Blog
Articles published in descending order.
Summer 2019 Photos and Videos
This summer was mostly consumed with our new Vizsla puppy, Zooka. [...]
Pemmican Food Startup – Start here for an overview of this project
I've had for some time the idea to create a consumer brand for pemmican products and want to try bring this idea to reality. I am starting with almost a clean sheet, with only some [...]
How has your brand used consumer insights to inspire product innovation?
This is a Quora question I was asked and my answer is as follows. I think to use consumer insights to inspire product innovation you need to setup a process for identifying consumer insights relative [...]
How much of a role does the packaging of a product play in its sales?
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. My answer is as follows. From a functional perspective, yes. But that I think everyone knows that. If you are talking about protecting the product [...]
Zooka’s first walk around the farm included an off-lead recall in slow motion
This is Zooka's first walk around the farm after we brought him home from the breeder in North Carolina. This clips includes slow motion video to capture his movement. I also love the Colorado [...]
How much influence do places like Walmart, Costco, and Kroger have over package size of consumer products?
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. My response is as follows. Quite a bit for smaller vendors, which is what I know. Probably less with larger vendors. But it also depends [...]
What’s your concept of how retail stores could prosper moving forward?
This is a Quora question about how retail stores could prosper that I was asked. My answer is as follows. I think it comes down to four areas. Exclusivity You are the only retail location [...]
What is the mechanism behind supermarkets’ special offers?
This is a Quora question about the mechanism behind supermarkets’ special offers I was asked and my answer is as follows. Retailer category managers have run discounts, coupons and special offers to help temporarily drive [...]
What is a good marketing start to sell goods in a luxury segment?
This is a Quora question to sell goods in a luxury segment I was asked to answer. My answer is as follows. Are you selling your own products that you created and own to consumers, [...]
What happens to the connections a distributor has made with retailers for your product if you decide to replace him?
This is a Quora question on connections a distributor has made with retailers that I was asked. My answer is as follows. That will depend. For fragmented retail channels where there are many retailers, you [...]
Making microproduction work profitably: an example of printing labels in house rather than outsourcing
I want to talk about micro production. For background, consumer products over the last 6 decades have largely been built on mass scale, producing as much of it as possible on a mass scale, [...]
“Newsletter” versus “Magazine” and marketing power words
I want to do a quick post here on marketing in words and the power of words. For my pet business we've had a newsletter a monthly newsletter for a long time. It's both [...]
I’m considering on starting a drop ship ecommerce online site. What are the best products to offer?
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. My response is below. There are a ton of free resources online about drop ship ecommerce. One is Drop Ship Lifestyle. Finding the best [...]
What are some barriers of entry to running a successful eCommerce business?
This is a Quora question I was asked and my answer is as follows. My sense is that a minimum qualification for “successful” is profitable on an EBITDA basis (net profit or earnings before [...]
What is the cost to revenue ratio of an e-commerce infrastructure in the retail industry?
This is a Quora question I was asked and my answer is as follows. For my P&L’s, I break cost up into 3-main buckets: COGS (cost of goods sold) Marketing Operations I compute COGS based [...]
The top 3 marketing SaaS tools for consumer product startups I would recommend
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. My answer is as follows. Content marketing, organic SEO and ecommerce. I use a Wordpress website. This platform is very conducive to creating and publishing content for [...]
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How much (in % of revenues) does a food and drinks wholesaler/distributor spend in logistics, meaning, paying a 3rd party to pick up and deliver the products to the retailer’s warehouse? GalleryHow much (in % of revenues) does a food and drinks wholesaler/distributor spend in logistics, meaning, paying a 3rd party to pick up and deliver the products to the retailer’s warehouse?
How much (in % of revenues) does a food and drinks wholesaler/distributor spend in logistics, meaning, paying a 3rd party to pick up and deliver the products to the retailer’s warehouse?
This is a Quora questions that I was asked to answer. Here is my answer. That will depend on a lot of factors - your volume, distances, consistency, speed of delivery, does the product require [...]
How I use my customer data to help me retain my customers and maximize customer lifetime value
In general, I have found that it is at least five times cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one. But often that multiple is higher. I know this because I maintain detailed [...]
Creating and using a production log for producing a consumer product
I want to use this post to run through how I encapsulate all key information for a product production run into a Google Sheet. You can use Excel, but I prefer Sheets as it [...]
My ecommerce sales funnel results
Background on my ecommerce sales funnel Ecommerce sales funnels are designed to guide a consumer through the purchase process and present them with value-added offers that compliment their existing purchase before they checkout. I [...]
How relevant is TV as an advertising medium for FMCG/CPG marketers (brand managers)?
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. Absolutely yes, but I need to qualify my answer with more details to back that up. First, my focus is building consumer product startups, not [...]
Marketing campaign goal metrics model: a simplified version of the most important financial model for any consumer product company
The ultimate goal in any company... ...is to acquire AND retain customers where costs to acquire and retain are less than expenses, which leads to profits. Boiled down to this single statement, then the most [...]
Retention marketing methods for consumer product companies
I am a big believer in retention marketing because it works. Retention marketing is marketing you do to customers you have acquired through past purchases. It is also far cheaper to retain customers than to [...]