Blog

SoundCommerce
Blog

  • All
  • BLOG

Pacsun enhances messaging with data-based customer insight

Pacsun is engaging in real-time, data-driven interactions with customers. Published March 15, 2024 The teen apparel and accessories retaileris deploying a joint solution from data platform provider SoundCommerce and marketing technology vendor Cordial to send customers email, SMS, and mobile app messages based on data. The collaborative solution integrates SoundCommerce’s intelligent data pipeline, retail data models and […]

Pacsun Unites Commerce Channels with First-Party Data Solution

The retailer is the first consumer brand to take advantage of a partnership between SoundCommerce and Cordial that unites data and personalization. Published March 14, 2024 Dive Brief: Dive Insight: The partnership between SoundCommerce and Cordial is billed as a way for omnichannel retailers to boost customer loyalty and revenue opportunities by combining data-driven insights […]

10 Advantages of Real-Time Data Streaming in Commerce

Co-authors Rachel Workman and Jared Stiff.

Using Prebuilt Data Models? You Should Be

In 1978, LEGO introduced a brand new line of construction sets branded LEGO Space. The sets in the series included parts and features built for science fiction adventure and were among the first to include the now-iconic LEGO minifigure. Winning toy of the year in Germany and the UK in 1979, LEGO Space helped drive […]

The Benefits of Solutions Offering Open-Source Libraries of Transformation and Mapping Logic

How can I develop useful machine learning algorithms on complex data sets and models – without the heavy lift of engineering everything from scratch? Generative AI represents a step-change increase in the speed of analysis, but the utility of even the best GenAI tools are still constrained by the quality of the data and data […]

Harnessing the Power of a Composable Data Platform: A Retailer’s Guide to Holiday

For most retailers, the holiday season is their busiest time of year. It’s when they have their largest number of transactions and their largest sales dollars. As consumers head to physical and online stores to purchase gifts, decorations, and more, a massive influx of data is generated. This surge in data across all areas of […]

Winning Brands Operate on Shared Understanding of Data

Define Your Data Early and Completely to Unify and Align Departments and Teams In the science fiction drama Arrival, linguist Dr. Louise Banks discovers that (spoiler alert!) the language shared by visiting aliens is a rosetta stone that unites Earth’s global powers by enabling shared understanding across countries and cultures. This shared language provides a […]

What Drives D2C Brand Valuations?

$50M on $1.4B | D2C Brand Valuations Customer equity is the north star of every consumer brand. This is true even for brands still operating primarily as wholesale suppliers to the retail channel. They may not understand or fully appreciate yet that the enterprise value of any consumer business is simply a multiple of (end) […]

Predictive Commerce, the Future for Consumer Brands

Book Stacks Unlimited launched in 1992, three years before Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com. Selling new books, Book Stacks began as a dial-up bulletin board located in Cleveland. It moved to the Internet as Books.com in 1994. At age 25, ecommerce is adulting. Like rising stars climbing corporate ladders, brands today confront a relentless workload, steep […]

With Hyperelastic Fulfillment, D2C Brands Make the Last Mile a First Priority

There’s a new twist to the revolution happening in retail, and direct-to-consumer brands are driving the change by taking a page directly from Amazon’s playbook. It has profound implications for urban landscapes as consumer buying behavior continues to shift from large format stores to showrooms, online commerce and doorstep delivery. In September we wrote about […]

Episode 6: Rainbow Shops — Unlocking a Decade of Commerce Data to Drive Shopper Experience

David Cost VP OF DIGITAL & ECOMMERCE, RAINBOW SHOPS David Cost discusses why Rainbow Shops decided to replatform to Shopify and how SoundCommerce helps unify over eight years of commerce data to drive shopper experience. Watch Now In this episode you will learn from David: You can subscribe to the SoundCommerce Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and […]

Episode 5: Ryan Mason, Director of DTC Growth & Strategy, Constellation Brands

Ryan Mason DIRECTOR OF DTC GROWTH & STRATEGY, CONSTELLATION BRANDS Ryan Mason discusses navigating and transforming the direct-to-consumer wine & spirits industry. TL;DR Sip, Sip, Hooray! In this episode you will learn from Ryan: Subscribe to the SoundCommerce Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher to ensure that you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Q&A Eric […]

Episode 4: Mandy Lozano, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of MiiR

