👋 Welcome back to Growthnotes!

Welcome to the DTC Report, where we cover relevant insights for the modern marketer.

👀 In this week’s newsletter

🍕 Pizza hut - The earliest early adopter
PizzaHut is behind the first online transaction.

🏷️ Labeling as a strategy
What you say about your brand says something about your competitor.

📦 The ecosystem is the moat
Amazon surpasses FedEx in parcel deliveries, Shopify is fighting back.

🎨 Instagram Redesign
Instagram has a new logo.

🍕 The earliest early adopter is… PizzaHut.

The first thing that was ever sold online was a pizza from PizzaHut.

In 1994, PizzaHut releases PizzaNet!, a rudimentary website that allows a user to order a pizza, and order a pizza a user did. That was reportedly the first online transaction ever, which makes PizzaHut an e-commerce OG. The goal of this PizzaNet! experiment was to see if there was any merit to this Internet thing.

🏷 Labeling as a way to grow revenue.

If you say your shampoo is free of mercury, what does it say about other shampoo companies that don’t say they’re free of mercury?

Labeling: a strategy that will increase sales.

A recent NielsenIQ study around pet food brands points out that “57% of products are free from animal by-product ingredients”, but that only “4% of these are claiming no animal by-products on their packaging.” Products claiming “no animal by-products'' are growing rapidly, 14% YOY.

This means that the brands that are properly labeling their products are outperforming their peers.

What does this mean for e-commerce brands?

When people shop for a product in a given product segment, they will look at certain attributes. This holds especially true for marketplace shoppers (Amazon and the others (Walmart, Target, and even Ebay).

What are people looking for on the label that you don’t communicate? Cruelty free? Plastic-free packaging?

Actionable insights.

Keeping an eye on your competitors and on what people are saying on social media is a great way to determine what potential buyers want to see. People compare products before making a purchase. Make sure that your landing page and your packaging have all the information your customer looks for.

Wavebreak

Wavebreak is a leading email & CRM agency for fast-growing DTC brands. They work with clients such Nutrafol, Casely and Caliwhite.

They have helped Casely double their revenues through email.

Check out their website for more information on how they operate.

📦 The Shipping Wars: Amazon wins again

Amazon Logistics, Amazon’s shipping arm, has surpassed Fedex and is catching up to UPS in terms of parcel delivery.

It’s crazy to think that the world’s largest e-commerce company is also the largest cloud computing company (AWS), and is one of the largest shipping companies. There is something in the water over at Amazon (here is a link to all Jeff Bezos’ shareholder letters from 1997 to 2018. There is definitely something to learn for anyone interested in business).

Shopify is at it, too

Shopify recently acquired Deliverr for $2.1B, revealing an asset-light fulfillment strategy.

According to ModernRetail, “Deliverr is a 4PL provider, meaning that it acts as a broker to secure space for warehouse space for brands at 3PL.” In other words, Shopify is looking at the software layer and isn’t interested in building, owning and operating warehouses like Amazon is.

Shopify is also releasing its version of Prime, under the name Shop Promise. Shop Promise will give benefits to buyers and create a seamless shopping experience for all Shop Promise members. In other words, they’re trying to build a Prime-like moat.

But Amazon strikes back by taking Amazon Prime beyond Amazon.com by introducing Buy with Prime.

According to their website, “Buy with Prime is a new way to extend Prime shopping benefits—including fast, free shipping, a seamless checkout experience, and free returns—to merchants’ own online stores, ultimately increasing selection for Prime members.” They are looking to expand their turf.

What does this mean for e-commerce brands? 

A battle of giants will undeniably create opportunities for e-commerce brands. When growth is expensive, and you are the client, it means you are worth a lot. Stay tuned for arbitrage opportunities as these platforms are looking to close the loop and become a full-fledged ecosystem.

🎨 Instagram has a new branding: opinions are mixed

Instagram has a new font, an updated logo and has an fresh new brand.

The icon stayed pretty much the same; they seem to have slightly boosted the saturation, but nothing major. The old icon (left) & the new one (right):

Where changes are really visible (& questionable) are in their new Wordmark. They developed a new bespoke font displayed on their new extensive online brand guide.

People on the internet seem to either love it or hate it.