EP #347] [ENG] - Strategies to find winning products in 2025 - Sheldon Adams

EP #347] [ENG] - Strategies to find winning products in 2025 - Sheldon Adams Speaker 2: Welcome to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. This is the place for everything related to Amazon private label and e-commerce. Learn exactly what you need to start or scale your business. Get insights from the top industry experts who will discuss the latest trends and best practices in the world of Amazon. From choosing products and sourcing from a supplier to setting up your Amazon account and marketing your business, you will hear it here. Let's get started. Here is your host, Vincenzo Toscano. Speaker 3: Hello guys, welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy, the place where the air relates to Amazon FBA, Private Label and Ecommerce. My name is Vincenzo Toscano, founder and CEO of Ecomcy and today we bring another special guest. His name is Sheldon Adams and he's the Head of Growth at InnoVe, where they specialize in everything that has to do with CRO around D2C sites and I think especially entering into Q4 is going to be more important than ever to understand, you know, what are some of those things that you have to be mindful of because we all know, especially when you're focusing On growing your DTC, conversion is king. If you're wasting the traffic that we know can be very expensive, especially during Q4, it can significantly impact the revenue at the moment that your brand can get. So Sheldon, it's a pleasure to bring you to the show today. How are you doing? Speaker 1: I am doing well, man. Appreciate being on. Always fun to talk through the peak periods like this stuff. Speaker 3: Yeah, I know a lot of things happening all the time, right? Very busy period. Oh yeah. Awesome. So I guess for those that might not know you, just give us a brief intro about yourself, the company, and then we can dive into the topic, yeah? Speaker 1: Yeah, so quick and dirty version. I'm Sheldon, head of growth at eNavi. We are a DVC focused conversion rate optimization agency. We've worked with triple digit brands at this point to get their generally Shopify stores up and Get the most out of them and allow it so that they can more efficiently get users to purchase, get more revenue from their visitor, and then generally try to like scale that out to other channels, other marketing aspects that they do. Just make it a much more profitable place and an increasingly difficult and crowded marketplace. Speaker 3: Awesome. So I think that's the perfect segue to dive straight into the topic because, I mean, being the fact that you guys specialize everything around conversion, I think the first question that I want to bring to the table today is how do we even know what is affecting conversion? Because we're having this conversation like, of course, getting ready for Q4. There are so many elements, but let's be honest, most people don't even know what part of the experience is affecting the conversion that is really killing essentially the sales they can get out of a consumer. So I guess from the experience and the brands you guys are working with, how do you even identify what is affecting that? Speaker 1: That's a million dollar question. Now, honestly, that is, it is the lifeblood of what we do. And that's like why we operate this way. It is rarely that people have a conversion problem, like the site is not getting users to purchase. It's not the whole thing. It is not end to end. The site is broken. They're not getting people through. There are usually pieces of that or steps of that journey that they do quite well at. And our big thing, we call it the inter-site funnel, is isolating. Like, okay, if someone gets to view a product, but they're not adding it to cart, let's focus there. If cart and checkout are good enough, we can like push it to the side and trust like, hey, that's, it's fine. We can address that later. Let's triage and like really, really go deep. So that way we can kind of get some, some metrics that are not just conversion rate. Cause that is so broad. It doesn't really tell you anything without other information, but if you can know like, Hey, you just are getting the products fine. And once they add it to cart, they're getting through, but we really need to make a better product page. That is, that we can work with. If it's just a whole conversion problem, you're going to end up exhausted and chase 10 different things and it just doesn't, you can't make traction with it. Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. And I think from the experience maybe you've seen with brands, This could also be industry specific because I'm assuming some of these strategies might shift from if you're working with a product sales like supplements compared to maybe sport items or electronics. Is there some things maybe high level that people should be also be mindful in terms of what consumers are looking to experience throughout the journey? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a, there's a lot of kind of niche industry specific ones. Like we see this with apparel brands, for instance, where an add to cart is more like you've saved an item versus like actually being a high intent thing. So we'll have apparel brands, like we have 20% of people added to cart, but no one is actually converting. What's wrong. And what's wrong is that's just a behavior that they're not, that's not as high as of intent as if you are buying supplements or some other physical product. And you seem like calibrate expectations there. We try to try to massage that. But yeah, generally, like it is. We try to develop some baselines that work across everything. But yes, there's a very real tension between if it's a super high priced product, like yeah, you're not going to have a crazy ad to cart rate. It's going to be lower. We should know that. We should calibrate. Same if it's a $10 product. Yeah, I hope you have a very high ad to cart rate