Retention Chronicles

Liz Reyes, Co-Founder of Sols, joins Retention Chronicles to discuss recovering from a burglary by putting her customers first, establishing her ecommerce store on Shopify, starting to build on social media, & more. When founding an ecommerce company, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered like where to host your site, what technology to add to your ecommerce platform, what to invest in, how to build out your team, and more. Luckily for listeners of Retention Chronicles, Liz and Mariah talk about Liz’s journey in setting up Sols.  Liz walks through her decision in choosing her ecommerce platform to be Shopify, setting up their website,  shipping, warehouse logistics, and operations.  It’s a very unfortunate situation, but Liz shares a vulnerable moment in disclosing that Sols experienced a burglary in December 2023 and how she and her team have tried their best to recover and communicate with customers about the delays in their orders. After experiencing a lot of emotions around such an event, Liz speaks to the frustration of having to take inventory and match it to orders manually. Liz also shares about her decision to break ties with a 3PL so that Sols could enhance and own the post-purchase experience. Like many brand founders, Liz knows the importance of communicating often and accurately with customers while they wait for their orders. Starting out on social media can be a daunting task, but Liz breaks it down but just having fun with posting on Sols’ social media and nailing down who you are as a brand and who you want to be with.

James Van Erck, Co-Founder & COO of Rebuy, joins Retention Chronicles to discuss software that generates post-purchase revenue for Shopify brands.  With his extensive background in ecommerce, James has a lot of experience to share with Shopify brand founders, operators, and marketers. A lot of brands focus on how to acquire their customers, but enough aren’t focusing on how to retain them after they make a first purchase. This is what James, Noah, and Mariah discuss. How do ecommerce brands retain their customers?  There are a lot of ways to increase customer retention, but James shares one of the most crucial ways, and that’s by increasing post-purchase upsells and cross sells with dynamic product recommendations. This is why the Malomo and Rebuy software work so well together, and to hear more about that, you’ll want to tune into this episode. This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your personalized mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your free design right to your inbox! Episode timeline:  2:24 Building software for e-commerce merchants.  6:36 Ecommerce strategies and retention tactics for Shopify brands.  10:50 Post-purchase offers and gift card upsells.  18:40 Personalized product recommendations and gift cards.  23:36 Personalization platform Rebuy and its benefits for Shopify brands.  27:35 Post-purchase experiences and personalized product recommendations.

Allyse Jackson, Founder & CEO of Beehive Meals, joins Retention Chronicles to discuss how she’s managed and organized operations and logistics for her ecommerce business.  Without intending to, Allyse started her business Beehive Meals by prepping freezer meals when she was pregnant. After realizing she over prepared food for her family, she started to realize she needed to get ride of some of her prepped meals. After delivering extra meals to friends and family, Allyse saw how well they were received and went to Facebook to see how many people would be interested in a delivery service. After seeing a very high demand, Allyse started Beehive Meals and has learned many lessons in scaling in the food and beverage industry. Allyse shares her past and current experiences and challenges with inventory, storage, distribution, and delivery expectations in the ecommerce space.   This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your personalized mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your free design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps:  2:55 Entrepreneurship, crowdfunding, and meal prepping 7:16 Starting a meal prep business and its success 12:33 Starting a meal prep business 16:34 Managing a meal prep business during pandemic 21:21 Pivoting a food business during the COVID-19 pandemic 27:15 Navigating growth challenges in the meal prep industry 33:40 Expanding a meal prep business with freight model 39:18 Entrepreneurship, self-doubt, and networking 45:36 Food delivery challenges and solutions

Caitlin Elgin, Head of CRM & Lifecycle, at Fluency Firm joins Retention Chronicles to discuss evaluating Shopify transactional email and SMS by click rate.  Caitlin, Noah, & Mariah chat about Caitlin’s background in marketing and how she’s been in the Shopify space since 2014 before they even had an integration with USPS.  Caitlin has worked with countless brands who have upgraded their transactional emails from the ‘out-of-the-box’ Shopify experience to fully branded and personalized transactional email and SMS with Malomo. She shares a specific Shopify merchant use case where after they implemented Malomo, they doubled their click rate on transactional emails.  You can learn more about the services Caitlin and her team offer at fluencyfirm.com or by emailing hello@fluencyfim.com.  This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your personalized mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your free design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps:  E-commerce Enlightenment with Expert Insights. 0:04 Email and SMS strategies for Shopify brands. 1:57 Travel plans and e-commerce strategies. 4:32 Using Malomo to increase click rates and engagement for transactional messages. 8:21 Email marketing optimization for increased revenue. 12:10 Tracking emails and driving engagement. 18:32 Using Malomo for post-purchase emails and tracking. 23:05 Email marketing strategies and services for business growth. 30:04

