E-commerce launches new collection with $45,000 in pre-orders from a single giveaway

The challenge

A 4-person fashion e-commerce was launching their Spring/Summer 2026 collection on March 15. Their previous launches had been quiet — typically $3-5k in first-week revenue, mostly from existing customers. They wanted to break out of the existing-customer cycle and reach new audiences. The problem: their content team was 1 person, and any giveaway at scale (10k+ comments) had historically taken 4-6 hours to manually pick a winner using spreadsheets.

The PickAWin strategy

They ran a 'pre-launch giveaway' 7 days before the collection drop. The prize was a complete $400 outfit from the new collection + free shipping. The CTA: 'comment your favorite piece + tag the friend you'd shop this collection with'. They used PickAWin Premium for the podium reveal video, which they pre-scheduled to post at 8 PM (peak Brazil engagement window). When the comment count hit 8,200, they ran the draw — total processing time: 30 seconds. The reveal video was posted to Reels + stories + sent to all comment-taggers via DM with a 'thanks for participating, here's 15% off your first order' code.

"We expected the giveaway to be a marketing thing. We didn't expect it to BE the launch. By the time the collection went live, we had pre-orders queued up for 12 weeks of inventory."

— Roberto Silva, founder

Timeline

Key takeaways

• →Treat the giveaway as the launch, not a marketing tactic for the launch. The reveal IS the announcement.
• →Bulk processing matters more than you think. 4-6 hours of manual work means you can't run giveaways at the cadence the algorithm rewards.
• →Use the 15%-off code for non-winners as a controlled-burn email capture. 4,100 emails > 1 winner.
• →Pre-schedule the reveal for peak engagement window. The cinematic format requires people watching live — don't waste it at 3 AM.