Ep 642: Kick or Keep These Trends with DÔEN's Ashley Kick: AI Creative, TikTok Shop, Amazon, and Branded Resale

Am I buying cat toys on TikTok? Yes, and I'm making higher price point decisions.

“Third TikTok, not necessarily is a marketer. I'm never going to say no to new ways to get”

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slash free-audit the links in the show notes. Hello and welcome to the DTC podcast today. I am very lucky to have Ashley Kick in studio here. VP of eCommerce at Doin. I met Ashley at the Tripowale event the Whalees and I was on stage with her while she was giving some of her hot takes at the conference. And so this is also a first for the podcast because Ashley actually suggested a new format for the DTC podcast for this one. A World Cup

themed topics selection sort of podcast where we're going to go through some topics and we're going to select whether to kick or keep. I was just realizing this is on brand with your last name being kick. I try and I'm going to have to show you the only land you're I've ever enjoyed wearing was my World Cup 2026 landyard. I was lucky that Switzerland Bosnian

hurts to be in a game and it was as magical as one could ever dream. Amazing. On to the eCommerce

topics that we pre-selected we can kind of go through these semi-rapid fire but I love you to expand on your thoughts on them and let's start. So we're going to be selecting whether we keep these tactics or whether we kick them to the curb. Let's start. I'm ready. Okay, buying through AI agents should we kick or keep that one? Is that going to be a big part of the future? Goodness. You know, I don't think that brands should be the one forcing that decision. So I'm going to say like if

“the user, if the end user wants to that's how they want to do it, they can keep it. Me as a buyer.”

I'm not feeling it. I think that's that's really a personal decision depending on their circumstances. I mean, like, are you seeing it at Don? Are you seeing it in your UTM showing up so far? No. I don't I don't feel like it's made it to this level. I'm not 100% sure of this demographic, is utilizing the technology now. I feel like this is still feels like an Amazon thing and like big, big box Walmart sort of moments. I don't know what do you think? I don't think people are

ever going to turn it over agentically. The idea of like agents deciding what fashion I might want and buying it for me. Like I already am using it to make some purchase decisions. We're actually running a report right now with a bunch of merchants and consumers as well to understand their buying decisions. We're seeing it from an agency side and from a newsletter side. We're seeing people coming

into our ecosystem from these agents quite a bit. But I don't know when's good. It's never going

to be fully agentic. No, or I don't think it's going to be fully agentic. Humans need to choose our things that we want. We don't need to be told what we should do by AI agents. And especially something that is so inherently emotional like like fashion, like beauty, like jewelry. I mean, if I'm choosing, I'm getting like a new cat toy. Sure. Maybe. But not what I'm going to be wearing and want to feel beautiful and necessarily. I feel like that's really more of a personal decision.

Okay. Kick it. Kick it. TikTok shop for a premium apparel brand. This one's very relevant to you. I don't see this necessarily happening at this juncture. I mean, I feel, once again, like,

point decisions through TikTok. Not necessarily. Is it an interesting discovery platform? Yes,

but like TikTok shop. If I feel like if you're A of these over a hundred or a hundred and fifty, I feel like you're going to want to take a beat and see the site and see the brand a little bit more. I agree. Kick it. Especially for a brand like yours, which is a premium, a very truly premium of apparel brand in terms of baseball and quality. Yeah. There's so much more to do. And then just, you know, here's a, here's a thing is beautiful. Go buy it. Really, really are working towards

really just being a steward for the environment, working with manufacturers and with factories that are aligned with our values and how people should be treated animals should be treated and

“materials should be harvested. And so I think, you know, those are stories that we want people who”

want are interested in those things and align with those things. We want really want those people

to understand who we are and become a part of the community and, you know, a little click off of a TikTok shop. Probably isn't going to make that happen. Is TikTok in general part of your content makes like our people discovering the brand through TikTok? Yes, actually, but from user-generated content. So, I mean, for us, like, if we're ever person feels comfortable and wants to share their message and have done as a part of that message, then absolutely. We are here for it. Are we going

out of our way to make TikTok specific content at this juncture? No. So what we like to do is, you know, we kind of maintain our story and our aesthetic through the channels that we feel most comfortable. And then we'll kind of depend on other publishers and content creators to tell the story through

“their lens. So it's kicked. It's kicked. What's the last thing you bought on TikTok?”

