How 100 Thieves scaled an iconic drop with less logistics

Scaling their collab strategy

As a premier gaming and lifestyle organization, 100 Thieves keeps its fans on their toes by regularly releasing exciting products under its three brands: 100 Thieves Apparel, Higround, and Juvee. Bringing these products to market, usually follows a similar playbook: IP is agreed upon between the 100 Thieves parent brand and their collaborator; then 100 Thieves Apparel creates its co-branded products; after those products are released, Higround then partners with that same brand to co-create its unique products. This sequential process meant launches required a fair bit of coordination and products were only sold on the respective brand’s site.

“Our three brands have amazing synergies with each other. While they share some of the same audience, they also have unique fans who the other brands would love to sell to,” says Francis Nguyen, director of ecommerce at 100 Thieves. This led them to think about how they could make a stronger impact with upcoming launches: why not sell the collab products on their other brands’ sites at launch, maximizing the amount of people they reach?

Tapping into new audiences at scale with Canal

In 2023, they put this intuition to the test when planning an iconic collaboration with Dragon Ball Z. As they got closer to the dual launch, their team turned to Canal to seamlessly cross-sell the Dragon Ball Z products on both 100 Thieves and Higround’s sites. Both brands each joined Canal as a Storefront and a Supplier, making it possible for both brands to cross-sell the Dragon Ball Z collab products.

According to Ngyuen, getting set up with Canal was a very smooth and easy process. "The app is pretty plug-and-play,” shares Nguyen. “The Canal team was very accommodating to our needs and it was very quick to get our products added onto to Canal and then connected to the 100 Thieves and Higround storefronts.”

More brand equity, more sales

When it came time to launch, both the 100 Thieves Apparel and Higround team promoted the launch to their respective customers. Both websites featured the same products, which ranged from 100 Thieves t-shirts and hoodies to Higround keyboards and mousepads. The result? “It was a very fruitful strategy–we saw a ton of 100 Thieves customers buy Higround keyboards for the first time, and we equally saw Higround customers becoming aware of 100 Thieves apparel,” highlights Nguyen.

“I think Canal is uniquely designed to help set up a lot of merchants for success, especially ones that would like to kind of expand and grow their SKU base without the needs of having to just supply it on their own or make purchase orders,” shares Nguyen. “For us, it was a really quick and easy way to lift our AOV without all the headaches for holding inventory from another brand.”