eCommerce Master Plan

By Chloe ThomasBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology Marketing

eCommerce Master Plan episodes

May 25eCommerce MasterPlan | 596: Uncle Matt’s Hats: Using Storytelling, UGC, and Mission to Grow an eCommerce Brand
Steve Willicott is the founder at Uncle Matt’s Hats, selling baseball caps and supporting men’s mental health. Founded in 2024, they sell via their Shopify store, and are about to launch their second range.

In this episode, Steve explains how Uncle Matt’s Hats has built every part of the business around its mission — from product design to packaging to customer acquisition. It’s a smart look at how purpose-led brands can create stronger differentiation, generate organic content, and grow without relying on big ad budgets.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Steve Willicott built Uncle Matt’s Hats around purpose — and why that makes customer acquisition easier
The clever packaging idea that turns every order into organic UGC
How a startup with a tiny ad budget gets more from every customer touchpoint
Why the inside of the product matters more than most brands realize
The simple customer insight that led to launching beanies and T-shirts next
How storytelling can help your brand stand out in a crowded, competitive category

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[06:38] Focusing on mission over product
[09:27] Designing meaningful, ethical hats
[11:34] Expanding beyond baseball caps
[15:13] Organic UGC and giftable packaging
[20:01] Sharing mental health stories and support
[22:42] Reducing customer acquisition costs
[23:54] Listen to Steve’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/596
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.537 –> 00:07.989
[SPEAKER_01]: part of the thing of being a startup and, you know, not having a massive budget, everything needs to work a lot harder for us.
00:08.449 –> 00:16.241
[SPEAKER_01]: So the packaging needs to do a job, you know, the product needs to do a job, our experience of unboxing needs to do a job and provide us that UGC.
00:16.302 –> 00:23.693
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess everything is kind of been designed to reduce down the need for that aid acquisition.
00:26.052 –> 00:29.097
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:29.117 –> 00:33.183
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:33.704 –> 00:41.817
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:44.750 –> 00:45.973
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.
00:45.993 –> 00:47.235
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.
00:47.335 –> 00:51.083
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:51.684 –> 00:53.929
[SPEAKER_02]: We are a show funded by our sponsors.
00:53.989 –> 00:55.873
[SPEAKER_02]: They really do make all this possible.
00:55.913 –> 01:01.324
[SPEAKER_02]: So brands, excuse me for a second or two whilst I speak to our supplier side listeners.
01:01.304 –> 01:12.965
[SPEAKER_02]: Our sponsorship calendar for the second half of 2026 is now open with some cool, whole-back catalog of episodes options that really get your campaign in front of the maximum ears fast.
01:13.486 –> 01:21.000
[SPEAKER_02]: So please do get in touch with me via ECMP.info for such sponsor if you’re interested in finding out more about that.
01:20.980 –> 01:45.975
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re talking to a smaller business than usual, but one that’s doing some really cool stuff really well that we can all listen, listen from, learn from, they are, have created a product that’s kind of secondary to the mission of the business, but as you’ll get about to hear, they’ve created that product so in harmony with the mission.
01:45.955 –> 01:53.063
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s not another angle I think they could have thought of and then even the packaging goes into that as well and then that impacts on how they do the marketing.
01:53.764 –> 02:01.332
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s both delivering on the mission perfectly whilst also delivering maximum impact for the e-commerce business as well as super fascinating.
02:01.712 –> 02:02.393
[SPEAKER_02]: Great guest.
02:02.493 –> 02:13.245
[SPEAKER_02]: I know you’re going to like it and make sure you listen to the end of the episode because you don’t want to miss out on his top tips together with our discussion about the pros and cons of AI note takers.
02:19.030 –> 02:21.354
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.
02:21.374 –> 02:27.403
[SPEAKER_02]: Steve Willacott is the founder at Uncle Matt’s Hats, selling baseball caps and supporting men’s mental health.
02:27.824 –> 02:33.693
[SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2024, they sell via their Shopify store and are about to launch their second product range.
02:34.114 –> 02:34.815
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Steve.
02:35.356 –> 02:36.137
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you for having me.
02:36.738 –> 02:39.402
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool to have you on the show.
02:39.562 –> 02:41.325
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love the…
02:41.643 –> 02:43.926
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of the all encompassing thing of your business.
02:43.946 –> 02:50.153
[SPEAKER_02]: So very, very cool to get into that shortly, I’m sure, but first off Steve, how did you end up in the marvelous world of e-commerce?
02:51.074 –> 03:01.306
[SPEAKER_01]: Not without planning actually, but um, so I was eat the CEO of a pure play e-com business for 11 years in online sports business selling rugby and football gear.
03:01.946 –> 03:07.853
[SPEAKER_01]: So joining that more from an operational point of view and then obviously going into more of the digital and
03:07.833 –> 03:15.404
[SPEAKER_01]: e-commerce based functions left that business in 2016, exited and set up a consultancy.
03:16.145 –> 03:24.197
[SPEAKER_01]: So I advise businesses that many brands that have a e-commerce function that also have bricks and mortar or third-party wholesale.
03:24.237 –> 03:27.683
[SPEAKER_01]: That sort of thing helped them with their e-commerce function.
03:28.223 –> 03:33.992
[SPEAKER_01]: And then more recently set up a Puply DTC brand, which is that brand.
03:34.698 –> 03:35.320
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.
03:35.440 –> 03:39.794
[SPEAKER_02]: And you said you come in, came in to e-commerce from the ops side of things.
03:39.874 –> 03:42.582
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that was a good way in?
03:42.703 –> 03:48.420
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, is it easier if you know the logistics to learn the marketing or vice versa?
03:48.923 –> 03:49.784
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
03:49.804 –> 04:04.162
[SPEAKER_01]: I think because then you know the limitations, you know, I think there’s sometimes going to be a disconnect between marketing, digital and then the actual very basic function of getting something out of the door and getting to the customer and the service.
04:04.222 –> 04:13.093
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think so I think it does help that because you sort of think and decide what is practicable and what isn’t practicable in terms of what you can actually push through marketing.
04:13.914 –> 04:17.158
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s so easy for
04:18.691 –> 04:23.821
[SPEAKER_02]: sit in our offices and forget, especially if we’re nowhere near our own fulfilment and forget the physical reality.
04:23.841 –> 04:31.675
[SPEAKER_02]: I was, I think if you, yes, if you’ve come in from that angle, it’s so, so much harder to forget actually there’s customers.
04:31.936 –> 04:42.235
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re not numbers on a sheet, actually there’s physical product, there’s boxes, there’s all of this going on which is so important if we’re going to run a business business well to understand all of it.
04:42.670 –> 04:50.799
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, we all sort of say, oh, you know, we put the customer first and we do what the customer wants, but it’s quite easy to be distance from that quite quickly.
04:51.039 –> 04:54.903
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it’s always good to have a check in and sort of go, you know, what can we physically do?
04:54.943 –> 04:56.244
[SPEAKER_01]: What can’t we physically do?
04:56.785 –> 04:59.448
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and then we will market appropriately.
05:00.509 –> 05:01.110
[SPEAKER_02]: Very true.
05:01.170 –> 05:05.975
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, let’s talk about Uncle Matt’s hats, your hat brand.
05:06.896 –> 05:08.998
[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the world are you and where do you sell to?
05:09.721 –> 05:15.327
[SPEAKER_01]: We are, as I say, we’re pure play D to C so we only sell online.
05:16.008 –> 05:23.696
[SPEAKER_01]: We do run some of our own events where we retail in person, but the majority is E com D to C. So throughout our website.
05:25.358 –> 05:25.558
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
05:26.479 –> 05:28.902
[SPEAKER_02]: And do you sell globally or are you purely UK?
05:29.383 –> 05:38.833
[SPEAKER_01]: Not globally globally, so obviously the predominant sales at the moment is UK, but yes, we do.
05:39.505 –> 05:44.640
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don’t think we can talk about the product without talking about why you started the business.
05:44.680 –> 05:49.313
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s start with why you started the business then we can get into the product itself.
05:49.850 –> 05:50.531
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re okay.
05:50.551 –> 05:52.473
[SPEAKER_01]: So the business is called Uncle Matt’s hats.
05:53.034 –> 05:57.179
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt was my brother who we sadly lost in 2020 to suicide.
05:57.480 –> 06:07.192
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things he would do was he was who were baseball caps and he would always buy my kids baseball caps and they became known to them as their Uncle Matt’s hats because he was their uncle and he was called Matt.
06:07.693 –> 06:14.642
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I then wanted to set up the business and do some, you know, almost sort of social good at a business for social good.
06:15.027 –> 06:19.393
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we thought about naming it, of course it just made sense to use that same term that Uncle Matt’s hat.
06:19.474 –> 06:22.658
[SPEAKER_01]: So whilst it’s not about him, per se, that’s why his name is on it.
06:23.179 –> 06:31.211
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this quite a nice link of hat and your head and protecting your head, you know, in terms of a metaphor for looking after yourself.
06:31.231 –> 06:32.212
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that’s where it came from.
06:32.793 –> 06:38.301
[SPEAKER_02]: And do you think of the product of the business as the hat or the impact that you have?
06:38.585 –> 06:54.045
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely the impact, definitely the impact in fact that the hat is almost secondary to what we’re trying to do and you know we always thought this but we have proved it since launch people don’t come to us because they need a hat, you know they’re not going on holiday and going.
06:54.025 –> 07:20.218
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, it’s going to be said I need a hat or you know those sorts of things they’re coming to us because of the mission because of the purpose because of because of what it’s all about and what we’re trying to do and then obviously they buy into it because they think oh yeah, I could I can wear a hat or you know some people buy the hats and and and sort of you know stick it on a shelf is a kind of an ornament some people have every color that we that we have put out there so whilst it is a hat brand it’s not necessarily about hats.
07:20.755 –> 07:23.118
[SPEAKER_02]: which makes so much sense, but so little sense.
07:24.119 –> 07:25.921
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s right, yes.
07:25.941 –> 07:30.786
[SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, we’re not trying to solve a gap in the market in terms of hats.
07:31.027 –> 07:33.890
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re not trying to make a hat that doesn’t currently exist.
07:33.930 –> 07:34.871
[SPEAKER_01]: It does.
07:35.151 –> 07:36.633
[SPEAKER_01]: And they’re very good hats.
07:36.993 –> 07:37.774
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re very premium.
07:38.175 –> 07:39.096
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re made of good materials.
07:39.116 –> 07:41.218
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re in 95% recycled materials.
