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Using the Scarcity Principle to Sell Over 100,000 Products

Plus: Learn How to Use Educational Content and Feeback Loops

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Hey, legends!

Zapato Feroz is a fast-growing brand that still has that startup vibe. Figuring out their strategy was a bit tricky since most of the content was in Spanish, but Google Translate saved the day. This case study is pretty cool because the brand is all about focusing on customers and products. They started out to solve a real problem for parents: making comfy, natural shoes for babies learning to walk.

The Impact: Since 2020, the company has gone from selling 300 pairs of shoes per season to selling over 100,000 pairs every six months. Their overall growth marketing approach is less aggressive and more focused on community and product.

Let’s dive in 🙂 🙏

- Dev

In today’s edition, this is what I’m covering:

  • How Zapato Feroz started

  • Scarcity Marketing: Creating high demand through limited production

  • Using educational content: Authenticity and Diver

  • Feedback loops: Getting real-time customer insights through Instagram

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FEATURE CASE STUDY
Zapato Feroz: How They Started

Zapato Feroz, a Spanish direct-to-consumer brand, was founded in 2017 by Marta Amaro and Guillermo Martínez with the mission of creating comfortable, barefoot shoes for children. Leveraging a strong online presence and a community-centric approach, the brand quickly gained traction through social media and word-of-mouth referrals. Their innovative designs, emphasizing natural foot development, resonated with health-conscious parents. By focusing on high-quality materials and sustainable practices, Zapato Feroz grew rapidly, expanding its product line and reaching international markets. Their commitment to customer feedback and continuous improvement has been central to their success, making them a popular choice in the children's footwear market.

DEMAND CREATION
Using the Scarcity Principle to Drive Growth

By limiting the production of their shoes, Zapato Feroz, can take time and create demand that gets future customers excited about their product.

The scarcity strategy taps into the psychological principle that people value items more when they are perceived to be scarce. To maintain a higher perceived value of their product, they only release a limited number of shoes for each release, making sure that not everyone can get their hands on a pair as soon as it drops.

These are the mechanics they use to keep interest high:

  • Pre-sale events: This is a clever way to finalise your production run. They get customers to reserve and pay for their shoes in advance. With motivation and perceived value at their peak when they announce something new, this is a great way to secure the sale and for the customer, to get the opportunity to secure the shoes before they are released officially.

  • Virtual queues: During product launches, they get people lining up online to get control over their demand. Promoted via their website and existing customer base, they have over 70,000 parents reportedly waiting in these virtual queues for about 8-9 hours just to purchase Zapato Feroz shoes for their kids. Damn. The product must be really good.

  • Season releases: Creating anticipation and urgency for each new collection is critical for DTC brands. For that reason, Zapato Feroz appears to operate on a season release cycle. They start hyping the release through their YouTube channel. The co-founder is the face of that channel where she answers questions and showcases upcoming designs to build hype.

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT
Building Trust and Credibility

YouTube has driven significant growth for the brand. This founder-led content initiative has helped them sell up to 25,000 pairs of shoes in a single day without relying heavily on traditional SEO and paid ads.

Their strategy is to focus on building brand identity, creating a community around the products and educating customers.

Content is diverse and mainly includes:

  • Educational content: This design-focused showcase highlights upcoming children's footwear products, building authority in the industry and trust with parents. It emphasizes special features and benefits of specific designs, usually presented by the co-founder in an unedited, raw format. In an era of heavily edited and embellished videos, this straightforward approach stands out by focusing solely on the main message.

  • Behind the scenes: They address their audience directly and encourage participation. Through this type of content, they give insight into their business practices and challenges as well.

FEEDBACK LOOP
Real-Time Engagement Is Powerful

Unsurprisingly, they use Instagram a lot. By focusing on this channel they can grow and engage with their community in real time, turning followers into loyal customers and brand advocates. Something that has proven to work for them. This is how their funnel is structured:

TOF → The share stories consistently and host IG live shows that get other parents excited. Particularly Mums.

MOF → Parents naturally then join their closed-knit private Facebook group where they can share their concerns related to first steps or general parent qualms.

Insight: Using a instagram to capture an audience then nurturing them by providing value in a closed group setting can build a strong customer base,fast.

To capture people via their Instagram they focus on three main tactics:

Reposting User-generated content: They often encourage customers to share photos with their branded hashtag for a chance to be featured on their Instagram. This approach collects social proof and makes customers feel valued.

Behind the scenes: Posting stories and updates about their product process highlights the thought and craftsmanship behind each pair of shoes. This transparency gives customers a glimpse into the brand’s inner workings and drives engagement through likes, comments, and shares.

Interactive stories: Leveraging polls, quizzes, and Q&As provides real-time feedback on new designs, colour preferences, and content ideas valuable to ideal customers. This powerful approach allows indie brands to involve customers in decision-making. Additionally, the insights gained are invaluable for product and marketing strategy development.

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WRAP UP
Further Reading

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