Monday, July 10

#1 - 🛍️ Fewer people are using TikTok to find products

📰 TL;DR - TikTok is slipping as a place where people start searching for products. According to a new study, fewer US adults are using the platform as a starting place for product searches than a year ago. Rather, Amazon reigns supreme and is in fact growing as a starting point, particularly with young people.

💡 Insight - This surprised me at first until I thought about it for a few minutes. Thinking of my own shopping habits, Amazon is indeed the first place I look when I actively want to buy something — it’s just a good platform for getting a sense of options as well as price points. Failing that, I go to Google, which is the second-most popular place in this survey. I don’t tend to use TikTok with the explicit purpose of shopping, it’s more of a place where I passively find new products. So I wouldn’t interpret this as TikTok being useless, I still think it’s highly useful for brand discovery, it’s not just primarily a shopping platform (…for now).

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🍎 Weight loss goes DTC

📰 TL;DR - Jenny Craig, a real legacy of a weight loss brand, is going DTC after being acquired by Wellful, which also owns Nutrisystem. This comes after Jenny Craig shuttered and filed for bankruptcy. The buzz here is that Jenny Craig is going to reborn with the sensibilities of a modern DTC business, but will that actually be enough to revive the brand?

💡 Insight - Here’s my hot take: this is an iffy play. Legacy weight loss brands have fallen out of favor, particularly with younger generations that are very skeptical of anything connected to traditional dieting. Rather, DTC “wellness” brands are all the rage. Rather than directly touting weight loss, the brands I see succeeding now are more about supporting vitamin intake, or healthy makeovers of traditionally bad-for-you foods, or anything that promotes “balance.” I think straight-up selling a diet is a hard sell indeed. There’s a reason

➡️ You can read the article here...

📣 If you want to reach our audience of 10,000+ DTC store owners, tap here 

#3 - 💌 A new customer email cheatsheet

📰 TL;DR - As I’ve mentioned before, I regularly reply to people on Twitter offering e-commerce advice in exchange for a like/follow/comment. I try to find the ones that are actually worth it so you don’t have to! I found a pretty good one today from @EmailWithAndy of a post-purchase email marketing flowchart that I think is worth checking out. As a note, Andy put in a comment that he specifically uses Klaviyo.

💡 Insight - As usual, in respect of the Twitter hustle, I won’t share the link directly. But I can tell you that it’s a pretty simple but smart flowchart that shows both what type of email to send and how to segment a new customer at various places along the journey. It also has filters and exact timing. If you feel like you’ve already perfected your email flow, feel free to skip this one, but I can see this being very useful if you’re a new brand or just not seeing conversions from your strategy.

➡️ You can read the tweet here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

🐳 DATA -There's a reason I always recommend Triple Whale to my e-commerce clients, see why here.

🦡 BADGES - Badges are an easy way to build trust with customers, this guide goes over a few you can make use of.

💃🏽 TIKTOK - This is a cool deep dive into TikTok’s e-commerce ambitions. Read here.

🤖 AI - Here’s a look at how Google’s new generative AI going to impact e-comm, for better or worse.

👀 TEMU - Temu is expanding into Japan. Read more here.

#5 - 🤫 FTC targets influencer disclosures

📰 TL;DR - This is a roundup of e-commerce news from Retail Dive that’s all worth a read, but I want to focus on the last item. As the FTC cracks down in fake reviews and endorsement issues, they’re also taking a closer look at how brands work with influencers. Specifically, it’s important that influencers you work with include some sort of #ad or #sponsored tag on all posts, not just the first one. Like if they post 5 videos from a brand trip, they all need a tag. And it can’t be in the comments!

💡 Insight - This disclosure really seems to irk people but I don’t see it as a big deal. If a caption is long enough, a single #ad tag isn’t going to be prominent. On TikTok especially, it’ll be below the fold anyway. Be skeptical of influencers who don’t tag properly — work with professionals!

➡️ You can read the article here...