07:41.859 –> 07:46.644
[SPEAKER_01]: So they’re a decent hat, but we’re not trying to solve a problem that hasn’t already been solved.
07:46.664 –> 07:50.188
[SPEAKER_01]: What we’re trying to do is help with a mission
07:50.725 –> 07:56.151
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it would have been so easy with the mission that you’ve got to just go and take a.n.
07:56.171 –> 08:15.633
[SPEAKER_02]: other baseball cap off the shelf and slap a logo on it, but you’ve got a lot more into the creation of the product and creating something that’s really worthwhile, not just, you know, going on to Ali Barbar by being some units, which I think you know, it would have been perfectly reasonable for you to do given the mission.
08:15.653 –> 08:18.977
[SPEAKER_02]: So why did you want to make sure the hat was really good as
08:19.261 –> 08:21.925
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, God, I wish we could have just stuck a logo on that.
08:22.366 –> 08:25.131
[SPEAKER_01]: On that, we could buy it in zero to be in a lot, a lot easier.
08:25.652 –> 08:39.495
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the reason comes out of the proposition of the brand and that, you know, if we launch a hat and say, I was about men, well, if you really strip it back and say, right, we’re going to launch a hat, okay, why would anybody buy our hat?
08:39.515 –> 08:40.917
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don’t we, you know, the answer to that?
08:41.017 –> 08:45.184
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it because it’s got a cool logo, one ball, some people might not like that logo, some people might.
08:45.164 –> 08:51.634
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s layer on, we want to have a, you know, a social effect and do some good in the mental health world.
08:51.715 –> 08:53.117
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let’s layer that on there.
08:53.137 –> 08:54.559
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that mean people would buy that hat?
08:54.579 –> 08:58.385
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they might buy into it a little bit more because of the purpose and the mission.
08:58.986 –> 09:00.148
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s still just a hat.
09:00.288 –> 09:01.611
[SPEAKER_01]: So what can we do?
09:01.631 –> 09:06.639
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we kind of stripped everything back, layer by layer and go, does it still work without this, without this part of it?
09:06.719 –> 09:08.742
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it doesn’t, then we can’t do it.
09:08.722 –> 09:15.789
[SPEAKER_01]: So to explain that the hats are very clean and simple on the outside, very, you know, classic and kind of uncluttered.
09:15.809 –> 09:22.235
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the inside, we have a graphic, a pattern, and is what we call the brain freeze graphic.
09:22.275 –> 09:25.399
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s representing that moment where just stuff becomes too much.
09:25.419 –> 09:27.120
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got too much going on inside your head.
09:27.961 –> 09:33.987
[SPEAKER_01]: And that came from the idea that when I was speaking to people after I lost my brother, a lot of people said that when they’re struggling,
09:33.967 –> 09:38.054
[SPEAKER_01]: they would look at other people and say, you know, why am I feeling like this?
09:38.214 –> 09:39.236
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone else is fine.
09:39.596 –> 09:40.778
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone else has got their life sorted.
09:40.878 –> 09:41.840
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I feeling like this?
09:42.261 –> 09:47.369
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what we did to to to that, you know, a step further is said, well, on the inside is where all this stuff is going on.
09:47.389 –> 09:48.611
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s put that on the inside.
09:48.631 –> 09:53.118
[SPEAKER_01]: So in fact, we spent more time designing the inside of the hat that people don’t see them designing the outside of the hat.
09:53.800 –> 10:00.210
[SPEAKER_01]: So without that kind of layer of storytelling, it doesn’t work as a as a proposition.
10:00.190 –> 10:05.018
[SPEAKER_01]: that then means is you cannot take an off-the-shelf hat and apply a pattern very well.
10:05.118 –> 10:08.564
[SPEAKER_01]: You can try and do it but very well to the inside of a hat equally.
10:08.604 –> 10:17.078
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn’t want to take a cheap hat that probably has a, you know, I don’t know has not been made particularly ethically or isn’t using very sort of sustainable materials or sorts of things.
10:17.338 –> 10:19.241
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had to go more bespoke for that.
10:19.301 –> 10:24.510
[SPEAKER_01]: So actually the hat itself is completely built from the ground up just to
10:25.216 –> 10:33.515
[SPEAKER_02]: make so much sense and it really just shows that that whole there’s no bit of your business that isn’t untouched by the mission.
10:33.936 –> 10:34.377
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
10:34.398 –> 10:40.592
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you mentioned to me before I said in the intro, you’re about to launch that your second product range.
10:40.572 –> 10:49.989
[SPEAKER_02]: Given you have this clear mission with the business, and as you’ve already said, it’s more important than the product that the physical product is, what’s the rationale for creating a second product?
10:50.009 –> 10:55.520
[SPEAKER_02]: Because presumably you could have, you don’t necessarily need a second product from the outside as perspective.
10:55.540 –> 10:58.706
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got the mission, we’ve got the hat, we don’t need anything else.
10:58.726 –> 11:03.795
[SPEAKER_02]: So why go, or tell us what the second product is, and then what the strategy behind it is.
11:04.501 –> 11:14.157
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, very, very simple really in that we’ve had lots of people and this is interesting when we sort of talking about the fact that the product isn’t necessary, the proposition.
11:14.737 –> 11:21.308
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of people saying, love what you’re doing really, really like the whole, you know, the whole story, the whole purpose.
11:21.368 –> 11:26.997
[SPEAKER_01]: We love the, I’m sure we’re talking about the packaging and I’m able to level the packaging that we do and the kind of the unboxing experience.
11:27.478 –> 11:28.720
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don’t wear hats.
11:28.700 –> 11:36.590
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’ve got a bet, sorry, that we’re baseball caps and I’ve got a, or I’ve got an overly large head or a small head of never found a hat that fits me all these sorts of things.
11:37.291 –> 11:44.701
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s one aspect and other people who said, I always wear beany hats and everywhere baseball caps, baseball hats don’t look any good on me.
11:44.741 –> 11:46.863
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that’s the second range.
11:46.903 –> 11:54.353
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve, we’ve launched into a, into beany hats just to sort of solve that thing where if somebody doesn’t want to wear a baseball cap, they always wear a beany hat.
11:54.333 –> 11:56.116
[SPEAKER_01]: then you know we can fulfill that.
11:56.517 –> 12:04.572
[SPEAKER_01]: What comes next as well is again to plug that gap is whilst we are a hat brand and we don’t want to go away from the fact that we are a hat brand that’s our primary message.
12:05.113 –> 12:14.771
[SPEAKER_01]: We ran one of our events last year and had some t-shirts for the staff to wear and everybody’s asking where they could buy the t-shirt and I say we don’t wear a hat brand and we don’t sell t-shirts and it’s what I would wear that.
12:14.791 –> 12:15.092
[SPEAKER_01]: So
12:15.072 –> 12:25.465
[SPEAKER_01]: we’re also launching a very simple range of t-shirts just so that people can buy into that if they don’t want to wear a hat but they still sort of want to be part of the brand and I guess represent the brand.
12:25.907 –> 12:28.896
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that’s the reasoning behind launching into other areas.
12:29.382 –> 12:32.327
[SPEAKER_02]: make so much sense when now you’ve explained it to me.
12:32.367 –> 12:39.841
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s like it’s it’s the only if we want to fill the mission we need to make make it available to everybody and not everybody who has baseball caps.
12:40.322 –> 12:41.123
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that’s right.
12:41.143 –> 12:44.770
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadly, I wish everybody did, but yes, that’s exactly it.
12:44.790 –> 12:47.494
[SPEAKER_02]: I I giggle as I am someone who doesn’t wear baseball caps.
12:47.595 –> 12:51.241
[SPEAKER_02]: Baseball caps plus fringe, terrible, terrible combination.
12:51.782 –> 12:54.006
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I interest you in a beanie?
12:54.509 –> 12:55.571
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll talk after.
12:55.632 –> 13:03.470
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mentioned about the unboxing, which for me is a core part of the product as well.
13:03.570 –> 13:07.179
[SPEAKER_02]: So please explain to the audience what you’re doing with the unboxing.
13:07.199 –> 13:08.181
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think this is brilliant.
13:08.819 –> 13:21.216
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so as I said, when we built out the actual hat design and the story of the hat and we called that graphic or something inside of the hat, the brain free graphic because it represents that moment where your brain goes, just can’t take it anymore.
13:21.236 –> 13:22.538
[SPEAKER_01]: That this something’s got to change.
13:22.598 –> 13:25.502
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve got to get it help or I’ve got to change my lifestyle.
13:25.522 –> 13:27.064
[SPEAKER_01]: But whatever it is,
13:27.044 –> 13:43.467
[SPEAKER_01]: And we kept referring to this thing as brain freeze and we were trying to look think of a way of getting, you know, unboxing videos, UGC on social channels, things that that social proof obviously is going to be massive in this because it then becomes part of the tribe and you know, you feel like you’re doing good by talking about the product.
13:43.447 –> 13:50.958
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, in the various brands and businesses I’ve helped over the years, we do a lot on unboxing.
13:51.138 –> 13:57.086
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s very hard to get brands to think about it other than a very functional thing.
13:57.467 –> 14:05.218
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to get that product about customers’ door, and it needs to be safe, and it needs to be kept dry or warm or cold or hot or whatever the product is.
14:05.198 –> 14:09.469
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think why isn’t that part of the proposition, it just tends to be very functional.
14:09.529 –> 14:15.224
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we thought was, well, if we’re talking about this brain freeze moment, what would really make people sort of go, wow, that’s that’s different.
14:15.244 –> 14:15.705
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s weird.
14:15.725 –> 14:18.412
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s quirky what, you know, and want to find out more about it.
14:18.753 –> 14:22.482
[SPEAKER_01]: So we created these massive oversized ice cream tubs.
14:22.462 –> 14:28.651
[SPEAKER_01]: and what we did is we designed them as though they were a separate brand, a separate product, so it was called Uncle Matt’s Brain Free’s Ice Cream.
14:29.372 –> 14:38.645
[SPEAKER_01]: And from a functional point of view, it is a hat box, so if you’re a sneak ahead that keeps their shoes in the boxes and keeps them more nice, then you can use it for that.
14:39.085 –> 14:42.170
[SPEAKER_01]: Other people use it for keep dog treats in or, you know, those things.
14:42.210 –> 14:52.384
[SPEAKER_01]: But the key thing for me was making something too good to throw away, so people wouldn’t actually sort of stick it in a bit, it becomes part of the part of the experience.
