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The most difficult aspect of eCommerce is attracting new customers.
With CPMs and CPAs on the rise, great brands must learn to increase the average order values (AOV) and customer lifetime value (LTV) of their customers.
That’s where building a brand marketplace comes into play.
Yes, you need to be developing new products and expanding your line. However, partnering with other complementary brands can provide immediate value to customers while also increasing AOV and LTV.
But if done poorly, it can actually hurt your brand.
Here’s what we dive into in this episode:
- How Brooklinen thinks about brand marketplace and gives customers the option to "shop the room.”
- How Realtree expands its product line beyond camo to include high-quality rain gear and more products through their brand marketplace.
- How to structure a marketplace to strengthen your brand, not erode it.
- How a kayak brand used drop shipping competitors products to increase sales, trust, and customer loyalty for their own goods.
- How Flxpoint makes it easy!
Mentioned In This Episode:
Travis Mariea
Companies
Brett Curry
Transcript:
Brett:
Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today we are talking about a topic that I don't believe we've ever explored on this podcast. We're talking about drop shipping, but not really, probably in the traditional sense that you are thinking about it right now. One of the main things we're going to dive into is how can you use drop shipping to create almost a marketplace for your business? Turn your site into just selling your products into more a marketplace and the ins and outs on why you might consider that. And it's going to be a lot of fun and hopefully open your mind to something just a little bit new. And so my guest is Travis Mary. He is a fellow podcaster, so owns his own podcast. I was a guest on that podcast a few months ago. It was fantastic. He's the CEO of Flxpoint and he's been in the e-com industry for 11 years, which makes him a true og. Maybe OG is not the right word. I don't know. I was criticized one time for using OG for someone that's been around for eight or nine years, but whatever. Yeah, there's no true definition there, so I like it.
Travis:
Yeah,
Brett:
Yeah, yeah. Let's roll with it. Let's roll with it. But he and I both met speaking at the retail summit in Miami. We connected, we hit it off, so we're like, Hey, let's do a podcast. So with that, Travis, how you doing man? Welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time.
Travis:
Yeah, doing good, Brett I appreciate it. Glad that we can do this together and excited to kind of dig in.
Brett:
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be super fun. So tell us just a little bit we'll get right to the context. I think this idea of marketplace is really interesting but what is Flxpoint really quickly and what do you guys do there?
Travis:
Yeah, I mean it's an inventory and order management system really for online retailers and brands typically around the drop ship and marketplace models. So all the nuance and integration with partners automation between the vendors and the retailers, things like that. So we focus there really
Brett:
Nice. So as you and I were kind of talking and prepping about this, we mainly gear this podcast for brands and that's who we work with at OMG, work with people that are developing and designing their own brand, like a boom by Cindy Joseph for native deodorant, overtone, or brands like that. But you brought up something that was really interesting, and actually we have a large outdoor client that just started doing what we're going to talk about that's been very successful, where you take all, you got your core products, whether that's five SKUs or 30 SKUs or a hundred SKUs, whatever's your core products. Why not start to drop ship other products that are related, that are complimentary, that can be bundled together, that other people want to purchase with your products? Why not add that to your site through this marketplace model? And this is really interesting because, and I'll give kind of a quick bit of context here.
So we have an outdoor company. They sell lawn care subscriptions. And so they started selling, Hey, when you're doing that kind of stuff, people need rakes and they even want plants and they want all these other things that we don't wanna stock right now, but people are buying them anyway and they're asking us if we sell them, so let's add them to the site through more of a partnership or drop ship bottle. And then over time you can see, hey, these items are selling really well. Why don't we just manufacture them ourselves? Why don't we make them ourselves or extend our line into these products? But if you would give your overview for this model and why people should consider it.
