DTC Podcast – Bonus: How &Collar Uses Intelligems to Drive Growth with Pricing, Persona & Shipping Tests

Date: November 5, 2025
Host: Eric Dick (DTC Newsletter and Podcast)
Guest: Ben (Founder, &Collar)

Episode Overview

This episode explores how &Collar, an innovative direct-to-consumer (DTC) dress shirt brand, leverages Intelligems to rigorously test and optimize key aspects of their ecommerce business: pricing, customer personas, and shipping thresholds. Ben, &Collar’s founder, details the journey from early product launches to the brand’s scientific approach to growth amidst evolving market forces, sharing actionable lessons for DTC entrepreneurs on the value of robust experimentation over guesswork.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origin and Naming of &Collar

• Early Days & Name Challenges
  • Ben shares why they chose the name &Collar and the challenges it presents, especially with the ampersand causing confusion for consumers and systems.

    “Would highly recommend not having that as the first… character in a brand name. Half the people… don’t know what it is. We get called ‘at color’ a lot.” (01:00 – Ben)

• Mission and Inspiration
  • The brand began as a resume-building project with a focus on making men’s dress shirts more comfortable, evolving into a mission-driven company.

    "It was just to keep men comfortable... supposed to be a college resume... so that I could get a real job and tell someone... I had enough initiative and drive to go source and sell $50,000 worth of product." (01:22 – Ben)

2. Growth Trajectory and Market Forces

• From Kickstarter to Millions
  • Started in 2017 with a $20K Kickstarter; 2024 revenue aimed at $13-14M with consistent year-over-year growth. (02:07)
• Market Trends & COVID Challenges
  • Faced paradox of growing comfort wear trends versus declining office dress codes during COVID, pivoting to target “recurring and required” dress shirt segments (e.g., professions that must dress up).

    "The demise of a great work life balance is to our benefit... It's nice to see that market force... swing back in our favor." (03:53 – Ben)

3. Product Strategy: SKU Management & Focus

• Starting Lean, Expansion, Then Focus
  • Launched with 10 SKUs, expanded aggressively (up to 1,500 active SKUs) but found that white dress shirts powered 50%+ of business—now focused back to ~1,100, with strategic emphasis on core winners.

    "White dress shirts drive 50% of revenue... less than 40 SKUs power 50% of the business... we got excited, overeager to expand SKUs..." (04:48 – Ben)

4. Marketing and Customer Acquisition

• Paid Spend: From ‘Crazy’ to Calculated
  • Initial years involved aggressive paid spend (e.g., $800K on $2.1M in revenue during COVID), now more targeted.
• Micro-Segmentation & Persona Targeting
  • Focus on “micro segments” like public school male teachers—custom creative and personalized funnels instead of blanket targeting.

    "Rather than spending against everyone... when you start to drill it down... that's a little bit more palatable." (07:30 – Ben)

• Future: Six Key Customer Personas
  • Current sprint: Tag customers (using Shopify and surveys) into six major personas and move to hyper-personalized email flows. (09:26)

5. Pricing Strategy & Intelligems Tests

• Pricing ‘By Feel’ to Scientific Experiments
  • For years, pricing was based on competitor spreadsheets and intuition, aiming for sub-$50 shirts in a $120+ dominated market.
• First Robust Test—Four-Way Price AB Test
  • With Intelligems, &Collar ran concurrent four-way AB tests:
    • Price points: $45 / $48 (current) / $49.99 / $55
    • Key result: $49.99 performed as well as $48, allowing higher margin without conversion decline.
    • Test spanned 3 weeks, over thousands of orders—only one ticket about price confusion.

    "Why wouldn't we go the extra $1.99?... $2 a unit times 500,000 units a year… that test paid for itself." (00:00 / 13:20 – Ben)

  • How Intelligems Works:
    • Replicates and replaces all mentions of price through the funnel, ensuring consistent customer experience for each segment of the test.

      "They do a really thorough job... everywhere in the purchase journey... replace and find any mention of price." (14:13 – Ben)

6. Shipping Threshold Tests

• Free Shipping: From Guessing to Data-Driven
  • Historically set at $100 “because everyone else did.” Tested four thresholds: $75 / $100 / $125 / $149.99.
  • Results:
    • $75: Higher conversion, especially relevant with median AOV under $123.
    • $125: Increased basket size (extra item per cart).
    • $149.99: Flopped (too high).
  • Decision: Chose $125 for resilience against tariffs, but open to retesting for new customer acquisition.