14:52.364 –> 15:05.380
[SPEAKER_01]: As I say, they’re branded up with an uncommatched brain free size screen, but what we’ve got on the back where you would normally have the things like the nutritional info, instead of having, you know, fats and carbohydrates, we’ve got things like confusion and stress and frustration and things of that.
15:05.400 –> 15:12.909
[SPEAKER_01]: How it all adds up, and, you know, it becomes to a total of too much almost like, you know, if you’re having something that’s really bad for you, that’s not good for you.
15:13.389 –> 15:21.679
[SPEAKER_01]: So it enables us to do all these sort of storytelling moments and little Easter eggs that people find as they go along the way, what we’ve then found is that that
15:21.659 –> 15:31.377
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, where is, you know, in multiple businesses I’ve worked with, you know, we’re paying people for UGC because we want that content to post online or to pump into paid ads or whatever it may be.
15:31.897 –> 15:35.464
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re finding that we’re getting that organically without actually having to pay for that.
15:35.484 –> 15:46.063
[SPEAKER_01]: So somebody’s buying this using their own money and then doing us a very, very good piece of UGC unboxing the product, which we then sort of obviously gives us organics reach.
15:46.043 –> 15:55.297
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, we then talk to them and say, can we use that content on our website, which nine times out of 10 they say yes, can we pump that into more meta-rads?
15:55.417 –> 15:56.278
[SPEAKER_01]: They normally say yes.
15:56.899 –> 16:08.136
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it almost becomes this cyclical piece where your customers are creating the content for our acquisition piece, and which then obviously helps us acquire, it becomes repetitive.
16:08.116 –> 16:12.844
[SPEAKER_01]: The packaging also aids us with retention because it becomes quite highly giftable.
16:13.165 –> 16:24.966
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you’ve bought it and you’ve had a nice experience, you thought it was good and you know, something that’s, I really just want to buy it as a gift or somebody that’s going through a tricky time, or will it send them a giant ice cream top of the hat and it, and hopefully you know, make them a smile just for a few minutes.
16:25.447 –> 16:33.060
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we’ve got other ideas for other types of hats, where we stick them in other strange packaging, which then hopefully it becomes a bit collectible.
16:33.040 –> 16:49.530
[SPEAKER_01]: As you say, every part of what we’ve done has been for a reason, whether it’s to A or A, or acquisition to fuel our retention, whether it’s our gifting piece, whether it’s our content piece, we also then get, we put these tubs in an outer box, because obviously we don’t want the tubs to be damaged in transit.
16:49.510 –> 16:52.313
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the outside of the box, it says, keep chill.
16:52.353 –> 16:57.639
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s got lots of ice cream and keep refrigerated type wording on there.
16:57.659 –> 17:05.768
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we found is that it gives us some brilliant content and really good stories where people have panic because they’ve signed for an order for somebody and they’ve gone, oh my God, it’s ice cream and eat to freeze this.
17:06.309 –> 17:12.816
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’ve had pictures of it appearing of freezes in co-working spaces, stuff like that, whereas the customer couldn’t find.
17:12.856 –> 17:17.762
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s sort of again, it gives us good content, good storytelling, and all of that helps to fuel the mission.
17:18.248 –> 17:27.999
[SPEAKER_02]: I find it so fascinating the way in which in your business you have managed to take the product and the mission and the needs of an e-commerce business, i.e.
17:28.099 –> 17:37.970
[SPEAKER_02]: sales and repeat purchases and customer love and all of this and combine them into one strategy that delivers on all fronts.
17:38.450 –> 17:41.033
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it’s such a lesson for
17:41.013 –> 18:07.307
[SPEAKER_02]: for all of us on if you actually have that clear vision and mission in the business and you actually think about these different points in the customer journey you can do so much with so little you know in terms of it’s a it’s a it’s a brand box around the ice cream tub box around a baseball cap but yet it takes so many boxes both for your mission and for the customer journey and for the need for UGC content for marketing and and and and and and and and and and
18:08.418 –> 18:09.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, that’s it.
18:09.559 –> 18:15.284
[SPEAKER_01]: And we tend to think about, you know, scrutinize everything where, is there an opportunity in this thing?
18:15.445 –> 18:18.708
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, on the outside of the box, it says, keep chillers, I’ve said.
18:19.388 –> 18:35.083
[SPEAKER_01]: But then there’s a little note underneath it that talks to the delivery driver that says, don’t worry, you don’t really need to keep this refrigerated, but what we’re doing is that it’s very short paragraph of of text, but actually explains the mission to the delivery driver because, you know, we thought, well, actually,
18:35.063 –> 18:44.558
[SPEAKER_01]: being pure, pure play and D to C, every one of our purchases will be handled by multiple people when it leaves us to land with the customer.
18:44.578 –> 18:46.541
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s use that as an opportunity.
18:46.581 –> 18:48.183
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s try and tell the story to them as well.
18:48.284 –> 18:49.986
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, they might think, what the hell is this thing?
18:50.026 –> 18:52.029
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn’t feel like ice cream is quite light.
18:52.089 –> 18:56.456
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, all that sort of intrigue and storytelling, where can you apply storytelling?
18:56.637 –> 18:57.578
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we can, we do.
18:58.351 –> 19:02.316
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned earlier that you have an event program.
19:03.217 –> 19:06.140
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re not talking a pop-up shop while you’re selling some hats away.
19:06.300 –> 19:09.564
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s more of a seminar, but that’d be a fair word.
19:09.864 –> 19:10.905
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly that.
19:10.985 –> 19:11.506
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly that.
19:11.546 –> 19:16.712
[SPEAKER_01]: So as part of our mission, we’ve said, we’re very much in terms of the mental health space.
19:16.812 –> 19:27.244
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re trying to sit at the kind of the prevention and of the scale, normalizing enough, getting enough people to talk about it, that if and when you do have an issue
19:27.224 –> 19:30.307
[SPEAKER_01]: sorts, you don’t go on a god what the hell is wrong with me?
19:30.967 –> 19:35.632
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m the only person that’s ever felt like this, I need to take drastic action, which obviously is what happened with my brother.
19:36.272 –> 19:37.733
[SPEAKER_01]: So normalizing all those things.
19:37.773 –> 19:44.139
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way we do that is obviously, you know, taking a bit of an irrelevant approach to the subjects.
19:44.159 –> 19:51.106
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, sticking a giant ice cream tub, but also these events that we put on are basically gathering people.
19:51.166 –> 19:57.231
[SPEAKER_01]: So gathering people, much like you would do in the marketing e-com space where we all turn up to, you know, seminars
19:57.211 –> 20:18.240
[SPEAKER_01]: conferences and things like that and learn about what people are doing in our world, it’s exactly that, but for the mental health world, so we have speakers on that may be podcasters in the mental health space or people that run community groups, or even just people talking about their own experiences, we had a collaboration with Barclays where we ran one in there.
20:18.220 –> 20:20.905
[SPEAKER_01]: in their sort of flagship story and in more gate.
20:20.925 –> 20:27.338
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had one of their vice presidents just talking about his experiences and his issues that he’s experienced in the past, you know.
20:27.379 –> 20:31.026
[SPEAKER_01]: So becomes just a way of sort of telling the story without being too heavy.
20:31.046 –> 20:34.052
[SPEAKER_01]: What we didn’t want to be do is being too prescriptive and saying,
20:34.032 –> 20:47.142
[SPEAKER_01]: To improve your mental health, you must do this, this, this, this, this, this, you know, we don’t know, we’re all in the same boat, you know, and what what works for you might not work for for someone else, but it allows us to start having those conversations and that is a massive part of our give back.
20:47.864 –> 20:51.552
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other part is with a part of charity, which is much more at the
20:51.532 –> 20:54.697
[SPEAKER_01]: intervention end of the scale where, you know, people need help.
20:54.757 –> 21:01.206
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, we support a charity court chasing this stigma that has a directory of all mental health services where people can get help online.
21:01.266 –> 21:10.419
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so, yes, it is whilst, obviously, you know, we do sell hats there and we encourage people to buy hats there, that’s not the purpose of the event.
21:10.439 –> 21:20.914
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the way it will comes together, but I must ask you about the marketing decisions in the business
21:21.046 –> 21:30.422
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s especially hard when you have a mission driven business when you’re, you know, contributing to charities and doing or this good is how much do you spend on marketing, which channels do you go down?
21:30.442 –> 21:32.505
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if someone came to you said, I’m not seeing a hat brand.
21:32.525 –> 21:34.669
[SPEAKER_02]: I go right into the X, Y, and Z to grow it.
21:34.709 –> 21:40.318
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think I feel like I’d be making different decisions if I was running a vision mission business.
21:40.699 –> 21:47.290
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you found, you know, with all your experience working for, you know, advising many, many businesses and running a much bigger business in the past?
21:47.270 –> 21:55.710
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you found you’ve made different decisions about the marketing because of the mission of the business or is it still the same playbook?
21:56.180 –> 22:03.992
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think there’s a couple of things that I think, you know, obviously on this, I’ve been able to do it’s actually what I feel is right.
22:04.012 –> 22:11.543
[SPEAKER_01]: You obviously, you know, advising businesses as always, there’s always other, I guess, forces that, you know, allow or prevent you to do certain things.
22:11.604 –> 22:15.489
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’ve kind of had free reigns, so I’ve ever, maybe overindulged myself.
22:15.910 –> 22:22.440
[SPEAKER_01]: But equally, I think part of the thing of being a startup and, you know, not having a massive budget,
22:22.420 –> 22:27.065
[SPEAKER_01]: For some other businesses, we may have solved an issue by saying, OK, we’ve got that budget.
22:27.105 –> 22:33.312
[SPEAKER_01]: We can flood the market with that particular messaging, or we can utilize budget to solve that problem.
22:34.153 –> 22:37.557
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily just throwing money at it, but doing it in a considered way.
22:37.898 –> 22:39.059
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have that budget.
22:39.079 –> 22:41.922
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything needs to work a lot harder for us.
22:42.383 –> 22:44.285
[SPEAKER_01]: So the packaging needs to do a job.
22:44.866 –> 22:48.630
[SPEAKER_01]: The product needs to do a job.
22:48.610 –> 22:51.896
[SPEAKER_01]: experience of unboxing needs to do a job and provide us that UGC.
22:51.956 –> 22:59.670
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess everything is kind of been designed to reduce down the need for that aid acquisition.
23:00.271 –> 23:07.665
[SPEAKER_01]: So whilst we obviously do support that with a small budget, if we tell these stories and we create this kind of a hook,
23:07.949 –> 23:14.199
[SPEAKER_01]: We in theory don’t need to spend as much on acquiring a customer as another brand would do.
