Tom Limongello

Who says fast-track expansion has to be difficult? 🚀 When Oats Overnight needed a larger facility for its rapidly growing DTC brand, they weren’t sure how to time the investment. Should they spend more today to unlock better margins or wait until real estate costs come down? They used Drivepoint to pinpoint the perfect moment to capitalize on the opportunity for a bigger space. And the results? 📈 $4M EBITDA increase 📈 $20M Series A 📈 98% forecast accuracy Check out how Oats Overnight unlocked this growth in the full case study: https://lnkd.in/gPhbxHHD

27

2 Comments

Are Wegmans, Giant Eagle, and GetGo Tech companies? Or are they grocers, c-stores, etc.? Retail is in a Tech race. That’s clear. National retailers are now part of Big Tech. Shoppers want speed and seem less omnichannel. Brands want measurable, trustworthy velocity tools. But what about smaller regional chains? They don’t often have the resources. And some just want to be retailers. Enter Rippl. Rippl is now bridging the Tech gap for smaller retailers. It just launched a new retail media platform to: -> Create a standardized retail media point for small chains. -> Offer closed loop data reporting snd feedback. -> Consolidate a list of 70 Million shoppers. -> Offer state of the art customer targeting. And just like that… Wegmans, Giant Eagle, and GetGo are in the game. So if you need to increase velocity and one of these chains. Things are about to get easier. ——— 🔹Driving retail velocity in Kroger, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Costco, Walmart, Sprouts, and More 🔹DM me or book an appointment for help! #ecommerce #retailmedia #retailvelocity #retail #cpggrowth #instacart #cpg #tradespend

13

5 Comments

Squarespace announced today that they are going private, in an all-cash $6.9B transaction with the private equity firm Permira. For those in the Shopify ecosystem, this will be interesting to watch. Squarespace was one of the many “second place” e-commerce platforms working to make selling online easier than ever. Their core strength is easy website building; by adding e-commerce capabilities to their feature set they opened up their potential market include some of the same customers as Shopify. The Squarespace stock price YTD prior to this announcement had grown at about twice the rate of the S&P500, although it is now up about 30% this morning on the news to reflect the offer premium. Even before 2024, the stock price was holding well when compared against major indexes. It will be interesting to watch how Permira manages Squarespace. Will they follow the standard private equity playbook and work to extract all the value possible to recover their $6.9B? Given the recent financials for Squarespace this seems challenging without changes to their operating approach - does it mean price increases for Squarespace products are coming or that product improvements will slow or stop? Permira does not hold a large number of DTC brands that could take advantage of an in-house platform. They hold a number of e-commerce and e-commerce adjacent portfolio companies such as Klarna, Allegro, GoCardless and Magneto, - but it does not appear that there are many synergies available. While this will be interesting to watch, it does not appear to have any large, immediate impact worth considering for Shopify, or their merchants and developers.

9

1 Comment

Who will be the next supply chain consolidator? From 2011 to 2021, XPO scaled up from $70M to $20B, fueled by a combination of organic growth and 18 acquisitions. The model was extremely successful. But the supply chain ecosystem remains extremely fragmented. There is plenty of room for new consolidators to emerge as winners. In the food supply chain software arena, one emerging acquiror is GrubMarket Inc. They have built a network model to help food suppliers automate their relationships with their customers. GrubMarket has acquired over 100 companies to date. They are expecting to exceed $2B in annualized revenue. And they just announced their latest purchase: Butter 🧈, a SaaS platform to automate food distribution. Kudos to Mike Xu, Winston C., and all involved! #logistics #supplychain #consolidation https://lnkd.in/emY4wpsy

