Happy Halloween!

Today has always been one of my favorite holidays of the year. I went to school to become a horror movie director and have loved everything spooky my entire life. I remember the days of dressing up, getting all the candy, and coming home to switch costumes and raid the neighborhood again. Tonight will be the first time in ten years that I’m not living in an apartment, so we have the house all decorated and expecting some Trick or Treaters.

If you need some good scary movie recs some of my favorites are The Wrong Turn, Hereditary, Babadook, 31, Sinister, and Late Night with The Devil…. or just watch the New York Jets on Thursday night football that will probably be a blood bath and make me end up in tears.

Anyways! Enough with my Rotten Tomatoes critiques.

Let’s face it you’re busy. We’re 29 days until the biggest shopping holiday of the year. There’s not enough time in the day to do the shit you want to do. Let alone read this email. If you haven’t started prepping, then yes you’re probably behind but don’t worry it’s not too late, especially for some of the last-minute tweaks I’m going to suggest.

Black Friday week is the one time when a company can legit make or break their year.

What’s it going to be for you?

Are you focused on being super profitable and soaking up each ounce of margin possible? Or liquidating your inventory to turn it back into cash and pray for better inventory planning next year? It’s a crazy situation because realistically you always want to prove that you’re a growing company and that demand is growing (hence higher year over year revenue), but in reality, most businesses these days are sold off of EBITDA and why slowing down and increasing real profits is probably better.

It’s shitty because when you go to sell the business, the potential acquirer is going to say “Oh revenue is slowing down or shrinking - EVEN IF PROFIT IS UP” and if “Revenue is speeding up” they will say your profit is down. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

The most important thing is to be aligned with yourself and your founding team to understand what is the MOST IMPORTANT for the business right now, not a future hypothetical with a PE company that may or may not buy you.

I could rant about being on economic seesaw for hours but instead just enjoy this beautiful brand new planogram for our 2025 sales meetings!

Take 5 Minutes to Add Thousands 💰

In my nearly ten years of e-commerce experience, I have only found a handful of apps that are non-negotiable for your Shopify store. If you’re not using Aftersell, I honestly don’t know what you are doing. Close this email and go install it.

Over the past twelve months, they have helped us add tens of thousands of dollars a month across CROSSNET’s USA and Australian stores by focusing on in-cart and post-purchase upsells and their newest offering, Network Offers.

The best thing about Aftersell is that they move faster than any software brand I’ve ever worked with. Legit in under five minutes we were signed up, got into a shared Slack channel and had Network Offers up immediately.

So what’s Network Offers? To be honest I wish I invented it myself.

When a customer checks out on CROSSNET’s store they will get a custom offer from a massive brand like DIsney+, HelloFresh, and ESPN that is only available on crossnetgame.com. It’s a win-win for everybody as the customer gets a sick discount and we get additional revenue if the customer ends up accepting the offer.

Until just a few months ago the checkout page was a dead space once the customer paid. Now, there is so much more opportunity for us to make money, especially in Q4 when we experience 5x more traffic than normal. It’s a no brainer to try and you can turn it on in under five minutes.

Last Minute Rush ⛽

Everyone is ramping up ad spend, slashing prices, and flooding the market with offers. If you don’t have a strategy, you’ll get lost in the sauce. Add in the crazy election driving advertising prices up, things are going to get wild. So I wanted to spend the rest of this week talking about a few things you may not see coming.

1) Inventory Planning

Have your inventory ready for BFCM? Great. I can’t help you. Average lead times are far more than 30 days so what you have is what you have.

However, have you started to think about late December and early January? What happens if you sell through too quickly. Alot of the time we are so hyper focused on making sure the end of November & early December is good that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot with inventory planning for Q1 (especially knowing a lot of us are ordering for overseas).

For us we have a December, January and February forecast already done. Our manufacturing is already working on this inventory and if I see that I am overselling the inventory I have on hand for November, I’ll reup the order to make sure I have enough stock. It looks something like this:

Step 1) Create a sales & inventory target for November and the first week of December

Step 2) Track daily on are you outpacing or failing short of your number

Step 3) If you find towards the end of November that you fell short by at least 20-30% of your target, tell your supplier to reduce their current manufacturing order they are working on or at least hold it for you

Step 4) If you find you are overselling, tell them that they need to make more as you may have customers who are going to be grumpy and on pre-orders for a few weeks

It’s not a perfect system, but it works for scrappy teams like us at CROSSNET.

2) Make a New Offer

Everybody is going with the 25% off or biggest sale of the year verbiage. It’s played out and I’m so numb to it. It’s like when my wife or my mom tells me they “had to buy it” because there was a sale. No there wasn’t. There’s legit a sale every day in that damn store, they just got you with some marketing.

So how do you stand out? You create irresistible offers that go beyond the usual discounts:

• Bundles: Customers love bundles. Combine complementary products into discounted packages, and you’ll boost your average order value (AOV) while making the deal feel like a steal.

• Limited-time exclusives: This isn’t the time for evergreen products. Introduce holiday-themed items or exclusive product lines only available during the season. Try limited-edition colors, gift sets, or custom packaging.

If you can create a sense of urgency AND add value, you’re giving shoppers more reasons to buy from you instead of your competitors. People don’t just want discounts — they want deals that feel special.

3) Leverage Scarcity

Why do companies that offer drops continue to crush it? Because the followers of the brand buy into it and really feel the urgency. There are a few companies I love (Represent, Warren Lotus, Siegelman Stable) that do drops every few weeks and you can be that I have the date/time synced to my calendar and my phone in my hand ready to spend money on stuff I truthfully don’t need.

It’s simple: scarcity sells. If your customers think they can get your product anytime, they won’t feel the need to buy it right now. And “right now” is exactly when you need them to take action.

During BFCM, FOMO is your best friend. People don’t want to miss out. When you make them feel like the clock is ticking, they’re more likely to buy.

Here’s how to use scarcity effectively:

• Show TRUE stock levels. If an item is selling fast, let your customers know. A banner that says, “Only 27 left in stock” will drive people to buy now instead of waiting.

• Add a countdown timer to your product pages. Let customers know exactly when the sale ends. Time-sensitive promotions create a sense of urgency that pushes them to make a decision.

I have to warn you: don’t fake it. Consumers are smart, and if they catch onto fake scarcity, you’ll lose trust — and trust is harder to regain than a missed sale. Be authentic, and use scarcity where it genuinely applies. As you know, if you miss a sale, tough shit. It’s on you to make sure you don’t miss the next one.

Onward & Upward

That’s all I got for this week! I’ll be back to our normal programming of two editions a week starting next Monday. If you have any questions I’m always available at [email protected]

Alot of you are asking about The Founders Club and if you can come to Tulum last second. The answer is yes, but memberships are slowing down. We’re getting nearly 40 applications a day. So if you want to join you need to apply today. For Tulum we have 7 rooms available and then we’re 100% sold out. You can book your room here.

Have an amazing night!

Chris Meade The First