23:14.639 –> 23:18.946
[SPEAKER_01]: Particularly if there are another me too, Brad, you know, it’s very hard competitive space where you say, what’s different about this product?
23:19.066 –> 23:21.470
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it’s the same as that other product over there.
23:21.931 –> 23:24.975
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’re going to trade on price, so we’re going to pay more in terms of advertising.
23:25.236 –> 23:34.530
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all the things we’ve got in our arsenal, the more different we make our brand, the easier it is to cut through, and therefore the less we have to pay to acquire a customer.
23:37.227 –> 23:42.094
[SPEAKER_00]: E-commerce master plan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
23:42.234 –> 23:50.526
[SPEAKER_00]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
23:50.546 –> 23:52.409
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s time for the top tips round.
23:55.233 –> 23:59.940
[SPEAKER_02]: I love this section because me and our listeners are really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
24:00.000 –> 24:01.803
[SPEAKER_02]: Steve are you ready for the top tips?
24:02.403 –> 24:03.505
[SPEAKER_01]: It was born ready.
24:04.345 –> 24:04.806
[SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.
24:04.887 –> 24:11.848
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, the book top tip if everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better.
24:12.169 –> 24:13.714
[SPEAKER_02]: Which book would you recommend?
24:14.167 –> 24:32.509
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I’m not a massive fan of business growth book, so I think they can all be a bit kind of convoluted, but one of the ones that has always stuck with me, and I’m sure many people have seen it, many listeners have seen it, is the start with why, so the Simonsonic book, which is all around, why, why are you doing that thing?
24:32.589 –> 24:33.871
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you making that product?
24:34.231 –> 24:43.482
[SPEAKER_01]: So not the what you’re doing, not the how you’re doing, but the why, and I think that’s always stuck with me, one with the work I do with other brands, and how is that product or service different,
24:43.462 –> 24:46.066
[SPEAKER_01]: definitely with this, you know, what why are we doing this?
24:46.467 –> 24:49.651
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re not doing this to actually enable people to put some hats on their heads.
24:49.712 –> 24:50.533
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s not the purpose.
24:51.474 –> 24:52.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Great recommendation.
24:53.057 –> 24:59.867
[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic top tip even, which marketing method do we either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
25:00.657 –> 25:08.025
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I’m still very heavily, you know, email focused, you know, you’re here still a lot of things saying how emails, dead and things like that.
25:08.066 –> 25:13.572
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, any number of the businesses I work with and even in my business, that’s simply not true.
25:13.652 –> 25:22.822
[SPEAKER_01]: So in terms of traffic driver, I think, you know, you tend to sometimes have to rely on the paid channels, so meta Google, those sorts of things, to drive traffic.
25:22.863 –> 25:24.184
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the biggest
25:24.164 –> 25:32.232
[SPEAKER_01]: thing that people don’t do is they look as a primary conversion goal of getting an order, getting a purchase, which obviously everybody’s going to want to do.
25:32.613 –> 25:38.259
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think what people don’t do is look at a secondary conversion goal and say, well, if they don’t purchase, what else can I get?
25:38.579 –> 25:40.321
[SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully that’s an email address.
25:40.701 –> 25:48.810
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I can get an email address, I can then start talking to these people in explaining why, why we’re different, you know, how well, why we, that they should buy into our, our brand.
25:48.850 –> 25:49.210
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
25:49.190 –> 25:54.960
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you know, definitely need to rely on those page channels for traffic, but definitely second conversion for email.
25:54.980 –> 25:55.822
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully agree with you.
25:56.503 –> 25:57.244
[SPEAKER_02]: Tooltop tip.
25:57.304 –> 26:06.220
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone-up or just a way of working, is there a call-it-all tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day-to-day.
26:06.757 –> 26:23.435
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this probably says more about me than anything else, but I’ve fallen in love with AI note takers simply because I’ve gotten to the point where I was writing so many notes and all these things and I come back in the guy, I don’t know, there’s just me that I’m bad at writing notes, but I do not know what my notes mean.
26:23.755 –> 26:36.409
[SPEAKER_01]: They do not make any sense to me, so actually be the able to rely on AI note takers and then be able to almost prompt them to give me the information I need out of all the meetings and things that I’ve attended.
26:37.182 –> 26:39.845
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a I have a love hate relationship with them.
26:39.865 –> 26:52.537
[SPEAKER_02]: I think yeah I think if I was still a consultant doing lots of client calls and catch ups or if I was still running the marketing agency you know with lots of client calls and in depth new business calls.
26:52.577 –> 26:56.121
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I’d use them just to have a black and white record.
26:56.561 –> 27:03.088
[SPEAKER_02]: What have been said and I probably would be using them in the way you
27:03.068 –> 27:05.652
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep being there again, I’m not letting you in today.
27:06.193 –> 27:14.266
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think I’ve looked back at the notes it’s taken once, so I’m loving it and people rave about it and just like you did, but I’m not, I can’t find a way to make it useful.
27:14.827 –> 27:24.963
[SPEAKER_01]: But the only problem I have is that I then go into, I rely on the too much, I go into face-to-face meetings, forget to take notes, and then come out and try and find the AI notes, obviously wasn’t there.
27:25.484 –> 27:27.928
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, oh, what was that thing we said?
27:28.313 –> 27:34.522
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I have a tip for that, which is, um, record the meeting on your mobile phone, obviously ask permission first.
27:34.562 –> 27:34.762
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
27:35.223 –> 27:36.044
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
27:36.064 –> 27:40.591
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s weird because people are happy to be recorded on a video call, but they’re not happy to be recorded in person.
27:40.871 –> 27:41.332
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
27:41.392 –> 27:41.853
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:42.053 –> 27:42.654
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s really strange.
27:42.674 –> 27:43.755
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s a psychological thing there.
27:43.775 –> 27:44.376
[SPEAKER_01]: I don’t know what it is.
27:45.017 –> 27:45.838
[SPEAKER_02]: How fascinating.
27:45.898 –> 27:47.360
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we should, we’re in the top tips.
27:47.421 –> 27:48.923
[SPEAKER_02]: We should be, we should be in the next one.
27:49.003 –> 27:50.485
[SPEAKER_02]: But I love, thank you for the tips.
27:51.126 –> 27:51.326
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
27:51.346 –> 27:52.428
[SPEAKER_02]: The carbon top tip.
27:52.448 –> 27:56.093
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to
27:56.596 –> 28:11.132
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, fairly kind of basic, you know, I encourage people not to use single use plastic to, you know, use cardboard, we’re a little bit guilty because we do send a, you know, quite a lot of air with our, with our parcels because of the whole ice cream type of things like that.
28:11.212 –> 28:19.921
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think just keeping it as minimal as possible, you know, when producing what sustain what’s it materials can you use as to say, I had said, 95% recycled plastic.
28:20.421 –> 28:23.785
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think it’s just not using materials when you don’t need to.
28:24.575 –> 28:25.877
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally agree with you.
28:25.937 –> 28:31.006
[SPEAKER_02]: And personally, I think the amount of air you’re shipping is justified by the goals.
28:31.607 –> 28:32.068
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you.
28:32.188 –> 28:32.428
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
28:32.448 –> 28:36.836
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you’ve got my tick in the shipping too much air box.
28:37.517 –> 28:37.617
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
28:37.697 –> 28:38.158
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
28:38.178 –> 28:39.200
[SPEAKER_02]: The good side of that anyway.
28:39.580 –> 28:46.532
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, Steve, before we say goodbye, could you please at the list as now when they can find out more about you and on call Matt Tats.
28:46.765 –> 28:50.409
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so on Comments Hats is exactly that, on Comments Hats on all the social channels.
28:50.449 –> 28:55.374
[SPEAKER_01]: So on Instagram, TikTok, on Facebook, we’re all just at Uncomments Hats.
28:56.074 –> 28:57.776
[SPEAKER_01]: The website is on CommentsHats.com.
28:58.297 –> 29:00.559
[SPEAKER_01]: So basically, just Google Uncomments Hats and you’ll find us.
29:01.159 –> 29:01.860
[SPEAKER_02]: Simple as that.
29:01.880 –> 29:08.407
[SPEAKER_02]: And Steve, you also work and help with other e-commerce brands with their challenges and problems.
29:08.427 –> 29:14.713
[SPEAKER_02]: So could you please tell the audience a little bit about what you get up to and how they can get in contact if they want your help.
29:15.048 –> 29:23.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I tend to work with businesses mainly between kind of five and 10 million some larger than that in terms of turnover.
29:23.675 –> 29:33.464
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s kind of, because I’ve been on all aspects of e-commerce, I normally say what do you need help with and nine times out of 10, I can help.
29:33.984 –> 29:38.588
[SPEAKER_01]: If I can’t help, I normally know somebody that can because I’ve had to seek them out in the past.
29:38.628 –> 29:40.810
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have a good network of people that can help on those fronts.
29:40.830 –> 29:44.093
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, I guess you’ll find me on LinkedIn.
29:44.579 –> 29:49.293
[SPEAKER_02]: Always linked in, or as I’m Steve, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
29:49.313 –> 29:54.068
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been fascinating learning about what you’re up to with Uncle Matt’s hat, so thank you so much for being here.
29:54.810 –> 29:55.332
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you.
29:55.372 –> 29:55.693
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
29:55.733 –> 29:56.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate it.
30:01.859 –> 30:30.246
[SPEAKER_02]: assinating stuff there from Steve, and I think he may be running a relatively small business at the moment, but there’s so much we can all take away from that in terms of how thought through each element of it is, you know, just that the ice cream tub packaging, how that delivers on mission, on value, on literally exciting the people who are handling it as it gets to the person who receives it and bringing that little part of joy, and then how they bring the
30:30.226 –> 30:35.634
[SPEAKER_02]: but also to build community and to build conversations, super fascinating business.
30:36.215 –> 30:38.598
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope you had some good takeaways from that one too.
30:39.039 –> 30:53.179
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode including the top tips and links to what we’ve mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com or you can use our directed episode short links that’s ECMP.info forward slash the episode number.
30:53.159 –> 30:57.824
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to the website, you can also add yourself to the Chloe Thomas newsletter list.
30:57.844 –> 31:01.608
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don’t miss out on any of the stuff I’m sharing to help you improve your business.
31:02.710 –> 31:06.133
[SPEAKER_02]: If you liked this episode, then I’ve got a recommendation for you.