Mandy Lozano CHIEF STRATEGY & MARKETING OFFICER, MIIR MiiR CSMO Mandy Lozano discusses how she applies her past experience in growth ventures at consumer-brand leaders Nestle and Starbucks to stay true to MiiR’s identity, serve MiiR customers in an authentic way, and grow the business across wholesale, retail and direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce channels. In this […]

Episode 3: Majed Masad, Cofounder of Mejuri

Majed Masad COFOUNDER & COO, MEJURI Maj Masad discusses building a modern day direct-to-consumer jewelry company with Noura Sakkijha. In this episode you will learn how Maj: Subscribe to the SoundCommerce Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher to ensure that you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Q&A Eric Best: 00:00 SoundCommerce is a real time and […]

Episode 2: Nonie Creme, Cofounder of BeautyGarde

Nonie Creme COFOUNDER, BEAUTYGARDE Nonie Creme discusses the launch of her latest consumer brand and first digitally native DTC ecommerce company, BeautyGarde. TL;DR nails and lashes! In this episode you will learn from Nonie: You can subscribe to the SoundCommerce Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher to ensure that you do not miss any upcoming episodes. […]

Episode 1: Tim Morse, Cofounder of Richer Poorer

Tim Morse COFOUNDER, RICHER POORER Tim discusses building an omnichannel DTC brand and how to grow in a saturated market. Bralettes FTW! In this episode you will learn from Tim: You can subscribe to the SoundCommerce Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher to ensure that you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Q&A Eric Best    […]

Shoptalk 2024

Sunday, March 17, 2024 9:00 AM Wednesday, March 20, 2024 6:00 PMBooth #1777 Mandalay Bay Convention Resort3950 South Las Vegas BoulevardLas Vegas, NV, 89119United States (map) Join us at Shoptalk 2024 in Las Vegas! We can’t wait to see you at Shoptalk 2024. This year’s agenda promises to lead the retail industry narrative with insights and perspectives […]

NRF 2024

Sunday, January 14, 2024 8:00 AM Tuesday, January 16, 2024 6:00 PM Jacob K. Javits Convention Center 429 11th AvenueNew York, NY, 10018United States (map) Join us at NRF 2024 in New York City WHERE RETAIL GOES TO GET REALLY AHEAD Get inspiration from the biggest names in retail and beyond, experience breakthrough technology firsthand, forge partnerships […]

RT INSIGHTS | Atomic (Not Message) Semantic Mapping

Wouldn’t it be great if data teams had access to data manipulation superpowers? There is a real-world corollary for matter manipulation in the data world. It’s an emerging concept, and it’s called “data atomization.” In the retail industry, atomic data stores and warehouses can be used to manage a wide range of data, including sales, […]

RETAIL TOUCHPOINTS | Timing is Everything When it Comes to Useful, Governable Analytics Data

Data models and outputs (business intelligence reports, reverse ETL orchestrations, etc.) and the teams that use them often have different definitions for the same fields, calculations and KPIs. These inconsistencies can cause confusion throughout organizations and even risk disseminating incorrect metrics, driving false conclusions for key business stakeholders. Data pipeline owners have tried to address […]

Commerce Experience Podcast, Episode 69: The Data-Driven Retail Transformation

In this episode of the Commerce Experience podcast, host Brian Walker is joined by Eric Best, Founder & CEO of SoundCommerce, a commerce data solution provider that helps brands realize profitable e-commerce business outcomes. Listen as they discuss: Listen to the full episode.

SoundCommerce Appoints Retail Industry Leader Emma Cope as Vice President of Sales

SEATTLE, WA, August 29, 2023__SoundCommerce, a retail data and analytics provider, announced today the appointment of Emma Cope as its Vice President of Sales. Cope brings 20-plus years of digital, retail, and ecommerce sales and technology leadership to the role at a pivotal time in the company’s growth.  “Emma has incredible experience in the markets […]

THE LEAD | SoundCommerce on the 2023 Leading 100 List

SoundCommerce is proud to be recognized by The Leading 100 List of 2023 as an innovative tech start-up driving the future of brand-to-consumer. The Leading 100 List recognizes high impact technology start-ups that are transforming the direct-to-consumer business model and driving business value for brands as well as retailers. These companies are solving business problems, […]

AiThority | Instant Replay: Replay the Tape

Imagine the benefits if data leaders and practitioners could replay their data decisions… Jared Stiff, CTO and Co-Founder at SoundCommerce and Rachel Workman, VP of Value Engineering at SoundCommerce share these benefits and more in their jointly authored AiThority Guest Post. Read the full post on AiThority.

