Commerce Outsights
July 1, 2024
The rise of the quiet brand, why brands are doing circular collabs, and how to measure the impact of your loyalty program.
Hello, and welcome to Commerce Outsights—Nebulab’s bi-weekly roundup of the best reads, listens, and tools from the world of retail, e-commerce, and DTC.
Does your brand need help with strategy, design or development?
For over a decade, we’ve been shaping, launching, and scaling shopping experiences for category disruptors such as Cometeer, Framework, and Huckberry. No matter where you’re going, we can help you get there.
Thought provokers
Why brands are taking a less-is-more approach to marketing (3 mins). I’m always a bit skeptical when someone takes a niche or wildly successful example and tries to generalize it. Still, there’s an interesting parallel between the rise of the Cozy Web and the birth of a new type of brand—one that’s slower, quieter, and with much more of an artisanal vibe to it.
More brands are doing circular collabs (7 mins). Luke at Commerce Thinking unpacks the circularity strategies of eBay, Depop, and Vestiaire Collective, and how they’ve leveraged brand collabs and targeted activations to reach an audience that cares about sustainability. Excellent, thoughtful read as always.
Four ways a loyalty program contributes incremental financial benefit (6 mins). Most literature about loyalty programs is—for lack of a better word—terrible. This piece is not, and it offers a practical framework for evaluating the actual impact of your loyalty or membership strategy. For another non-terrible read, check out our article on the topic.
Goings on
🔒 Advertising on Substack remains a Wild West for brands (5 mins). Brands have been exploring Substack as a new advertising channel, which makes sense given the platform’s rising popularity—I myself am subscribed to more Substacks than I’d like to admit. Goes nicely with this article about how DTC founders are also using Substack to channel their Emily Weiss.
Ski lifts and instant resale: New ways to use digital IDs (7 mins). I’ve become a bit of a broken record when it comes to Digital Product Passports, but I think it’s worth reiterating: their success ultimately depends on what you do with them. If you’re looking for inspiration, this is an interesting breakdown of how different brands leverage their connected products.
Amazon to launch a direct-from-China marketplace (3 mins). Amazon will compete with Shein and Temu with its own low-priced, slow-shipping marketplace. I have to say, I didn’t see this coming: in my mind, Amazon doesn’t sell things—they sell things with one-day shipping. That they would move away from this promise, even if just for a side gig, shows how much they worry about their Chinese competitors.
Up-and-comers
We don’t accept sponsorships for this newsletter. All product recommendations come from our consulting team.
Seamm. Seamm is many things: it’s a marketplace for phygital goods, a whitelabeled solution for brands looking to launch a mobile app, and a provider of Digital Product Passport infrastructure. Make no mistake, it’s all very early stage. Still, I think they’ve done a great job of blending different elements of Web3 to give us a sneak peek into the future of commerce. If you’re in luxury/fashion, it’s worth checking out.
Does your brand need help with strategy, design or development?
For over a decade, we’ve been shaping, launching, and scaling shopping experiences for category disruptors such as Cometeer, Framework, and Huckberry. No matter where you’re going, we can help you get there.
You might have missed...
👨💻 Because I'm still an engineer at heart, I published a few thoughts about the new Hydrogen Visual Builder on LinkedIn.
🗞️ On a similar note, Daniel just published an article on our blog about how to use Sanity to manage content on your Hydrogen store.
🧑🍳 Check out our latest case study about Lish—it's all about replatforms, CX improvements, and good food.
🛒 If you already have wholesale/marketplace distribution and are thinking about DTC, you better give people a good reason to shop from your site.
🧳 RIMOWA's 3D product visualizer is pretty cool. I unpacked it here, and there's more to come next week.
That’s it for today!
If you’ve come across any interesting articles, podcasts, or products we should check out, you can email us at [email protected].
See you in two weeks! 👋