How to build brand power, control channels, and protect ROI in a commoditized world
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Published by Noibu | The Ecommerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives
Guest: Jeff Cato, VP of Marketing & Ecommerce at Jasco Products
Host: Kailin Noivo, Co-Founder at Noibu
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube
In categories where every product feels like a commodity, most companies fight on price. Jasco Products chose a different path — leading with brand, discipline, and differentiation.
In this episode of The Ecommerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives, Jeff Cato, Jasco’s VP of Marketing & Ecommerce, shares how a 50-year-old consumer electronics company is reinventing its approach to digital growth, managing SKU proliferation, and enforcing ROI rigor across a vast multi-channel portfolio.
“You can only build a brand so quick — but if you don’t start now, you’ll always be chasing price instead of creating value.”
— Jeff Cato, VP of Marketing & Ecommerce, Jasco Products
1. From brick-and-mortar legacy to digital-first discipline
For decades, Jasco’s business grew through retail channels — building credibility through partnerships with GE, Philips, and Energizer, and dominating shelf space in categories like lighting, power accessories, and smart home devices.
But as Jeff notes, the industry flipped:
“Brands are building online first, and then they’re going into brick and mortar. Historically, we did the opposite — now we’re redefining ourselves.”
That inversion reshaped how Jasco thinks about ecommerce:
- Digital brand-building is no longer an afterthought.
- D2C now operates alongside retail, not beneath it.
- Marketplace strategy is treated as a digital storefront, not a discount channel.
This is where legacy manufacturing meets modern brand building — a transition many executives are still navigating.
2. Avoiding channel conflict: Sell differently, not everywhere
Every ecommerce executive faces the same dilemma: how to grow D2C without alienating retail and marketplace partners.
Jeff’s answer is pragmatic and product-led:
“You’ve got to differentiate your product enough to meet consumers' price and margin demands… add the tech specs that deliver the premium.”
— Jeff Cato, VP of Marketing & Ecommerce, Jasco Products
For example:
- Club channels (Costco, Sam’s) get simplified SKUs: RF remote + pure white lighting.
- D2C or Amazon gets premium SKUs: RGBW color control, app-enabled functionality.
By customizing product specs and SKUs per channel, Jasco prevents price-matching chaos and keeps retailers aligned while still growing direct sales.
This is an operator’s playbook for balancing channel growth and profitability.
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3. Marketplace realities: Partnering with the platform you can't ignore
Jasco operates as a 1P provider on Amazon, viewing the marketplace as part of a digital-first product launch strategy.
“If we believe in a product enough to bring it to market, we launch it on Amazon and on our site.”
Amazon is both opportunity and tension. Jeff describes the balance:
- Compete on value, not always price.
- Accept that it’s pay-to-play with heavy ad investment.
- Use data and automation tools like CommerceIQ to monitor pricing, buy box loss, and SKU performance daily.
Add in tariff fluctuations and margin pressure, and Amazon becomes an ecosystem of precision management — not set-it-and-forget-it sales.
4. The data engine behind better decisions
Behind every pricing or SKU decision sits an insight pipeline powered by CommerceIQ.
Jeff’s team uses it to:
- Analyze reviews and extract actionable product feedback.
- Benchmark competitor pricing and share of voice.
- Model buy plans and seasonal volumes before entering new categories.
“It’s churned out a ton of data that helps us answer why. Why is a SKU down? Did we lose the buy box? Did pricing change? It helps us find answers before the problem snowballs.”
For omnichannel brands, these tools are the connective tissue between ecommerce, retail, and product — making digital truly measurable.
5. SKU proliferation: The silent margin killer
Every high-growth ecommerce brand hits a point where more SKUs stop driving more revenue.
Jeff calls it out candidly:
“During COVID, we rolled out too many SKUs… we weren’t paying attention to ROI. Things were good, and we weren’t as in tune to whether we needed five colors or three links — we just kept rolling.”
Now, Jasco enforces a margin and volume threshold for every launch:
- Each product must meet a weekly velocity target.
- Each must achieve a minimum gross profit allowance (GPA) to fund promos or everyday pricing.
- Every decision must ladder to company-level turns and distribution goals.
This discipline reframes growth:
Not “how fast can we add SKUs,” but “how efficiently can each SKU earn its shelf space.”
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6. The ROAS reality: When every dollar counts
Low price-point categories often make paid media unprofitable.
A $13.99 surge protector leaves little room for a 4x ROAS.
“You can go upside down quickly,” Jeff explains. “In higher-margin categories like smart lighting, we can live with a 5–8x ROAS. That’s where we invest.”
The takeaway: ROAS must be margin-dependent.
Smart growth means investing ad dollars where contribution margin, not top-line revenue, leads the strategy.
Leadership takeaway: The new formula for sustainable ecommerce
Jasco’s evolution isn’t about a single platform or tactic. It’s about balancing maturity with agility — the hallmark of every great ecommerce operation.
Jeff’s bottom line: Winning in ecommerce today means being both disciplined and adaptable. By aligning SKU strategy, marketplace presence, and data-driven insights, Jasco is proving that even in commoditized categories, brand differentiation and ROI rigor can coexist.
Key insights for ecommerce executives
- Data integrity fuels AI success — standardization must come before automation.
- Trust > Traffic — sustainable growth depends on consumer confidence, not paid clicks.
- Own the experience — even in a multi-partner model, UX and CX consistency define brand equity.
- Pivot fast when the market shifts — evolving from CPC to CPA let Furniture.com own its destiny.
- Invest in long-term memory — lifetime value compounds when shoppers return to a platform they trust.
Listen to the full episode now
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Why this matters
The ecommerce leaders who win the next decade won’t be the loudest or fastest — they’ll be the ones who measure, differentiate, and simplify. Jeff’s story is proof: a disciplined operation can be just as innovative as a disruptive startup — and often, a lot more durable.
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