RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

WHP Global is a leading brand management firm with over $6.5 billion in sales I serve as CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting, and what were your goals?

RMW was retained to help us launch a new e-commerce platform called WHP+

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed multiple firms and landed on RMW based on Rick

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

• Architecture of the new platform
• oversight of launch
• recruitment of in-house team

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Approx 3 - 5

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was and is a huge success. WHP+ has launched 4 e-commerce sites from scratch since its inception.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

RMW is extremely hands-on; They are extremely knowledgeable and very user friendly.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Rick - the leader of RMW - is a genius. He's incredibly impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind. I recommend them fully, without any reservation.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of portfolio management at a private equity investment firm. We raise capital from institutional investors, use that money to buy and hold companies for about five years, and then sell them for return to investors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting?

One of our portfolio companies is a boot manufacturer. Historically, they have been brick-and-mortar through distribution. One of our investment theses is about growing digital, and most of our strategic attention is on our direct-to-consumer channel, the brand website. We need a company that could help us analyze how we sell through our online channels and provide us with opportunities to grow moving forward.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started the engagement by interviewing me and our CEO and conducting an audit of our business. Given the nature of the engagement, RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting was given access to all the platforms we use to do business with Amazon. They then ran their proprietary process and technology to generate insights. They then presented a pitch, which had their evaluation of our platforms, sales trends, Amazon’s profit margins, and other important details that helped us understand what we should focus on to grow our business.

Through RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting’s help, we found a big opportunity in advertising and discovered that our product pages were not optimized for conversion. They also went deeper and uncovered some opportunities around partnering with other sellers in the ecosystem. They recommended some keywords, gave some explanations of why our competitors pop up when we search our brand, and shared insights into how to fix those kinds of problems.

RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting was also great post-engagement. They answered all of my questions and went above and beyond to collect additional information, which helped me build a story for the board.

What is the team composition?

I primarily worked with Rick (Founder & CEO), George (Senior Operating Partner, Amazon), and Kaylea (Digital Analyst).

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $35,000 on this engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–September 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We're in the process of implementing some of RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting’s recommendations for the upcoming fall-winter season, so I’d say we’ll start seeing value from this in September 2023. RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting proposed solutions that would grow our business by 5x, but it’s hard to jump into that all at once. So I’d say we're just trying to get a 20% increase in the next year, and we'll see where that takes us. With enough time, I think we can get to the 5x growth in our business, but we're starting much smaller than that.

How did RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting performed well in terms of project management. There weren’t any issues with the budget, and everything went exactly as planned. 

We typically communicated through email, and we had weekly calls on Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

RMW Commerce eCommerce Strategy Consulting’s biggest strength is definitely their intimate knowledge of the subject matter. They knew the Amazon ecosystem inside and out, and that was exactly what we needed. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wouldn't say this is on them  — it was just how we structured the project, but it would have been better if we had more collaboration and engagement with the broader team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Convictional helps retailers and marketplaces onboard their suppliers' products. I'm Co-Founder and COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RMW Commerce Consulting?

We hired RMW Commerce Consulting to interview Convictional customers and write a research report on Convictional's impact to their business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We knew of Rick's strong reputation among enterprise retailers and selected him for the project given his influence in the industry.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We setup an introduction call with Rick and described the project goals and desired outcomes. He then created a methodology for the research. After introducing Rick to customers, he interviewed them during 1-hour sessions. Following the interviews, Rick wrote a draft of the findings and shared with Convictional for final approval. Convictional then published the research to our website: https://www.convictional.com/blog/freshness-and-differentiation

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We just worked with one person — Rick Watson. Rick runs RMW Commerce Consulting and was instrumental in completing the research and publishing the report.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The report proved to be a lead generation tool for Convictional. We have used in in our outbound sales motion to book meetings and to capture inbound interest from retail executives.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working with Rick has been seamless. He is incredibly response, often responding to emails within minutes of sending them. He also makes it easy to schedule calls, creating short-term availability for any urgent needs. Once he completed the customer interviews, Rick worked autonomously on the report and asked clarifying question via email and provided frequent status updates.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Rick's experience and insights benefit any retailer looking to invest in new digital initiatives to transform themselves. He isn't afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and the deep-seated beliefs by executive teams.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the GM eCommerce for H2 Brands Group. The company is a mid-market private equity owned consumer products company with a growing portfolio of nationally recognized brands. We are comprised of 22 brands with over 10,500 products representing 30+ categories – from fans to faucets to flashlights.

We have distribution footprint of over 790,000 square feet across North America and 16 countries in our global sourcing network. The company’s revenues are in the “hundreds of millions” range while eCommerce is a relatively newer enterprise, having only launched DTC sales in 2018.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RMW Commerce Consulting, and what were your goals?

The mission was simple — audit the company’s eCommerce infrastructure from end to end, with a particular focus on marketplaces and helping the company understand areas of relative weakness and strength.

After building internally the eCommerce strategy in 2018 that had successfully grown the business from a few million in sales to "tens of millions" in three years, the question was how to continue that level of growth and ensure that the wheels stayed on. I was seeking a consulting partner to provide a health check on our staff resources, IT systems and the operational capabilities.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I created an RFP. I polled industry colleagues for consulting companies that operated in this space. We went through the RFP process with several. We identified RMW Commerce as the "more steak than sizzle" partner we were looking for.

They brought to the assignment indisputable industry experts in our product categories plus, when compared to other mid-market consulting firms we evaluated, a demonstrably greater understanding of the marketplace domain in which we operate.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Key aspects of the deliverable we wanted answered were:

1. How can we maximize the valuation of our portfolio with added eCommerce revenue?
2. How can we scale our supply chain profitably?
3. How can we improve our Amazon strategy?
4. Where are the talent and alignment gaps in our eCommerce team that are constraining our revenue growth?
5. What should our technology roadmap look like to take full advantage of eCommerce?

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Rick took the front and center lead on the initiative. He then brought together a team of 4-5 key contributors who brought their respective expertise.

These contributors included a Supply Chain Partner with over 30 years of experience, and a DTC Partner that had built and operated the leading national home improvement online retailer. Bottom line, it was a lean and nimble group of demonstrated experts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We took immediate and specific actions as a result of the assessment. As just a sample of the types of changes we actioned:

1. Focus - we narrowed the retail partners we focused on to concentrate resources where they could be most effective
2. We initiated development of more channel unique products, those that could be more effectively sold on the marketplaces without buybox suppression.
3. We enhanced our contribution margin reporting to dig a little deeper into specific item level selling costs, which shone a light onto some profitability gaps.

With so much change in the last 18 months, including the supply chain delays, causes and effects are hard to measure. I can generally state that our sales in 2022 (year after assessment) were ~50% higher than 2020 (year before assessment). Again, many factors influence that but clearly, we are strategically moving in the right direction!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

There was nothing particularly notable here. Just good old fashioned kick-off meetings, data room sharing, site visits, milestones meetings and the final delivery. The scope was broad, and the timeline was tight but the project was delivered on-time.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

It was really all about the people. Rick is an undisputed expert in this space. When he can bring together as part of his team the caliber of partners he did - they stood out as by far the most credible.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We maintained good communications throughout the project and adapted if we felt some areas had more value.

While there are definitely a few areas in the recommendation that we had good debate, difference of opinion on relative value of different tactical options etc. - there wasn't anything we would have done differently relative to the project.