CHAIN STORE AGE | Rainbow Shops enhances search with cloud-based AI

Rainbow Shops is leveraging SoundCommerce to unify its granular transactional order history and customer engagement data to unlock insights and enable action across its omni-channel operations. Read the full post on Chain Store Age.

Profit (Not Revenue): Retail’s New North Star

Watch SoundCommerce’s Allen Eidson and Carly Zhang present their keynote at eTail West on March 2, 2023. Carly and Allen address how the shift from growth at all costs to profit introduces new complexities for retailers, especially around how data is collected, translated, and used. Watch: Profit (Not Revenue): Retail’s New North Star.

RETAIL TOUCHPOINTS | Walking the Fine Line Between Profits and Customer Experience: The DTC Strategic Dilemma

Eric Best, SoundCommerce’s co-founder and CEO, shares how DTC brands can best position themselves to address both customer experience and business profitability through informed strategic decision making. Read the full article on Retail TouchPoints.

SoundCommerce Completes SOC 2 Type II Certification

Retail Data Platform Provider Achieves Data Operations Milestone SEATTLE, WA, January 23, 2023 – SoundCommerce, the leading retail data and analytics cloud platform, announced today that it has successfully completed the formal audit process for Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II certification. Successful completion of the SOC 2 Type II audit further validates SoundCommerce’s […]

VIDEO | SoundCommerce drives profitable growth for retail brands with Google Cloud

Considerations for Solidifying Your DTC Data Strategy

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies have so much data – transactional data, customer data, and marketing data – all of which are stored in many disparate systems that typically don’t integrate with one another. And each day, all of these data points, in all of these systems, have to be translated into easy-to-understand metrics (preferably as metrics on […]

RETAIL INFO SYSTEMS | 3 Ways to Prepare for the 2022 Holiday Season

Eric Best, Co-Founder and CEO of SoundCommerce, shares three ways retailers can positively impact their profitability this holiday season. Read the full article on Retail Info Systems.

CDO MAGAZINE | 100 Disruptive SaaS Series A Companies to Watch 2022 List

SoundCommerce is honored to be included on CDO Magazine’s 100 Disruptive SaaS Series A Companies to Watch 2022 List. Read the full list on CDO Magazine.

High-Fidelity, Persistent Data Storage and Replay

Rachel Workman, SoundCommerce’s Senior Director of Value Engineering, and Jared Stiff, SoundCommerce’s Co-Founder and CTO, address the challenges of actionable data becoming lost to time. To solve this problem, retailers need reasonable ways to ingest and store data as it is generated, regardless of whether or not it’s been defined for a specific purpose yet. […]

DATAVERSITY | High-Fidelity, Persistent Data Storage and Replay

Rachel Workman, SoundCommerce’s Senior Director of Value Engineering, and Jared Stiff, SoundCommerce’s Co-Founder and CTO, address the challenges of actionable data becoming lost to time and how high-fidelity, persistent data storage and replay technology can help retail brands to adopt a cost-efficient, flexible, and forward-thinking solution to their data problems. Read the full article on […]

GOOLGE CLOUD NEXT ’22 | Google Cloud Announced the General Availability of Analytics Hub and Mentioned their Partnership with SoundCommerce

During a session at Google Cloud Next ‘22, Google Cloud announced the general availability of Analytics Hub and mentioned their partnership with SoundCommerce. Listen to the session here.

Built with BigQuery: Retailers Drive Profitable Growth with SoundCommerce

As economic conditions change, retail brands’ reliance on ever-growing customer demand puts these companies at financial and even existential risk. Top-line revenue and active customer growth do not equal profitable growth.  Despite multi-billion dollar valuations for some brands, especially those operating the direct-to-consumer model, the rising costs of meeting shoppers’ high expectations (i.e. free shipping, […]

3 Reasons Retailers Need to Consider a Retail Data Platform

Many retailers are looking for better ways to unify their data across all business functions so they can make more informed decisions. If you and your team struggle to answer any of these questions, it’s time to consider a retail data platform.   Retail data platforms unify disparate data systems across an organization and then model […]

What the SoundCommerce Team Learned at GROW NY

Last month I joined my SoundCommerce team and 1,500+ retailers at GROW NY, one of the largest retail events in the country. The event focused on answering the most important eCommerce questions – what is working and what is not working across your online sales channels, and what actions are your team and company taking […]

2022 Holiday Readiness Guide

There’s still time to level-up your holiday strategy Per our reader’s requests, we’ve expanded our holiday readiness checklist and are sharing even more tips and tricks for how best to prepare for a successful and profitable holiday season. Download our holiday readiness guide – actionable steps for retailers to take now to guarantee profitable sales this […]

FAST COMPANY | Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Profitability Hinges on One Commonly Overlooked Business Metric

Eric Best, co-founder and CEO of SoundCommerce addresses how DTC profitability, an often overlooked metric, hinges on “disciplined optimization of operations alongside marketing.” Read the full article on Fast Company.