or else you're not going to be in business very long. So there's a lot that you can kind of right size expectations pretty quickly on that. Speaker 3: Awesome. And now when it comes to essentially defining Northstar, because I guess when you implement a lot of these things, it could also be quite challenging to identify what success looks like, because I guess different brands are going to have different KPIs. Some people might purely focus on profitability, some people might focus on retention, some people on conversion. So how do you define what is the right Northstar when it comes to working on these optimizations? Speaker 1: Yeah, that one, it sort of depends on where we are with the brand. If someone like, say you came to me and you're like, hey, my store is struggling. I need this thing right sized. Most people start with a conversion rate and they're like, hey, it's one and a half percent. Is that good? And I'm like, it could be, it could be great. It could be terrible. It depends on many other things. We generally try to upfront push for, I was interested in funnel metrics, getting people through efficiently with a one-time purchase, but really it becomes like a revenue per session or revenue per visitor or average revenue per user. Some metric like that is really helpful for us because we can then start to chart progress So I can inflate a conversion rate really easily, just market everything 50% off and suddenly your conversions are going to go up. But AOV tanks and revenue is just not going to be there. So we like to start to some like revenue based revenue and user based metric to start with. And then over time, we can start to get into more of like the margin-based or lifetime value-based conversations. But we really like to, that's a higher order activity and you kind of want to get your basic needs down first and then tackle that in the, you know, a couple quarters and that's usually a safer time to do the more difficult things. Speaker 3: Yeah, and I guess when you're going through all these things that you start essentially doing a diagnosis in terms of what would work and what is not going to work for one of some of these brands, how do you make sure you don't get Distracted by the shiny object because let's be honest, there's so many things you can do. You can add this shiny thing that pops on the screen, this kind of alert, this kind of follow-up, like there's so many things that it can be very daunting and then sometimes you don't even know what is actually going to be beneficial for you. So how you actually can essentially be very specific with that and be intentional with what you go for. Speaker 1: Yeah, that can be tough. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: To be honest, sometimes it requires us to be a little rude and insistent. Like we, we basically work on like a quarterly basis for like think of it as a quarterly sprint and I'll just keep going back to this product view to add to cart problem I keep referencing. Like say that's where your store is struggling, like we really try to put blinders on it with the clients and be like we are doing nothing. Let's stay outside of this narrow band for at least 90 days. Let's see how much from AB testing, just do it, bug fixes. Let's see how much we can improve that. And then as we come up for air at the end of the quarter, we can then say like, okay, there's still more work to be done or no, we've probably improved this as much as we can. Let's focus elsewhere. Something else has emerged. That's the best way we've had happen, but every time there is something that a client will come to us on, like, hey, can we do this? Ooh, I saw this tool. And we have to be a little rude to be polite about it. Like, no, we cannot do that. I would be ill-advised to allow you to do that. Which I don't always love, but usually in time I appreciate. Speaker 3: Yes, yes. So now in terms of expectations as well, I guess, especially for brands that have never implemented some of these strategies, sometimes it's difficult for them to actually create kind of a, yeah, like what should I expect out of when implementing this with kind of SMS or pop or follow-up, like people don't know what they're looking for in terms of making sure they're going the right direction. How do you also handle that with the client? How do you make them feel or how do even me as a client when implementing this on a D2C site know that I'm going the right direction? Is there some, I guess, baselines that will define success or is it very specific to the product? Speaker 1: With anything, it's always a little specific, but we do try to provide, like we have baseline ranges for each of those metrics and keep referencing. So like, I'd be down to cards, let's go 12, 18%. If you're in there, you're good. If you are making progress towards that, like if it's trending in the right direction, that is a really encouraging sign. We'll also look a lot of times with like channel specific ones, where if direct users are a pretty good proxy of like, hey, if direct users over time, more of them are adding to cart, great. If it's like, you know, paid social or someone who's colder, they're struggling, that could tell us something different than if it's email or SMS, which is usually your warmest segment. If they can't convert or they're going the opposite direction, alarm bells should be ringing. So we tried to try to provide some like macro level expectations and then get some channel specific ones. And then honestly, we're just hoping that the trend line kind of goes like that. And it's sort of compound interest as you test, as you make changes, as you find and fix bugs on a site. It should, but that's kind of comprehensive. It comes together and just start to feel it after like 60 to 90 days. Like there should be a noticeable improvement in just how users are getting through the site. Speaker 3: Cool. I guess just a quick question when it comes to the site, right? Because I know today, let's be