Happy Thursday!

Closing out the Q4 Summit talks on the feed with Jen Gray, SVP of Marketing at Recharge. Recharge sits behind 20,000+ ecommerce brands, so Jen sees what makes a customer buy once and what makes them stick.

Her framing for the whole talk: there's a difference between a product that is bought and a product that is kept, and "your bathroom hierarchy really tells all."

Vendor of the Week

Omnisend — plan BFCM with your own campaign data.

If you're using AI to plan BFCM, I'd start with last year's results. But pulling reports out of your email platform and explaining them to ChatGPT can take up a lot of the time you're trying to save.

Omnisend is an email and SMS platform for ecommerce that connects directly to Claude and ChatGPT. Its free BFCM AI playbook gives you detailed prompts to use with the campaign data already in your account.

One prompt pulls your five strongest campaigns from last BFCM by attributed revenue. The follow-up looks for patterns in the audiences and offers, with the numbers behind each finding, so you can use that work to build this year's send calendar.

Get Omnisend's free BFCM AI playbook here.

Got an hour?

Your 2027 international plan is due before Black Friday, whether you've started it or not.

Factories close for Chinese New Year, so Q1 stock gets ordered this fall, and so does the setup that decides if it ships to one country or four.

On October 22 at 12pm ET, Izzy Rosenzweig, CEO of Portless, and I are breaking down how to ship to the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia in 5 to 6 days from one pool of stock.

Join us.

Why Beats Discounts This Q4

Jen's setup is simple. Look at your own bathroom counter. The products next to the soap that you reach for every morning are kept. The ones under the sink next to the toilet paper were bought once. Every brand in the room wants to be on top of the counter, and getting there has almost nothing to do with the product features on your PDP.

It has to do with routine. Millennials and Gen Z are now the buyers in charge: Gen Z tells everyone what to buy, millennials buy it. Both generations are anxious (51% of millennials and 45% of Gen Z say they spend money to soothe it), both are priced out of the old markers of success, and both are pouring their dollars into the things they can control. Their skincare. Their morning coffee. Their protocols.

Routine is the invisible scaffolding people are building their lives on, and the brands that embed themselves in it stop competing on attention, which has become the rarest commodity in the economy.

Listen here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple

What I pulled from this one:

1. Persona cards stop at demographics. "Juggling Jen, elder millennial, Salt Lake City" tells you who she is. The question that matters is what she's actually buying: healthy skin, an easier morning, a coffee she doesn't have to think about. Sell the brand promise, because that's what she's paying for.

2. Own the whole routine. Start with a tip-of-the-spear product, then eat the workflow around it. Barefaced with toning pads, Tushy with the bathroom, Casper with sleep. If you don't have a replenishable, go find one.

3. Position around the goal. Lululemon's "Leggings" dropdown forces a fabric feature war against every other legging. "I'm getting into running" puts the product inside the customer's life. Same SKUs, completely different conversation.

4. Make subscription the star of the show. Vegamore puts a subscription CTA in the nav and a benefits page behind it. Array lets you pick frequency at checkout and tells you the payoff timeline: 74% of participants reported fewer IBS symptoms after two months. If results take time, subscription is the product.

5. Convenience alone won't hold them. Most brands nail the 15% off and auto-ship, then forget the value side. Punch cards, milestone rewards, cashback credits. Give people a reason to stay that feels like a small win, because that's exactly the moment of joy they're already spending for.

That's all for today

Every dollar you spend acquiring a customer over BFCM either buys a transaction or buys a spot in someone's routine. Build for the second one and the CAC math takes care of itself in Q1.

It's Thursday, and it's all downhill from here. Get some rest, drink some water, and I'll see you Sunday.

Nik