SoundCommerce Announces Predictive Customer Lifetime Value Functionality to Optimize Marketing and Operations for Retailers

New algorithms enable marketers to predict shopper revenue and profit for marketing and customer engagement programs SEATTLE, WA, July 19, 2022 – Retail data and analytics platform SoundCommerce, today released predictive Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) models which leverage machine learning algorithms to predict shopper revenue and bottom-line contribution profit for a brand’s marketing and customer […]

RETAIL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE | 4 Preparation Steps for the 2022 Holiday Retail Season

Eric Best, Co-Founder and CEO of SoundCommerce, shares four steps retailers can take now to focus on the profitability of their programs and great customer experiences to be best poised to handle the challenging economy this holiday season. Read Eric Best’s full article on Retail Customer Experience.

2022 Holiday Readiness Checklist

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE HOLIDAYS? Solid preparation well in advance of the holiday season is key to success. Download our holiday readiness checklist – a complete list of actionable steps retailers can take now to best prepare for dynamic market conditions ahead of the holidays.

Retail Predictions for 2022 Holiday Season

December is just a few months away, and there are many challenges – predictable and unpredictable – that can impact the holiday season. SoundCommerce has identified three retail holiday predictions for the 2022 holiday season that we hope will help our retail partners ensure a successful and profitable holiday season.  1. The most successful retailers […]

Women Impact Tech Event: The Importance of Having People in Your Corner

Women Impact Tech Conference, Seattle, WA, May 2022 I recently had the opportunity to attend the Women Impact Tech – Seattle conference. It was the second time I was able to attend this conference so I already knew what a well-run, worthwhile event it is. Women Impact Tech exists to bring awesome female engineers together […]

AUTHORITY MAGAZINE | Steve Davis of SoundCommerce: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Uncertain & Turbulent Times

Yitzi Weiner of Authority Magazine interviews Steve Davis, CRO of SoundCommerce as part of their series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times.” Read the full interview on Authority Magazine.

FORBES | Eric Best Builds SoundCommerce To Provide Retailers With Amazon-Like Data Capabilities

Bruce Rogers of Forbes interviews Eric Best, SoundCommerce’s co-founder and CEO, about how SoundCommerce is helping its customers to take profitability and future customer behaviors into account so they can be better informed in real time and increase profitability and customer retention, while simultaneously reducing operational risks. Read the full interview on Forbes here.

PNW.AI | Why Did Seattle’s SoundCommerce Buy this Oakland-based AI Marketing Company?

This startup news article by Mike Pearl on pnw.ai, the voice of AI in the Pacific Northwest, shares news about SoundCommerce’s recent acquisition of Outlier.ai and how its retail data and analytics platform is helping retailers identify opportunities to increase profitability across all areas of their retail business. Read the full article on pnw.ai.

SoundCommerce Expands SoundCommerce Campaign, Data and Intelligence for Retail Acquisition Marketers

New SoundCommerce release supports GA4.0 and first-party data sources; simplifies campaign tagging and tracking; ties digital campaign performance to full order and shopper profitability SEATTLE, WA, May 25, 2022 – Retail data and intelligence platform provider SoundCommerce announced today the newest release of SoundCommerce Campaign – acquisition marketing technology that makes it easy for retail […]

SoundCommerce Acquires Outlier.ai Team; Appoints Retail Technology Veteran Steve Davis as CRO

Retail Data Platform Provider Expands GTM and Growth Teams with Outlier’s Deep Analytics Bench SEATTLE, WA, MAY 10, 2022 – Retail data platform provider SoundCommerce announced today it has closed a transaction with Outlier.ai to retain key talent and leadership; expanding the company’s sales, marketing, customer success and solutions engineering teams. SoundCommerce is a composable retail data […]

FAST COMPANY | What’s Next for Retailers After the Black Friday Bust?

