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In this episode of Selling on Giants, we sit down with Ian Walker, President and Co-Founder of Hippie Snacks and Left Coast Naturals, to unpack what it really takes to build a successful retail brand.

From humble beginnings selling at a farmer's market nearly 30 years ago, Ian has grown the business into a leading manufacturer, brand owner, and distributor supporting more than 40 natural food brands across North America. Along the way, he's learned firsthand why retail success requires far more than simply landing shelf space.

Ian shares practical advice on:

- How to determine if your brand is truly ready for retail.
- The biggest mistakes digital-first brands make when expanding into stores.
- Why understanding retailer, distributor, and manufacturer margins is critical.
- How to budget for listing fees, promotions, advertising, and trade spend.
- The importance of starting with core retailers and expanding region by region.
- How private label, distribution, and diversified revenue streams can help fund long-term brand growth.
- Why curiosity, patience, and continuous learning are some of the greatest competitive advantages in consumer products.

Whether you're selling on Amazon, building a DTC brand, or preparing to enter retail for the first time, this conversation offers a realistic look at the financial and operational challenges of omnichannel growth—and the strategies that help brands succeed for the long haul.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and follow Selling on Giants for more conversations with founders, operators, and industry experts helping brands scale across Amazon, retail, and beyond.

Website: https://www.leftcoastnaturals.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leftcoastnaturals/#
Twitter: https://x.com/leftcoastfoods
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/left-coast-naturals/

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This week’s Selling on Giants News and Updates breaks down the biggest retail promotional window of the summer.

Amazon Prime Day is the center of gravity, but it is no longer the only event competing for shopper attention. Walmart Deals, Target Circle Deal Days, Best Buy Tech Fest, TikTok Shop promotions, DTC websites, email offers, Google Shopping, and retail media campaigns are all fighting for the same customer during the same week.

The customer is not thinking about retailer calendars.

They are thinking:

Everything is on sale.

In this episode, we cover:

Amazon Prime Day is the main event

Amazon Prime Day remains the center of gravity, with major discounts, daily deal drops, Amazon Haul promotions, and Alexa for Shopping becoming part of the customer discovery experience.

Why Amazon Haul matters

Amazon Haul’s aggressive discounting shows how Amazon is pushing value-conscious shoppers toward lower-priced products, creating greater pressure on private-label brands, low-ASP sellers, and price-sensitive categories.

Alexa for Shopping and AI-driven discovery

Amazon is training shoppers to delegate more of the buying process to AI. That means sellers need listings that are clear to both humans and shopping agents, with strong product data, attributes, reviews, pricing, and fulfillment signals.

Amazon’s upcoming title changes

Starting July 27th, Amazon’s title structure changes will force sellers to rethink keyword-stuffed titles, searchable fields, Item Highlights, and how listing content works together after Prime Day.

Walmart Deals is no longer a side event

Walmart Deals is running directly against Prime Week traffic, supported by Walmart Plus, Walmart Connect, Sam’s Club Connect, and a stronger retail media infrastructure.

Walmart Connect and full-funnel retail media

Walmart’s growing retail media stack, including first-party audiences and off-platform measurement, shows that Walmart is becoming a more serious advertising ecosystem for marketplace sellers.

Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, and DTC competition

Target Circle Deal Days, Best Buy Tech Fest, TikTok Shop Deals For You Days, and brand websites are all part of the same promotional moment. Shoppers are comparing across platforms, not shopping in isolated channels.

Why execution matters more than discounts

The deepest discount does not matter if the listing does not convert, the Buy Box is unstable, the campaign runs out of budget, or the hero product goes out of stock.

The bigger takeaway:

Prime Day has become the summer version of Black Friday, but even that framing may be too narrow now.

This is a retail-wide promotional battle.

Amazon is still the main event, but Walmart, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, and DTC brands are all fighting for the same consumer attention.

Promotions amplify fundamentals.

They do not replace them.

Subscribe to Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level breakdowns on Amazon, Walmart, retail media, marketplace strategy, AI commerce, eCommerce growth, and what actually changes for brands responsible for profitability.

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This episode of Selling on Giants breaks down why some eCommerce founders always seem to catch a break while others stay stuck, even when they are operating in the same market, using the same tools, and facing the same competitors.

The easy explanation is luck.

But after working across enough Amazon, Walmart, Target, and broader marketplace accounts, the pattern looks different. Some brands are not luckier. They interpret signals differently, move faster, stay engaged longer, and treat setbacks as feedback instead of failure.

