff Payne. You’re listening to The Jeff Payne Show, Episode 110: Crumbl’s Collapse: Nobody Photographs the Fourth Visit.
If you’ve been near a retail shopping center in the last five years, you know the pink box. Crumbl. A cookie chain that opened its first store in Utah in 2017 and had more than 1,100 locations by the start of this year. A weekly rotating menu. Flavors announced on Sunday, gone by Saturday. Lines out the door. A box designed, reportedly, to look right on a phone screen.
In the spring of last year, it took on a private equity partner at a reported valuation of $2 billion.
This year, the average store generates about $1.14 million in annual sales. Three years ago, the average was $1.84 million. Foot traffic is down 32% year over year. This past August, sales were 70% below the same month two years earlier — franchisees are calling it the worst month in the company’s history. The founders have stepped back from day-to-day roles, and the company is replacing its CEO, CFO, and CMO.
Everyone asks, “What went wrong?” I think the better question is: What did they actually build?
Here’s what Crumbl built. A machine for the first visit.
Think about everything that made it famous.
The line outside the store.
The post of the box.
The Sunday announcement.
The flavor you had to get this week because it wouldn’t be there next week.
The new location opening in your town.
Every one of those is a first-visit signal. Every one of them is loud. They get photographed, queued, and show up on a dashboard.
And they worked. Crumbl got more people to try something once than almost any other brand in the last decade.
Now think about the fourth visit.
The person who comes back on a Tuesday without checking what’s new. Nobody photographs it. There’s no line for it. Nobody announces it. The fourth visit is completely silent.
It’s also the only visit that pays the store owner. A franchisee doesn’t make money from curiosity. They make money from regulars. And the whole system was engineered to produce curious people — and then measured by how many it produced.
The loud number kept going up and up, and the quiet number was never built. Then two things happened.
First, the product had to keep getting louder. A weekly novelty machine runs on tolerance. This week’s cookie has to beat last week’s to get the same reaction, so you add more sugar, more frosting, more stunt. That’s great for the photograph. It’s terrible for the third bite. The content got louder while the thing in the box got worse, and the gap widened in public.
Second — and this is the part I want every owner to sit with — every new store made the box worth less. The pink box was worth posting because not everybody could get it.
One store in a city meant the line meant something. Three stores in a city meant nobody had to wait, and the photo no longer said anything. The growth plan and the reason-to-come pulled against each other from the first new location. And nobody stopped it because top-line revenue kept climbing.
Then, when sales fell, the company reached for another first-visit lever. A new product line, pitched to store owners as a 20% lift, launched in August. August was the worst month in the company’s history.
You can’t fix a fourth-visit problem with a first-visit tool. They’re not the same muscle.
I’ve talked before on this show about offers built to be repeated rather than seen. This is the mirror image. Crumbl was built to be seen. It was never built to be repeated.
So here’s the move.
Pull up whatever you look at every month. Find the column that measures the fourth visit. The customer who returned without being reminded. The patient who’s been with you ten years. The client who renewed without a call.
If that column isn’t there, that’s the finding. Not that the number is low. That you’ve been running the business on the loud numbers and never built the quiet one.
Then ask the harder question. Which parts of your business exist for the person watching, and which exist for the person buying? The website, the launch, the announcement, the new office — who are they for? Because the person watching will get you a first visit. Only the person buying will ever give you a fourth.
And one more. What in your business gets worse as you grow it? Crumbl’s answer was the thing that made it famous. Yours is somewhere. Find it before the top line hides it from you.
Three questions this week. Do you have a number for the fourth visit? Which parts of your business are built for the camera? And what gets weaker every time you add more of it?
The first visit gets posted. The fourth one pays. I’m Jeff Payne. Thank you for listening. I will see you next time.
Crumbl built the loudest first-visit machine of the decade. It never built the number that pays the bills.
Two numbers. Same company. Same month. 10,900,000 people follow Crumbl on TikTok. 65 of its stores closed between late April and mid-October.
10,000,000 were watching. Not enough were coming back. That gap is the whole episode, one most business owners have somewhere in their company.
What Crumbl looked like from the outside
If you have been near a shopping center in the last five years, you know the pink box. Crumbl opened its first store in Utah in 2017 and had more than eleven hundred locations by the start of 2026. A weekly rotating menu. Flavors are announced on Sunday and gone by Saturday. Lines out the door. A box reportedly designed to look right on a phone screen.
In May 2025, the company took on a private equity partner at a $2 billion valuation.
Then the numbers turned. Average annual sales per store fell to about $1.14 million in 2025, down from a 2022 peak of $1.84 million.
Foot traffic was down 32% year over year by August.
August 2026 sales were 70% below August two years earlier, a month franchisees described as the worst in company history.
The founders stepped back from day-to-day roles in May, and the company is replacing its chief executive, chief financial officer, and head of marketing.
Everybody asks what went wrong. The better question is what they actually built.
Everybody asks what went wrong. The better question is what they actually built.
A MACHINE FOR THE FIRST VISIT
Think about everything that made Crumbl famous. The line outside the store. The post about the box. The Sunday announcement. The flavor you had to get this week because it wouldn’t be there next week. The opening of a new location in your town.
Every one of those is a first-visit signal. Every one of them is loud. They get photographed, queued, and show up on a dashboard. And they worked: Crumbl got more people to try something once than almost any brand in the last decade.
