The TL;DR:

• I was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 Miami this past week!

• Let’s Chat D2C: Pricing Strategies for your Ecommerce Store. Cost-based, bundle, psychological, price skimming, penetration, tiered, value-based, competitor, loss-leader, break-even, and dynamic.

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Back to School Campaigns.

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I sat down with Roger Beaman, Founder of Novel, a customer-led growth platform in Apple and Google wallet passes. This one was HEAVY on the entrepreneurial journey and, honestly, one of my favorite episodes.

• App Updates & Highlights:

• Upcoming Events: I’m in Miami for the next couple of weeks (for once). Let’s connect!

Also, you can now easily share this newsletter with a friend! As you refer, you earn:

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Forbes 30 Under 30 Miami

I was shocked to learn I was recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30 this past week! A huge thank you to everyone who’s been a part of my just-beginning entrepreneurial journey.

While it’s personally gratifying to achieve such a thing, I’m most excited about the opportunity to now connect with all of these other ambitious entrepreneurs in the Miami area who are working on really cool stuff in a market that’s not very startup-friendly.

Also, it’s pretty freaking cool to be on a list with someone I was just watching at the NBA Finals, though honestly, I thought Bam was 30+ years old. He’s 6’9” and 250 pounds. It’s a good thing this wasn’t an athletics competition!

Let’s Chat D2C - Pricing Strategies for your Ecommerce Store

There is a lot more to ecommerce pricing than just the MSRP. Next week, I’ll release an in-depth guide on calculating that, but let’s dive into pricing strategies for now.

Cost-Based Pricing

A business-focused pricing strategy rather than a customer-focused pricing strategy. Add together all the costs of your products, including shipping and marketing, then determine what margin you need to make!

Bundle Pricing

Combine multiple products into one price, typically at a “discount” versus what each product would cost individually. Great way to increase AOV, but be careful not to discount too heavily and run the risk of reducing profits.

Psychological Pricing

$29.99 vs $30. Countless studies have shown prices ending in odd numbers have substantially higher conversion rates. Reducing prices by a penny is the most traditional psychological pricing strategy, but BPNL, anchor pricing (slash pricing), and time constraints also fall into this category.

Price Skimming

Set a high price and lower it when more competitors enter the market and begin offering a similar product, then move on to the next innovation. This is Apple in a nutshell (hello, iPhone 45 releasing in the year 2040).

Penetration Pricing

The exact opposite of price skimming. You’re entering a competitive marketplace and gaining market share with a less expensive product.

Tiered Pricing

Tiered pricing works well for brands that sell products with a range of features (i.e., a low-end and a high-end model). To use Apple again, the various versions of each iPhone release, the screen size, and the GB memory offered are great examples of tiered pricing.

Value-Based Pricing

Typically results in higher markups and is more profitable; value-based pricing works well for merchants with differentiating factors such as “organic” or “sustainable” built into their offering. Collectibles and luxury goods as well. But, this pricing model is more difficult as it requires extensive market research.

Monitor Competitors

This is simply setting a price based on what your competition charges. It’s not very complex, but you could be missing out on profits by pricing your products in a race to the bottom.

Loss Leader Pricing

How is this product only $1?! If you’ve ever seen a really cheap product online, you might wonder how that business can actually make money on it. Chances are, they can’t. These are products sold to hook a customer in as they’re likely to purchase additional products or return and reorder later.

Break-Even Pricing

Need to clear some stock? Sell your product at break-even with no profit.

Dynamic Pricing

You’ll need pricing software for this, but dynamic pricing means your price is based on demand and competition fluctuations (i.e., competitors lower their prices, so you do as well to match).

Want to Generate More Profit on Autopilot? Try Aument

Static promotions (like discounts) can erode up to 15% of revenue. Replace static coupons on popups, email/SMS flows or landing pages with dynamic codes with Aument’s ML algorithm that takes customer behavioral data to determine the smallest discount needed in order to incentivize a visitor to make a purchase.

What I’m Thinking About This Week - Back to School Campaigns

Having been removed from the rigmarole of education for a couple of years now (thank the heavens), I forgot about back-to-school season! If you’re a parent, you’re already a step ahead of the game; if not, consider this your PSA that back-to-school season is one of the year's most underrated marketing and sales opportunities.