I, oh, right. Sorry. I told other podcasts many times. Was I bought a adjustable wait set that was, I was trying to get you a series. Oh, can we just pick them up? You pick them up and they've already become heavier, but you know what they sent me? Baby rattles. Like, they literally like inflatable baby rattled dog toy stuff. It's like sent me nothing. Don't send me that as like an absolute insult. So I actually haven't bought anything from TikTok

since. Don't send me trash. Yeah, exactly. It's just insulting. So it's kind of turned to me off of that. Yeah, has your daughter bought anything on TikTok? Not that I know of yet. Well, we'll see. She gets everything through this podcast, as you know. Absolutely. Okay. This one. I'm interested.

Number three, losing money on the first order and making it back on LTV. This is sort of standard

D to C math. Do you keep or kick this idea? Luckily, that is not something I've had to deal with. I don't personally feel that's, that's the super great long-term goal for brand. Coming in is a lost leader. What do you expect in these users to become and to evolve into? I feel like if you're going to do that, you're strategy for converting first-type purchasers to second and third, needs to be on its super-a game. But if it's not and you really haven't even depend on that,

“we don't know what the market's going to be and honestly tomorrow. I'd personally would kick it.”

That's not where me as a marketer for first-to-be or wants to put that sort of risk on a brand and depending on anything that happened in the future. You know, tariffs happen over nights, straight-to-form news, who knows where that's going to be tomorrow. And when you have and think when we're in such a volatile world, the more you're trying to depend on futures, just become as a riskier and I think it just leads to less concrete and confident decisions.

Maybe for subscription offers. Yes, maybe for subscription. But that's not a world that I've been stepping around in too often. So yeah, it's a tough one for sure. I'm not kicking today. That's the world cup is more about kicking. There is a keeper I do know in World Cup, but we are kicking a lot of things. What about branded resale as an acquisition channel? I mean, absolutely. We're doing as captain. Do when I feel like has been a mild pioneer.

I'd like to think we have our hand-me-do end program. I think that's such a fun name. I know, right? That is fun. Surprise such a serious brand has a pun in that. That's great. We try not to be too soon now, right? It does feel a little bit serious. That's fun. That's a fun pun. It's an aspirational moment. But yeah, and so what we have done, so we partnered with a company called Treat and we users are able to trade in their pre-love

We are really focused on our, we want our products to live for a long time. We want,

“we want them to have a life cycle. We want people to be able to enjoy and feel beautiful in”

our clothes forever. And to be able to give product a second life to kind of be a part of creating

a circular economy is something that we were really excited and proud to be a part of. So what happens is users trade in our trade and their product for store credit. And then every quarter we have an event where we resell those products back to the public. And we feel like this is a nice blend. Our product already with our happiness has a strong resale. There's a strong resale market for dough and product. There's a lot of BST groups out there and there's very popular

on posh market and things like that. But unfortunately, the counterfeit community, the doop culture has, has found us. And so we also, we wanted to make sure that we have an option for users that really want to make sure that this product is genuine. And so buying it from the hand me dough and program really does allow that for them. So it helps us to instill confidence in the workplace, maintain, you know, stewardship to environmental goals that we have set up. And yeah,

“just just offer product at a more attainable price point for users. I think it's definitely a”

keeper because it's like it's super behavior and it's meeting customers where they're at. They're already doing it anyway and then being part of the whole life cycle. It also just puts you as a brand, you know, closer to the consumer for a longer time if you're also part of that. So I think it's definitely a keeper. Absolutely. This episode is brought to you by Triple Whale, the AI operating system for e-commerce. Just a quick gut check for brand owners and media buyers.

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“Okay, I think I know the answer to this one, but AI generated ad creative. Absolutely not.”

