“Shop” from Shopify: right problem, wrong solution

Put yourself in the shoes of a brand new ecommerce startup. Where do you get your first customer? How about your first thousand?

Your first idea might be: “buy ads?” But this is getting harder. As advertising consolidates, both paid and organic customer acquisition costs (CAC) have been increasing. Facebook ads can be effective, but not at any price. Many DTC brands aren’t operating in categories where they can afford to spend $50+ to acquire a customer.

Okay, so maybe it’s hard to use ads to buy new customers, but what about getting people who’ve already bought from you to buy again? This should be easy, because happy customers often want advertising from their favorite brands, it’s just a matter of seeing the ad at the right time. But where can you do it?