    “75 just got people to check out. We ended up going with the 125 mostly because of worries about tariffs... 75 was the winner for getting people over the line.” (15:59 – Ben)

7. Always Be Testing (ABT) Mindset

• CRO Stack Consolidation
  • Moved from multiple apps (Shoplift, PDQ) to Intelligems for streamlined, cross-funnel testing.
  • Building roadmap for high-impact, not “test for testing’s sake.”

    “Always be testing... let’s strip it back. Let’s go to Intelligems who can do all of them.” (20:51 – Ben)

8. New Customer Acquisition and Incrementality

• Cohort Trends and Strategic Shifts
  • Revenue’s up, but new customer numbers down—now shifting toward top-of-funnel via YouTube, TV (via Tatari), and higher spend on production content.
• Offer Testing for Black Friday/Q4
  • Labor Day test: Discount everything except white shirts increased units per transaction, validated dual persona strategy (white-only vs. white+ customers).

    “People still buy full price white shirts but seeing everything else on discount... one increases conversion rates, but two increases units per transaction.” (22:01 – Ben)

9. LTV and Profit Per Visitor

• Focus on Sustainable Profitability
  • Intelligems’ “profit per visitor” at transaction level is the north star; LTV insights being built out for long-term optimization.

    “We don’t want short-term wins at the expense of long-term profitability… profit per visitor is the North Star metric.” (23:22 – Ben)

10. Operational Discipline and Profitability

• Sharpening Unit Economics
  • Detailed approach to costs—factoring in returns, landed costs, and agency fees.
  • Attach P&L responsibility to every employee and agency; performance metrics linked directly to contributions, including influencers and ad agencies.

    “Attaching a P&L to each employee… if you succeed on those, there’s a spot for you here. If not, then what are we doing?” (24:43 – Ben)

11. Long-Term Vision

• Growth and Exit Ambitions
  • Targeting $35M annual revenue with $4-5M bottom line within 3 years, aiming for a profitable and sustainable business that could be sold.

    “I don’t want to run a dress shirt business forever. I hate dress shirts, which is why we started it.” (27:55 – Ben)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Naming & Brand Lesson:

  “On any future brand…just choose a word that’s in the English dictionary or multiple words, very easy to pronounce and that don’t get stuck in the throat.” (01:08 – Ben)

• On Testing Over Intuition:

  “For just listeners, I'm doing finger in the air on initial pricing for the first five years… there was no math or reasoning behind it other than that feels right.” (11:12 – Ben)

  “Why wouldn’t we go the extra $1.99?... $2 a unit times 500,000 units a year… that test paid for itself.” (00:00 / 13:20 – Ben)

• On SKU Focus:

  "White dress shirts drive 50% of revenue… less than 40 SKUs power 50% of the business… we got excited, overeager to expand SKUs..." (04:48 – Ben)

• On Persona-Driven Funnels:

  "When you start to drill it down... create content specific to [micro segments] and in that way do a little bit more of a personalized funnel." (07:30 – Ben)

• On Profit Accountability:

  “Attaching a P&L to each employee… profit per employee as our North Star metric.” (24:43 – Ben)

• On Industry Irony:

  "I don't want to run a dress shirt business forever. I hate dress shirts, which is why we started it." (27:55 – Ben)

• On Market Trends:

  “The demise of a great work-life balance is to our benefit... It's nice to see that market force, if we're calling it... swing back in our favor.” (03:53 – Ben)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Price Testing Methodology: 00:00, 13:20–14:50
• &Collar’s origin & name discussion: 01:00–02:00
• COVID impact on dress shirt market: 02:41–04:13
• SKU expansion and lessons: 04:48–06:04
• Persona targeting and email plans: 07:30–10:43
• Pricing strategies, intuition to data: 11:12–14:02
• Intelligems implementation: 14:13–15:45
• Free shipping threshold test results: 15:59–18:25
• Testing roadmap/philosophy: 20:51–21:50
• Black Friday/Labor Day test insights: 22:01–22:58
• Optimizing for profitability/P&L by employee: 24:43–27:43
• Long-term vision: 27:55–28:47

Takeaways for DTC Operators

• Test everything: pricing, shipping, and even the core assumptions of your business.
• Persona segmentation and tailored messaging outperform broad targeting.
• Focus on products/SKUs that drive the majority of revenue—don’t let assortment bloat hurt margins.
• Use robust, reliable tools like Intelligems to run scientific, actionable experiments across the funnel.
• Operational discipline (true cost accounting, P&L clarity by contributor) is as valuable as headline revenue growth.
• Don’t be precious about intuition or untested “industry standards”—let the data lead.

For more details on how &Collar leveraged Intelligems and other tactical DTC strategies, connect with Ben on LinkedIn or follow DTC Podcast for future insights.