I agree, we're putting a lot of faith into a team who has barely, if ever, even shown a bright spot.
But I think marketing being the issue is a bad take. It's an overly simplified argument. It doesn't seem to me like they have actually made a real investment in marketing. I have a marketing background so I might be a little biased but right now it looks like they are doing 0 marketing and they haven't slowed their losses. It seems the PA facility is a burden. It's too big. I'm sure they are not nearly as efficient as they should be because of the size. They need to grow the ecomm sales for sure but they aren't marketing and ecomm sales haven't grown in the last 4-5 quarters. So my guess is that's not their strategy. Decent digital marketers are not that hard of a find. Decent digital marketers who want to "bleed money", as you suggest, are even less hard to find. If they can't find one that can generate enough GP in this space, it's probably the margin that is the issue and the high costs associated with the PA facility.
Take a look at their brand plantbelly that launched last year. This was the one Sam built in-house. It launched about a year ago and, from everything I can see, it's a total dud. It has no presence. There's 0 real customer reviews or feedback out there. Their social media has minimal followers and almost 0 engagement. If they are even making a sale a day at this point, I would be shocked. To me, this is the clearest snapshot of how Sam views an ecomm business. He has no idea how to make them work and shouldn't be running them.
The brand aggregation idea seems good in theory. But I think it's just a disappointment waiting to happen. 3PLs are everywhere. And most of them already have running a logistics operation figured out. Any business owner is going to do their due diligence and come to a similiar conclusion that ecommerce is not IVFH's bag. I think leaning into foodservice, maybe selling the warehouse and leasing it back, or leasing out the unused parts of the warehouse maybe the only way out for these guys.
