Six years ago, Sam’s Club consolidated 20-plus private label brands into a single, existing brand called Member’s Mark, which was mainly focused on winning on price.

“It was a good brand,” Megan Crozier, Sam’s Club chief merchant, told Retail Brew. “But it really stood more for price and making sure that we had a price leadership position in the categories it played in.”

That philosophy shifted during the height of the pandemic, when Sam’s Club started to take a broader view of what a private-label brand could mean to its customers. This process culminated in the creation of a Member’s Mark Community, a group of 50,000 members who actively provide feedback and input on products before they reach shelves.

For a closer look at how the program works, Crozier provided Retail Brew with an exclusive look at how the group is shaping product development.

Keep reading here.—AV

What’s that last letter really stand for? Clicks, conversions, and cash—the holy trinity of performance marketing. If you wanna tap into this legendary trio, you’re gonna need a hand.

Good news: Nift knows a thing or two about DTC.

In fact, Nift drives net new customer acquisition for 12k+ brands, with an average 10% CVR and a CPA up to 50% less than paid social. Huge, game-changing numbers.

Not to mention they can get you 5x new customer growth and 3x better conversion than overpaid social ads. Mm-hmm, it’s time to ditch ineffective channels and embrace superior performance that’ll help you crush those three Cs.

Boost your biz.

Etsy was once known as a marketplace for artists selling handmade goods. After becoming a destination for resellers peddling drop-shipped and mass-produced items, the nearly 20-year-old brand is preparing for a refresh—and hoping to re-emphasize the human element.

In a new marketing campaign that rolled out last week, Etsy is focused on showcasing the work of its artisan sellers, not robots, and encouraging consumers to “keep commerce human.”

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—KH

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Miguel Leal, former EVP of Marketing at KIND Snacks, is CEO of Mexican food brand SOMOS, which he co-founded alongside fellow KIND alum Rodrigo Zuloaga and KIND founder Daniel Lubetzy.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? Our objective is to make cooking Mexican food at home quicker, tastier, and cheaper, ultimately closing the gap between people ordering Mexican food exclusively from Uber Eats to cooking it themselves with restaurant-quality ingredients.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? How much Mexican food I actually have to eat for this job!

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Last fall, we launched AbuelaAI as a platform to help folks get creative with cooking Mexican food in their own kitchens. It was amazing to learn about a new technology that I have never used before and the process was fascinating. The fact that I got to do this project with my mom made it even sweeter.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about right now, and why? I am very excited about the evolution of in-store AR—the ability to see items on the shelf and get the recipes at the same time, plus being able to look at the items in your fridge and understand the fastest way to put them together for a tasty meal will be a game changer for those on the fringe of cooking.

Keep reading here.—EC

Boost your brand. Combining brand budget with shopper budget to build full-funnel campaigns can do big things for your biz. Want proof? Walmart Connect helped Clorox max out the numbers for their 2023 back-to-school cleaning products campaign by using both brand and shopper budgets. Read the case study.