Travis:
Yeah, sure. So we basically classify as a brand marketplace outside of the traditional multi-vendor marketplace you might see, which is an Amazon and eBay. But we, we've really seen this rise of the brand marketplace, which is centered around a brand that take hair shaving or brook linen linen and pillows and things like that. They're known for their products and then they realize that there's a ceiling to some extent. You roll out new SKUs or it becomes tough to get customers to come back. They've already seen all your products, whatever it might be. It's really not a shopping experience, it's not a strong enough brand really to sustain long term from a d toc customer acquisition perspective. It just becomes tough. You gotta roll out a new SKU to get people back. And so exactly what you said that we start looking at brands saying, Hey, we want to do a new concept.
It'd be more of a lifestyle brand. We wanna get customers to visit our site even if we don't have a new product to show them. And Brook Linen is one, they've executed well on this where they have this shop the room concept and whether it's seasonal or new styles, they'll, here's our linen in our pillows, but also here's the lamp, here's the dresser, here's the nightstand and everything along furniture, whatever it might be along with it. And you can purchase all those things in one spot. And then we have our team help you understand what goes well with in that room. So we've seen that we've seen the established brands really build a shopping experience on their site first, more of that transactional experience. You might think of just going to a brand to buy a new product that came out that season, which is obviously a different experience for the customer.
Brett:
Yeah, it's really interesting. And to use the Brooklyn an example, if I buy new sheets for my bed or maybe I buy a few pair, write a few sets I'm probably good for a little while unless I just wanna go wild on colors and I'm really, really into variety there. I'm pregnant, buy a few sets, it'd be good. But there are other things that go with linens and other things that are directly tied to it that I might wanna buy from Brook Linen if there's some trust there. So I think this model can work really well. So
Travis:
Interesting. Exactly. It's about getting 'em back to the site. You, you're interested, it's almost like a form of content marketing and just getting them back. So giving them value, you already have the audience leverage that audience. And so what we're talking about here is maybe making a couple dollars off the drop ship, maybe it's really slim margins, which it typically is, but it's getting them back and getting 'em into the routine of trusting you more and more and building that brand past your product more into a lifestyle brand. And then along the way, you can insert some of your new products or products they haven't bought yet. And really what we're talking about is lowering customer acquisition costs and increasing customer lifetime value. It's just a different way of doing that.
Brett:
And it makes sense because one of the most expensive things you can do is generate a new customer. And that's where we as an agency at OMG Commerce Focus, YouTube, Google Ads Amazon ads, Amazon dsp, things like that. But man, once you get a customer, if you can then sell them instead of on average twice a year, you can sell them three or four or five or six times a year and get them to come back, it creates more loyalty, it creates more profits, and then you can be more aggressive on the front end. So it makes a lot of sense. And I love the idea of launching new products. I think the brands that really scale and become valuable and have big exits, they've got a product launch model and formula, but it's still pretty slow. How often can you launch new products? And so this is a great way to supplement, I think, and really, really tie into or really accelerate that growth, get more from each customer
Travis:
Type of thing.
Brett:
So what are some of the recommendations here, and maybe one place I'd like to start this kinda interesting h how do you decide what are good products to add to the mix versus what are products that are like maybe a distraction, maybe even take away from the brand? I'll give you an example. I was actually just listening to an audio book by found one of the founders of Helzberg Diamonds and Helzberg Diamonds was founded in Kansas City, Missouri, which is just a few hours away from me. And very successful company sold a Warren Buffet, but for a while. So one of the original Helberg guys, he said, Hey, we're going to be a diamond store, just focus on diamonds. It was very successful. One of the other kids or whoever came in and like, Hey, let's sell radios and let's sell luggage and let's sell some other stuff and actually really hurt the brand. When they got rid of that stuff and focused, they actually grew top line and bottom line because now they're like, they're focused on jewelry. So I think there's much benefit for them to expand their jewelry lines, but you don't want to go wild and start selling radios. Who goes to a jewelry store of buy radio anyway? Do any tips or advice there on what makes sense to build that brand marketplace without eroding the brand or without becoming irrelevant or too fragmented?
