Ecom is *NOT* over... Now what?

The counter to my own point

Three changes to this newsletter:

• will always start with a tasty meme

• Adding real structure. The newsletter should follow this format

  • Meme (duh)

  • Idea

  • Action

  • Ridge POV

  • Recommendation of the week

  For every subscriber I get this week, I’ll donate $1 to charity until I defeat my newsletter enemy Cody Plof

Its a good week to share it :)

Idea-

My last blast was all about how ecom is over and we are all dying…
That was inspired by data dropped by triplewhale that paints a grim Q4 YOY.

But Taylor Holiday had his own data that he just dropped.
And what does this data show us?

A robust, growing(ish), healthy(ish) industry.

So everything is awesome then?

No.

But if triplewhale pointed to a dinosaur level extinction event, taylor is pointing to a sprained ankle.

Limping, on the bench, but should recover.

Action-
Since we arent all quitting (yet) to go work at an amazon warehouse, what should we do?

2023 planning the week of BFCM :)

• Product

  • Will always, always, always be the most important factor in determining success

  • How much effort are you putting into making new, better, exciting products?

    • New colors dont count

  • Only 5 reasons people ever buy from you:

    • - price - value - innovation - prestige - connivence

  • You need to be looking for ways to make your product:

    • Cheaper, so more people can afford it

    • More valuable, so more people choose your product

    • Truly innovative, so people dont have an option BUT to buy your product

    • Prestigious, so people WANT to own your product

    • More convenient, so it is easier to buy your product

  • If you hit 4, you become Apple.

  • As an organization you need to spend 40% of your time, effort, and resources on making BETTER products.

  • As a leader, what you sell is more important than how you sell it, how you ship it, how you position it.

• Marketing

  • Second most important piece.

  • No one cares what you do. Your friends dont care. Your customers dont care. Your employees, outside of self preservation, dont care all that much.

  • Marketing is your one and only tool to make people care.

  • Your business can not grow without good marketing.

  • You should learn it. You should love it. You should live it.

  • “But I hate ads”… everyone does. But you are in THE ADS BUSINESSES

  • Watch the content agencies are putting out

  • You need to be a CMO if you want to be successful in 2023

    • Even if you have a CMO

    • Marketing is your BIGGEST expense and it can kill your business

  • 30% of your time needs to be on mastering marketing

• Channel expansion

  • “we are thinking about wholesale” or “we are thinking about amazon”

  • These are winner take all platforms

    • You getting wholesale space is taking dollars and shelves away from someone else

      • Nordstrom didnt build more floor space for you, its coming from someone who couldnt make it

  • Amazon can have multiple winners, but you see who is on top

    • You will be attacked by black hat sellers who want your spot

  • The reality is you are already behind the ball if you arent selling here

  • Get on the platforms, master them, hire consultants, start now

    • Starting now beats starting tomorrow

  • 15% of your time and effort needs to be spent on channel expansion

• Cost cutting

  • You can get cogs lower

  • You can get fulfillment fees down

  • You can pay vendors less

  • It just requires some discomfort

    • Make the call, send the email

    • “I will not pay you. We need to renegotiate.”

  • 7% of your brain power goes here

• Customers

  • Take care of them

  • Ask them if they are happy

  • Ask them what they want

  • Put the rest of your energy here

Ridge POV-
What is Ridge focused on in 2023?

Our five focus points for 2023:

• Product expansion

• Product excellence

• Channel dominance

• Operational excellence

• Brand exploration

Product expansion.
I spent all of 2022 building the infrastructure and roadmap to be more than a wallet company.

That continues into 2023.
Product comes first.

We will launch a new product category every 6 months.
We are putting a decade of product dev into 2 years.

Product excellence.
Making something bad is worse than making nothing.
We are choosing to focus on value above all us.
We wont win on price, you cant just decide to win on prestige.

So our focus is delivering as much value as possible in every product.
Thats why our rings have such an insane lost protection package.

We want it to be an easy decision to choose us over anyone else.

Channel dominance.
We are in 2000 doors right now.
But thats a bad way to measure success.
We want to be the brand that supports our wholesale partners.
We want to deliver the best working relationship possible.

Wholesale is a people first business, it isnt an algorithm.
Sell through matters, but this isnt digital, people in store are the ones selling your product.

We will give them more margin, we will do no questions asked RTVs, we will give them sku exclusivity, we will give the staff products.

What will it take to get everyone in the organization stoked on the product?
Lets make that investment.

I plan on 3xing wholesale next year.
I dont see wholesale as a profit center though.
Every dollar earned is going back into those stores.

Operational excellence.
If you want my dollars in 2023, you better be working for them.
I am pushing vendors and costs to the limit.

My priority is Ridge and our employees.
I am going to push for the absolute best deal in existence.
To me, my business is the most valuable business on earth.
If my vendors dont agree I will leave and find people who value us.

Any sloppiness wont be tolerated.
I dont care if I am unreasonable.
What I care about is getting the most out of every dollar spent.

This extends to my team.
If you dont care about the company leave.
If you arent doing the best work of your career here, leave.

Brand exploration.
I think we care too much about Brand too early on.
It is important for your first 1m in sales.
Then it drops in importance until like 50 million.

Ridge is late to embrace Brand.
We, Connor and myself, are just not Brand first marketers.
Ridge got here off of product and top tier digital ad strategies.

But to get to 500m a year, Brand is required.
We are late to the party, we need to make up ground.
So in 2023 we are investing in it.

Ill spend over 1 million dollars on Brand first activities.
We hired a VP from Filson, Fjallraven, Timberland.

We are making the investment in our future.
Its like ecom therapy. We gotta know who we are.

Recommendation of the week-

Spend thanksgiving watching every Colin and Samir video you can.
It will help you make better ads and better content.