eCom Unity #20 - Strategy, Sacrifice & Multi-Category Growth

Deep Dive | Discounting For Cross-Category Growth

There’s this thing about discounts.

The obvious: they can hurt your margins in the first place.

But discounting the right way will actually increase your AOV and thereby lifetime value.

Let me explain.

Most products have a natural limit as to how much a customer is willing to buy at one time.

Once that point is reached, your AOV has hit a local maximum that can’t really be pushed up.

Unless you can get a customer to start buying a second product category that you offer.

And here is where discounting, using data, can be extremely effective.

To keep things simple, let’s say you sell two different product categories.

By analysing your data in Klar, you see that if the customer has not purchased the second product category in the first or second order, he is not likely to do so in the future.

In that case, you can get very aggressive with discounting your product from the second product category once the customer has made his second purchase.

Why?

Well, what do you have to lose? He will not order the second product anyway based on your data, so by offering a great discount, you will maximise your chances.

As long as your contribution margin post-discount is still positive, you are not losing anything.

There are two great places to promote this offer:

1. Post-Checkout Upsells

2. Printed Card in the Order

In both cases, you have to data available to accurately target the right customers.

Since the discount is high, the short-term effect on your CLV will likely be limited.

But if your product is good, you increase your chances of turning these customers into multi-category buyers.

Which increases the maximum AOV possible in future orders and the CLV in the process.

Deep-Dive | Strategy Means Saying No

Throughout my whole career, both as CMO in eCom and now as SaaS founder, I have experienced this.

Strategy is about sacrifice.

The more differentiated from the competition your brand is, the easier it will be to grow.

There is so much competition out there in every product category that being different in the eyes of the customer is crucial.

Easier said than done.

In my opinion, a good way to think about differentiation is not just what you do.

But also what you are not doing.

Let me give you two examples.

One important reason why yfood won out in the drinkable meal market is this one thing they did differently from every other European competitor.

Every other brand was only offering a vegan option. But yfood realised that taste is the most important factor to appeal to a mass market.

And the milk-based option simply tasted better. So they went with that. Less fancy but more successful.

Another one: when we started Klar, we consciously said we want to focus on a great product and great service.

Typically, SaaS companies have 40% of their employees in Sales & Marketing.

We have 0%.

We have 70% in tech & product. And 30% that worked in eCom themselves before that now help and support our customers.

That’s highly unusual, but we have still grown to 1,000 eCom brands we work with.

Pretty much all word-of-mouth.

Bottom line is: Differentiation is important and makes growth easier.

You should rather be great at 1-2 things than average at everything.

Stand out. Be remarkable. Be remembered.

Does it sound familiar? What sacrifices did you need to bring along the way?

Upcoming Events | 4 Top Brands, 3 Events & Our Annual K5 Pre-Party

We’ve had some strong moments already this year. One of the highlights:
Our secret dinner at the Westwing Store the night before the OMR last week.
A small group, big brains, great energy, and conversations you won’t hear on any panel.

Now, we keep the momentum with three new Meet The Brand events – your chance to go behind the scenes of some of the most exciting brands in the DACH region.

How they built it. How they run it. What they’d do differently.

• 💄 Meet the Brand: JACKS beauty line & saint sass | May 22, 2025 @ Berlin
  Signup here
  

• 🐻 Meet the Brand: Bears with Benefits | June 5, 2025 @ Munich
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• 🧦 Meet the Brand: SNOCKS | July 03, 2025 @ Mannheim
  Signup here

Plus our annual ritual:

• 🎉 K5 Pre-Party | June 23, 2025 @ Berlin
  Signup here

Thank you for reading :)

I am on a mission to help eCom brands build better, more profitable businesses. If you missed any past issues, you can catch up on all of them here.

I have built one 8-figure and one 9-figure eCom brand in the past, and with Klar, I work with over 1,000 eCom brands today.

If you have specific questions you would like me to cover next, just reply to this email.

Have a great week.

Max ✌️

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