Travis:
Yeah, no, it's a great point. And the worst thing you can do is implement this endless aisle of all these different products. Now you can buy everything you can think of and it's doing the exact opposite of what a brand marketplace is supposed to do. It's eroding your brand where a brand marketplace is really about solidifying and transforming your brand. And really it's transforming it into more of that lifestyle and leveraging the trust. So to answer your question for an established, an established brand that they have an audience and they've been around, the best thing you can do is really look to add other products that build your brand or solidify that brand. So I'm trying to think about can you partner, they're more of a partnerships, can you find another brand that is well known that has the same audience that you wanna be associated with that is high quality, things like that.
I'm not a big furniture out home furnishings guy, but you can imagine if there is a high luxury item that would go into a room at Brooklyn would grab that just because we're using them as an example to associate their brand with their brand and to further drive home who we are. And then also that's one reason. And also just to add value. So go going more into how you become a lifestyle brand. How do you add value to your customer? It's about shop the look for apparel, shop the room for furnishings, how do you add more value? We recommend this product because we've tested it that kind of thing. For the outdoor kind of side of things where you were mentioned like lawn care, right? We've got professionals that have tested this day in and day out. So adding value and your customer, it feels logical, they'd want to buy that in the same side. That's where the season brand happy to talk. We talked a little bit before the podcast around the inexperience or the newer brand just launching. They would buy different or they would bring in different brands for different reasons.
Brett:
Yeah. L let's continue with the season brand for just a minute. And then yeah, I wanna talk about the new brand as well, which is really interesting. But can you about told me about an outdoor brand that you guys work with? Can you talk about any examples there at all or is that Yeah, yeah. So real tree outdoor, so they sell camo and stuff like that and they're always partnering and licensing and stuff, but how are they using this model and what kind of products are they using to create that lifestyle brand marketplace?
Travis:
So they've always been that kind of camouflage print and things like that for apparel and different deer camps, things like that. Now they're bringing in their partners that have licensed their designs and they're bringing those in under their other brands. Like Frog Talks is a great example of a brand on that sits on its own without Realtree known for its great weather rain jackets and we Boots and things like that. And so bringing those in and saying, Hey, if you love realtree, you also love Frog Talks. You know, can shop it all in one spot. And so it's really about just kind of saying, we know you as a customer, we know what you, let us hand select our brand partners and put it all in front of you. So it's one nice easy shopping experience.
Brett:
Yeah, and I love it where if you think about what's a company that you'd partner with, how are you adding value? What creates this? You know, gotta think very complimentary and very natural extension. And you talked about it with Brooklyn and hey, I'm going to shop lamps or maybe it's pillows. If I'm buying new linens, I'm probably thinking about the whole bedroom. I'm thinking about how do I change the look of the bedroom if I've up upgraded my bedding probably want some of this stuff around it to be upgraded. Whereas maybe something that'd be kind of unnatural would be like, Hey, buy kitchen appliances here as well. Then that's become more like you're trying to be a department store, you're trying to be Amazon. That's probably not it, right? But this brand marketplace further builds the brand rather than eroding it. And then I also like the model of, hey, if you're thinking about getting into some other lines, why not drop them for a while and see do your customers want them or not? And what feedback do they get? And maybe just find a partner that you drop ship with forever or maybe you find something where you're like, Hey, we could create something of our own here as well. Which is pretty interesting. Yeah, so awesome. What about a new brand? How would you recommend they use a ship model to augment what they're doing?
Travis:
And so it works very differently for a different purpose I guess, but it's an interesting one to see. I've seen both and they work well. This side of things, I'm a new brand and so I have this kayak company that I know and I used to work with actually prior to this company, but I consulted with them for a little bit and they were brand new and now they're massive. They're one of the leading kayak companies out there. But when they were first getting started, they started drop shipping and listing other kayak companies on their website that weren't exactly the same persona they were going after. Were more of the lower end. I'd only spend six, 700 bucks at the most, maybe something like that for the 400 $600 range. They were putting $1,200 kayaks on their website next to their kayaks with a different brand. But it was strong brand
Brett:
Recognition. So wait a minute. So Kayaks were more or less than the average.