31:06.394 –> 31:08.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not have a listen to episode 457, 457?
31:08.476 –> 31:13.662
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I’m chatting with another fashion brand on a mission.
31:14.062 –> 31:15.664
[SPEAKER_02]: Canada’s Frank and Oak.
31:16.044 –> 31:18.627
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s episode 457.
31:18.607 –> 31:27.480
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more episodes about fashion than head to ECMP.info forward-sash fashion to find all the fashion episodes on the website.
31:28.161 –> 31:32.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
31:32.668 –> 31:44.445
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.
31:44.425 –> 31:49.593
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
31:49.894 –> 32:04.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
33 min
May 18eCommerce MasterPlan | 595: How Moon Phase Studios Scaled to £1M with Email Marketing & Seasonal Strategy, with Hayley Jones
Hayley Jones is the Artist and Founder at Moon Phase Studios. The studio exists to empower its customers to become more attuned to the moon through art, books, and rituals. It was founded in November 2020 when they went from zero to £200k in 8 just weeks! Now they sell via their Shopify store & Etsy store doing over £1million a year.

In this episode, Hayley shares how the business has evolved from a fast-growing startup into a mature, highly seasonal brand with a loyal customer base. She breaks down the strategies behind their success today—from email-first marketing and pre-orders to finding a breakout product and building a business that thrives despite its “peaky” nature.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Moon Phase Studios grew from £0 to £1M+ (and what they’d do differently)
Why email marketing now beats Facebook ads for their revenue
The 13 Moon Journal that changed everything (and why it sells so well)
How pre-orders bring in cash months early (and reduce peak stress)
The truth about running a “peaky” seasonal business—and making it work
Why they brought fulfilment back in-house (and boosted profits)

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:14] Launching the 13 Moon Journal
[09:36] Pre-order strategy and benefits
[11:52] Building the Initial Team
[14:59] Challenges with US fulfillment centers
[18:31] Exciting 2026 customer-driven projects
[22:34] Listen to Hayley’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/595
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:03.796
[SPEAKER_01]: email is the way that we really operate now.
00:03.896 –> 00:05.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So we keep our lists nice and clean.
00:06.019 –> 00:07.762
[SPEAKER_01]: We make sure we’re talking to people that are really interested.
00:08.202 –> 00:14.711
[SPEAKER_01]: And we make sure that when we email them, it’s a conversation coming from me directly to them as if I was talking to a friend of not seen for ages.
00:15.392 –> 00:20.620
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don’t really subscribe to any of the constant emails just showing products and things that look a bit vague.
00:20.920 –> 00:24.946
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all, hi guys, you know, here’s from me, this is what’s going on in my life.
00:25.246 –> 00:28.030
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people
00:30.541 –> 00:33.589
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:33.609 –> 00:37.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:38.221 –> 00:46.322
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:49.272 –> 00:50.533
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.
00:50.573 –> 00:51.654
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.
00:51.674 –> 00:55.898
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:55.918 –> 01:04.527
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode we’re revisiting a past guest, although this one wouldn’t have happened without the introduction to our guest by Craig Thomas Shopify SEO specialist.
01:04.667 –> 01:05.447
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Craig.
01:05.888 –> 01:14.376
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time we have Moonphase Studio on the podcast, I was chatting to their CMO about how they’d got from zero to 200k in just eight weeks.
01:14.897 –> 01:16.478
[SPEAKER_02]: That was six
01:16.458 –> 01:26.152
[SPEAKER_02]: So this time, I get to chat to the founder Hayley all about how the businesses matured and grown over those six years and we’ll be getting into what makes them successful today.
01:26.312 –> 01:33.261
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s an incredibly peak focused business and what we’re talking about how she elongates that peak and brings those sales further.
01:33.322 –> 01:44.457
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll be talking about why they’ve chosen to bring fulfillment back in house and discussing why Facebook ads and email marketing are just so awesome.
01:44.437 –> 01:48.726
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen to the end of the episode because you don’t want to miss out on my guest’s top tips.
01:55.051 –> 01:57.134
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.
01:57.154 –> 02:01.219
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley Jones is the artist and founder at Moon Phase Studios.
02:01.559 –> 02:07.326
[SPEAKER_02]: The studio exists to empower its customers to become more attuned to the moon through art, books and rituals.
02:07.787 –> 02:14.115
[SPEAKER_02]: It was founded in November 2020, when they went from zero to 200,000 pounds in just eight weeks.
02:14.635 –> 02:19.601
[SPEAKER_02]: Now they sell via their Shopify store an Etsy store doing over a million pounds a year.
02:19.681 –> 02:20.923
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Haley.
02:20.903 –> 02:22.225
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Chloe, thanks for having me.
02:22.566 –> 02:28.056
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s awesome to have your business back on the show and to be getting to chat to you the founder for the first time.
02:28.637 –> 02:30.421
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get into Ecommerce?
02:30.441 –> 02:34.067
[SPEAKER_02]: Was Moonface Studios the first thing you did or have you got a history before that?
02:34.628 –> 02:37.073
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no experience in Ecommerce whatsoever.
02:37.053 –> 02:43.544
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve got COVID story, everyone’s got COVID story, but the business I originally had during COVID couldn’t happen, which was in events.
02:43.985 –> 02:51.318
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a side hustle Etsy project which are my moon calendars, which I paint, and I used to sell those in very sort of modest numbers.
02:51.698 –> 02:55.585
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that if I could get them to a wider audience, I’d be able to sell more.
02:55.565 –> 03:00.872
[SPEAKER_01]: and then during that COVID year, I also had a toddler in a baby which made it a bit difficult to go and get someone as well.
03:01.372 –> 03:07.580
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I’ve had first into e-commerce, saying that my first website and trying to get as many out as I could.
03:08.341 –> 03:13.188
[SPEAKER_02]: So many people in that situation, many people now would go, well I’m already on Etsy, I’ll do it on Etsy.
03:13.208 –> 03:19.716
[SPEAKER_02]: What led you to decide to go the Shopify route rather than the Etsy route as the primary growth engine?
03:20.101 –> 03:35.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can’t really scale with Etsy, so Etsy obviously that’s great if Etsy wants to direct customers to you if it doesn’t, doesn’t matter if you’re paying for advertising you’re stuck and you can’t retarget to them and I knew it wasn’t really going to do very much.
03:35.626 –> 03:57.432
[SPEAKER_01]: I’d heard from friends that I knew there in the industry that doing Facebook ads would probably be better and saying that my own website would be better and then leaned into anybody I knew and did a bit of homework and sort of threw the whole thing together quite fast in order to get these calendars out before the time ran out for them not to be available products to sell anymore.
03:57.952 –> 04:05.262
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just quite a good but nightmare thing about a good old perishable product, is it does focus the brain, doesn’t it?
04:05.322 –> 04:10.629
[SPEAKER_01]: It really does, and the other good thing about it was, I mean, it’s a paper product.
04:11.189 –> 04:16.396
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you commit to having something printed on Lytho, the costs just come straight down.
04:16.496 –> 04:20.922
[SPEAKER_01]: So the cost of getting 500 printed to get him 2000 printed wasn’t that massive.
04:20.902 –> 04:24.327
[SPEAKER_01]: but I oversee then and with 2,000 of them, rather than 500.
04:24.748 –> 04:31.938
[SPEAKER_01]: So once I decided to go for that, I had all of these and then I just needed to sell them, which meant there was no distraction for anything else.
04:32.018 –> 04:35.143
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all about getting going on the marketing wheel, really.
04:35.924 –> 04:39.990
[SPEAKER_02]: And six years on, the business is somewhat more
04:41.118 –> 04:41.900
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s the right word?
04:42.041 –> 04:46.375
[SPEAKER_02]: Ad, not necessarily a Vance, but, uh, make sure, we’re short.
04:46.435 –> 04:51.109
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the business is matured, so tell us a bit about it as it is now.
04:51.230 –> 04:53.878
[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the world are you and where are you selling to?
04:54.095 –> 05:04.356
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re based in Redruth in Cornwall, we sell all over UK, direct to customer and we have a nice base of customers, loyal customers in the USA.
05:05.017 –> 05:09.727
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we’re all on Shopify, it’s all direct to customer, we still have a little bit from Etsy.
05:10.408 –> 05:11.310
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that’s it.
05:11.864 –> 05:13.967
[SPEAKER_02]: and what’s the product these days.
05:14.909 –> 05:16.411
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve moved on from just the calendar.
05:16.451 –> 05:21.619
[SPEAKER_01]: So the calendar was a big poster with loads of information on and to sort of paint a picture of what that is.
05:22.360 –> 05:30.092
[SPEAKER_01]: Got every day of the year ahead and all of the moon phases, all the meteor showers, all the information that you could read about maybe from sort of
05:30.072 –> 05:46.174
[SPEAKER_01]: data given in a bit more of an artistic way so it’s a bit more of a visual piece and we’ve done really well with our calendars and we dabbled with other products that we could do in and around that that never really did as well and then three years ago we launched a journal 13 moon journal which is
05:46.154 –> 06:01.100
[SPEAKER_01]: In essence, it’s a diary, but it’s completely formatted by the lunar cycles, so it starts with the last new moon of the previous year and takes you through the 13 moons rather than the 12 months of the year, and that has completely changed the business.
06:01.200 –> 06:08.753
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s absolutely our best setting product now that we’re known for, and that’s the bread and butter behind Moonface Studios now.
06:09.357 –> 06:14.684
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of trial and error to find that product, but it’s now overtaken the calendars.
06:15.165 –> 06:15.906
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, totally.
06:16.166 –> 06:16.947
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
06:18.149 –> 06:20.572
[SPEAKER_01]: We still have people who buy both loyal to both.
06:20.833 –> 06:24.978
[SPEAKER_01]: We have some that are completely separate, but no, the journal really resonates.
06:25.179 –> 06:28.724
[SPEAKER_01]: And there’s not actually anything like that out there.
06:29.044 –> 06:38.537
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to have something similar, you can, but it would still fit with the, the Gregorian calendar with the jammy, the first and the Monday to Sunday format, whereas ours doesn’t do that.
06:39.040 –> 06:42.765
[SPEAKER_02]: And is it dated or is it evergreen?
06:43.286 –> 06:44.127
[SPEAKER_02]: It is dated.
06:44.147 –> 06:51.877
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be dated and order to be able to get the information across over when is the equinox, when is the super moon, when is the sun, so.
06:52.338 –> 07:00.709
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has to be dated, which I think has also been a bit of a boon for us in terms of you can’t actually just buy it once and keep using it every year.
