Episode
E-commerce Growth Strategy: Why "Best Quality" Won't Sell
- Published
- Jul 23, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2284
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Summary
Most e-commerce brands don't have a product problem. They have a focus problem.They try to sell to everyone, list every variation, chase every platform at once, and lead with "we have the best quality." That's the most boring pitch in the world, and it's usually the reason growth stalls.In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Michael Jordan, founding partner at BAD Marketing, to break down what actually separates e-commerce brands that scale to eight figures from the ones that flop. Michael has run this from both sides: as an agency operator managing Amazon and Meta accounts for hundreds of brands, and as a founder who's launched, scaled, and shut down his own.We get into why subscription and repeat purchase products stack the odds in your favor as CAC keeps climbing, why TikTok is the cheapest place to test which hook and avatar your market actually responds to, and why too many product options quietly kill conversion rates. Michael also breaks down his insert card system, the one he built into his own book, for turning anonymous Amazon buyers (whose data Amazon keeps for itself) into an owned email and SMS list worth 30 to 40 percent of total revenue.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why founder involvement is the biggest predictor of whether a brand scales past seven figures✔ Subscription and repeat purchase products vs one-off items: why CLTV matters more as CAC rises✔Why "we have the best quality" is the weakest marketing angle you can run✔ How to use TikTok to test 50 hooks and let the market tell you your winning avatar✔ Why Instagram has gotten harder to test organically compared to TikTok✔ Meta vs TikTok vs Amazon: why Michael tells brands to start on the platform with less competition✔ How too many product variations create decision fatigue and kill co…