Data is the only solution for discount fatigue. Our CEO and Co-Founder, Eric Best, partnered with Fast Company to explore how and why 2021 Black Friday sales were a disappointment to retailers and how holiday shopping is changing. The pandemic led to consumers spending more money online throughout the year, rather than waiting for holiday […]

Lifetime Profitability: The New Retail Industry Yardstick for Calculating Corporate Enterprise Value

Retail leaders are redefining the longstanding enterprise valuation principles that have traditionally shaped the industry. What if modern cloud computing made it practical to track even the most granular and complex business metrics? What if consumer brands could use these high-fidelity signals to better compete, optimizing every decision for long-term profitable growth? How would the […]

DIGITAL COMMERCE 360 | DTC Fitness Equipment Retailer Bala Invests in First-Party Data

As third-party cookies fade away, fitness powerhouse, Bala, invested in SoundCommerce to identify and unify the data most important to the customer experience. This article by Gretchen Salois covers how Bala uses SoundCommerce to eliminate data siloes and rely on first-party data to create customer profiles and launch retargeting campaigns. These campaigns are created using […]

CHAIN STORE AGE | Pacsun Digitally Transforms Contract Management

This article by Dan Berthiaume covers how Pacsun is expanding its digital footprint, streamlining its contracts with suppliers, distribution partners, and corporate entities. Cutting-edge data platforms like SoundCommerce help them collaborate across marketing, merchandising, finance, and IT to provide centralized access and visibility into their data. This article explores how Customer360 has helped PacSun towards […]

iTechnology | Interview with Eric Best, CEO and Founder at SoundCommerce

Eric spoke with iTechnology about his journey into tech, running and startup during the onset of COVID-19, what’s next for consumer brands adapting to industry changes in 2022, and much more. Check out his predictions for the retail industry in 2022, along with insights into how retail brands can up their game and target customers […]

SupplyChainBrain | Can Consumer Brands and Retailers ‘Out-Amazon’ Amazon.com?

Is it possible for both established retail brands and e-commerce newcomers to beat Amazon at its own game? Our Co-Founder and CEO, Eric Best, offers his insight on how consumer brands and retailers can use data to compete with Amazon for shoppers’ business. This article by Robert J. Bowman at SupplyChainBrain discusses how Amazon — […]

SoundCommerce Launches New Solution to Optimize Profitability for Brands

SoundCommerce has launched Customer360, which collects customer profile and event data in real time, allowing for better retail decisions, improved shopper experiences, and increased customer lifetime value. Retail-data platform provider SoundCommerce has launched a new cloud solution that aims to help retailers better serve customers by using data to create shopper profiles that allow retailers […]

BUSINESS OF FASHION | The Marketing Metrics That Matter in 2022

Marketers are reconsidering what success looks like — both when measuring campaign success and understanding social media impact. SoundCommerce was quoted in a Business of Fashion article by Alexandra Mondalek on January 7, 2022. The story offers a comprehensive look into the marketing metrics historically used to gauge success, as well as the potential pitfalls […]

5 NRF 2022 Sessions You Won’t Want to Miss

Are you attending NRF 2022 this year? Retail’s big show is the ultimate opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and accelerate your business into the future. NRF’s 2022 sessions are packed with insights into what’s working and what’s next for the retail industry. With industry challenges from supply chain issues and omnichannel data management […]

OLG! Operations-Led Growth for DTC Brands and Retailers

We are excited to announce our new partnership with Joe Floyd and Emergence Capital, and the Series-A funding that will accelerate our innovation and growth as the leading retail data platform.  Here are a few thoughts and observations that provide context for the next phase of growth at SoundCommerce.  The Commerce Opportunity According to DigitalCommerce360, […]

SoundCommerce – Why Multicloud Data Capability Matters for Consumer Brands and Retailers

SoundCommerce CEO Eric Best presents at the Google Looker BEACON 2020 North America conference on multi-cloud capability for brands and retailers. Learn how SoundCommerce uses a multi-cloud data graph to model and orchestrate data, allow direct queries of the underlying data, create triggered workflows, push data into downstream systems, and visualize and analyze data through […]

Level Up! Level 5: Optimizing Digital Campaigns to Customer Lifetime Value (LTV/CAC)

A DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and The New Decade Wow! Here we are. The final and topmost level of your DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and the New Decade. Level 5! If you’re headed to Etail West 2020 tomorrow in Palm Springs, stop by booth S50 and meet the SoundCommerce team to learn […]

Level Up! Level 4: Drive New and Repeat Shopper Engagement through Paid Campaigns

A DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and The New Decade New decade, new retail tech! SoundCommerce provides a framework for retail digital marketers to definitively prove ad spend ROI, quantify the ideal budget to balance profit and growth, and profoundly improve campaign performance. We’re talking about true contribution margin- and customer lifetime value (CLV)-based […]

