A note from our CEO

Hey everyone,

We just hosted our biggest annual retreat ever. We brought 100 Cartograph team members, partners, and friends together in Austin.

For a fully remote company, these retreats are crucial. Zoom and slack get the job done day to day, but nothing beats the energy, collaboration, and trust you build together in the same room (or on a boat, a trail, or a karaoke stage).

Later in this email, you’ll find some highlights. I highly recommend taking a look. We take a lot of pride of who we are at Cartograph: our culture, mission, and values - and they really come through in the photos.

Separately, this week there was good news on reduced tariffs with China. You can find our thoughts on this and how it will impact the Amazon supply chain below.

In this month’s newsletter, you’ll find:

• Our latest portfolio sales and ad spend index

• Thoughts on China tariff changes and impact on global supply chain

• Photos and highlights from our annual retreat

• A case study of our partnership with Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

• Latest Amazon search term trends

As always, I’d love to hear what you’re seeing in the market. Just hit reply. 

And if you enjoy this newsletter, feel free to pass it on to anyone who might find it helpful.

Best regards,
Chris

Last Month’s Sales and Ad Spend Numbers

Chris’ Notes on Tariffs, Shipping & Inventory

As of Monday, May 12th, the China tariffs are back to 30% (10% "baseline worldwide" + 20% "fetanyl"). Here is what we're discussing internally at Cartograph:

• 30% tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada are still pretty tough on businesses. Price increases have been the answer and, in my opinion, aren't going to come back down (unless your category gets into a price war -> more likely for grocery items).

• 145% was "shut the business down" territory. Hence, most directly exposed froze shipments.

• 30% is still "this will be a tough year" territory.

• Containers and ships from China had stopped for about 5 weeks.
  This is not all that far off the first stop of 2020 (though that was all countries, not China). We can remember and learn from the many "stop ocean freight moments"

Check out more of our thoughts on the latest tariff news here.

Highlights from our Annual Company Retreat:

There was one key question at the heart of this year’s Cartograph retreat: “Who do we want to be as a company as we grow?”

That question shaped the week—from small group dinners and community service in East Austin to karaoke and a closing party with the king of “WHO” himself… Mike Jonesss! Here is a video of Mike Jones performing at our closing party.

Below are some pictures from an epic week!

Promotions and Awards

🎉 Promotions

• Gabriel Huertas → Brand Manager

• Marissa Linzey → Brand Manager

• Mary Draheim → Brand Manager

• Lauren Wright → People Operations Manager

• Howard Brown → Senior Product & Data Analyst

🏆 Awards

• Olivia Montreuil (Huel) → Growth Story of the Year

  • Nominees: Burke Patterson (Mosh), Tracey Jacks (Olipop), Austin Stelling (Saltverk)

• Chad Rohan (4th & Heart) → Turnaround of the Year

  • Nominees: Burke Patterson (Mosh), Bernardo Caram (Vitahustle), Olivia Montreuil (Cocokind), Ginny Chochon (Manduka)

• Howard Brown (3P Dashboard & Invoice Dashboard) —> Innovation of the Year

  • Nominees: Emma Bleeker (Pacvue), Caitlin Fordell (P&L Dashboard), Ronald Cifuentes (Pickfu), Sam Kaplan (Investor CRM)

• Gabriel Huertas (Tidbits & Leading in Knowledge Contributions) → Knowledge Contribution of the Year

  • Nominees: Kris Torres (Ads Office Hours), Michael Stephens (Knowledge Directory), Emma Bleeker (Marketing Calendar)

Congrats to everyone on their promotions and all the award winners and nominees!

How Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) Turned Amazon Into a High-Performance Machine

By focusing on SKU prioritization, Buy Box control, and subscription retention, Cartograph helped BPN double their Amazon sales while protecting their DTC growth.

Their story shows how brands can scale profitably, without sacrificing brand equity.

Download the full case study here to learn more about how BPN did it.

April Search Term Trends on Amazon

Each month, we track and analyze search volume and CPCs for popular Amazon search terms. Here are some recent trends from last month that we found interesting.