How Swag.com grew their B2B eCommerce sales 1,999% in 3 years with Jeremy Parker (episode 298)
Jeremy Parker is the co-founder and CEO at Swag.com a B2B eCommerce business revolutionising the world of promotional products since 2015. They have a 3 year revenue growth of 1,999% and ranked 218 on the 2020 Inc 5000 list.
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About Jeremy
Jeremy studied documentary film making in college, but he really wanted to be a brand guy.
When he compared the syllabus between film and marketing he went with film, because they were basically the same, but he thought learning film would be useful for making great YouTube videos.
After he graduated, Jeremy decided to start an eCommerce business just to figure out how they worked. After several business attempts, Jeremy and his brother started doing product placement in YouTube ads, which is what eventually became swag.com
About Swag
- Based in New York with employees all over the world.
- Selling globally
- Sells promotional products
- Custom Site
Promotional Material for Millenials
The promo market is massive, but wasn’t modernized or disrupted even after it’s primary buyer became a millennial.
Part of the success of Swag.com has been Jeremy’s focus on providing the best customer experience for these customers. Jeremy says millennial customers want a few things that promo companies just weren’t doing:
- A curated experience
- Fully automated, no contact experience
- Great branding
Team and Platform
Development, design, product selection and customer success are all internal. Manufacturing and products come from exclusive relationships that Jeremy and his team have cultivated with vendors from all over.
While the team wanted to use Shopify, they ultimately had to do a custom site. Because pricing and personalization is key to Swag, Shopify wasn’t an option.
Customer Success is Everything
Going above and beyond in customer experience and product were especially critical, since there is a lot of competition in the promo space. Jeremy says that going above and beyond at every touchpoint in the business was necessary to compete.
The team has scrutinized every step of their customer journey and attempted to remove any possible roadblock or friction — the strategy worked — allowing the company to continue growing steadily and inspired new business evolutions.
Focusing on What’s Next
Jeremy emphasizes how important focusing on the future is for a business like swag.com. With things changing so fast, becoming obsolete is a real danger.
Keeping that front of mind, the team has been working to build a process which will allow customers to control their own swag order and fulfillment.
Building a structure and process for the pretty large range of people who use swag is challenging, but that back end process is the key to the future.
Keeping People Connected During Covid
Most of the core businesses that use promotional materials have disappeared thanks to Covid. The one thing that hasn’t gone away is how people need to feel connected, which is where Swag.com has been focusing.
Sending small gifts has been one of the few things keeping people feeling good about working remotely, and the fulfillment piece of Swag’s business has allowed greater flexibility to marketing managers, office managers and whoever else might be ordering swag remotely.
The platform has evolved to include not only the traditional, customer centric bulk order area, but now includes a consumer facing page where people can create a custom order of their own swag.
The team is continuing to evolve the site to be entirely automated. Jeremy is dreaming of a future where Swag.com can be a ‘set it and forget it’ gift and promo platform that is fully customizable
eCommerce Book Top Tip
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- SEO
- Start early—invest heavily in ranking high
Tool Top Tip
- Intercom — people inevitably have questions, so instant communication is necessary
Growth Top Tip
- Find Partners to piggyback with. Just make sure it feels organic and connected
Interview Links
Related episodes
- Ramp’s Neil Cocker – selling T-shirts via B2B eCommerce. The importance of Live Chat, Trust and Funnels
- Licensing, managing B2B resellers, product creation, and the power of outsourcing with Craig Wolfe of Celebriducks
- Kajetan Wyrzykowski Head of Content at Packhelp on B2B eCommerce business and your content strategy
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