Thursday, November 9

The 5 things in DTC you need to know today

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🚨 In today’s newsletter 🚨

  • TikTok’s latest strategy to become an e-commerce power player

  • Actionable hack for Amazon

  • Are your 2020 numbers holding you back?

  • All the e-commerce sales lingo you need to know

Let’s get into it👇

#1 - 📦 TikTok Shop is adding fulfillment services

📰 TL;DR - TikTok is making a big bet that offering logistics to its Shop offerings will make it a true e-commerce powerhouse. TikTok is setting up a network of warehouses and fulfillment services to take on the troubles of inventory management and delivery for brands using TikTok Shop. This would truly take TikTok from a marketing opportunity to a true e-commerce player, competing with the likes of Amazon. This would, theoretically, allow TikTok to follow through on promises of fast delivery and could attract more merchants to sign up.

💡 Insight - In case you were wondering if TikTok is really serious about e-commerce in the US, this should let you know it’s a definite yes. What’s interesting here is that TikTok isn’t building its own services, but making deals with providers like ShipBob and Newegg, so if you trust those services, this might be appealing. Altogether it looks like they’re trying to make a turnkey service and I can savvy entrepreneurs making a business purely on TIkTok the way they might on Amazon. Between this and the affiliate program, it’s hard to deny that TikTok is really trying to offer an attractive and diverse set of incentives to sell with them.

#2 - 🥇 Hacking Your Way to #1 on Amazon Has Never Been Easier

📰 TL;DR - One of the biggest challenges for Amazon sellers is staying ahead of the curve with hacks and reading the latest Amazon news that actually matters. There's a ton of noise out there and it's getting increasingly hard to know who to trust.

If that's you, you NEED to check Amazon Insiders out!

💡 Insight - Amazon Insiders is the fastest-growing Amazon Seller newsletter in America right now and it's obvious why.

In less than 5 minutes a week, you get an actionable hack to grow your brand on Amazon, interviews of top sellers, and breaking news that directly relates to your business.

Readers include incredible brands like Simple Modern, HexClad (yes, the Gordon Ramsay pans), Crossnet, Obvi, and countless other legends.

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#3 - 🤔 You need to move on from 2020

📰 TL;DR - While 2020 was a very rough year for the world, it was a boom time for e-commerce. That year, US e-commerce surged 28%, and surged 22% again in 2021. You might have had a great year for sales, or even launched your brand during this time. But, inevitably, that boom has not endured. As this article says, “when extraordinary business gains are caused by an external factor, those same gains can dry up as soon as that external factor is no longer a factor.” The problem is when you start comparing your current numbers to 2000 and wonder what went wrong. Well, nothing, and it’s not just you. And you shouldn’t be discouraged — this article has some reasons why you should be optimistic.

💡 Insight - Dwelling in the past is a bad idea in most areas of your life, and your e-commerce business can be included in that. I know it’s easier said than done to simply shrug off slowed growth but clinging to 2020 numbers isn’t doing you any favors. There is still steady growth in e-commerce, so aim for steady. Look at year-to-year stats, not just today vs. 2020. Embrace this current moment and figure out how you can grow sustainably into the future. I like this part: “comparing your current 2023 numbers to either 2020 or 2021 is like comparing an average day of your normal life to the best day of your life. You’re comparing what’s normal with what’s decidedly abnormal.”

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

👩🏼 MEN VS. WOMEN - This piece looks at how men and women shop differently for the holidays, which is some good marketing intel.

🔎 SEARCH - This startup is building a new super-powered e-commerce search tool.

👀 GEN Z - Click here to find out the online shopping habit almost all of Gen Z engage in.

🎁 HOLIDAY SHOPPING - Shipping and returns will matter a lot to customers this holiday season.

🇬🇧 UK - These charts show the state of e-commerce in the UK.

#5 - 📊 The sales analytics you must know

📰 TL;DR - This is a good overview of all the sales analytics you should be paying attention to as an e-commerce brand. Stuff like CLV, sales conversion rate, CPA, churn rate, etc. And if you don’t know what any of those are, consider this a glossary. This also goes over how to analyze these stats and how to pick a sales analytics tool, like Hubspot, Looker, or Tableau.

💡 Insight - This may all be old news if you’re an established brand, but if you’re new, thinking of opening an e-commerce store, or about to hunker down and get more professional about it all, this should be useful. As a seller, data and analytics really are your best friend. You can’t measure numbers you don’t have, and you can’t know that you’re growing if you can’t track it.

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