59

9 Comments

Today marks Recharge’s 10th anniversary. There’s a lot to celebrate with this moment, and 2024 was a banner year, surpassing $100 million in ARR, powering 20,000 merchants and topping 100 million subscribers served by our platform. But I also want to be real for a second. The last ten years haven’t been easy but two things have kept me focused and made the highs even better, and pushed me to persevere during the lows. 1. “From humble beginnings come great things.” This quote has been with us since the earliest days of Recharge and it’s with us today. We never lose sight of the fact that we are always at the beginning of something great, and bigger than we know. 2. Focusing on helping the lives of merchants. Our mission of making the lives of everyone that we serve at Recharge better is why I get up in the morning ready to solve new problems. There’s no doubt that our merchant-first mission has enabled us to scale and hit those exciting milestones. We started Recharge because we saw an opportunity and a need in the ecommerce space. Looking back, I don’t think we could have predicted how much growth, change, and excitement would come over the course of a decade. I’m grateful to everyone who’s been part of the Recharge journey. We could not have made it to year 10 without the hard work of our team, the trust of the brands we work with, and the collaboration from our ecosystem partners. Reflecting on the past 10 years is what energizes me to plan for the next 10. So, here’s to tomorrow.

390

56 Comments

Shogun is now compatible with BigCommerce Multi-Storefront 🙌 BC merchants can streamline their workflows by publishing Shogun built pages across one or more of their storefronts. And they can launch A/B tests and create personalized experiences for multiple storefronts! 🛍️ If you're a merchant on BC and you're interested, please reach out to Steven J. Big thanks to Shogun's Product and Engineering teams for their work on this and to BigCommerce for being a fantastic partner! 🙏 #ecommerce #contentmanagement #internationalization #localization

106

6 Comments

Posted one week ago about building a consumer software / CPG community here in Atlanta. The list that was 10 names long 7-days ago, is now almost 40 people and growing. I ask that if you know of anyone, please keep referring them. I have spoken to hundreds of consumer founders over the past 3 years, there is one common theme, they have no one to ask questions to and lean on for advice. At Hatched® Dating we do not view other consumer software / CPG companies as competition but friends. We can grow together! #consumersoftware #consumer #consumerproducts

40

6 Comments

Consider the following customer choices: * Opting for self checkout (instead of cashier-assisted) * Scheduling pick up for a shipped order at an access point or locker (instead of a residence) * Committing to a final sale (instead of having the opportunity to return an item) Retailers should incentivize customers for the choices they want them to make.

22

2 Comments

This is a wake-up call to all retailers and brands CEO/CDOs/CMOs, you are going in the WRONG direction. Stop competing with commodity commerce sites like Amazon and Walmart and start innovating. You all “say” the right things at trade shows: “better customer experiences” “personalization” “real connections and brand engagement” Yet your actions are the OPPOSITE You don’t encourage your teams to take any risks or come up with creative ideas. You have teams of paper pushers. Everyone is looking to press a button or implement the newest Acme Company technology (yes, a Roadrunner cartoon reference). You are looking for the latest AI bot to do the trick Newsflash, consumers hate bots…no matter how smart they are You are cutting programs left and right, reducing customer service hours, getting rid of free returns You are being lazy You're playing defense not offense You need to do some real work, some elbow grease type stuff Case in point: When Domino's pledged to get you your pizza in under 30mins – that took effort and it worked. It was all about the customer experience. When Enterprise said “we’ll pick you up” – that wasn’t a push the button effort, it was a program and executed well. When my friends at Sweetwater promise you access to a real musician expert 1:1 to help buy the right products, that was a real effort (and it worked, driving their DTC to $1.7B) The biggest risk is the risk you don’t take. NEED Help? Here’s an example of an idea to inspire creative thinking – it may be a terrible idea but I want to get the point across on how you NEED to be dissecting the customer experience and coming up with creative solutions I call it Pizza Party - that will both drive conversion and reduce returns for apparel brands Hire fit models of varying sizes and body types near you warehouse For every new drop, have them try on the clothes and record their fit feedback Share that feedback on every PDP page Have fun with it, make your fit models ambassadors and show their personalities. 6 fit models $500/a day x 3 days of work = $7,500 1 Producer at $500/day x 3 days - $1,500 8 times a year = $72,000 Web manager to project manage this whole thing - $100,000 For $172K a year An apparel brand doing $50M GMV a year with 30% returns – that’s $15M in lost revenue + probably another $1M in return logistics A 2% drop in returns would recover approx. $1M in revenues Add another 2% conversion lift and that’s another $1M in revenues Net net - $2M gained for $172K spent Sounds like a pretty freaking good ROI to me any my CVR and reduction in returns #s are conservative  Plus you’ll get some amazing content, brand ambassador, etc etc That’s old school innovation stuff You get my point – start innovating.