Lindsay White, Founder & CEO of The Little Milk Bar, joins Retention Chronicles to discuss scaling customers through social media and digital marketing for Shopify brands. Lindsay and Mariah chat about Lindsay’s journey to entrepreneurship within the Shopify ecosystem and how she first started in the Etsy community selling baby leggings. She then rebranded and pivoted her business to focus on breastfeeding and the right to breastfeed in public.  When Lindsay started selling on Etsy, Instagram was new and she started to see that brands were using free advertising to scale their brand organically. She eventually learned that after starting her company, The Little Milk Bar, that Etsy was a great platform to start her business, but she soon transitioned her business to Squarespace and then Shopify. Mariah and Lindsay talk about the benefits and drawbacks of different ecommerce hosting platforms, such as the restrictions of listing on Etsy and outgrowing Squarespace but not needing in-house graphic designers. Lindsay shares about her experience in growing on Instagram in that it’s not easy to grow on social media because you must post multiple times a day, but it is worth-while in that if you’re targeting the right audience and have great content, you’ll be able to stand out in the noise.  Given the stereotype around breastfeeding, Lindsay and her team at The Little Milk Bar was successful in getting Instagram to change their posting policies around breastfeeding, which was no easy feat. With that, they have been able to support many new and current mothers with their confidence in breastfeeding.

Anatoliy Labinskiy, a 4-time Two Comma Club winner and founder of GSM Growth, joins Retention Chronicles to discuss how to understand TikTok metrics and grow your sales with TikTok advertising.  Anatoliy tells Mariah and Noah about one of the biggest growth tools in ecommerce right now- TikTok shop. New products and brands are becoming relevant everyday on TikTok, and that’s just from organic media.  Anatoliy and his team have mastered the paid media side of TikTok and are here to share tactical takeaways all brands can implement. Tiktok is a great platform to bring eyeballs to your brand and after that brands can hit up retargeting ads to capture the attention of potential buyers.  But, TikTok has less consistent growth than Meta, and so you have to know the right approach and metrics to track. Anatoliy walks through how to ensure you're remaining profitable on TikTok. Anatoliy also addresses the concerns of some that the platform will decrease in popularity or cease to exist.  This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your personalized mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your free design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps: E-commerce marketing strategies and personal life updates. 3:32 TikTok as a retention channel for e-commerce brands. 6:49 TikTok advertising success stories. 11:36 TikTok marketing strategies and profit margins. 16:11 TikTok ad campaign optimization using A/B testing. 20:33 TikTok advertising strategies and budget management. 30:00 TikTok ad optimization strategies. 35:35 TikTok metrics to track. 42:01

Georgia Grace Edwards (Co-Founder/CEO) and Charlotte Massey (Co-Founder/COO) of Gnara join Retention Chronicles Season 5 to discuss founding their brand with their patented GoFly technology. Georgia Grace and Charlotte patented their GoFly technology to create a new industry for women’s pants. In addition to the familiar zipper fly that allows you to take your pants on and off, a second zipper extends from beneath the first zipper to the back of the waistband.  The founder pair grew up in the great outdoors, and having experienced first hand the issue of not being able to easily use the restroom in nature, they started researching the history of women’s pants while in undergrad.  From there, they completed both incubator and accelerator programs to establish their minimum viable product (MVP) where they could start selling products.  After learning the legal and manufacturing sides of a patent, they began operating as a service where they would install their zipper technology in one’s favorite active pants. But, after seeing the market for this technology, they grew Gnara into what it is today by working with designers and investigating the history of women’s apparel and sizing. Georgia Grace and Charlotte also speak to deciphering between utility and design patents. They attribute a lot of their learning to in-person trade shows where other founders shared their successes and challenges but acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected those events.  This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your custom mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your custom design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps: Outdoor gear company Gnara’s origins and founders' backgrounds. 1:42 Outdoor adventures, entrepreneurship, and gender equality. 3:10 Entrepreneurship backgrounds and career paths. 6:29 Entrepreneurship, business growth, and accelerator programs. 9:01 Remote work and entrepreneurship. 16:35 Innovative pants with hidden compartments for hygiene products. 18:54 Designing and implementing functional clothing with zippers. 22:54 Clothing design, sizing, and patents. 27:14 IP law and its impact on accessibility. 35:41 Entrepreneurship, e-commerce, and collaborations. 37:33 The impact of the pandemic on the outdoor industry's largest trade show. 41:27 Learning and problem-solving strategies for brand operators. 45:20 Entrepreneurship, business growth, and collaboration. 47:59