Travis:
They're like six to 800 at the time. They didn't have a high-end model yet. And I can't remember the name of the popular kayak company. Maybe it was like a Hoby or something like that. But they put those kayaks, the high-end brand, well-recognized brand on their website, one to build trust, like oh, they can sell hos, right? So I know I've heard of that but two, and I think most actually more primarily is to get people who were shopping for Hobi on their website and then this world, the ads or the
Brett:
Shopping probably totally Google shopping, very efficient ads to run. You've already got this B, you got hoby or whoever that's building this brand equity and they got lots of demand out there. So you started to get some of that traffic to your site. Really, really smart. Yeah. Yeah,
Travis:
Keep going. They didn't get em on a mailing list or they'd sell the hoby, who knows. But they would build an audience like that and that was their approach. It was really smart way of doing it. And then as they became more established, they migrated into that more established brand approach and would add kayak anchors and kayak trailers and ship that to just complete the package. So they went the full spectrum there and they really leveraged the ship and marketplace model as really a one to, I think they had three skews. They had three skews for the first two or three years. And so they used it well to get a lot of traffic and build a shopping experience in the
Brett:
Community. That's super interesting. And it is a great way, I mean we talk a lot about Google shopping or now that most lives within perform Google Performance Max, but it's such an efficient way to drive traffic. I mean people that click on a Google shopping ad or product listing ad, they're pretty interested in buying. They see the price, they see the title, they see a picture. Those are shoppers who have their wallets out typically. But you can't get a ton of volume with Google Shopping if you got three SKUs, right? You just can't. Right. But you start shipping hundred SKUs or how many additional products were they drop shipping, do you know estimate there
Travis:
Probably only 20 to 30.
Brett:
Nice, nice.
Travis:
Something like that. Very curated. The key
Brett:
Super curated. Yeah, super curated. But it expanded the line allowed them to drive traffic. It created that trust where someone knows Hoby or knows some other big brand and they see your brand right next to it. I mean in some ways this is the, I know it's not, it's not exact, but I think the shopper mentality is kind of the same, where you're in a retail store, you see the brand, the branded product, and then you see the private label, right? So you, you're in Kirk Kirkland, is that Costco? I can't remember about it. Costco. Costco, yeah. Yeah. So you're in Costco, you're seeing the name brand, then you see Kirkland and you're like, well it's cheaper and it looks fine, right? I'll, I'll try it. Right? And so you're playing off that same model of leveraging other brands, leveraging other traffic to establish your brand. So that's super interesting. Do are they still doing that today? Do they still have the marketplace model or now are they just focused on their products?
Travis:
I believe so. I don't believe they've gotten too big for probably Hoby allow them to do that and they expand into that market. They use that as the that beachhead if you will. But I do know they still kind of do the trailer stuff and the anchors. And to your point, from what I remember, at least last time I spoke to 'em, they were starting to buy in-house cause they're already shipping out their own warehouse or kayaks they would buy now wholesale. And the line became blurry of we're a brand, now we're kind of a retailer cause we're buying wholesale anchors because we can make more margin on 'em and we can control the shopping experience. So we see that more and more. That line getting blurred
Brett:
And I think it's totally fine. And again, as long as you have the mindset of I'm strengthening the brand, yeah, I'm either building good partnerships or I'm becoming a true retailer it can work. And those are some good examples. Other examples of either that new brand using drop shipping to build this marketplace or established brands. Other examples you wanna mention
Travis:
The marketplace. Those really cover the gamut. There's tons of 'em out there. Apparel, I will say this much that it works well in apparel and home furnishings and in general when you have an industry where ship is kind of normal or standard heavy goods, the trailers I talked about or outdoors where there's a lot of anchors and heavy items that retailers want to drop ship rather than carry and keep in stock or bulky. But yeah, I mean those are two really.