In this episode, we cover:

Why “luck” is often behavior, not randomness
Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman’s research on luck shows that lucky people tend to notice more opportunities, act faster, expect better outcomes, and reinterpret setbacks in ways that keep them moving.

Why opportunity usually looks like a problem first
In eCommerce, opportunity rarely shows up cleanly. It often looks like rising CPCs, crowded categories, slower reviews, weak conversion, or a launch that does not match the forecast.

How two founders can see the same data differently
One founder sees rising ad costs and says the category is too expensive. Another sees demand and starts improving the offer, listing, creative, pricing, and conversion path.

Why speed matters more than perfection
The cleanest brand on day one does not always win. The brand that learns faster usually does. Real data comes from being live, testing, and listening to the market.

How failure separates operators
A weaker operator sees failure as a verdict. A stronger operator sees it as feedback. That one word, “yet,” keeps a team in the game long enough to improve the offer, creative, pricing, positioning, or product strategy.

Why expectations shape execution
Mindset is not soft. It affects budget decisions, testing cadence, risk tolerance, and how quickly a founder responds to data.

The market is hard, but some brands are still growing
Costs are up. Competition is real. Advertising is more complex. Review building is harder. Consumers are more selective. And still, some brands are finding ways to win.

The bigger takeaway:

Luck is not always random.

A lot of the time, luck is how you interpret what is in front of you.

Same market. Same challenges. Same inputs. Different approach.

The brands that move forward treat data as feedback, act before the window closes, and stay engaged after others stop. They do not ignore problems. They simply do not let problems decide what happens next.

The edge is not magic. It is perception. Behavior. Speed. Resilience.

If you are building on Amazon, Walmart, Target, or across marketplaces, this episode gives you a practical way to think about momentum, setbacks, and why some founders seem to create more opportunity than others.

Follow Selling on Giants for operator-level breakdowns on marketplace strategy, Amazon growth, Walmart expansion, eCommerce leadership, and what it really takes to build a stronger brand.

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This week’s Selling on Giants is focused on one thing: last-minute preparation before the biggest promotional window of the summer.

Amazon Prime Day runs June twenty third through June twenty sixth. Target Circle Deal Days runs during the same window. Walmart Deals starts one day earlier, on June twenty second, and runs through June twenty eighth.

That means consumers are not thinking about this as one Amazon event. They are thinking, everything is on sale.

They will compare Amazon, Walmart, Target, brand websites, Google Shopping, email offers, Meta ads, TikTok content, and whatever promotion gets in front of them first. For sellers, that makes this more than a marketplace event. It is a retail-wide battle for attention, trust, inventory, and conversion.

In this episode, Mr. Will breaks down the final actions brands can still take one week out. At this stage, the goal is not to rebuild the strategy. Inventory should already be moving. Promotions should already be approved. Budgets should already be aligned. The job now is to remove friction before traffic arrives.

In this episode, we cover:

Amazon Prime Day hero ASIN audits

Why brands need to review top-performing ASINs like first-time shoppers, checking main images, reviews, pricing, A plus Content, mobile experience, and the first three images before expensive event traffic hits.

Amazon ad cleanup before CPCs rise

How sellers can use recent search term reports to remove waste, cut irrelevant traffic, clean up high-spend non-converting terms, and stop funding keywords that already proved they do not convert.

Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, video, and placement coverage

Why Prime Day shoppers do not move in a straight line, and why brands need visibility across Top of Search, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brand Video, Product Pages, and Brand Store pathways.

Subscribe and Save, bundles, and cross-sell opportunities

How brands can turn first-time Prime Day buyers into longer-term customers by reviewing Subscribe and Save offers, Brand Store navigation, bundles, and complementary product paths before customers leave.

Inventory alignment with advertising

Why brands should protect hero ASINs first, align spend with available inventory, and avoid pushing traffic into products that may run out of stock during the event.

Walmart Deals preparation

What sellers should check before Walmart Deals, including Buy Box ownership, Walmart Connect coverage, listing quality, WFS inventory, fulfillment speed, and competitive pricing.

Target Circle Deal Days preparation

Why brands active through Target and Roundel should review budgets, campaign caps, promotional participation, product content, hero SKUs, and inventory before Circle Deal Days begins.

DTC and website readiness

Why brand websites still matter during Prime Day week, including summer sale landing pages, email and SMS capture, retargeting, bundles, and pre-event email campaigns.

Team readiness and reporting

Why every brand needs clear owners for budget pacing, Buy Box checks, pricing, inventory monitoring, promotion issues, dashboards, and escalation before the event starts.

The bigger takeaway:

Prime Day has become the summer version of Black Friday.