RC Williams, Co-Founder of Rejuvia and 1-800-D2C, joins Retention Chronicles Season 5 to discuss streamlining and evaluating technology for D2C brands. RC tells Mariah about how he and his mother started Rejuvia four years ago and how they dove into the business headfirst. After running the business for a while, they tracked what was working for them and they’ve fine-tuned their business strategy. He details how brands that are just starting out shouldn’t load heavy on technology, they should keep it light early and then add on different technology as they grow. He warns brands against enabling a tech stack just because a competitor has a certain software.  With the brands he interviews in his ‘Under the Hood’ series, RC shares the learnings he’s receiving from founders and recognizes that behind every successful brand there lies hurdles they’ve overcome. RC also discusses how he rules out personal bias with 1-800-D2C, his technology recommendation platform. He says that with the privacy changes, a lot of brands are looking to third party tools to provide analytics as well as smart AI tools to increase efficiency of smaller teams. This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your custom mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your custom design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps: Taking over a platform for DTC brands to find valuable tools and apps. 1:39 Founding a brand and choosing a tech stack with unbiased recommendations. 3:10 Staying up-to-date with new tools and updates in the DTC space. 8:21 DTC brand operation, paid media, and retention. 13:28 Growing a brand through tech stack and product development. 20:16 Tech stack configuration, data analytics, and privacy updates. 23:55 AI tools and under-the-hood interviews with founders. 31:25 E-commerce growth and operational efficiency. 37:19

Jenny Nuccio, Founder & CEO of Imani Collective, joins Retention Chronicles for the first episode of Season 5 to discuss social entrepreneurship for nonprofits and for-profits. Jenny has always been passionate about developing the communities she is a part of and focusing on giving back to them. After living in Kenya for many years, she and her pioneer team at Imani Collective began building their nonprofit to create opportunity through trainings and jobs.  She realized that they had to create a marketplace for their vision so that the trainings they were providing would lead to sustainable jobs, so Jenny and her team founded the for-profit side of their company, Imani Kids.  Tasked with running a nonprofit and a for-profit, Jenny learned the similarities and differences between being an executive director and a CEO. With those learnings, she decided to bring all their companies together under one umbrella and create their holding company, Imani Collective. Constantly asking herself how to build a sustainable nonprofit and for-profit business, Jenny asked herself how their company would run without her and how their ethical impact could continue its legacy in the best way possible.  Jenny also walks through how she developed Imani Kids, their ecommerce company, by using local Kenyan material and organically growing their social media profile over time. She’s learned to reduce her ad spending to focus on retention over acquisition and how to leverage organic content and word-of-mouth marketing with their brand ambassador program.  This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your custom mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your custom design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps: Founding and growth of Imani Collective, a social enterprise in Kenya. 1:26 Transitioning a nonprofit to a for-profit social enterprise. 7:03 Nonprofit vs for-profit business models. 14:41 Nonprofit sustainability and impact with industry insights. 19:19 Building a successful brand for kids with Imani kids co-founder. 24:42 Starting a social enterprise and brand development. 27:59 Marketing to parents through social media and PR. 33:02 Brand ambassador programs and their success. 38:49 Social entrepreneurship and brand development with Imani Collective. 44:13

Jules Weldon and Stacey Pierce, Co-Founders of OME Gear, join Retention Chronicles for the final episode of Season 4 to discuss the struggles and successes of building a multi-use product.  Jules and Stace took their product vision and turned it into a 5-in-1 innovation that their customers rave about. But, it hasn’t been an easy journey to get there. They chose their dreams over their belongings and sold their house to back their business, betting on themselves and their determination to succeed.  The leap has been well worth it, as their customers love OME Gear’s The Wanderer. Whether it’s emailing Stace and Jules directly, sharing across social media, or organic word-of-mouth marketing, the quality of product really shows at OME Gear.  But, it’s not only products that glow, but also services. Jules & Stace personally email each customer after purchase to familiarize and introduce themselves. That’s relationship building at the next level, and the team of co-founders makes sure that as they grow, they don’t want to lose that level of connection with their customers. They’ve created and continue to create a loyal consumer base with their personal post-purchase experience. Stace, Jules, & Mariah also discuss posting on social media and how difficult it really is to keep up with and create content for. They make sure to share both their success stories and struggles as female founders so that they can pave the road and fill potholes for founders who come next.  This podcast is sponsored by Malomo, a leading shipment and order tracking platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus ecommerce brands.  To see what your custom mockup of branded order tracking and transactional email/SMS would look like, fill out this form & we’ll send your custom design right to your inbox! Episode Timestamps: Transforming products and taking ideas to market. 1:23 Minimalism, sustainability, and multi-use products. 8:26 Using a product called "Wanderer" for convenient transportation. 11:30 Using customers as brand ambassadors for a new product. 17:12 Building a successful outdoor gear brand. 21:57 Branding, social media, and customer connection. 28:26 Podcasting, entrepreneurship, and vulnerability. 34:29 Social media strategy and kindness online. 40:22 Customer experience and marketing strategies for a product-based business. 44:27 Entrepreneurship, vulnerability, and problem-solving. 51:29