07:00.729 –> 07:07.258
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have to completely design and redevelop it from scratch each year, which means we’ve got good returning customers, actually.
07:07.627 –> 07:14.660
[SPEAKER_02]: But it does, it makes it, it gives them another reason to buy it next year is not just because it’s a useful journal, but also because it’s going to look different.
07:14.680 –> 07:17.144
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s updated and it’s got the right data in it too.
07:17.265 –> 07:21.232
[SPEAKER_02]: So is there’s that it’s not like just buying another Gregorian calendar each year.
07:21.733 –> 07:22.935
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a bit more to it.
07:22.915 –> 07:33.350
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s a lot more to it and because of the, I mean, go into it because of the fact that we’re trying to squeeze the lunar calendar into a normal calendar but make it really easy to read and comprehensible.
07:33.771 –> 07:38.638
[SPEAKER_01]: You do have these odd gaps and we do quite a lot of nurturing people with art and quotes and stuff.
07:39.098 –> 07:44.186
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’re not just doing a Monday to Sunday diary and then slapping a new front cover on it.
07:44.586 –> 07:49.413
[SPEAKER_01]: People are excited to get the new one because it is brand new and it’s been developed and we’ve spent months working on it.
07:49.533 –> 07:52.197
[SPEAKER_01]: So they do definitely get a new product each year.
07:52.531 –> 07:55.295
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is a yearly thing.
07:55.776 –> 07:56.477
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a yearly thing.
07:56.697 –> 07:57.658
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is a yearly thing.
07:58.099 –> 08:13.341
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we, the start and end date very because they might start on the 24th of December, next year it might start on the 21st of December, but generally we do try to cover what people would expect from a normal diary but make it work with the 13 moons.
08:13.743 –> 08:16.811
[SPEAKER_02]: So your business is very, very peaky.
08:17.212 –> 08:17.873
[SPEAKER_02]: So peaky.
08:17.893 –> 08:19.237
[SPEAKER_02]: Because of this calendar.
08:19.257 –> 08:20.339
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so peaky.
08:20.981 –> 08:21.843
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s so peaky.
08:21.883 –> 08:22.806
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a little bit scary.
08:22.826 –> 08:31.026
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do try to do what we can in amongst the other times to help, I think, one of the downsides about having such a peaky business is
08:31.006 –> 08:43.759
[SPEAKER_01]: the costs obviously shoot up because the volume you’re doing and everyone wants their pound of flesh for all the apps and all the stuff and all the software and then we sort of left with these you know big bills to pay and March April May etc.
08:44.479 –> 08:59.494
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah we we do have bits that we do throughout the year but ultimately it just takes such a long time to design make these products and redevelop them from scratch each year then that’s just has to be a quiet time to crack on with that and then
08:59.896 –> 09:07.792
[SPEAKER_02]: I always think it’s a peaky business isn’t too bad if you at least acknowledge the fact it’s peaky.
09:08.173 –> 09:08.734
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
09:08.754 –> 09:10.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, we’re not doing the same thing every month.
09:11.159 –> 09:18.934
[SPEAKER_02]: We have October, November, December, which is the crazy selling months and the huge amounts of dispatch and all the rest of it dribbling over into January.
09:18.914 –> 09:35.961
[SPEAKER_02]: But then maybe February we we analyse and we wrap up and then March April May is planning and design and then yep we’re in you know if you understand that cycle and you adapt your daily activities to it then it’s all right to be peaky.
09:35.941 –> 09:54.861
[SPEAKER_01]: It is and we also we do do a big pre-order season and actually that is a massive boom to us but I don’t know how we’d be able to accommodate putting the orders that we receive in our pre-order season which saw over the summer so people get a nice little discount to help us get these big print runs through and they get to watch the journey of these products being developed.
09:54.841 –> 09:58.387
[SPEAKER_01]: and then it means we have a bit of a pause and a mad scramble to get all its preorders out.
09:58.767 –> 10:03.916
[SPEAKER_01]: But people are getting them in September and October when actually they can’t really use them until December.
10:04.416 –> 10:08.803
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is a massive boon to us because we get those orders through and we get them out of the door.
10:09.384 –> 10:14.132
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we start running our campaigns for our ready to buy next peak season.
10:14.635 –> 10:15.637
[SPEAKER_02]: Super clever, isn’t it?
10:15.657 –> 10:19.424
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you get the cash when you need it more, broke, bring that forward.
10:19.445 –> 10:22.471
[SPEAKER_02]: But you’ll also bring back the workload of dispatching those orders.
10:23.212 –> 10:23.773
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
10:23.793 –> 10:31.328
[SPEAKER_02]: So your workload during the primary selling period is lessened because some people order earlier.
10:31.696 –> 10:50.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and because we have so many people returning and it works out well and people who’ve just found us, if they now know that we do pre-orders, I mean they’re obviously going to want that little percentage off next year, if they know that’s what they want, so that’s good for us, it keeps that sort of email list ticking over in the summer, it gets that working for itself.
10:50.922 –> 10:56.950
[SPEAKER_01]: It helps lessen, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to fill the volume that we do over six months into three.
10:57.351 –> 10:59.053
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be a tough challenge, I think.
10:59.405 –> 11:09.361
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned they’re keeping the email active and I think that’s one of the other things that is really challenging when you’re super peaky is that You can’t just switch your female from nine months and hope it’s going to work.
11:09.381 –> 11:12.626
[SPEAKER_02]: You can’t just switch off the ad algorithms for six nine months and hope they’re going to work.
11:12.646 –> 11:19.337
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to come up with something to send otherwise you massively damage your your performance during the peak season.
11:19.469 –> 11:20.310
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, totally.
11:20.330 –> 11:27.139
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s one of the things that I know that we’ve really developed is making sure that emails are kind of interesting.
11:27.640 –> 11:28.561
[SPEAKER_01]: People want to open them.
11:28.801 –> 11:31.044
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re following this journey throughout the year.
11:31.104 –> 11:34.248
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they’re ready to purchase on the times right.
11:34.328 –> 11:41.157
[SPEAKER_01]: So, our emails is actually one of the biggest primary focuses of the whole marketing strategy for the business.
11:41.930 –> 11:43.638
[SPEAKER_02]: So who is the business?
11:43.818 –> 11:45.124
[SPEAKER_02]: What does the team look like?
11:45.144 –> 11:51.754
[SPEAKER_02]: So we kind of, I think everyone can work out is not just here, who, so who have you got and is there anything you’re outsourcing?
11:52.122 –> 11:53.023
[SPEAKER_01]: So there’s me.
11:53.343 –> 12:04.454
[SPEAKER_01]: There is my wonderful sister-in-law Rachel who is the first ever employee when I was drowning in emails for that first year for those first eight weeks where we turned over so much and she’s been with us ever since.
12:05.615 –> 12:09.780
[SPEAKER_01]: Next to that is our designer Anna who is fantastic who makes the journal happen.
12:09.940 –> 12:18.248
[SPEAKER_01]: So it went from being an idea in my mind to somebody with the computer skills to actually make it happen and her beautiful artistic talent.
12:18.228 –> 12:27.488
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, the next one was my husband, husband to be, shall I say, who came on when Rob left, so you’ve had Rob on your show before?
12:27.669 –> 12:28.270
[SPEAKER_01]: We did, yes.
12:28.631 –> 12:29.673
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we love Rob Dealy.
12:29.833 –> 12:33.241
[SPEAKER_01]: He has got loads of other amazing things that he’s going on in his life.
12:33.401 –> 12:38.312
[SPEAKER_01]: So when he departed, Matt came in, we were running another business, actually.
12:38.292 –> 12:40.614
[SPEAKER_01]: during the first couple of years of moon phase.
12:41.075 –> 12:44.258
[SPEAKER_01]: We solved that when we realized this was the horse to bark.
12:45.279 –> 12:46.120
[SPEAKER_01]: So Matt came on board.
12:46.420 –> 12:49.103
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he does a lot of the invoicing paperwork.
12:49.563 –> 12:50.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Making us profitable actually.
12:51.005 –> 12:51.966
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve got to credit Matt with.
12:52.967 –> 12:55.830
[SPEAKER_01]: And then last employee is Simon.
12:55.950 –> 12:58.913
[SPEAKER_01]: So Simon does warehouse logistics all of our packing.
12:59.673 –> 13:04.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re in the process of taking somebody on to do the marketing, because that’s kind of my stick.
13:04.839 –> 13:08.282
[SPEAKER_01]: The minute alongside the art.
13:08.262 –> 13:12.508
[SPEAKER_01]: six, and then it goes up to about 12, maybe 13, over Christmas.
13:13.229 –> 13:14.852
[SPEAKER_02]: And is that to staff the warehouse?
13:15.232 –> 13:16.434
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they’re all pickpackers.
13:16.494 –> 13:17.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
13:17.796 –> 13:19.699
[SPEAKER_01]: All of our freelance, we do have really good freelancers.
13:19.759 –> 13:23.605
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got Craig, who does our Shopify site, thank God for him.
13:23.645 –> 13:31.436
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we’ve got an amazing team that do our digital ads, meta, Google, etc.
13:31.696 –> 13:36.143
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, we’ve found a really lovely little
13:36.848 –> 13:41.477
[SPEAKER_02]: always nice when you find that magic ad connection.
13:42.278 –> 13:54.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, it’s been so good because we’ve had trial and error with that and there’s nothing quite like feeling like, oh, I don’t trust this process and I’m not sure about you whereas these are stand up guys who get us really good results who are lovely.
13:54.140 –> 13:55.262
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s brilliant.
13:55.360 –> 13:57.182
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s unfortunate.
13:57.222 –> 14:07.113
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would like, you know, having, having higher agencies, having run an agency for 10 years and having spoken to many people about their problems with their agencies, their agencies, about their problems with their clients.
14:07.754 –> 14:12.659
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I could come up with a formula for doing the perfect matching, but it is trial and error.
14:12.939 –> 14:16.403
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s really hard, because it, a lot of it, I think, is mindset and values.
14:17.024 –> 14:21.108
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, not average order value and price point and budget size.
14:21.168 –> 14:22.650
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s completely different.
14:22.867 –> 14:23.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
14:23.808 –> 14:25.511
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we found our magic fit.
14:25.631 –> 14:31.420
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s hope that we can all continue to work harmoniously for ever more.
14:32.001 –> 14:34.885
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’re talking about fulfillment there.
14:35.105 –> 14:38.951
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned to me before we hit record that you had outsourced of fulfillment.
