9 minutes of eComm Wisdom: Shaun from Oddit

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I think the more and more sites we talk to, it's interesting. they all share the same kind of pitfalls. the main one that we see brands falling into the trap of is overselling the product and over marketing the product.

So what I mean by that is: Most direct-to-consumer brands we talk to, they're driving ads for most of their traffic, Facebook, TikTok, whatever. They're communicating an idea or a marketing position in that ad strategy. And then when they land on the site, they're continuing to push more of a marketing strategy and less of what's the value of the product, what makes it great, what makes it unique.

Once they click that ad, you have their attention for in some cases, milliseconds, seconds. you got to take their attention and direct it now fully on how are we providing value: Cut out the marketing fluff, be super direct, be clear. Once the user gets further down the page or into the user experience on the site, it's fine to layer in more of that marketing and emotional, copy.

But I think one of the pitfalls is they get on the site and they're just pushing more marketing fluff and not getting them right to the heart of what the offering is. Another thing that I think a lot of brands sleep on and just really don't consider, as a conversion point is they're navigation. it's such a huge part of driving conversions and why they miss it is they drive them to the page and they think, "Okay, now I'm going to sell them this product". If a user clicks on an ad, a lot of the times they've already decided what they're looking for. They're looking for what you sent them to or what they clicked on.

And then there's the other half of the users that don't. So the navigation needs to be super clear. It needs to give them access very simply to every access point on the site for products, for positioning, for all the selling features of what you're selling. And a lot of brands just boilerplate throw up the, "Shop" "About" "Reviews" and there's no hierarchy.

they don't really consider it. And if it's done properly, it can be your primary conversion point.

It's the only part of your site that's accessible on every page. So if you just think of it that way,it's so critical because it's on every single, and no matter where they are, no matter what page, there's a navigation and they can access somewhere else to go.

One thing that we've seen with Amazon and I kind of caveat this with similar to audit with DTC sites, right? Like when we started Oddit, I had never even heard the acronym CRO. I thought that meant chief revenue officer. CRO meant nothing to me and I had probably designed, I don't know, 150+ websites.

it's not something agencies or designers really thought of, 5-10 years ago And the position of Oddit was that the power of the brand and building trust in the brand and keeping things simple and communicating simply could increase conversion. And I think that's why we're diving into Amazon.

It's not simply because. A lot of DTC brands also have Amazon accounts, so it's easy. It's because the same pitfalls happen on an Amazon listing.

Amazon has done a tremendous job of arming stores with the information to build a proper listing, right? Here's the all the things to consider when you're building out your images:

here's all the parameters, here's everything you need to think of with a plus content. I think what gets lost in a sea of that marketplace is brand, right? it's designed intentionally to lack brand, right? The brands are always the subline. it's very focused on keywords and finding the right product for whatever you're searching. and they leverage social proof a lot, right? Like most people are sorting by top reviews.

So where Oddit comes in and what I think the biggest lack in Amazon listings and why people need help with it is:

Amazon sets you up to get 90% of the way there. The 10% that's missing is that brand first perspective.

So how can you position your brand within all of these image parameters that Amazon sets so that you're not just another water bottle on Amazon or not just another shoe or whatever.

And essentially what we're trying to do and help brands with is inject that emotional feeling that you can get from their direct to consumer site, into their Amazon listing.

And that to be frank is not a complex problem to solve. It's taking the 20 images that the Amazon listing offers you across the different sections and amplifying them, making them more specific, more, just more cohesive, right?

If you pulled them off the listing and put them on a big board: Do they feel like a system? Do they feel like they're. intentional, or are you just following Amazon's guidelines?

At this point in the Amazon journey and the lifespan of a product on Amazon, that's your, aside from reviews and actually just having a great marketing team.

That's your kind of silver bullet of standing out is how do you inject more brand and the feeling that it's not a product on Amazon, but rather this amazing brand that lives externally. Oh, and I can also get it on Amazon. That's the kind of bridge that we're trying to create for brands is making it feel more intentional in their DTC experience.

we have, let's say 5-10 sales calls a day, whether it's brands that we're onboarding or brands that are interested.

And the resounding thing that I hear from every one of them is their ad dollars aren't going as far as they were last year. That's the same across the board, whether it's Facebook changing their algorithm or their new marketing team isn't converting and whatever it is.

But I think there's a resounding, sentiment that a lot of it has to do with just the current situation in the market, right? U.S. debt is at an all time high. People are just spending less money. They're more, they're price averse, they're risk averse. and so it, it really doesn't matter how good your marketing team is, people are spending less money.

What that does in eCommerce is just drives up competition, right? People are going to get more aggressive with pricing, more aggressive with their shipping offer.Everything's going to get harder to, to compete with.

And so I think The one thing I've communicated with brands, whether they use audit or not, is to focus more on their unique positioning, focus more on that brand building.

And I don't mean brand building of like logos and shit like that. I mean, giving people a reason to believe in your product versus the other one and focus less on price competition and focus more on the functional side of what makes your products unique.

And I say this pretty frankly to a lot of our customers of like.

if there isn't something unique that your product is selling: My answer is the same. You should probably fucking close shop. Like you can either suck up, losses for the next 12 months. Or I can just read the future for you. You're going to be closed in 12 months and you're going to be filing for chapter 11. So like, that's not the case with everyone. And obviously I'm being dramatic, but the writing is on the wall. There's too many stores, too many products launching every day.

Accessibility to production, great packaging, branding. it's getting higher and higher, right? Product renderings through AI. And with all the tools at people's fingertips now: you can make yourself look like Yeti in three days with AI and the tools at your fingertips.

So standing out is not about aesthetic anymore. It's not about copywriting. It's not about the marketing. It's actually having a unique product. if you're planning to have it for longer than 12 to 24 months. So I think just taking a step back for a lot of brands and most brand owners, including myself. You all think you have something unique. You all think you're the edge case that will make it through. And it's just not true. Reality is that the ones that stand out are the ones not that have a better marketing team.

Like,we have a good relationship with Jones road and brands like this that have this, every time you see a post on them, it's man, "do they just have a superpower marketing team?"

And the answer is yeah, they have a great team, right?

But they also have a unique product, unique story, a unique, they stand out in way more ways than creative ad strategies and a better website. That's not why they're winning. They're winning because of their products are unique. They're more intentional and they listen to their customers.

Bobbie Brown has a famous lifetime following. there's so many factors that most of these brands don't have that they have. And so replicating their marketing strategies is not going to fix things.

Making a unique product, finding a unique position, having a unique value proposition, or at least in some way standing out from a product standpoint is what's going to win.

All the rest, are going to be gone in, in 1-2 years, just simply because there's too much out there. There's too many brands launching and only so many people buying them.

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