Case Study 08 · The 1970 Shop
D2C nostalgia snacks · India
Ten revenue leaks found before a rupee more went into ads.
The 1970 Shop revived a family recipe brand — achaar, thekua, namkeen, a maternity line — and relaunched in September 2025 on Shopify and Amazon. Customers loved it; the economics did not show it. My brief was a full go-to-market audit ahead of an investor conversation.
- Revenue leaks identified
- 10
- SKUs out of stock
- 41%
- Five-star reviews invisible to Google
- 3,500+
- Amazon listings dead
- 8 of 10
In the first six weeks
Of 59 SKUs, at audit
Broken review schema
At audit
Figures from the July 2026 audit; revenue scale withheld at the client's discretion. Programme in progress; outcome figures to follow.
01 — The Situation
Contribution-positive, EBITDA-negative, and loved by everyone who found it.
Product-market fit was not the question. Distribution hygiene was: what customers could find, what was in stock, and what Google could see.
Where it started
- 3,500+ reviews at 4.5–4.9 stars that search engines could not read.
- 41% of 59 SKUs out of stock; 8 of 10 Amazon listings inactive.
- GA4 and Meta not connected to Shopify; no measurement behind ad decisions.
- No content engine; growth dependent on founder-led social.
Where it is now
- A prioritised fix list — schema, stock, listings, measurement — sequenced before any spend increase.
- A content-engine framework the team can run weekly.
- Competitive and SEO analysis, and an investor-ready dossier.
- A CEO critic persona used to stress-test decisions before they are made.
02 — What I Did
Audit first. Spend later.
What the audit found on the shelf
Share of the catalogue and of the marketplace listings that customers could not buy from, at the July 2026 audit.
- Amazon listings inactive
- 8 of 10
- SKUs out of stock
- 41% of 59
Reviews Google could not read
3,500+ reviews at 4.5 to 4.9 stars, invisible to search because the review schema was broken.
No measurement
GA4 and Meta were not connected to Shopify, so no ad decision could be checked against revenue.
- Audit
Full GTM and D2C dossier
Every channel, SKU and listing scored; ten leaks ranked by revenue at stake and effort to fix.
- Organic
Competitive and SEO analysis
Where the category's search demand goes today, and why the brand's best asset — its reviews — was invisible.
- Content
Content-engine framework
A repeatable weekly system so growth is not gated on the founder's feed.
- Capital
Investor narrative
Dossier and deck support for the founder's raise.
03 — The Result
A fix list worth more than a media budget.
The cheapest growth in a D2C brand is usually the growth it is already losing. This engagement is in progress; results will be added as they land.
Sequenced
Ten leaks ranked by revenue at stake and effort to fix, most of them fixable without new spend.
Delivered
Competitive and SEO analysis, a weekly content-engine framework, and an investor-ready dossier.
In progress
Schema, stock, listing and measurement fixes run before any increase in media budget.
- Ten leaks identified and sequenced, most fixable without new spend.
- Review visibility, stock and marketplace hygiene ahead of any budget increase.
- Investor dossier delivered.
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