14:39.772 –> 14:41.835
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you’ve chosen to bring it back in again.
14:41.876 –> 14:43.558
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the…
14:43.538 –> 14:56.329
[SPEAKER_02]: was the reason around that because as a as a peaky business of a film and it’s one of those massive headaches of a peak that I’m sure many people would think well let’s outsource that and then things are more normal day to day.
14:56.409 –> 14:58.695
[SPEAKER_02]: So how come you’re bringing it back in?
14:58.810 –> 15:06.624
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, I mean, the reason we went over to America and had a full film at Center in America, this is when we were just doing calendars.
15:06.664 –> 15:22.371
[SPEAKER_01]: And that purely came from a bit of an environmental thing of, well, why would we want to have stock over here that we’re shipping over one at a time, or have it, you know, we can just send a digital file, find printers over there,
15:22.351 –> 15:26.898
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did that, and then when we launched the second product, everything was getting a little trickier.
15:26.979 –> 15:36.053
[SPEAKER_01]: So finding actually the right paper sources, all the stuff that could still be forest certified, all of that became a little bit more of a headache.
15:36.073 –> 15:42.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Then when we had trying to post one big,
15:42.584 –> 15:48.190
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like the only way to sort of get more profitable with that was to massively increase volume.
15:48.371 –> 15:50.213
[SPEAKER_01]: And we felt like we were doing quite good volume anyway.
15:50.753 –> 16:00.484
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it was, well, to solve these niggles over the shipping costs from, you know, Seattle to Florida, you have another fulfillment center, and maybe you have another fulfillment center in the middle.
16:00.544 –> 16:08.153
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you’ve got the stock that you’ve got to pay them to keep and it felt a little bit like it was getting away with ourselves a bit.
16:08.133 –> 16:16.189
[SPEAKER_01]: And where we are at the moment where our studio is, we had a unit that came up next door, and we just thought, let’s just rain all of this in.
16:16.249 –> 16:17.852
[SPEAKER_01]: We’d outsourced it from the get go.
16:17.992 –> 16:25.908
[SPEAKER_01]: It literally went from my dining table, being filled with tubes and stock to boom, just going into full film and centers.
16:26.248 –> 16:27.070
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’d missed
16:27.050 –> 16:35.327
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Stepp, I felt like we hadn’t actually got the logistics around, how we wrap stuff, how we pack, how we make it all, how we want the customers to receive it.
16:35.868 –> 16:44.907
[SPEAKER_01]: So we brought it all back in, we did it all ourselves, we captured the amount of volume, and then just saw so much more profit.
16:44.887 –> 16:47.109
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we’re not giving it away.
16:47.930 –> 16:56.279
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve held on to it and actually, I kind of think we’re at a stage now where I’d have to seriously be tempted to go back to being doing full film that centers again.
16:56.299 –> 16:57.941
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the business that we’re running now.
16:58.402 –> 16:59.162
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the small team.
16:59.202 –> 17:04.828
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the fact that customers can get in touch and we can pop in a little note saying, sorry, it arrived damaged here’s the so-and-so.
17:04.868 –> 17:10.995
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there’s so much less sort of stress actually having it all under one roof.
17:11.178 –> 17:19.498
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose you’re in a space where you’ve got only a very small number of skews and they don’t take a huge amount of space to keep.
17:19.959 –> 17:23.628
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s space, space requirements when you’re doing it yourself is not huge for you.
17:24.149 –> 17:26.976
[SPEAKER_01]: No, in fact, the packaging is the thing that takes at the most of the tubes.
17:26.956 –> 17:36.249
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we sell thousands and thousands of calendars which come on a stack, like on one pallet, but actually if you were to roll them all and put them in their tubes, they take up rooms full.
17:36.389 –> 17:42.257
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the little unusual bits, but no, we don’t have a huge volume of stock.
17:42.277 –> 17:47.464
[SPEAKER_01]: We can also then, having ourselves means that we can just go right this weekend, we’re going to pop in a free so-and-so.
17:47.484 –> 17:49.567
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s not, there’s enough to be checked over.
17:49.587 –> 17:50.649
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have to have that agreed.
17:50.669 –> 17:52.191
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have to find out how much it costs.
17:52.231 –> 17:56.136
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all just,
17:56.538 –> 17:58.421
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve been tempted to fold the calendar.
18:00.104 –> 18:01.606
[SPEAKER_01]: I can’t do that, Chloe.
18:01.626 –> 18:02.268
[SPEAKER_01]: You can’t do that.
18:02.288 –> 18:03.570
[SPEAKER_01]: You don’t want to crease in the middle.
18:03.590 –> 18:04.271
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you could.
18:04.331 –> 18:05.353
[SPEAKER_01]: Don’t give me wrong.
18:05.593 –> 18:06.034
[SPEAKER_01]: You could.
18:06.895 –> 18:09.920
[SPEAKER_01]: But we felt like that sort of little idea that it was like wall art.
18:10.060 –> 18:12.805
[SPEAKER_01]: So no, we decided to shy away from that.
18:13.406 –> 18:14.007
[SPEAKER_01]: So no.
18:14.527 –> 18:25.847
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are currently talking as you have finished peak 2025 and you must be somewhere into the planning for peak 2026.
18:26.668 –> 18:30.595
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s got you excited about 2026?
18:31.216 –> 18:44.309
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so exciting things on the horizon for 2026 is we have such a great relationship with our customers now that they are kind of really telling us what they want to see and are giving us some really good ideas.
18:44.629 –> 18:52.918
[SPEAKER_01]: So the stuff that’s going to go alongside our main products which we do these big bundles where we can put extra bits and bobs in, those are super exciting.
18:53.198 –> 18:57.342
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s quite nice to have these other elements that run alongside.
18:57.322 –> 19:03.679
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re launching a letter writing set, which actually is a passion project of mine, which would be quite nice.
19:04.281 –> 19:13.626
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re using like handmade boxes and it’s all going to be really beautiful, so that’s a bit of a buzz for me, because that’s going to be a product I’m really keen to see come to life.
19:13.606 –> 19:14.948
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we’re taking more units.
19:14.988 –> 19:19.055
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve got more warehouse spaces around us that are coming up.
19:19.555 –> 19:23.421
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we’re growing and we’ve got all of these more products coming out, we can take those on.
19:23.461 –> 19:25.825
[SPEAKER_01]: And then yeah, a bit of increase in the team.
19:26.446 –> 19:27.748
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, lots on the horizon, really.
19:28.229 –> 19:28.650
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.
19:28.670 –> 19:30.593
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned bundles there.
19:30.613 –> 19:35.901
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that I’m guessing that’s, you know, to drive sales outside of the peak period.
19:35.881 –> 19:45.462
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that that you’re bundling your own creating other short-term products of your own to bundle in or is it that you’re taking other people’s products to bundle in?
19:46.043 –> 19:47.406
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they’re all as they sort of go along.
19:47.426 –> 19:52.557
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve got, like for instance, the one we did last year, it retailed at £120.
19:52.537 –> 19:57.284
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s a good big ticket number for us and it really massively has helped with the average order value.
19:57.724 –> 20:05.836
[SPEAKER_01]: So sort of selling these little products on their own for a bit of a discount at pre-order, these bigger bundles for really loyal customers who are excited about what we do.
20:05.896 –> 20:14.308
[SPEAKER_01]: They get a beautiful velvet book sleeve for their journal to go in, they get nice set of tens, they get some of the notebooks, they get a pencil case, they get whatever.
20:14.288 –> 20:24.122
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, those bundling of those things are kind of evergreen items that can sit on the website, drawing out of the periods, but they really do bump up that AOV for us when we need it.
20:24.803 –> 20:36.740
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you say they’re sat on the website, should anyone want one, but their real reason for existence is that they’re ready to go into a bundle to really drive sales from those core customers.
20:37.281 –> 20:37.962
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
20:38.423 –> 20:38.743
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
20:39.112 –> 20:50.805
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we caught up with Rob, who at the time as your CMO, it was all about the Facebook ads, all about the Facebook ads, is Facebook ads still a big thing for you?
20:51.646 –> 20:53.308
[SPEAKER_01]: Facebook ads is a major thing for us.
20:53.488 –> 21:02.678
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, I will have to hold my hands up to say, credit to Meta for that, because it has been a massive boon for our business.
21:02.698 –> 21:04.680
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that we were able to,
21:04.660 –> 21:09.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Interrupt people scrolling to show them something that they were genuinely interested in that they didn’t know about.
21:09.206 –> 21:10.188
[SPEAKER_01]: You can’t really do that.
21:10.268 –> 21:13.111
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s not many other platforms that you can do that as well on.
21:13.752 –> 21:21.182
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s really good, but email is better and email is the way that we really operate now.
21:21.283 –> 21:25.889
[SPEAKER_01]: So the email is taking over Facebook in terms of what it’s actually bringing into the business.
21:25.909 –> 21:27.892
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a really loyal following.
21:27.912 –> 21:31.917
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got nearly a hundred thousand subscribers and I would say,
21:31.897 –> 21:42.587
[SPEAKER_01]: of our emails that go out we have nearly 50% open rate, 47% is like a low one and then when we have our big launches that can go up to like 70%.
21:43.548 –> 22:01.566
[SPEAKER_01]: We keep our lists nice and clean, we make sure we’re talking to people that are really interested and we make sure that when we email them, it’s a conversation coming from me directly to them as if I was talking to a friend of not seen for ages and we don’t really subscribe to any of the constant emails just sharing products
22:01.546 –> 22:08.075
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi guys, you know, here’s from me, this is what’s going on in my life, and I think people resonate with that, and I think it gives no reason to open it.
22:08.315 –> 22:23.757
[SPEAKER_00]: And does, yeah, does as well, I think email so Facebook has been good, but emails are our next hero.
22:29.896 –> 22:32.200
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s time for the top tips round.
22:34.865 –> 22:39.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me an honester some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
22:39.994 –> 22:41.536
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, are you ready for the top tips?
22:42.198 –> 22:42.859
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I’m ready.
22:43.600 –> 22:44.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.
22:44.842 –> 22:51.634
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
22:52.340 –> 23:18.668
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would be stupid not to plug my own book the 13 moon journal, wouldn’t I really Chloe because actually one of the top tips that any business owner could take out of it is to maybe plan a little bit of rest and I think someone who has worked really hard on their own business the last few years and has sacrificed quite a lot being reminded why it is important to maybe take a little break
23:18.648 –> 23:20.851
[SPEAKER_01]: is not really mentioned enough.
