A STUDIO FOR MODERN RETAILers
The next chapter for modern retailers is relationship. Plot helps you build the infrastructure.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Modern retailers need to be thinking about relationship. It's the defining feature of this next chapter.
While it includes suppliers, wholesalers, influencers, it's mostly about your relationship with normal consumers, fans & past customers — the people buying your products, talking about you, commenting, following along.
Relationship is less a specific tactic, channel or program, and instead how you orient to consumers and communicate: by relating not broadcasting. People are tired of being marketed at, they want to be engaged with, let in, listened to, part of something.
And you can't throw money at relationship the way you can with an ad buy. It's way more human than that.
Performance marketing defined the last chapter & trained brands to expect instant gratification — you do something, you make a sale. Now it looks like multiple touchpoints over more time, it’s non-linear and non-attributable for the most part to any single thing. So a different approach is required.
More than “owning the relationship”, it’s about actually having one.
Plot helps you build the infrastructure for that.
Ghia’s founder Melanie surprise calls top customers, just because. And has an entire conversation with each of them.
A DIRECT LINE
Merit generates conversation in the comments, participates & includes customers in the launch, even giving away free samples with orders in advance of its release. They also listen: this product has been highly requested.
A DIRECT LINERelationship comes from the infrastructure that supports it.
Our Services
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Your Storefronts
We want offline to inform online, shaping a continuous experience. Your site should sell like you're in the room — personality, POV, story & all the idiosyncrasies that make people choose you, specifically. More than an introduction, it should feel present tense, like we’re looped in, not static or merely utilitarian.
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A Direct Line
Communications can still feel like you’re talking at people not with them. This happens through email, it’s how you are on the feeds, in the captions, comments, DMs. The best brands are taking notes, asking questions, implementing ideas from their fans, leading conversations, inviting us in, not just sharing the recap. They speak as staff and founders, offer things of value, give us gossip & things to talk about.
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Insider Moments
Your customers want to be invited in but are often left on the outside. You need to deliver your unique mix of clubs, exclusives, events, teachings, private channels, casual gatherings, collaborations, chances to try things early, introductions to experts, opportunities to connect with the community, especially locally. So: much more than loyalty program point.
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Kowtow's Pattern Project Challenge for Melbourne Design Week: collect an exclusive, free pattern for The Ascot Top to make at home, connecting customers not only with the ethos, but makes them participants & fellow makers.
INSIDER MOMENTS
LESSE shaped a signature facial, typically available in-house with their carefully selected wholesale partners. Here they offered it during a pop-up at Syk Skin for New York Fashion Week.
INSIDER MOMENTS
2019-2023
Grape witches
GW are Toronto's natural wine darlings & favourite educators with an impactful Imports arm as they introduce their community to the wines of some of the world's top producers. Their site now brings together their wine shop, education offers, events, Wine Club, Imports, and whatever else comes up in one place.
YOUR STOREFRONTS
2021-2025
Good Cheese
Good Cheese is a neighbourhood cheese, wine & fine foods shop in Toronto’s East Chinatown. Luke doesn’t believe in a high brow / low brow divide, just all the best stuff. They’re one of the only spots in the city with both cheese & wine expertise, offering regular tastings + a Cheese Club (and now Coffee Club) (and soon Tinned Fish Club). I've worked with Luke since 2021 when we first overhauled the site.
YOUR STOREFRONTS
There’s Been a Shift
So I’m Amy Bath & I founded Plot almost 7 years ago when the work was to bring businesses online by building the infrastructure to sell: e‑commerce & email.
Many retailers were just figuring out how to exist digitally, all accelerated by the pandemic, and we figured it all out together.
But things have changed the last few years.
Consumers are tuning out. Feeds are saturated, skepticism is up, loyalty is dwindling, and people are gravitating towards brands that feel genuinely human and present —not like they're running a playbook.
I've been saying for years that people don't want to be sold to, that brands need to be thinking about more than conversion, and they’re only now understanding what that actually means.
The infrastructure required in this next chapter is for relationship.
That's what I'm beginning to build with modern retailers, people who can see that something new is needed. And it's the most interesting work I've done so far.
Work with Me
Does your brand have the infrastructure for relationship?
New
Relationship Audit
Over 2 weeks we take a close look at how your brand currently builds relationship with consumers, assessed from the outside, the way a normal consumer experiences you. We then have a call to walk through your relationship style: where you're strong and where there are opportunities. From there I put together a set of recommendations — the infrastructure and next steps that would advance your relationship with consumers. We close with a second call to talk it through.
2 WEEKS, two 1-hour CALLS,
REAL INSIGHTS, CLEAR DIRECTION
$2,000 USD
e-commerce on Shopify
I don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to projects. All businesses are in different places and need different solutions. While I have 2 general options, Shopify Express & Shopify Custom that nearly everyone fits into, there’s always nuances like apps, special features, number of pages that are tailored
Starting at
$7,500 USD
Health Hut's shop includes a cabinet filled with skincare options, opened by a team known for guiding customers to what's right for their skin, even offering samples to take home. Their shops are intentionally designed to try & experience their curation of products & have conversations.
YOUR STOREFRONTS
33 Acres kicked off FIFA World Cup with an alley game against fellow Vancouver-based brand Reigning Champ, as part of opening RC House where they bring the brands & community together daily in this host city.
YOUR STOREFRONTSWhat’s Next for You
Our Services
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A New Orientation
The point becomes the relationship. Which absolutely translates to sales — but feels very different to consumers than a focus purely on pushing purchases. And will feel different to you too. But you start to see everything through the lens of relationship. Not did this convert, but are we actually in conversation with people, participating, letting folks in, giving them something to talk about and be part of, whether they’re buying right now or not.
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A Continuous Experience
People experience your brand across everything at once — bricks-and-mortar, e-commerce, socials, email, events, in private channels. You likely know that cohesiveness is vital, but not just so that it reads as the same brand: so that a relationship can build up over time. You're not rushing the sale or optimizing every touchpoint for immediate conversion. You're thinking about it altogether with a unifying focus: relationship.
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The Return on Relationship
Relationship is non-linear, slower, harder to measure, but it works & it compounds. It shows up in repeat purchases, word of mouth, active comment sections, people sporting merch, email replies, event attendance, Substack mentions, group chat recommendations, someone finally trying a product after months of thinking about it, opening emails, lurking around. You can't trace it back to any one thing. But you can feel when it's working.
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