54

9 Comments

Fountain's impact on UPS's hiring process is unbelievable. For TA leaders, imagine hiring 500,000 people in a year. This is a great podcast for those of you prepping for seasonal hiring or wanting to understand hiring at volume. It does not get better than this. #fountain #highvolume #seasonalhiring

12

📺 📺 📺 75% of in-store retail media will be deployed in the next 18 months!!!! This Grocery Doppio research paper is a wake up call to grocery, big box and large #retail chains. The time is now to get to moving or be left behind on one of the greatest profit drivers for brick-and-mortar retail. Some takeaways: --- Retail media is good for shoppers, brands and retailers --- 🛍 There is a 38% increase in shopper engagement with in-store media with 61% of shoppers saying the media content was useful! 💚 27% increase in impulse buys at grocers who enable in-store media 🛒 97% of grocers intend to adopt white-label or thirds party rather than build 📊 93% of #CPG brands want to to tie digital and in-store engagement. 📈 The number of #retailmedia networks will double in next 18 months --- Challenges to scale --- 👩‍💼 79% of retailers say they don't have the talent to scale their #retailmedia biz 💰 Only 3% of CPGs have significant additional budget for grocery media in 2024, and 89% want greater data accuracy for that market spend. Download the report here --> https://lnkd.in/ejJQmeSu Thanks for sending my way Lisa Goller, MBA

28

14 Comments

Packed house for #ATSL24 and a great discussion between Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk and our own Ciarán O'Kane of FPC and ExchangeWire. The discussion touched on the lack of VC participation in AdTech (despite being a $1 Trillion addressable market). “Generalist VCs avoided AdTech because it’s complex. They often don’t understand why they’d win or lose”. This summed up exactly why FirstPartyCapital exists. A $1T+ complex sector needs specialists to fund innovation, provide deeper DD, illuminating context, access to networks and relevant portfolio support. Over time we hope this provides a stronger signal to generalist VCs and PEs. Look out for Rich Ashton Jack Tunney Alex Powell Mike Follett Mark Giblin Dan Jones Rafael Michelucci Ed French Shane Shevlin Lumen Research LightBox TV Contxt Media Bedrock Platform Exiber Pixels AI

119

3 Comments

Appealing Amazon AHR notifications Key Insights from Lesley Hensell, Riverbend Consulting: Always appeal unless you don’t intend to sell the product again and have made an irreparable mistake. Accepting means you can never sell that ASIN again, and attempting to circumvent this rule by listing a variation is considered a violation. If you acknowledge and close, be prepared to discontinue the product on Amazon permanently. #AmazonSeller #Ecommerce #DigitalMarketing #BusinessStrategy #Branding #Entrepreneurship #ProductManagement #Marketplace

6

2 Comments

80% of operators say loyalty isn’t working for their brand. Given that most loyalty solutions out there are heavily transactional, cookie-cutter, and fragmented across channels, this isn’t surprising. The solution? A new data-centric approach that integrates seamless experiences across all touchpoints—mobile, in-store, and online. Brands can use unified customer data to drive personalized interactions, boost engagement, and deliver real-time value, consistently earning customer loyalty through personalized, engaging, and data-driven experiences. The restaurants that adopt this strategy will lead the way in building long-lasting, meaningful customer relationships.

