Michael W | Pricing Simulations

Updating my twitter profile.

www.3or2-3.com Updated!

@AlfiFromToasty loblo.ai

Founders, share your landing page below. I will roast it and give you actionable feedback.

Most e-commerce founders assume rising CAC means something is broken in their marketing. But often that’s not the real reason. 87% of consumers research online before purchasing. Which means buyers rarely see just your product — they see you and your competitors side by side. We worked with a brand whose CAC suddenly spiked. Same creatives. Same targeting. Same funnel. They spent weeks tweaking ads and landing pages. Nothing worked. The real issue? A competitor quietly introduced aggressive discounts on a few key SKUs. Because buyers were researching multiple brands, that pricing shift redirected demand. Using pricing simulations, we modeled buyer decisions and identified which SKUs were vulnerable vs price-resilient. The solution wasn’t “discount everything.” Instead we: • Protected margins on resilient SKUs • Adjusted pricing where buyers were sensitive • Recovered lost conversion share I do a free pricing analysis for a business each day. Comment CAC to get yours analyzed.

@oliverbrocato The pricing advice is spot on. Most brands underprice.

The longer you’re in ecom, the less you should act like a broke growth hacker. Less: > Copy every viral trend like a monkey > Obsess over shaving CAC by $1 > Panic over every return or chargeback > Ship random “tests” with no thesis > Live inside Ads Manager like it’s a religion More: □ Retention first. If LTV isn’t climbing, you’re on a treadmill. □ Ruthless ad discipline. No emotional campaigns. □ Study competitors like it’s your job: Meta ad library, angles, hooks, offers, cadence. Then steal the pattern, not the ad. □ Make only big calls. Delegate everything else. Operator brain is a tax. □ Proof everywhere. Your landing page should be a wall of receipts. Real reviews delete objections. □ Pricing discipline. Raise it. Most brands undercharge and then try to “out-market” bad unit economics. □ Offer clarity. One primary offer that prints. Stop having 9 “options.” □ Email/SMS as a profit center, not a newsletter. If Klaviyo isn’t paying the rent, fix it. □ Ops moat. Shipping times, inventory, refunds, support. Boring stuff that quietly determines if you’re a real brand or a temporary ad account.

I modeled 6 brands in the standing desk space. Most of them are competing aggressively at the mid-tier. But what’s interesting: The real margin destruction isn’t coming from competitors. It’s coming from internal SKU cannibalization. The $799 SKU is quietly eating the $1,199 SKU. And brands don’t realize it because topline still looks healthy. Curious how many teams explicitly map this before launching new tiers.

@joshelizetxe This is the one McGregor promoted?

I’ve bootstrapped Snow Teeth Whitening from 0 to $100M as a solo founder without any outside funding. If someone asked me how to scale their brand past $1M a year, here are the 6 things I’d do 🧵

@iamshackelford Sometimes CAC rises due to competitor pricing / discounts. 87% of consumers research before buying online. An ongoing pricing strategy can prevent competitive leakage much better than just optimizing marketing.

Your CAC isn't the problem. The real profit killers are hiding in your backend. Founders will obsess over the same metrics: CAC, ROAS, conversion rate, AOV. They'll spend weeks testing ad creative to lower acquisition costs by $3. Meanwhile, they're losing tens of thousands annually to margin leaks they don't even know exist. Here's where profitability actually dies: 1. Returns abuse quietly destroying unit economics Serial returners. Wardrobers. Policy exploiters. These aren't customers; they're margin killers. And most brands don't track who they are. If you're not flagging accounts with 3+ returns or analyzing return reasons by customer segment, you're subsidizing bad customers at the expense of good ones. 2. Paying processing fees you never negotiated Most brands accept whatever Shopify Payments or Stripe quotes them. 2.9% + 30¢ adds up fast when you're doing volume. At $10M in revenue, that's $290K in fees. Negotiate it down to 2.5% and you just saved $40K annually. For a 15-minute conversation. 3. Sales tax penalties and interest being a hidden tax on growth This is the one that really pmo because it's 100% avoidable. Brands miss filing deadlines. They don't track nexus properly. They under-collect in certain states. Then they get hit with penalties, interest, and back taxes they didn't budget for. I've seen brands lose serious money every year to preventable tax issues. Not because they're trying to cheat the system, just because their setup can't keep up with how fast they're growing. This is exactly why tools like @kintsugi_ai exist. Real-time nexus monitoring. Automated filings in all 50 states. Error-proof calculations. Audit protection. You're not "saving money" by doing it manually. You're just deferring the cost until it shows up as a penalty. 4. Shipping costs creeping up and nobody tracking it Dimensional weight increases. Zone pricing changes. Fuel surcharges. Your 3PL quietly raising rates. Most brands look at shipping costs once a year. By then, margins have already eroded. 5. Chargebacks are eating into your bottom line Friendly fraud. "Item not received" claims that are BS. Customers who forget they made a purchase. If you're not fighting these, you're just accepting margin erosion for no reason. Look, you can optimize CAC all you want. But if you're simultaneously hemorrhaging money to tax penalties, unoptimized fees, and preventable losses, you're not actually getting more profitable. You're just patting yourself on the back while margin bleeds elsewhere. The brands that actually scale profitably aren't just good at acquisition, they're obsessive about protecting margin everywhere. They automate compliance so it never becomes a cost center. They negotiate fees. They track return patterns. They optimize shipping. Profitability isn't one big fix. It's a dozen small ones that add up fast. #ad #kintsugipartner

Blanket seasonal discounts look efficient. They’re often expensive. Across 163 data points: Selective SKU discounting outperformed blanket promotions by: 31% on gross margin 17% on revenue The advantage isn’t discounting. It’s knowing exactly where to discount.

@GrouponHelpUS I accidentally booked Fairmont Ottawa for May 16 instead of May 17. Fairmont is OK to cancel if Groupon contacts them (I have their confirmation). I’ve rebooked May 17—please help cancel the 16th! Emailed support ref:!00D800Khmy.!500Uj0Z0SjJ:ref 🙏

@PdotChan @MicheleRomanow @Tapplock @BenjiLock You can actually buy a Tapplock.

@heymosef @BenjiLock @Tapplock @SharkTankABC In fact, @SharkTankABC came out after @cbcdragon became successful in Canada. Just ask @kevinolearytv!