The Perspective #20

Author

Oddit Team
January 27, 2023

Welcome to the 20th edition of The Perspective by Oddit! 

Twice a month we send out actionable tips for creating brand-first and conversion-optimized customer experiences from the best brands in the world! 

In this edition 🗞:

  • Brand-first breakdown with Latico Leathers

  • 5 questions with Founder Erica Rankin

  • The Perfect homepage header

  • New brands we discovered this month

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If you missed our last editions, you can read them here!

Brand-First Breakdown: Latico Leathers

Family-run since 1984, Latico craft the highest quality hand-stitched leather handbags, wallets, and accessories with boho-vibes and individual style.

Latico's products have been gifted to stars at the Emmy's and Golden Globes and even featured on screen!

The brand is also dedicated to making a positive impact in the lives of other people, and have donated over 100,000 meals to Feeding America to-date, the non-profit organization that serves a nationwide network of food banks around the USA.

That's what we call lookin' good & doin' good!

We're breaking down various parts of the Latico website and offering a couple of tweaks to make it an even better user experience and conversion machine. Let's jump in!

Homepage Header

Suggestions To Test:

Suggestion 1: Ensure you are offering an action to take in the announcement bar. You want to continually push users to your conversion pages or the next step in your sales funnel.

Suggestion 2: Collapse search into your nav so it isn’t taking up additional space on page.

Suggestion 3: Pull in a secondary action to shop the products being featured in the image.

Suggestion 4: Separate your headline and image so the copy is easy to read. Currently it’s somewhat lost in the image (too busy).

Suggestion 5: Make sure to give users a clear primary action to take, and ensure it’s at the bottom of the fold.

Suggestion 6: Pull in some key traits or awards to build additional trust with new users.

Product Page Header + Dropdown

Suggestions To Test:

Suggestion 1: Test hiding the thumbnail images and instead utilizing simple gallery indicator dots. This helps with driving exploration, and allows you to add more images without issue.

Suggestion 2: Make sure it’s clear that reviews can be clicked to scroll down and read more!

Suggestion 3: Pull in a few key traits of the product. Keep it simple, easy to scan, and have a max of 3.

Suggestion 4: For products that run past 2 rows of colors on mobile, test converting this to a dropdown selector rather than color swatches. 

This also allows you to potentially communicate more info. These dropdown fields could display any difference in price, color / material, etc. to avoid clicking through each swatch to discover the information.

Mobile Drawer

Suggestions To Test:

Suggestion 1: Test pulling in a featured product or offer (such as the sale you’re running).

Suggestion 2: Create a more clear design hierarchy by better separating products from secondary actions ("Account", "Why", etc.).

Suggestion 3: Add a primary or featured action at the bottom of the menu. We suggest testing all products, and best sellers.

Suggestion 4: Call-out your free shipping offer at the bottom to help customers shop stress-free of additional costs!

Sticky Add To Cart

Suggestions To Test: 

Suggestion 1: Your sticky "Add To Cart" (ATC) can sit at the top of the screen on desktop, but when it comes to mobile it needs to be where the action is most accessible — at the bottom of the screen.

Suggestion 2: Make sure this only pops in once users scroll past the ATC button that is on the product page. Your sticky ATC is a secondary action to take once the primary action has been passed.

Suggestion 3: Consider showing the product title and image if you can make the spacing work!

UGC Content

Suggestions To Test:

Suggestion 1: Showcase 1 post at a time to let users focus more on each post and see the image better.

For the actual posts shown here, pull in images / posts where customers have tagged Latico. This is one of the best ways to humanize the brand and build trust with new users — showing them that real people love the products.

Suggestion 2: Give users a clear action to shop the product shown in the image.

If you want loads of fresh insights like this for your site, check out our Quick Win 10-Pack and Full Reports!

Founders Five 🖐

Founder: Erica Rankin is the Founder and CEO of Bro Dough, where she has the mission of creating a world where someone can eat an ENTIRE jar of cookie dough and still feel good about themselves.