Now think about the fourth visit. The person who comes back on a Tuesday without checking what’s new. Nobody photographs it. There is no line for it. Nobody announces it. The fourth visit is completely silent.
It is also the only visit that pays the store owner. A franchisee doesn’t make money from curiosity. They make money from regulars. The whole system was engineered to produce curious people, then measure it by how many it produced. The loud number kept going up. The quiet number was never built.
The fourth visit is completely silent. It is also the only visit that pays the store owner.
Two things that happen when you only build the first visit
First, the product has to keep getting louder. A weekly novelty machine runs on tolerance. This week’s cookie has to beat last week’s to get the same reaction, so you add more sugar, more frosting, more stunt. That is great for the photograph and terrible for the third bite. The content got louder while the thing in the box got worse, and the gap widened in public.
Second, each new store made the box worth less. The pink box was worth posting because not everybody could get it.
One store in a city meant the line meant something. Three stores in a city meant nobody had to wait, and the photo said nothing anymore.
The growth plan and the reason-to-come pulled against each other from the first new location, and nobody stopped it because top-line revenue kept climbing.
When sales fell, the company turned to another first-visit lever: a new product line, pitched to store owners as a 20% lift. It launched in August, the worst month in the company’s history.
You cannot fix a fourth-visit problem with a first-visit tool. They are not the same muscle.
This is one of the best written, most informative email newsletters I’ve ever read!
Thank you for sharing your expertise, and hope you’re doing well.
Beth Zimmerman
Founder, Executive Director
Built to be seen, never built to be repeated
I have talked on this show before about offers built to be repeated rather than seen. Crumbl is the mirror image. It was built to be seen, not repeated.
Camille Moore, whose Business of Brand newsletter prompted this episode, frames it as a failure across all four of her brand pillars: a good product, a good story, a good experience, and consistency. Her read is that the product never earned a second visit, the story was a release schedule, the experience was a queue and a box, and consistency was impossible across a thousand independently owned stores relearning a new menu every week. I’d add only that the four failures share a root.
All four are fourth-visit problems, and the company was measuring only the first.
Crumbl was built to be seen. It was never built to be repeated.
The Move: find the column that measures the fourth visit
Pull up whatever you review every month. Find the column that measures the fourth visit. The customer who returned without being reminded. The patient who has been with you for ten years. The client who renewed without a call.
If that column isn’t there, that is the finding. Not that the number is low. You’ve been running the business on the loud numbers and never built the quiet one.
Then ask the harder question. Which parts of your business are for the person watching, and which are for the person buying? The website, the launch, the announcement, the new office: who are they for?
The person watching will get you a first visit. Only the person buying will ever give you a fourth.
And one more. What in your business gets worse as you grow it? Crumbl’s answer was the thing that made it famous. Yours is somewhere. Find it before the top line hides it.
Three Questions
Do you have a number for the fourth visit?
Which parts of your business are built for the camera?
What gets weaker every time you add more of it?
The first visit gets posted. The fourth one pays.
FAQ
What is the “fourth visit” in business terms?
The fourth visit is the repeat purchase that happens without a prompt — the customer who comes back on their own, without a launch, a reminder or a reason to post about it. It is the quiet number most dashboards never measure—and the one that actually pays a franchisee, a dentist, or a service business.
Why did Crumbl’s stores close in 2026?
Reported figures show average sales per store fell from a 2022 peak of about $1.84 million to about $1.14 million in 2025, foot traffic dropped 32% year over year, and August 2026 sales ran 70% below August 2024. The episode argues the deeper cause is that the brand was engineered to produce first visits and never built the regulars that make a franchise’s economics work.
Can virality hurt a brand?
Virality is excellent at getting someone to try you once. It does nothing for the second, third, or fourth purchase, and a product designed for the photograph can get worse for the person eating it. When a brand’s growth depends on scarcity, every new location also dilutes what made it worth sharing.
How do I know if my business is built for the watcher or the buyer?
Look at where the money and attention go: the website, the launch, the announcement, the new office. Ask who each one is for. If most of it serves the person watching rather than the person buying, the business is optimized for first visits and will show it when the attention moves on.
Sources: Camille Moore, “Crumbl’s $2 Billion Mistake,” Business of Brand (Substack), Nov 2, 2026 — https://artofthebrand.substack.com/p/crumbls-2-billion-mistake
Restaurant Business (Jonathan Maze) via KUTV: store closures, average unit volume 2020–2025, August 2026 sales — https://kutv.com/newsletter-daily/crumbl-cookies-closes-dozens-of-stores-amid-declining-sales-report-finds
Entrepreneur: Placer.ai foot traffic, closures, leadership changes, August product launch — https://www.entrepreneur.com/buying-a-franchise/crumbls-sales-are-crumbling-and-its-ceo-says-its-my-fault
Money Digest: 1,101 locations at start of 2026; 65 closures Apr 30–Oct 19; TikTok following — https://www.moneydigest.com/2295578/crumbl-popular-cookie-chain-dozens-locations-closed-2026/
QSR Magazine / Bloomberg: TSG Consumer Partners minority stake, reported $2B valuation — https://qsrmagazine.com/story/report-crumbl-to-sell-minority-stake-to-tsg-consumer-partners/
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