Amazon is still the center of gravity, but Walmart, Target, and DTC brands are all competing for the same shopper during the same promotional window.

The winners will not always be the brands with the deepest discounts. They will be the brands with the strongest operational execution, cleanest customer experience, best inventory discipline, and fewest surprises.

Promotions amplify fundamentals.

They do not replace them.

Follow Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level breakdowns on Amazon, Walmart, retail media, marketplace strategy, eCommerce growth, and what actually changes for brands responsible for profitability.

Subscribe to Selling on Giants for weekly insights that go beyond headlines and focus on what actually impacts your business.

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In this episode of Selling on Giants: Going Retail, Will sits down with Kristyn Carriere, co-founder of 7 Summits Snacks, to discuss the realities of building a food brand and successfully expanding into retail.

7 Summits Snacks was born from a unique partnership between two sisters—Kristyn, a food scientist, and her sister, a former Canadian decathlete. Together, they created a functional chocolate energy bar that delivers great taste, premium ingredients, and performance-focused nutrition for active consumers.

During the conversation, Kristyn shares how the company launched through a crowdfunding campaign during the pandemic, built an early e-commerce presence, and eventually grew retail into 75% of the business. She explains why listening to customer feedback played a critical role in deciding where and how to expand.

Will and Kristyn explore some of the biggest lessons brands should understand before entering retail, including the importance of shelf positioning, packaging design, pricing strategy, and understanding the competitive landscape. Kristyn also offers practical advice for founders on working with retail buyers, conducting customer research, and ensuring their products stand out in crowded categories.

The episode highlights the differences between selling online and in-store, and why success in retail requires brands to think beyond simply having a great product. From understanding customer purchasing behavior to designing packaging for specific retail environments, Kristyn provides actionable insights for brands considering the move into physical retail.

The discussion wraps up with a preview of 7 Summits Snacks' newest innovation—a protein-focused chocolate snack designed to meet growing consumer demand for high-protein options while staying true to the brand's chocolate-first philosophy.

Whether you're a digital-first brand exploring retail opportunities or a founder looking to strengthen your retail strategy, this episode offers valuable lessons from a company actively navigating both channels.

Website: https://sevensummitssnacks.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/7summitssnacks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/7SummitsSnacks
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seven-summits-snacks/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyncarriere/

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This episode of Selling on Giants breaks down why so many eCommerce founders stay busy, grow revenue, and still feel stuck.

The problem is not effort. It is incentive design.

Using the game theory concept of the Stag Hunt, this episode explores the difference between chasing short-term wins and building the systems, teams, and trust required to scale.

In the beginning, every founder hunts rabbits. They run the ads, fix the listings, answer customer service emails, chase invoices, and handle whatever is on fire that day. Rabbits keep the lights on, and early in the business, that matters.

But eventually, survival behavior becomes the ceiling.

If every important decision still runs through the founder, the company is not truly scaling. It is staying dependent on one person’s urgency, judgment, and control.

In this episode, we cover:

Why founders get trapped chasing rabbits
Short-term wins feel productive because there is movement, but movement is not always progress.

What the Stag Hunt teaches about leadership
Bigger outcomes require trust, coordination, patience, and credible commitment from the team.

Why ecommerce rewards reactive behavior
Amazon sales data, ad dashboards, rankings, inventory, and reviews all create urgency, which can train founders to chase the next immediate problem instead of building long-term leverage.

How control becomes the ceiling
Founders often believe control protects the business, but at a certain stage, too much control prevents the team from maturing.

Why teams need shared context
People make better decisions when they understand the larger outcome, not just the task in front of them.

Why tactics are not enough to scale
More ads, more products, more channels, and more activity do not matter if the operating system underneath the business is weak.

The operator takeaway:

Rabbit hunting keeps the business alive. Stag hunting is how the business scales.

The best founders eventually stop asking, “What can I fix today?” and start asking, “What system are we building that makes the next stage easier?”

That shift changes everything.

It impacts hiring, delegation, accountability, strategy, marketplace expansion, advertising, and leadership. It is the difference between a founder-owned job and a company that can compound without everything depending on one person.

The bigger picture:

If you are building on Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, or across marketplaces, the question is not only what tactic should come next. The better question is whether your team is aligned around the bigger hunt.

The edge is not in more activity. It is in trust. Coordination. Clear priorities. Better systems.

Follow Selling on Giants for operator-level breakdowns on eCommerce leadership, marketplace strategy, Amazon growth, Walmart expansion, and what it really takes to build a durable brand.

Subscribe to Selling on Giants for weekly insights that go beyond headlines and focus on what actually impacts your business.