The Perspective #4

Welcome to the fourth 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 in DTC.

In this edition 🗞:

• Brand-first breakdown with Misc. Goods Co

• 5 questions with Plantmade founder, Ama Amo-Agyei

• Empty cart tip ya gotta test ASAP

• A playlist for midnight contemplation

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

Brand-First Breakdown: Misc. Goods Co

Misc Goods creates practical, everyday products like wallets, flasks, deodorant, cologne, and even playing cards.  

We're breaking down their site and offering a couple of tweaks to make it an even better user experience and conversion machine. Let's jump in!

1. Desktop Navigation

The key to an effective navigation, as with any part of a site, is maintaining a clear design hierarchy (primary vs secondary) and giving users everything they need to convert simply.

Currently, there are a lot of different states and functionality in the menu, but the product offering is small and quite simple. Try not to over-complicate something that can be simple.

 Suggestions: Navigation

• Give users a single access point to your products and collections. They can still be separated into shopping by category and shopping by-product, but make it simpler. When a nav link has a dropdown, make sure you are giving users a visual cue to show that (+)

• On desktop, move your brag bar below the navigation – This gives it higher visibility and more prominence.

• Add a primary action that’s louder than anything else in your nav. We suggest "Shop All" so users can simply explore your catalog.

Suggestions: Dropdown Menu 

• Pull in a nice, simple brand statement that packs a punch.

• Surface a blanket action in case they aren’t looking to explore.

• Give clear access to your 3 primary categories – simplify the description of each to a single sentence.

2. Mobile Menu 

Suggestion: 

• Delete the nav within your nav, it’s confusing. Create a simple differentiation between primary pages and secondary ones.

• Give users clear access to the cart still.

• Use your extra whitespace and pull in a SIMPLE piece of social proof.

• Add a blanket action at the bottom of the loudest element in the menu, and make sure it’s full-width. 

• Pull in your shipping offer again to ensure users aren’t missing it!

3. Homepage header

In many cases, this is a user’s first real interaction with your brand. Make sure it tells them what makes you great instantly – not just a product offer.

Suggestion:

• Consider adding a more living image (something with a human being!). This shows the product while also showing it relevant to hands (size)

• Tell users exactly what you do in the simplest format – make sure they know you don’t just make wallets!

• Communicate exactly where they're going – are they shopping all? Are they shopping the wallet? We suggest making this action “shop all”.

• Add a secondary action where users can shop the featured product from the image directly.

4. Reviews

This is a great cross-section, just need to tweak a couple of things!

Suggestions: 

• Leadoff with a title that calls out the total reviews Misc. Goods Co has received!

• Feature one review at a time on mobile to keep users focused.

• Give users access to your product page, not more reviews – if that one review isn’t doing the trick, pick a more impactful one!

5. Bundle

These products may be miscellaneous, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be bought together.

 Suggestion: Motivate users to purchase your products together. Consider adding a bundling discount for when users add multiple items to their cart and add a cross-section to the homepage highlighting it.

This could be a good area for motion (all the products slowly moving on a ticker)

If you enjoyed these tips, reply to this email and let us know. We love feedback :) 

Founders Five 🖐

Founder: Ama Amo-Agyei is the founder of Plantmade which creates science-backed and vegan growth products for all hair and beard types. 

Ama started the company out of her mom's Kitchen in 2020, grew it to 6 figures in less than 5 months, AND had a BBC documentary created about the business 🤯

Question 1: When you’ve grown as fast as Plantmade, we imagine there’s a ton of pressure and anxiety that goes along with all of the wins. How have you dealt with that and what advice do you give to other founders feeling that way?

Answer: I’ve had to go back to the mindset of I have nothing to lose. It’s extremely freeing to be in a position where the only way is up. Once you start to build something the pressure can make you “fight” to grow your business when you should still be in a freedom state of mind.

I’ve been working on getting back there… sometimes it’s hard especially with comparison in the mix but that is truly the way to set yourself free from anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. 

Question 2: Hard work obviously plays a huge role in successful businesses, but can you give us a moment where you got super lucky, the stars aligned and things just fell into place?

Answer: Definitely when I first started Plantmade. It was the first time I let go of all expectations, fears and anxieties… I just aligned myself with building something with zero expectations and it really lead me to tap into flow and grow this business into 6 figures in 5 months and 7 figures in a year. 

Question 3: Your business is incredibly successful, but is there one mistake you’d advise all future founders to try and avoid if possible? 

Answer: Definitely future proof your business if you’re looking to build a legacy brand and build a moat. This means refine your messaging, protect your names and formulations with trademarks and patents…do whatever will strengthen your USPs so you can truly start to build a brand that can last. 

Question 4: You started Plantmade out of your mom's kitchen - did she receive any equity for all the free rent? 🤣

Answer: Haha, no however, she does get a nice salary from me as a thank you and yeah just trying to retire her now so she can live the rest of her years in peace and comfort. 

Question 5: Besides Plantmade, what’s one of your favorite DTC health and beauty brands right now? 

Answer: Topicals, Doe Lashes, Snow Teeth Whitening & Gisou are definitely some of my favorite brands right now. I get so much inspiration and fire from these awesome businesses. Keeps me motivated to build Plantmade to the moon. 

Empty Cart Tip: Test it out!

Classifieds 🔎

🔵 New brands we discovered this month: Mush, Wandering Bear Coffee, Divyne, and Sound 

🚀 Barstool is hiring a senior UI/X designer and CBD brand, Trip, is hiring a head of growth & acquisition.

💻 How Haven’s Kitchen is using QR codes to get more people visiting its website

✅ We’re still growing like mad at Oddit and we’re looking for an account coordinator with experience in ecomm/DTC to join our squad. 

Bonus  

We've been putting together killer playlists for various moods. 

This month we’re releasing: music for midnight contemplation 

Give it a listen! (Only available on Spotify for now. Sorry, Apple peeps 😅)

Want your own brand-first breakdown? 🚨

Check out the essential and premium reports!

 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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