Hunt or kicking that one so far. That is a goal kit to the other keeper. If it makes sense for your brand, I'm not here to tell you to stop. But I think you know, every brand has what's important to them. And for DoN, it is creating, it's creating content. Is a major focus and a major tenant of like who we are as a brand and what defines our voice. Working with our community, spot lighting how people in our community are wearing

our products. We have such a beautiful community of people that send us content of how they're

styling our products that we don't need AI generated content. And we never will. But you know,

if you're selling something that that's you don't need any of that for, you know, go for it. But you've heard me say this before, but our customers, you know, fell in love with the brand, fell in love with the people behind the brand, it fell in love with the voice behind the brand. That probably wasn't created by a robot when they first, I'm not going to say robot by a bot. A clanker. We call them clankers. Clankers, you know, you don't, we don't want,

you know, they didn't fall in love with with the clanker generated things in content. And, you know, the more that you shift, you know, who you are and you more that you shift your voice as a brand. As long as you when you start to outsource it no longer becomes you and you do start to lose control over what that identity is, whether it's intentional or not. And so it's, it's a slippery slope and, you know, each brand needs to approach that with caution. And just to make

Are there any aspects of the creative, like any of the copy or anything that you'd consider any,

“like the catalog, you know, details or anything, is there any AI fingerprints on those things?”

Not from our brand. We have a copyrighter who is actually thoroughly immersed in writing or not our new mail or copy as we speak. So for us, no, but does it match other brands? Absolutely. But, no, not us. Well, I, yeah, I'm kicking it. I'm kicking it so far. Yeah, it brings me to it. There was an interesting thought I had in a group that I'm a part of Excel, D to C snipers with a bunch of D to C brand operators. And they were talking specifically

about the opportunity to really work with amazing human talent, specifically in Hollywood.

There's a real crisis I think in Hollywood for talent there. For what, you know, a lot of movies are getting harder to make or harder to make successful, I guess. And so there's a real glut of talent available at like very reasonable prices. And the thinking is like, if someone can write like a golden globe nominated screenplay, like they can write your ad copy or they can write your your catalog copy. And so that's something to really think about is keep the human

writers employed. Yeah, we've actually used novelists before for some of our writing.

“Yeah, and I, I really believe, you know, there's this pendulum, right? You know, it's”

started with everything being human created. You know, I feel like it's really moved to the other side.

And I think when a pendulum moves, I think it's quickly as this one has it really,

think of vacuum as has been created. And I think a great moment for differentiation has been, you know, vacated. And this really is a chance for brands to stand out by having, you know, truly authentic, clearly, you know, personal brand content out in the world. What about a Gentic media buying? Kick or keep that trend? I would keep it. At this point, as long as the content that we have is authentic, if we want to work with an algorithm or a bot to make

for the right people or seeing that content, I'm not against that. We use regards like straight on media buying. I don't know if we've dealt into that necessarily, but algorithms are everywhere choosing placements for us, whether we know or not all the time. Meta has is, you know,

if you set meta to find more clicks, it's going to find you more clicks. If you have it set to

landing page views, it's going to find you landing pages. If it hasn't set to a revenue, it's going to find you revenue. And, you know, it's not doing that from us. You know, it's, it's, it's using AI to, to create those moments. And, you know, I use the kleeveos, I'm on kleeveo, and we use their optimized send time. You know, once again, you know, it's, if you want to open your email at 4 o'clock in, in the afternoon, I have been mine at 7 and somebody in Australia. Certainly

isn't opening it at the same time as we are. You know, that's, that's, I think that's an excellent example of where AI can come in and truly be a helper to disseminate. And then you can spend your time creating content and let them, and then the bots can go out and find the best people to see that content. Love it, so we're keeping. We're keeping that. All right, number six or seven we're at now. Retention over acquisition as the priority. You know, I mean, I guess, I think this kind of

