Every Monday from October 12
I buy from a brand, wait sixty days, and publish what shows up.
The Second-Order Teardown is a weekly look at how one DTC brand handles the order after the first: every email, text and insert, timed against when a customer would actually come back. Then three fixes, and what I would build in ninety days.
Then every Monday, on LinkedIn, YouTube and in The Second Order the same morning.
Illustrative. Gold cells are sends; the dot is the day the second order should have been asked for.
How a teardown is made
Same method every week, so they compare.
- Pick
A Shopify brand with a product people reorder, doing roughly $2M to $50M.
- Buy
Subscribe, then buy the cheapest item. Every email, text and insert gets logged with a timestamp for sixty days.
- Score
Twelve checks on the Second-Order Scorecard, and their calendar plotted against the customer’s.
- Publish
A Monday post, a ten-minute video, the newsletter issue and a page here.
- Send
The same day, the founder gets the three fixes directly. No pitch beyond an offer to walk through it.
The scorecard
Twelve checks on the order after the first.
Every teardown is scored on the same twelve. You can score your own brand in three minutes, in your browser.
- 01A new customer hears from you within three days of ordering, with something that isn’t a receipt or a shipping notice.
- 02You help them use the product before you ask for a review.
- 03Your second-order ask is timed to when your customers actually reorder, from your own order data.
- 04What you send after the first order changes with what they bought.
- 05Fewer than half of your post-purchase messages lead with a discount code.
- 06Anything consumable has replenishment timing based on real usage.
- 07SMS has explicit consent, a sensible frequency and a job email can’t do.
- 08Customers who drift get a win-back with a real reason to return.
- 09The review ask arrives after the product does.
- 10After a good experience, you ask for a referral or a gift.
- 11Your sending domain is authenticated, the sender is a person’s name and replies reach a human.
- 12A first-time buyer still hears something useful from you between day 30 and day 90.
The rules
A teardown, not a takedown.
Only what a customer receives
Nothing private, no guesses at internal data. Names, order numbers and emails are redacted.
No guesses about revenue
The program gets scored, not the business. A teardown never estimates what a brand makes.
A right of reply
Every brand can respond, and a reply gets linked from the teardown.
Kind, specific, fixable
Every point comes with what to do about it. The goal is a better second order, not a dunk.
Live Roast
Want yours torn down, live?
Once a month I roast one brand’s post-purchase live, with the founder in the room if they want to be. Apply with your store and what worries you.
The archive
Starts October 12.
Every teardown will live here, scored the same way, so you can compare your brand with any of them.