Brett:
And those are items too cuz with the drop shipping model, how's that impacting ship times, right? Because we're all kind of spoiled with the Amazon next day, same day, two day, whatever. But if it's a heavier item, I think most people expect, hey, it's going to take a little bit of time. How does the drop shipping model, how does that impact delivery times?
Travis:
Yeah, it's a great question mean that's really why, depending on who you talk to, drop ship might be a dirty word and they're like, oh we don't do that. Really the idea behind that is because you have to work with a partner, you have to trust that partner. And the reason why it fails for some is that you don't pick the right partners and compliance is the issue. You're not shipping within my s l a, like you said, heavier items, furniture and stuff like that. That's why it, it's so big in furniture they expect a two week or whatever. But with that said, what I'm bullish on and why we are mostly folks around the drop ship model with our product is that the rise of three pls and competing with Amazon and the rise of Shopify's acquiring deliver, but also their fulfillment network. More and more brands are storing their inventory in places that know how to get items out quickly and have SLA and have APIs connected.
So you can have lead times pulling into your OMS like a Flxpoint and you can know when that's supposed to be shipped out. So it really shouldn't affect, it can if you don't pick the right partner and they don't have the right facilities, but it shouldn't, if you pick the right partner, it should be shipping out just as cost if not faster. And it's worth noting while we're on that topic because we'll be okay, well it's great they buy a kayak from me, an anchor from someone else. Where do they get it? Two different two packages. How does that work? So you do need to analyze the shipping cost for one, you need to pick the right items that would ship it would make sense to ship from a ship directly or have enough margin on 'em from whatever it might be that I've seen. Cross stocking is a big part of what we help with because I don't want it to be two different experiences. I want to bring the item into my warehouse first package that kayak and the anchor and send it out together and what it, sure, I gotta pay an extra $8 on shipping or whatever it might be. Anchor's probably not a good example there cause it's probably more $8. But that, so that's another part to kind of consider and just gotta weigh the pros and cons on what makes sense
Brett:
There. Interesting. And yeah, that is another thing to manage that cross docking as you said, or yeah, do I want this to be two seemingly very different delivery experiences where it's almost like I'm buying from two different brands or do I wanna consolidate it where it's one experience And yeah, I think that's worth discussing and evaluating. So I wanna talk about point just a minute. I would like your take though, and I remember watching the news and following Shopify's announcements as they launched the Shopify fulfillment network and committed to something like a billion dollar investment over the next however many years, which is really impressive and which is really cool. Although if you compare it to what Amazon invests, it's a total drop in the bucket. But I just talked to a brand brand that we actually invest in as a very minority investor, but we invest in it and they're like, Hey we, we've been using Shopify Fulfillment network for eight months or whatever and they love it. So it's a little more than what they were paying with their previous three pl, but it's fast. Customers are loving it, it's super easy to work with. They say they're just kind of gushing about it, haven't talked to anybody else. So about the Shopify fulfillment network, do you have a take on it? Do you have experience there? Any thoughts are, I know it's kind of an A beta and maybe now it's opening up a little bit, but any perspective there?