“goes back to your idea of loss leader on the first purchase. I think you need to have both. So I don't”

know what, I don't know whether we're kicking. I guess I'm just gonna like pass that one to a defender. Maybe, maybe pass it back to the key. And so, you know, it's, there's not a world where you can't do both. I mean, you have strategies for both. You just make sure that you're treating them both in a way that makes the most sense for them, which I think is where once again AI can come and just into plays. Like having a welcome series, maybe somebody bought immediately, they shouldn't

be getting the same welcome series as somebody who hasn't purchased or maybe, you know, a card abandoned for people that have a higher AOV, then maybe brand new people who haven't purchased yet. I don't think there's an excuse at this point to pick an either or. And I don't think that would fly with a lot of people's bosses. I've one more AI addendum here. AI for customer service, kick or keep. I'm kicking that one as well. I know, nobody wants, you know we're talking to a

bot. And I think for a particular, I mean, if you are physically unable to answer every single person, you probably have other issues rather than your customer service, you know, numbers and staffing. So, some of this also personal to to do. And I mean, do we have, is there a macro that probably tells you when, you know, what your order delivery date is? That probably does exist. But if you're texting with us, if you're calling us, you're absolutely not speaking to a robot. And

I don't think that I think that, you know, it certainly does. You need to look at your demographic

communication depending on what your customer is expecting and how they best receive whatever, whatever way they're being communicated with. Like, yeah, there are probably our people who are fine speaking to to bots, particularly if they are very relatively simple question in the answer moments. But if there is, you know, some I really want to talk about the fit of a certain sweaters, pan or dress, you know, that probably is best. This best coming from another human.

Well, that, what about, I guess I was going to do a versus, but you can't reverse both. But you guys have retail stores, right? So you're not going to be, what's your, what's your take on retail footprint? For dough end is become very important. We're offending a new location and well met, which is the suburb in Chicago. We're continuing to build new locations across the country. We also have increase our wholesale footprint in various boutiques and wholesalers just across

the globe. As a brand, it's, it's become a major initiative for dough end to continue to meet customers where they are. And, you know, I think it also very much depends on the product. You know, if you have product that's incredibly well manufactured like dough ends as you really want people to be able to experience it and truly truly understand what they're, what they're getting. And it's also just a great moment for people to be able to become immersed in the aesthetic

and the world that we're trying to create. And that's something that we put a lot of effort to into for our stores. So, a lot of, some of our retail, they'll have like hand painted borders around doorways and things of that nature. So, and you know, it's just a lot of the, the furniture this utilized really does, you know, sit with our aesthetic. So, I think it's, and I think the,

“I don't remember what the formula is, I think, but whenever a new store is open, you can expect”

to 20% left in brand awareness in that area. So, from a marketing standpoint of brand awareness builds, it's absolutely something that we're excited to continue to build into. And I think as a

marketer, I'm never going to say no to new ways to get in front of customers and new discovery

pathways. And to build up the brand. Yeah, definitely, definitely keep it, especially as like, as you're talking about it in this experiential way. Like, people are looking for ways to, you know, have, have experiences in this, in this AI saturated world or whatever. And if you can create that brand experience at your retail location, it's only going to deepen the connection to your brand. Yeah, I mean, keep it. If they by seeing the love check fancy store, they definitely are creating

an aesthetic in a moment out in the world as well. So, yeah, I think there's a few brands that really are leaning into it and doing it beautifully. I was just chatting with someone about the Doc Martin store in London and how it's almost like a museum that you're walking into of like the

“history of Doc Martin, which I think is, I really cool idea. Absolutely. Yeah, and those are,”

those have always been fun. Then, of course, like Lullabo and the teak, you certainly want

those have to be, you know, experienced, driven as well with the assumption that then they'll come back and purchase the second and third purchase, maybe would be online. Okay, so for a company that has that your D to C game, so dialed you have retail that's expanding what about wholesale, do we kick or keep wholesale? Keep absolutely. It's been, yeah, we're also growing incredibly quickly in wholesale. The way that we're growing, it has been focused around the teaks that kind of

manage the aesthetic, you have a similar aesthetic to a similar voice to us. We feel it's like a good partner. It's nice to be around other brands in a wholesale environment. So, 100% key, it's just another

discovery platform that would never would turn away. What about being on Amazon, are we kicking