honest, there's many providers where we can host our site like Shopify, Wix, etc. And I know this is something that I'm sure you get this question a lot, like Out of curiosity, have you seen using one or the other affecting also conversion? Or is it really more specific to what you do with the elements once you're on board with one of these platforms? Because this is something people ask me all the time, which one is the best one for making my website the most optimal? Like, what is your take on that? Speaker 1: I'm pretty firmly in the Shopify camp. I don't think it truly, like, it's rarely the tool. That will make or break you within reason, but generally I think it's a good site, could be a good site anywhere. The reason I go to the Shopify angle is simply out of the box it feels the easiest and it's the hardest to I grew up in a lot of ways, especially once you get into the checkout process. And once you're there, it's a very familiar one. Almost everyone has bought something from a Shopify ecosystem. It's kind of like Amazon. It's just, it's familiar. People are used to it. It doesn't raise red flags. And so it's just one less thing to have to worry about in building trust with a potential customer. Speaker 3: Cool. And now when it comes to also the methodology that I guess people will have to take in place, especially when it comes to, let's say, Starting a brand tomorrow, right? I'm making sure that I really maximize the whole funnel experience. We already have discussed a couple of elements that could really drive performance and of course how to define a benchmark, how to make sure that we don't get distracted by shiny objects. But I'm sure there must be a must-do list in terms of these are the first things you have to do to make sure that you're heading in the right direction. So I guess What are some of the steps you would, even to yourself, if you're going to launch a brand tomorrow, you will ensure that you conduct to get the most out of that site? What are some of those elements? Speaker 1: Yeah, that, God, you can go so many ways with this. The thing where I would personally start is actually not with the site. As counterintuitive as that sounds, like the UX is important because it's a way of conveying important things to the users. I want to make sure like I have like a molecular level understanding of the market I'm going after so that every bit of like copy, like a headline or a description, things I could convey to you, like I know exactly what you are trying to get out of this product and what your expectations are, like what's compelling you to act. And if I can convey that, then you as the visitor are like, crap, where has this been? I need this thing. And then like a lot of that UX, you can overcome so many suboptimal choices, just because like, yes, these people get me, they know what I'm looking for. I trust them because of that. And if the I don't know, border radius on an add to cart button is a little funky. Whatever. I don't really care that much. I need this. And it just gives you a really wide margin for error. And I think that gets glossed over in a lot of really kind of commoditized spaces where a founder or owner may know it, but it's not communicated on the site. So having that knowledge is almost always where I would recommend starting. Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think sometimes people think that the issue is that they are not implementing all the tricks to convert the client or getting the most engagement out of it. But sometimes the actual offer, they're just selling another Me Too product, the same, you know, the same phone case, the same water bottle. And it's like, even if you have all the tricks on the side, it's not really going to make any magic to convert the client, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Speaker 3: Yeah. Now when it comes to, and I'm very curious because I'm sure you guys maybe have some recommendations, like, is there also some ways for us to understand at least where we're standing as a site compared to other And I'm here to talk to you about brands in the space, because I know we briefly touched on defining benchmarks, but for example, in social media, I know that's a big thing. There are many tools out there that you can understand your engagement, how people engage with your posts here and there. When it comes to D2Cs, is there something as well that people could also explore to understand if they're very advanced, if they're very early, if they're doing everything wrong, at least having an understanding? What do you advise when it comes to that? Speaker 1: We're still developing this one, but I think this is the first year we did it where for years we've maintained like references, benchmarks. We had some internal data sets. And we can see like on a percentile basis, like, hey, this store on landing to product view, they might be in the 20th percentile. So therefore, their menu might need work or a collection page is not particularly clear or whatever. And we can make some recommendations there. So we started to develop some of that. And like, it's going to be an ongoing annual thing to where we can say like, And here's how you can find this stuff. I would love it if we could actually like you plug in your data and it spits out a percentile. Haven't gotten that fancy with it yet. But yeah, I'm going to at least say like, hey, on the four core behaviors, like, yeah, you're in the 65th percentile on this, the 35th over here, and just give brands some clarity. So yeah, that's one that We put out this year, we're going to keep putting out and just give, as far as I know, we're not the only ones that actually have anything like that. It's usually like, you can get conversion rate data, but nothing beneath that. So that's why I'm like so hyped on this stuff. It's just, it's, it's totally unique and did wonders for my LinkedIn engagement. So that was cool. Speaker 3: Awesome. Awesome. That's good. And I guess now that we're getting to the end of the episodes, I want to use the last couple of minutes to focus specifically on Q4. I know when it comes to Q4, most likely based on your experience and what you have seen, there are certain elements that you think must be for sure optimized to get the most out of like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas. So what are some of the things maybe high level you think people overlook when it comes to this season that they should definitely be looking into? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the biggest one that we've tested time and time again, both in and out of Black Friday and the Q4 period is I feel like there's an inclination that the site has to stay the same. And then you incorporate sale elements and we just fundamentally reject that. So there's a lot of times where we will create like a promotion specific landing page where anytime you can control traffic from like email, SMS, ads, you're driving people to a particular page or you're driving returning users to a particular page, or even on the core site, you could adjust a menu and go for a real streamlined navigation menu. And you're only focusing on like your most high revenue procession categories and removing the fluff and just freeing yourself from the constraints of this is how our site always looks. It has to stay the same. And I just, we, I've done this so much that no, it just doesn't. And you can really, if you don't have to show everything, you've seen certain important things that can guide people where they, where it's most advantageous for you to go, which should also be the most high converting. But that's a very real thing that I think everyone overlooks and it's not that hard to do. You create a separate menu, you swap it out in a theme. These are things that don't take massive amounts of resources or anything to pull off. And if anyone wants to hit me up, we have some templates we can totally share, but it just makes a huge difference in terms of product discoverability. And then once they're there, like, okay, this is the right product. I am motivated. I'm in market. Let's go. Speaker 3: Awesome. Love it. So I guess to conclusion, if I ask you for one advice for people to take away that you think they could implement or maybe a prediction, like something, I guess, last piece of wisdom that you're going to share, what would that be for people to have a successful Q4 and entering 2026? Yeah, I think the most, if I could have everyone do one thing, it would just be to. Speaker 1: I want to get back to a baseline level of how things are working. I've seen a regression of how people understand how their site operates over, like really since universal analytics went away and GA4 became a thing. Industry knowledge went rock bottom. Then everyone went into attribution for a while. That didn't quite play out the way they thought. And now it is just straight vibes in so many cases. And as a result, people are just burning through time and energy and inducing all this stress because they don't know how to find for themselves like how things are actually functioning. So that is one, like, I know we put together plenty of resources on this from a step-by-step thing with some tools for it. And if you could, like, if I could just get everyone back to a baseline of like, I know which part of my site is the problem and it's not the whole thing, that would set you up for a much happier Q4 where you can triage in a hurry. And then on this 1.26, you can actually start to say, like, okay, this is where I need to focus on the on-site experience. This is doing well. This needs to be doing better. It just leads to more productive conversations when there's numbers involved. Speaker 3: Awesome. I love that. So Sheldon, in case, you know, I think first of all, it's been super valuable your insights. Thank you so much. I'm sure people are going to get so much value out of that. And to conclude, in case, you know, somebody wants to reach out to you and work with you guys, tell us more about that. And then I make sure, of course, I put all down below so people can find you. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well first, thanks for having me on. It's awesome. I always love evangelizing any of this stuff. I'm a total nerd on it, so fun to do. Yeah, for anyone listening, hit me up. I am on LinkedIn all the time. We try to share stuff almost daily on there, so feel free to connect directly. The other thing we Put together some of our best resources into our CRM upgrade kit. That's a really good jumping off point, like a lot of what I described on how to understand how your store is doing. We have some genuine step-by-step. Here's exactly how to do it. Videos walking through it. And I'm here to talk to you about a couple of articles and a couple of like Looker Studio tools that all kind of get the same thing, but whatever works best for you, it is a great jumping off point. And I would encourage anyone who's curious to, to check that out. And then obviously from there, like it makes sense. We do a very thorough conversion on it. They get everything we described. You know, do any work with a client. So it's all stuff that it can, even if it makes no sense to work together, it can be so valuable. So anyone listening, I would strongly encourage to check that out. Speaker 3: Awesome. So that's great, Sheldon. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure and hopefully looking forward to have you soon in upcoming events. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure. Thanks, man. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. While you are at it, we would appreciate it if you could leave an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. That will make it easier for others to find out about the show and benefit from it. Want more? Visit our website at www.ecomcy.com where you can get your first consultation for free or find us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at EcomCy.