In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Jeremy Whisnant, Senior Director Ecommerce and Growth at BYLT Basics. Jeremy got his first purchase order from Amazon as an email attachment in 2002, and he's been figuring out how channels actually work together ever since. At BYLT Basics he's doing something most apparel brands haven't tried: building a real brand instead of just running a better ad.

• What Jeremy learned shutting down a $300M Sony DTC business and why that scale perspective still shapes how he thinks about channel decisions at BYLT today

• Why BYLT ran almost entirely on Instagram ads until 2021 and never spent a dollar on Google, and what that origin story means for where growth has to go next

• How BYLT uses differentiated UPCs and limited assortments to sell on Amazon without creating channel conflict against their own DTC site

• The shift from measuring every ad unit by the hour to brand storytelling with reach and frequency, and why that pivot requires a different kind of patience from the whole team

• Why Jeremy argues that if your brand is not actively controlling its Amazon presence, Debbie's desert shop from TJ Maxx is controlling it for you

• How BYLT is expanding to 22 stores in premium malls while keeping wholesale deliberately narrow and building toward golf specialty and experiential retail

👥 Meet the guest

Jeremy Whisnant, Senior Director Ecommerce and Growth at BYLT Basics

🎙 Hosted by

Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Orita.ai

🎧 Chapters

[00:00:00] From Gateway to BYLT: 25 Years in Digital Commerce

[00:02:39] Getting the First Amazon PO in 2002 Before Anyone Cared

[00:04:06] Small Companies Teach What Big Ones Cannot

[00:08:24] Experience Gives Perspective: The Sony Shutdown Story

[00:16:12] Landing at BYLT and What Made the Opportunity Worth the Commute

[00:17:57] Why Not Knowing Apparel Was Actually an Advantage

[00:20:06] How to Win the Internal Argument Against Discounting

[00:25:19] Amazon Is a System Not a Partner: How to Work It

[00:29:03] Which Channels to Prioritize When You Start a New Brand

[00:31:17] BYLT's Channel Map: DTC, 22 Stores, Wholesale, and Amazon

[00:35:30] Preventing Channel Conflict With Differentiated SKUs

[00:39:17] Short-Term Revenue vs Long-Term Brand: The Pivot BYLT Is Making

[00:43:20] Brand Storytelling at Scale: Gronk, Surf Photography, and Earned Credibility

[00:48:39] Going Robotic: The Grand Prairie Warehouse Move

🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when.

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