Level Up! Level 3: Contribution Margin-Based Campaign Optimization

A DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and The New Decade New decade, new retail tech! SoundCommerce provides a framework for retail digital marketers to definitively prove ad spend ROI, quantify the ideal budget to balance profit and growth, and profoundly improve campaign performance. We’re talking about true contribution margin- and customer lifetime value (CLV)-based […]

Level Up! Level 2: Gross Margin-Based Campaign Optimization

A DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and The New Decade New decade, new retail tech! SoundCommerce provides a framework for retail digital marketers to definitively prove ad spend ROI, quantify the ideal budget to balance profit and growth, and profoundly improve campaign performance. We’re talking about true contribution margin- and customer lifetime value (CLV)-based […]

Level Up! Level 1: Revenue-Based Campaign Optimization

A DTC Performance Marketing Framework for 2020 and the New Decade New decade, new retail tech! SoundCommerce provides a framework for retail digital marketers to definitively prove ad spend ROI, quantify the ideal budget to balance profit and growth, and profoundly improve campaign performance. We’re talking about true contribution margin- and customer lifetime value (CLV)-based […]

Ten Signs Your Consumer Brand Needs a Retail Data Platform

1. You value and serve every shopper the same “Yeah, finance ran the numbers last spring. Our customer LTV is $247.86. “Well, of course that’s an average.”  “No, I guess I really don’t know the unique value of this inbound caller. I’ll just offer her free returns and a discount on her next order and […]

Four Operations Lessons Brands Can Learn From Amazon

Free same-day shipping. Sunday delivery. Delivery by Prime Air. Sidewalk Robot… or Drone. In the last two decades, Amazon has redefined the meaning of what it means to be a world-class retailer. In the process, they’ve set new consumer expectations in not only retail, but countless other industries. It’s awe-inspiring — and if you’re a […]

The End and Beginning of Retailing

Buy N Large. Credit Disney / Pixar. I was struck again this morning by the volume and tenor of mainstream news covering retail and ecommerce. Stories regarding the rise of Amazon and the end of retail are nothing new. What is striking about the latest stories is the ever faster pace at which the change […]

Digital Natives vs. Traditional Wholesalers: Different Challenges, Same Hard Math

Digital Natives vs. Traditional Wholesalers: Different Challenges, Same Hard Math In a previous life, I was Head of Ecommerce for a 100+ year old performance running brand in Seattle. During the nine years of my tenure, I saw firsthand the challenges of building a fast-growing D2C ecommerce business within a “traditional” wholesale-focused brand. While my […]

Part II of CRaP vs. Customer Ecstasy: The Unit Economics Tightrope

Last post, we discussed how D2C brands are uniquely exposed to existential risk due to the scope and complexity of their operations. There’s a lot going on and endless ways to end up upside down when variable expenses drive (or kill) the business. Given the nature of the modern cloud stack, it is now practical […]

CRaP vs. Customer Ecstasy: The Unit Economics Tightrope

The ecommerce community is up in arms about Amazon’s drive to eliminate “CRaP” products from their business. CRaP is the acronym for “Can’t Realize a Profit,” and it speaks to the poor unit economics of many products live within the Amazon catalog. Amazon prides itself on driving “customer ecstasy” through experiences driven by world-class, data-driven […]

Brand, Do You *Even* Disrupt?! Episode III

A 9-Part Guide to the Core Business Models Driving D2C Brands. Until you, the disruptive DTC market, tell us otherwise, this is our final installment in The SoundCommerce Guide to Core Business Models Driving D2C Brands. (Yeah, it’s an SEO mouthful). It turns out there are only eight (wait, nine!) business model variants that allow […]

Brand, Do You *Even* Disrupt?! Episode II

A 9-Part Guide to the Core Business Models Driving D2C Brands. PARTS 4, 5 and 6. It turns out there are only nine business model variants we’ve observed in the wild which allow a D2C brand to successfully engage consumers, disrupt incumbents, and change the world. In the lead up to ShopTalk March 3 in […]

Brand, Do You *Even* Disrupt?!

A 9-Part Guide to the Core Business Models Driving D2C Brands. PARTS 1, 2 and 3. It turns out there are only nine business model variants we’ve observed in the wild which allow a D2C brand to successfully engage consumers, disrupt incumbents, and change the world. In the lead up to ShopTalk March 3 in […]