Travis:
I love the concept of vertically in vertically integrating to provide the best customer experience possible, which I think is what the play is there. If they just get to the point of just as good as any other three pl, great. But it's so much more because it's vertically, vertically integrated. Because I envisioned that, I was thinking to myself, the reason why I admittedly shop mostly on Amazon is I know they're going to have the item I want and I trust it's going to get to me in a quick two days around. Totally. I love to be able to do that with individual brands, but you take that risk on that new brand you find every single time. And they have that concept of Shopify promise, which I haven't really seen in the wild. And I don't know how far along it is. I
Brett:
Haven't seen it a whole
Travis:
Lot either. No, but I love that concept of I can go to a website now and I can see little Shopify promise and feel the same feeling I do when I'm shopping on Amazon. They still have that problem discoverability around. Now we're getting into Shopify for example. They still have that problem around discoverability in marketplace to find that brand in the first place, which I think they're working on. But in general that is a big hurdle if they can feel good about it. And I think they need to own the three PL and the fulfillment network to do that. Yeah,
Brett:
Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally makes sense. Very cool. So talk to us about point. What do you guys do and how do you make this process of building a brand marketplace? How do you make it possible and smooth and integrated and yeah, what do you guys do? Yeah,
Travis:
So we've been in the ship world for almost 16 years now and different brands and products that we've been kind of rolling out. And Flxpoint has been our first kind of enterprise mid-market if you will type of operation and product. And really it's the whole concept and why we built it, it's only been around for three years now, was that current order managed systems and inventory warehouse managed systems are all built around this traditional retail model of I'm a brand, I have all my inventory in my warehouse, I sell it wholesale to a retailer who then puts in their brick and mortar. That's typically, and they might sell it online, they might have a DC but that most of the OMSs and imss out there were built around that model. We wanted to build around the concept of virtual inventory that can be located in multiple three pls and drop ship partners and really build around this concept of integration to virtual inventory that is stored that's outside of your system and outside of your people's control.
And they're not cycle counting it. You're getting all your data from a third party logistics warehouse api or you're getting it from some integration with a ship provider. So we help with the integration piece. We have a full team that integrates if you need it, but we also have API E D I specs for your team or anyone else to build on. And then we have a ton of, what I think is really interesting and most exciting part of our business is we have a ton of pre-built connectors to easily just connect in. So we work a lot with retailers who connect to vendors to connect into the vendors website directly. Just you're on Shopify, I I wanna oversell some of your products, tag it with Ship for Realtree and I will automatically pull those products into my catalog, be able to curate there as well, and then push 'em up to my big commerce store, my Shopify store, my whatever. And then when I get an order, I'm going to send it directly into your Shopify store. You're used to accepting already today and your team doesn't have to go through any portal. We have portals for those that want to, but that's the concept of just easily partnering and connecting because the line is becoming more blurry. We want it to be. And because now we live in this world of open APIs, we're really excited and bullish on the concept of brands and retailers and brands and brands partnering together and needing to connect system.
Brett:
And then if you are pulling in directly from Shopify or big commerce to big commerce, whatever the two carts are, you should be able to keep track of inventory. You should be able to see that in relatively real time and it should all be smooth and accounted foreign and whatnot. Exactly. Which is pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah,
Travis:
Exactly. Evolving from the files that people have been sending back and forth to each
Brett:
Other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. So where do you recommend someone gets started? So got a brand out there, they've got 5, 10, 15 SKUs, whatever the case may be, they're considering, hey, maybe I should look at this a little bit. Where should they start and where does Flxpoint come in? Is Flxpoint very towards the end once you've got your partnerships and stuff in place, or does Flxpoint help with even that part of it? Where should they start and where do you guys
Travis:
Fit? Yeah, that's a great question. I was about to say they should start talking to their partners and their other brands first, and which they should feel it out should have that first conversation with a couple maybe however we do help with it because a lot of times it's like, well yeah we'd love to do that. How do we do it? And it's really tough and then it's like, okay, connect to my Shopify store, but how's that work? It pull all of my data. I don't want you to have access to these products. And yeah, I think you're probably going to want us to come in earlier, sooner rather than later. And we're going through an exercise right now talking about what our, who Flxpoint is. And really it's you need to have that partner, that partner that it's not just a product you buy, it's the service and the team behind it that will work with your partners and jump on a call and go back and forth an email to say, okay, Shopify, the Shopify's going to work here, or no, it's not because of X, Y and Z reason an API integration sound to you guys and kind of having that conversation.
So get started, feel it out, but then when it comes into technical conversations, loop in someone like a Flxpoint that has the team that will have that kind of technical talk for you.
Brett:
Nice. So, and I know we talked about both established and new brands, so I know this that's going to be a pretty broad question, but who do you guys work best with, who's kind of your ideal client profile type of thing?
