Tuesday, October 3

#1 - 🤝 Why these Canadian DTC brands are working together

📰 TL;DR - Here’s an interesting piece on how some DTC brands in Canada are working together. The brands mentioned include Mejuri, Kotn, Fable, and Silk & Snow, who’ve all held shop-in-shop events with each other. It seems to be a trend! The common factors here are that these brands share similar customers, as well as similar values, like community and sustainability. They’ve decided that they can complement each other, rather than just see each other as competitors to avoid.

💡 Insight - This is a nice reminder that sometimes DTC brands are stronger together. These relationships are mutually beneficial and typically forged between brands that have different product categories but sell to the same sort of customer. These are also often retail initiatives but the same principles can be applied to other efforts. For example, I’ve seen similar DTC brands come together for giveaways or promotions on social media. If there’s a brand you love that you think would be a good collab, don’t be shy! Reach out and make something happen.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🔥 Etsy names the hot trends for the holidays

📰 TL;DR - Etsy has released a list of what the hot trends and aesthetics are for the 2023 holiday season. They’re based on search trends on the platform. They’ve arranged them into some novel names like Gingerbread Girl, Mantelscaping, Grandpa Chic, Elevated Entertaining and Candycore. Those describe the aesthetic trends, but if you read further there are some great search stats. For example, searches for entertaining items have grown 10x on Etsy. Or, how there’s been a 28,277% increase in searches for zodiac tea towels. Or a 67% increase in searches for ceramic trees. Read the whole thing to snag all the stats.

💡 Insight - Some of these trends make total sense. For example, people entertained a whole let less through the pandemic and I think everyone is eager to return to big, festive events. All this is good info not just for Etsy sellers, but for everyone. I think it’s especially useful if you sell on Amazon or do dropshipping. People who search for these items are very likely to also search on Amazon or social for the same items — can you snag some of that traffic?

➡️ You can read the article here...

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

#3 - 📦 Amazon wants to use your packaging

📰 TL;DR - Amazon is expanding a program that lets third-party sellers ship items with their own packaging, rather than an Amazon envelope or box. That means buyers will get your branding right on their doorstep. Amazon also has a program called Ships in Product Packaging that helps brands redesign their packaging to work without additional Amazon packaging. It sounds like this all started with a successful pilot program. The benefit to Amazon is savings in packaging time as well as materials — so that’s an environmental bonus. There’s a small list of exclusions, such as lithium batteries.

💡 Insight - This is a great thing! As a DTC brand, you’ve probably put a ton of effort into making the unboxing experience as magical as possible. Slapping an Amazon box over that sort of diminishes that effort. It also forges a stronger connection between the customer and your brand, rather than the customer and Amazon. Seems like a win-win overall.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

📝 CONTENT - Here are five content marketing ideas for November.

💿 PRODUCTS - Here’s a weekly roundup of e-commerce product releases.

📈 TRENDS - And here’s a weekly roundup of DTC trends and moves.

🛍️ SHOPIFY - Shopify has clarified a controversial leaked memo about employees having side hustles. Read here.

🤔 SURVEY - This new data says nearly 80% of shoppers are planning to do all or most of their buying online. Read here.

#5 - 🤖 Can AI really write blog posts?

📰 TL;DR - For all the hype around ChatGPT, can it really write a blog post from scratch? This Hubspot writer put it to the test. First, ChatGPT was useful for generating blog post ideas, as well as a pretty decent outline. But when it came to writing the actual post, even specific prompts had pretty lackluster results. The conclusion here is that ChatGPT is great for planning, but maybe not for writing.

💡 Insight - I wanted to include this because having a great content strategy is a smart move for DTC brands, both for customer education and SEO. The example here isn’t e-commerce specific but easily applies to a DTC use case. If for example, you sell false eyelashes, you could ask ChatGPT to generate blog ideas around that topic, and then even produce an outline. But after that, your best bet is to take a stab at writing it yourself or passing that outline along to a writer. There are plenty of affordable copywriters on platforms like UpWork and Fiverr, although I do caution that you’ll get what you pay for.

➡️ You can read the article here...