Navigating New Marketplace Models With Elizabeth Rivas, Ecomm Director at Algaecal - Episode 289

INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH RIVAS

DESCRIPTION

In today’s podcast, Kiri talks with Elizabeth Rivas, eCommerce Marketplace Director at AlgaeCal, a nutritional supplement company based in Canada.

They discussed Elizabeth's experience in e-commerce, including her work with Pelican International and Algaecal. Elizabeth shared how she started in e-commerce, and her success on Amazon. They also discussed the structure and incentives around retail media networks, the retail marketplace and retail media metrics that Elizabeth tracks, and her experience launching brands on the Walmart marketplace.

Make sure you tune in to find out more!

Elizabeth has worked in the Amazon ecosystem for 5 years in various categories including outdoor and supplements, scaling them to be top of the category and running 7-8 figure revenue companies in the US and Canada.

“I believe that with something like supplements, customers are more cautious and they need to be more trustworthy with the brand that they are buying. The brand has to provide that [optimized product listings] to make sure that the customer feels secure about their purchase. ”

— Elizabeth Rivas

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In today’s episode, Kiri and Elizabeth discuss:

How Elizabeth started in ecommerce and what she loves about it

She had been on the B2B side previously
Pelican International is the largest manufacturer of plastic kayaks in the world - a Canadian company. She was given the mandate to start selling on Amazon and had to learn everything from scratch. Pelican was 1P

100 ASINs, starting from nothing to 8 figures in 5 years
Had to design some new accessories, and she used Amazon product reviews to inform product design. Amazon can be a customer-listening channel too!

Algaecal - bone health focus. Had already done well with 3P sales.

Algaecal is a DTC-native brand
She came in to grow awareness more through the Amazon channel.
Amazon Content as education for the consumer.
A+ content is all about the “bone journey” of the customers. Product usage depends on the age of the customer. E.g. <40 years old versus those with existing osteoporosis.

Change content every quarter - mostly to keep it fresh rather than a conversion optimization test.
Add brochures, spec sheets, details on ingredients

Supplement customers are cautious. Brands need to build trust.

Where in the org does the ecommerce function sit at Algaecal? Do you sit within the marketing or sales orgs or in a center of excellence?

Bone health focus
3P seller model (not 1P)
DTC native brand so there are different channel focuses. Dedicated advertising team in the DTC business
BI (business insights) team helps to query the data
Works with an outside agency that handles retail media strategies. She loves to Test.

What is one thing your company has done well with Retail media networks? (KPIs, ownership, test and learn, etc)?

Test and learn to see what
Use SP and DSP although more in DSP, the cost of acquisition is lower. Because they can target a very specific audience.
Example: what other categories make sense to advertise in the mobility aid category? They discover they have osteoporosis after a DEXA scan and looking for mobility aids.

How do you suggest brands think about org structure/incentives around RMNs? (Eg sales and marketing team ownership)
What are the retail marketplace and retail media metrics that you track? Why are these important to your org?

Lifetime Value of the Customer (LTV) is a key metric
The critical usage period is 3 months to see results.

Ecommerce in Canada is different from the US. What are the big misconceptions that brands have either about launching in Canada (if a US brand) or launching in the US (if a Canadian brand)

Recently launched on Amazon Canada and Walmart
Both Pelican and AlgaeCal launched in the US before Canada
One size fits all - Canada is much smaller, but its growing very quickly .
Canadian customers tend to be more diligent, more curious when making a purchase. Do more research. Asking where the ingredients were sourced (US customers generally didn’t ask)

“Made in the US” doesn’t work as a value prop

Pelican experience: required a different creative. Can’t use the turquoise water background, needed a lake house background.

You also have experience launching brands on the Walmart marketplace. What’s some of the key learnings from that experience? How would you compare the experience as a brand on the WM marketplace to a brand on the Amazon marketplace?

Used Salsify, 3PL
AlgaeCal is 3P/ Pelican was 1P and in stores.
Using WFS
Walmart favors shorter product listings, and the filtering system is used more in the UI, so you definitely want to have all your attributes filled in. Customers also filter by promotions. Compared with Amazon where the attributes are rarely used for fi
Pro Seller badge: responsible and reliable seller. They saw an increase in
Used Yotpo - “product listing quality & rewards” (WM metric) increased to 98%. Went from 70% to 97%. All reviews are there, has increased conversion rate.

Do you have any uncommon viewpoints or opinions in the world of ecommerce that you’d care to share? (e.g. “most brands are not thinking about X when they really should be”)
What's one thing (e-commerce related) that you're excited about?