Travis:
So the brand marketplace is a small emerging strategy. We obviously we'll have a handful of those. The biggest customer is traditional ship and that might, we talked about, so Stetson the boot and hat company is one of our customers and so is Jessica Simpson, the apparel company. And both of them have a very similar model where isn't traditionally drop as you think about it. They're not retailers, they're brands, but it's not a brand marketplace necessarily either. They're not advertising other brands and using it, it's more of this kind of white labeled, their manufacturers are in multiple different warehouses that just store their inventory for them because at least for the Jessica Simpson world, and I've wrote about this and Tina Simpson's talked about it, but they're not in the world of warehousing and logistics and they launched their D TOC brand only less, I think about five, six years ago now. And so got away from just the wholesale drug of just sending, getting those big pos and they really pivoted really early on for what I think and did a good job of pivoting away from the Nordstrom and the Macy pos and building their own brand. So we work with them and that kind of white drops of approach, a lot of these marketplaces curated.com, a really cool up and coming retailer that if you wanna go snowboarding, they'll have live experts talk you through what
Brett:
Kind of snowboarding and which, what brand are you talking about right
Travis:
Now? curated.com. I would check them out. Really cool concept that they basically allow you, they have dozens, if not maybe hundreds of experts in different fly fishing and snowboarding and all these different niche parts of retail and they will actually walk you through what you should buy and then they drop ship a good portion of that. So another cool brand that we work with.
Brett:
Really, really interesting. Very cool. So love it. This has been super helpful. This is, like I said, a new topic and a new concept. I mean it's not new drop's been around a long time, but just thinking about it in this way of brand marketplace, I really like it and I think it's super interesting and something that someone should consider if someone is interested and they wanna find out more about point how can they do that? How can they check you guys out? Any resources you guys have, things like that.
Travis:
Yeah, sure. Flxpoint.com, flx point.com and then feel free, I'm on LinkedIn, Travis Mary, a m a r i e a. So I'm usually accept most of those coming through and yeah, I'm happy to chat through LinkedIn or whatever it might be.
Brett:
Awesome. So check it out, Flxpoint, we'll LinkedIn the show notes, but Flx Point and Travis Meier give him a follow on the socials. And also as a little side note, I don't know how much you guys are paying attention or being on there, but I've not been overly consistent with my social media profile. I was off Twitter for eight years or something, but I'm back and I'm posting almost daily on Twitter and on LinkedIn. So connect with me as well at Brett Curry. At the Brett Curry. Geez. Okay. I should guess I should know this, but you should be able to look at Bread Curry. Yeah. And VRE Curry on LinkedIn. So Travis, I'll link all your stuff in the show notes give Travis a follow check out Flxpoint and hopefully this is good food for thought. And ideally you're motivated to think about building your brand potentially through a brand marketplace. So any parting thoughts, Travis, or any other recommendations or asks that you wanna close with?
Travis:
Nothing too crazy. I just think it's a great time to be in e-commerce. A lot of new stuff. It is showing up and so even though it's been a little wild last year kind of watching that, we are already seeing it picking up and just so a lot of exciting times really
Brett:
Is really, I think so too, man. And I'm very bullish on e-commerce. And look, we've had three super strange years in a row. Covid never seen anything like it. It started super horrible for a couple months and it was like the e-commerce explosion to end all explosions. And then 2021 we had inventory issues and other things. So crazy growth. And then 2022 is kind of the coming back to earth in some areas and inflation and margins being crushed and it's just been an interesting time, but still a great time to be in e-commerce. But I think it's also time to look at how do we strengthen the brand and how do we add profitability and how do we increase lifetime value and all those things, which you guys can certainly help in that conversation. So Travis, really appreciate it man. Thanks for your time. This was super interesting and I enjoyed it.
Travis:
Awesome. Thanks Brett.
Brett:
Fantastic. And as always, thank you for tuning in and hey, we'd like to hear from you. What would you like to hear more of? What would you like us to dive into on future episodes? Do connect with us on the socials and with that until next time, thank you for listening.
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