38

6 Comments

AdAttributionKit: Unpacking Apple’s new ad attribution framework AAK unifies Apple’s various advertising attribution frameworks under a single umbrella product name and extends SKAdNetwork in meaningful ways, including with support for re-engagement and alternative app marketplaces. These are substantive improvements. But impediments to adoption remain: IP-based attribution is still widely viewed as a suitable alternative to Apple’s native iOS attribution framework, meaning that platform tools like Conversion APIs will take adoption priority.

101

5 Comments

Striking illustration of the massive opportunity to digitalize linear TV inventory besides betting on digital native inventory. And the biggest reason I work with the great folks at Broadpeak to make TV operators the cornerstone of this #Linear_Digitalization, with 3 key features : 1️⃣ #Spot2Spot, to enable the insertion of digital ads on linear, one spot at a time 2️⃣ #DataProxy, to enable TV sales houses to target with operators' data 3️⃣ #Click2, to enable operators to send SMS on behalf of sales houses to bring performance advertisers to the TV table

1

Fresh Report: Digital retail to 3x in-store growth over 5 yrs. Here’s how you can position: 1. Compete hard in Third Party Delivery. (Instacart owns this space, but DoorDash is coming.) 2. Optimize for First Party Click-and-Collect. (Retailer websites are used for curbside and in-store pickup.) 3. Leverage Shoppable Marketing Tools while the real estate is cheap. (Instacart, Walmart, and others offer shoppable billboards.) 4. Use Retail Media data to compel retail buyers. (We’ll move ‘x’ units per week with ‘y’ dollars using ‘z’ platforms.) Yes, digital retail can be used to ‘sell’. But the bigger opportunity is in retail velocity. Smart brands use digital to: -Turn product -Stay on the shelf -Compel buyers Ready or not, digital is coming. Quickly. ——— 🔹Driving shelf turn in Kroger, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Costco, Walmart, Sprouts, and More 🔹DM me or book an appointment for help. #ecommerce #retailmedia #retailgrowth #retailvelocity #cpg #cpgbrands #instacart #tradespend #retailbuyers #categoryreview

17

10 Comments

If you were offered a loan at 23% interest with daily repayment terms, would you take it? I did. In the early years of building Tease, we did our first $500k in revenue with a $1k secured visa. Sound impressive? It was actually a logistical nightmare. Juggling payments, inventory, and everything else that comes with trying to get a business off the ground with limited cash flow held our growth back substantially. Because no other banks would lend to me at that time, I took that 12 month, 23% loan as a calculated risk. After all, as any CPG brand founder can attest to, you absolutely need to spend money to make money if you want to grow. Thousands in interest later, I paid it back months ahead of schedule once it served its purpose feeling so much relief. I knew for my business, I didn't want to raise $ from VC's and angels or dilute equity. If I wanted to keep bootstrapping my way up and retain 100% ownership, I'd have to get more savvy about taking on future debt. Then just a few months afterward, and having built better relationships with traditional banks, I took out a 6 figure loan with better terms that allowed me save 10% on our product costs, and make our business incredibly profitable that year 👀 In this interview with Beauty Independent, I uncover some of my top considerations for any Founder who is considering taking out loans - especially in todays economic climate. There are so many great takeaways from other founders in the CPG space too, well worth the read. I love when publications take a moment to spark conversation about the under the hood, financial realities and risks independently owned businesses are making every single day. It's not glamorous, but it's the arena we are in, the weight we carry, and the heavy decisions we consider all in the name of continuing to keep our dream and vision alive.

31

2 Comments

Mobile commerce growth declined in 2023 despite online retail of $1.3T? Wait...that's not supposed to happen. How could this be? Some categories, like Event Tickets and Grocery soared, but most other major categories shrank on mobile. Would love to hear your inferences on factors could drive such a shocking trend. Clearly we all love our phones. We are with them every waking moment. It's a perfect cash register. Brands need to make mobile commerce...more natively mobile. (Easy, quick, on the go, in familiar mobile friendly formats)

7

1 Comment