The Nebulab Newsletter - Issue #14

Hello, and happy Monday!

This is issue no. 14 of the Nebulab newsletter, your favorite bi-weekly reflection about retail, DTC, and eCommerce technology.

A few days ago, some of our team had the pleasure of chatting with the CIO of a large European brand—large, as in, a little short of €1B in revenue last year. We ended up talking about technological innovation in retail and how the narrative has changed over the previous years—a change that was most definitely accelerated by the sharp increase in OpEx for most brands. The conclusion was that we're an industry that loves a good playbook.

In the early days of DTC, it was all about technology and arbitrage: most brands back then operated like tech startups, producing immense, complicated codebases to power their shopping experiences. At the same time, they were spending millions of dollars on Facebook ads, all while the industry paid lip service to concepts such as community building and omnichannel marketing. This was our playbook—the one true way to launch and operate a DTC brand.

As for the technology, some of it was needed back then to compensate for the lack of flexible, reliable eCommerce platforms: Shopify was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today, and it was still an immature product in many regards. Still, many brands ended up overengineering their digital products, often for the sole purpose of fueling the egos of their builders.

Enter iOS 14.5, the Big Covid Bubble Deflation, and the fairly predictable increase in competition for ad space and customer eyeballs, and our industry has changed dramatically in the span of a couple of years. What was once seen as a strength—custom technology—is now seen as an irresponsible liability, an old artifact from the previous era of online retail. The new playbook has Shopify and wholesale written all over it. Anything else is a costly distraction.

But what if there's a better way to build? What if we treated our industry's best practices as a floor and not a ceiling? What if we came to terms with the fact that there is no playbook, just challenges and opportunities that need weighing?

You should not build your checkout from scratch, unless you have a very good reason to. But sparkling some custom code here and there might make the difference between a run-of-the-mill shopping experience and one your customers will talk about for weeks.

You should not rely on Facebook as the only way to acquire customers. But Facebook might very well be one of your many marketing and distribution channels—along with wholesale, influencers, content marketing, and anywhere else it makes sense for your brand to exist.

Here's a call to action: every once in a while, dare to try something different—something that doesn't necessarily make sense for the industry but resonates deeply with your customers. Learn, experiment, and iterate.

That's how the playbooks were written in the first place.

In today's outsights, we feature data, reflections, and living examples of the value of strategic and technological innovation in retail.

The Cult of Best Practices. The piece that inspired this issue, along with a few insightful conversations with industry practitioners. Deconstructing best practices doesn't mean making crazy decisions for the sake of it. Instead, it means taking stock of your beliefs to make sure they hold up to your reality.

Direct-to-Consumer Retailers Innovate – In-Store and Online. If you need some numbers to accompany today's aspirational newsletter, look no further. The article features some interesting yet very rational innovations pushed by both new and established DTC brands.

🎧 What CPG Can Learn from SaaS about CX. We loved this conversation with Jess Cervellon, Head of Customer Experience at Feastables. Among other things, she talks about how Feastables thinks about innovation, and why she believes that pushing the boundaries is important in the world of retail.

Speaking of technological innovation, have you ever thought about the impact a mobile app could have on your brand? From boosting customer LTV to driving acquisition, the right app can be a significant value add.

We've put together a comprehensive guide that breaks down everything you need to know about apps. Inside, you'll find answers to questions such as:

Ready to dive in?

We sat down with Andy Hunter, CEO of Bookshop, to talk about how their marketplace helps independent bookstores compete with Amazon.

We discuss the difficulties of building a B-Corp marketplace, the value of deploying custom technology, and how the rise of zero-click search and generative AI will change the marketing landscape.

Andy is a true innovator in the books and eCommerce spaces, so what are you still waiting for?

That's it for today!

If you have any questions, comments, or playbooks you have recently burned, you can let us know at [email protected].

See you in two weeks! 👋

Refer a friend

If you know someone who might be a good fit for our strategy, design or engineering services, you can now refer them. You get a

$250 gift card

, and both you and your referral get

20% off your next invoice.

Submit a referral →