Amazon, are we keeping it? I don't believe elevators are luxury fashion necessarily, but belongs

“on Amazon. It's just not something that, you know, I think aligns with how to and in particular,”

wants to grow and the partners they want to be aligned with. How about, so we're for high-end brands, we're definitely kicking it, what about discount discipline or sort of full price integrity is how I'm, how I'm wording it here. This is something I believe in very much. I think at all points of the, of the user's decision and buying cycle. Don't end does not offer discounts or free shipping for email addresses because you know, I believe that when you offer those things, you know what

you're going to get, you're going to get a lot of third and fourth emails from, from people who want 15% off. And, you know, that really if it diminishes your email list, it diminishes your deliverability

person lists with 20% that you're sending to maybe a 3,400,000 person list that you have a deliverability

and send of like maybe 60 to 70%. And so, I think it artificially inflates user behavior and I feel it condenses user behavior in a way that it becomes more difficult to predict and it becomes more difficult to really understand forecast trends too. When you have a product that customers are not have, you find that people have an affinity for that product at the price that,

“that you're selling it for, that's how you create, you know, these meaningful moments and these”

meaningful touch points that truly is about the product. It's just not about that low hanging for quite 15%. What about this, this one wasn't on our list, but it's something we're talking about recently is the idea of like the halo effect of, of when you spend on top of money channels. At, you know, again, we're talking about Adalos potentially for this idea that it's going to have lift in other parts of your, of your stack. What do you say about the halo effect? Are we

kicking it or keeping it? The way that we utilize that is, we have a certain subset of products that we think if you're going to have a dough in item, you know, what would we choose for that to

be your first experience with dough in? And you know, for us, like the Henry taught the Sebastian

skirt, the Petra card again, which I, nope, nope, this is not the Petra, but you know, there's certain products that, you know, we think this is going to be the best experience for you as a first-time purchaser of this brand. And with that, once you've got this product in your closet, you're wearing it, you're loving it, you know, then you can go back and discover what's your next moment. Where do you feel like your, your product journey with, with dough and should go?

“And that's how we approach this. And the first purchase products are not lost leaders. They're just”

what we feel is, is the best experience for the end user. And that's, once again, you know, it's, we don't know, what is the trend for you, whatever your last leader going to diminish. And now here, you are trying to struggle to find out what that new thing is and have to buy inventory and do it. And so on and so forth, whereas if it's just natural part of your, of your line and natural part of your brands, then that should be how you approach it. Sure, it's like you can make

a, consider a game, but like for something that for particularly for us, we're, the users are investing their hard earned dollars for it. We're not here to play games, you know, with our users. We want them to enjoy every single product. We stand behind every single product. And we think everyone is important to a user and how they want to, you know, define themselves with their, with their clothing. So attentive, attentive, keep strategic, strategic, depends on your strategy for sure.

Yeah, buy now pay later for a high ticket item brand like yourself. I have no problems with it. I'm not saying that, you know, people need to go into debt for things. But why not break out your payments if you're not paying an interest rate on it? I don't have any problem with it. And so

“that's how a user wants to, wants to engage. Go for it. Keep it. Keeping extended sizing.”

I mean, it's difficult. It's, you, you want to make sure that you are meeting every community and every person where they are. You want everyone to feel beautiful to have a great experience with your product. And so I think as long as you're planning into it while you're planning inventory, does require, it does require some risk going into some extended sizing. It does require additional forecasting to go into some of these. I think it's important to get it right. And so if you are going

to do it, you need to be doing it correctly, particularly to lightly. Just with the costs, you know, the costs that it entails, right? Exactly. The podcast with Ashley Kick was just going so well. I lost track of time and went past our booked a lot of time. So she had to bounce there. But I hope you enjoyed this new format, whether to kick or keep e-commerce trends. Let me know if you like this format. So maybe we could do again with other people. I think it's

good at getting kind of right to the point on things. And if you want to check out some amazing

apparel, check out shopdoin.com. And we'll see you on the next one. Thanks everyone. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at direct to consumeralloneword.co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the D to C podcast. We'll see you next time.