Delicious and nutritious? A healthier way to indulge in your favourite childhood treat? That’s what they’re all about ;-)

Bro Dough's Cookie Dough was started in Erica's own kitchen and is low in sugar, 100% plant-based, as well as being made with only quality ingredients. With added protein too, Bro Dough is perfect for that post workout snack, or afternoon treat you can actually feel good eating.

Oddit: What’s your biggest secret behind spending less than $1500 on marketing in the first two years of launching your business (back in 2019)?

Erica: Being a broke founder was the biggest secret. In all seriousness, I didn't have the capital to outsource marketing so I was forced to get creative. A lot of brands overlook organic marketing and jump straight into paid; I approached it differently. I focused on community building, first.

I recommend all founders to do this from the beginning, as it builds trust between you and your customers. And not to mention, the power of word of mouth is SUPER undervalued.

It's the little things that made all of the difference for my business; personalized handwritten notes, sending customers voice notes and videos, and regularly engaging with them on multiple platforms. Humanize your brand. Don't just be another product. 

Oddit: What’s one of the top tips you share with people about how to crack TikTok and go viral?

Erica: Keep. Showing. Up. TikTok is like roulette. It's like throwing spaghetti at a wall until it sticks.

So many founders are uncomfortable putting content out and worry about what others will think. If I fell into that trap, my business wouldn't be what it is today.

Whenever you post something ask yourself; what value can I add? How can I be relatable? Would I watch or engage with this video? Put yourself in the customers / viewers shoes. Also focus on the problem you've solving, don't be pitching your solution over and over. People don't care. TikTok is the most candid / raw platform out there, people go there to feel something.

Oddit: Besides Bro Dough, what’s one of your favorite DTC better-for-you brands right now?

Erica: There is one brand that I stumbled across completely organically in a grocery store last year when I was in Vancouver. RockCoast has these really incredible (and clean) protein bars that I love. This is a product I stock up on whenever I go and visit my friends in Vancouver.

Another product that I have to shout out, because it's a staple in my panty, is iWon Organics. I grew up being a chips / cheesies fiend and these curb my cravings and have added protein which is a bonus. I love healthy snacks.

Oddit: What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve received when it comes to starting your business?

Erica: That you need a ton of capital to be successful in CPG. A lot of folks told me to raise money when I was in my first and second year of business, but I wasn't ready.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way of doing things; everyone has a unique journey. The learnings from those first few years were priceless. I can do a lot, with a little, and this will work in my favor after I do raise (which is happening now).

I also learned all areas of my business and know exactly who to hire, what they'll be doing, and how long things take. I wish more founders saw the blessings in the scrappy / boot-strapping path.

Oddit: What is something that people tend to overlook but is VERY important when securing a manufacturer?

Erica: A few things; contracts / manufacturing agreements are extremely important. You need to ensure you have ownership of your formula — I had a lawyer go through all of these contracts with me.

A lot of founders also think that it's easy to find a Co-Man... It's not. You need to be ready when you start approaching them and SELL THE DREAM. Think of them as investors. They're often taking a risk by partnering with you (a start-up).

This works on both sides as well; you need to do your due diligence too. Ensure you can trust them with your product. And make sure you get very transparent tolling / ingredients costs from them as well. The best types of relationships are ones that have strong communication and transparency.

The Perfect Homepage Header

Classifieds 🔎

🚀 Save the scroll: How to optimize your FAQs

😎 Watch this breakdown on how to build a checkout cart that increases AOV 

⭐️ If you've only got 1 or 2 products, your mobile menu should be very simple - for example

🔵 New brands we discovered this month: Diaspora Co, Sundays, Harmless Harvest, and Lesser Evil 

Want your own brand-first breakdown? 🚨

Check out our full reports — Or even start with a Quick Win 10-Pack!

 If you don’t find any value you’ll get all your $$ back. No questions asked.

The Perspective is written by Shaun Brandt, Taylor Davies, and Thomas Schreiber

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