Back to School by the Numbers

Don’t believe me? In 2022, families and students allocated $135.5 billion for back-to-school and college-related purchases, just in the US alone. By the numbers, it’s the country's second most important retail period, second only to everyone’s favorite BFCM/Holiday season craze. So, how do you maximize this opportunity?

Social Media and Social Commerce

I’m recently 26 and at the beginning of the time frame window for what is defined as “Gen-Z,” and I know plenty of peers who already have children. As these new generations continue to enter parenthood, it’s important to realize that the millennial mom isn’t shopping like the Gen-Z mom, nor are they shopping for the same age range (typically).

You must leverage your social media channels and sales platforms like “TikTok Shop” to connect with this younger generation. Think of creative ways to educate on social, like back-to-school tips that aid parents and students in preparing. Then, slot your product offering in there. Another good one is a back-to-school checklist, again with your product in it.

Co-Marketing and Brand Collabs

This is also an excellent opportunity for back-to-school guide collaborations with other brands. You can leverage a network like ShopSwap to find co-marketing partnerships.

You could even leverage a solution like Shopify Collective to build a back-to-school collection complete with your products and other brands to provide a holistic one-stop shop for all things back-to-school.

Merchandising Opportunities

Create product bundles with complementary items to save your customers time and money while increasing AOV and conversion rates.

SEO Opportunities

Incorporate keywords like “school shoes” or “college accessories” into your collection and product pages to increase relevancy and opportunity for ranking.

This Week’s The D2Z Podcast

#70 – The Art of Building Ventures with Roger Beaman

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Roger Beaman, Founder of Novel, a customer-led growth platform in Apple and Google wallet passes. This one was HEAVY on the entrepreneurial journey and, honestly, one of my favorite episodes yet. Specifically, we explored the following:

💰 Facing off with an industry giant with less capital and extreme focus on execution

📲 The importance of forming a connection with customers and fostering loyalty

😎 The delicate balance of risk-taking and sticking to a defined path in entrepreneurship

🚀 Nuggets of wisdom on surviving and thriving in the entrepreneurial world, emphasizing the importance of faith in oneself, having a committed team, and the power of long-lasting relationship

App Updates & Highlights - Too Many to Count!

Triple Whale x Recharge

Triple Whale is announcing their newest integration with Recharge. The integration will enable users to map order tags to order types, and the attribution will follow, with new metrics available such as subscription signups, subscription signup rate, churns, and churn rate. This will allow users to view all subscription metrics in the subscription analytics section of the summary dashboard featured in Triple Whale.

Retention.com Reclaim

Reclaim is now 100% opt-in only, fully compliant with Klaviyo’s Acceptable Use Policy. Reclaim allows you to drive incremental revenue with Klaviyo by recognizing anonymous website visitors for browse, product, and cart abandonment flows.

Status x Yotpo Integration

Merchants can seamlessly display a user’s loyalty points in the Status customer account - improving visibility and accessibility.

Yotpo Click-to-Redeem for Email

You can now target subscribers with enough points to redeem by suggesting hand-picked product recommendations for which they can redeem their points in a single click. These are like Shopify permalinks, except now the points are applied for a discount in addition to going straight to checkout with the product(s) preloaded.

Recharge Quick Action Add Subscriptions and Apply Discounts

The Add Subscription Quick Action allows you to leverage targeted upsells by targeting subscribers that have recently purchased a one-time product to convert it into a subscription.

Refreshed Gorgias Chat Interface & Show or Hide Chat

Gorgias just released a new chat interface that provides an improved customer experience and a stronger brand identity and is built for mobile. You’ll also be able to control where chat appears on your website by specifying your preferred URLs.

Gorgias Proactive WhatsApp Messages

Being proactive in customer support is critical to address problems and provide a stellar customer experience. Gorgias’ updated WhatsApp integration allows you to send messages outside the 24-hour conversation window, start new conversations, or follow up with customers who have gone silent.

Gorgias Flows

Create custom multi-step paths to answer shoppers’ questions based on their preferences. Comparable to Klaviyo’s flow builder, but for customer support interactions.

Rebuy Buy More, Save More

You’ve been able to leverage Rebuy’s Buy More Save More if you’re on Shopify Plus for some time, but now with a new alternative way to set it up, Buy More Save More can be built via automatic discounts on any Shopify store!

Upcoming Events

I’m in Miami for the next couple of weeks (for once). Let’s connect!

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