23:20.951 –> 23:25.136
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s plenty of productivity planners, there’s loads of get up at 5 a.m. and do all this.
23:25.557 –> 23:39.375
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don’t actually think that necessarily works for middle-aged hormonal women with young children, I think, maybe, at some point around their menstrual cycle, or every few weeks, they could just do with putting their feet up and having a bath and not doing that.
23:40.356 –> 23:43.440
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, are preaching to the converted in so many ways.
23:43.420 –> 23:44.561
[SPEAKER_01]: But you are, you need to continue.
23:44.601 –> 23:45.943
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to get a 30-moon journal.
23:46.384 –> 23:51.430
[SPEAKER_01]: At least in a Friday you could read the intro section and it would be life-changing.
23:52.010 –> 23:53.893
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I’m at cracking recommendation.
23:53.913 –> 23:59.479
[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you the prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
24:00.641 –> 24:07.569
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, we already said, I mean, you know, I’ve said, meta has done really well for us and anyone who was starting their business, and yes, I would absolutely say that.
24:08.130 –> 24:11.554
[SPEAKER_01]: I followed that up with email and what I think that is
24:11.534 –> 24:25.610
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get someone interested, keep them interested, get them there again, you want them to be their audience and I would say spending loads of time on organic social media content is just a bit of a full zero and really when you can be doing better things to shift the needle.
24:26.210 –> 24:27.632
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally agree with you on that.
24:27.912 –> 24:32.918
[SPEAKER_02]: A tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone up or just a way of working.
24:33.038 –> 24:37.643
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
24:38.028 –> 24:39.449
[SPEAKER_01]: We really like Triple Whale.
24:39.650 –> 24:47.518
[SPEAKER_01]: I don’t know if you’ve ever covered Triple Whale on your podcast before, but yeah, we do rely on that, which, for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a Triple attribution.
24:47.578 –> 24:51.762
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyone that you’re paying any money to will say that you’re getting customers from them.
24:51.883 –> 24:56.768
[SPEAKER_01]: So Google will over inflate and say, yeah, we got you customer and Facebook saying, no, no, no, it was definitely us.
24:57.368 –> 25:05.757
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you try and pull all this together and you’re trying to work out where to put your next pound to find your next customer, we think Triple Whale is actually
25:05.737 –> 25:18.868
[SPEAKER_01]: showing us who came their first, they searched first, what got them over the line, was it a Facebook ad in the end, did they finally see us on Pinterest, did they have a little watch of some videos on TikTok and we can get all of that information which actually is invaluable.
25:19.051 –> 25:20.252
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, solid recommendation.
25:20.272 –> 25:32.603
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think you have to have some kind of approach to attribution if you’re going to succeed with ads these days, because, yes, not everybody lies, but everybody’s quite greedy with their localized attribution.
25:32.623 –> 25:37.227
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I think everybody is quite kind of like, oh, you know, that was definitely me.
25:37.247 –> 25:39.549
[SPEAKER_01]: You can, you can find cause for that customer.
25:39.569 –> 25:49.058
[SPEAKER_01]: You think, well, I can’t find all of you, because it looks like I’m taking a lot more in revenue, and I’m really am, if I believe all of you, whereas this says it is, and it’s nice and accurate,
25:49.038 –> 25:50.022
[SPEAKER_01]: tool to use.
25:50.042 –> 25:50.343
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
25:50.363 –> 25:51.568
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the carbon top tip.
25:51.588 –> 25:55.183
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
25:55.737 –> 25:59.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually removing fulfillment centers was the best one for us.
25:59.421 –> 26:05.649
[SPEAKER_01]: I think realistically, just that we could just trim off unnecessary volume, the less waste.
26:05.669 –> 26:08.312
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, we’ve just done whatever we can do.
26:08.352 –> 26:10.274
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have plastic wrap on stuff.
26:10.495 –> 26:15.400
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got rid of all of the unnecessary plastic within us.
26:15.461 –> 26:16.342
[SPEAKER_01]: We have glass brothels.
26:16.402 –> 26:19.345
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got paper wrap for toilet rolls, et cetera.
26:19.646 –> 26:20.867
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
26:20.847 –> 26:23.271
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we’re just doing a bit a little bit by a little bit.
26:23.532 –> 26:35.093
[SPEAKER_01]: We do actually, we’re part of the Ocean Network for surface against sewage, and they’ve been really good at signposting us to use for things that we’ve not considered in order to go through their plastic free accreditation process.
26:35.208 –> 26:35.588
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
26:36.430 –> 26:36.770
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
26:36.950 –> 26:42.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?
26:42.938 –> 26:43.559
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, of course.
26:43.579 –> 26:52.611
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find us at moonphasestudios.com and we’re available to be found on all platforms, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.
26:52.651 –> 26:53.532
[SPEAKER_01]: Moonphasestudios.
26:54.173 –> 26:54.633
[SPEAKER_02]: Great forward.
26:54.653 –> 26:56.255
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that everybody going check it out?
26:56.496 –> 26:59.299
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, thank you so much for coming on the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
26:59.319 –> 27:00.701
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been lovely chatting with you.
27:00.721 –> 27:01.983
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for sharing so much with us.
27:02.724 –> 27:03.645
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
27:09.346 –> 27:17.013
[SPEAKER_02]: Huge thanks again to Craig, putting us back in contact with MoonFage Studios and Hailey because, so cool, such a cool business.
27:17.133 –> 27:19.095
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s definitely one of those e-commerce business.
27:19.115 –> 27:32.428
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, oh, I quite, it might be P.K., might be P.K., but that’s some really cool products with some passionate customers and some really clear reach to market and they’re quite small enough to do a small scale fulfillment in house.
27:32.928 –> 27:35.691
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, interest fascinating business, some really cool,
27:35.671 –> 27:39.360
[SPEAKER_02]: clear, take on on e-commerce there from Hailey.
27:39.440 –> 27:53.292
[SPEAKER_02]: The clarity, you know, talking to her, clarity on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and why they’re not doing other things, just really rings through and I think it’s not surprising listening to her that she’s making a huge success of this.
27:53.272 –> 28:07.356
[SPEAKER_02]: So lots, lots of bits and pieces to pick out there, especially if you’ve got a really peaky product, so those strategies to pull your sails a bit forward and ease off that peak with the pre-order piece, the bundles piece and so on and so for some really clever stuff in there.
28:07.376 –> 28:14.588
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterpland.com.
28:14.568 –> 28:23.741
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also use our direct episode short links, just put ECMP.info-sash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page.
28:24.222 –> 28:32.053
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get there, please add yourself to the Chloe Thomas newsletter email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things we share to help you improve the business.
28:32.033 –> 28:47.047
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you like this episode, then make sure you check our episode 386, which is our first catch-up with Team Moonface Studio, which adding to Rob about that 0 to 200,000 with Facebook ads back in 2020.
28:47.788 –> 28:58.918
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more on Shopify users, then ECMP.info for us has Shopify’s the page on the website where you will find all our interviews with Shopify users.
28:58.898 –> 29:03.304
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
29:03.324 –> 29:14.740
[SPEAKER_02]: We bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.
29:15.301 –> 29:20.288
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
29:20.749 –> 29:23.573
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
29:26.388 –> 29:29.843
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
29:30.265 –> 29:35.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
30 min
May 11eCommerce MasterPlan | 594: From DTC to B2B: How Moyu Scaled to €1.5M by Shifting Its Sales Strategy with Roel Schatorjé
Roel Schatorjé is the Founder of MOYU, sellers of erasable stone paper notebooks, designed to reduce single-use paper and reforest the planet. Founded in 2019 they now sell via wholesale, and their Shopify store, in total sales are €1.5million a year.

In this returning guest episode, Roel shares how the business has evolved over the last three years – shifting from DTC to B2B, streamlining the team, and expanding internationally in a far more sustainable way. It’s an honest look at what it really takes to scale an eCommerce brand without burning cash or adding complexity.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Moyu turned everyday customers into high-value B2B clients
The exact shift that helped them scale to €1.5M revenue
Why cutting their team from 10 to 4 actually made them MORE efficient
The smart (and cheaper) way they’re expanding internationally
How sampling and real-world experiences are driving sales
The simple process fixes saving them hours of wasted time every week

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[04:42] Balancing current projects and development
[07:30] Streamlining quoting and retail growth
[11:53] Promoting the notebook via sampling
[13:35] Corrugated stone paper packaging
[17:31] Challenges of international expansion
[21:24] Flexible work arrangements for agents
[23:28] Listen to Roel’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/594
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.149 –> 00:03.935
[SPEAKER_00]: When you start a business, a lot of things just in general go wrong, right?
00:03.955 –> 00:26.730
[SPEAKER_02]: So by eliminating mistakes that are being made, I think that saves you about 50% of the time.
00:29.782 –> 00:32.124
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, and welcome, it’s great to have you here.
00:32.144 –> 00:35.928
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:36.729 –> 00:43.456
[SPEAKER_01]: I love to start the show occasionally with a little shout out to the listeners who are kind enough to take the time to post a review of the show.
00:43.696 –> 00:45.338
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’ve got one of those for you today.
00:45.378 –> 00:55.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Huge thanks to drummer Boyd, whoever you may be, for putting a lovely review of us on Apple Podcasts.
00:55.668 –> 00:58.613
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you’ve said we are in insightful podcasts.
00:58.673 –> 01:03.500
[SPEAKER_01]: Great listen and always cover some super interesting topics as a growth lead at a D to C brand.
01:04.041 –> 01:06.164
[SPEAKER_01]: Chloe is a knowledgeable and friendly host.
01:06.344 –> 01:09.089
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, drummer Boyd, really appreciated.
01:09.610 –> 01:20.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, if you would like a shout out at the start of an episode, then head to ECMP.info4sashreview to find out how to leave us a review and maybe I’ll be reading out your review next time.
01:20.947 –> 01:27.956
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we’re doing another past guest catch up as part of our 10 years of podcasting celebrations.
01:28.696 –> 01:40.811
[SPEAKER_01]: This one is from three years ago, fairly recent, and it’s a company who make a stone paper reusable note pad who are on a very big old eco mission.
01:40.831 –> 01:48.000
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t specifically talk about that, because we spend a lot of time talking about the products and the mission in the
01:47.980 –> 01:54.868
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we are talking about how the business has been developing since that first chat over three years ago.
01:55.548 –> 02:08.583
[SPEAKER_01]: We will be going into how they’ve gone big into B2B sales, both into physical retail and into the personalized swag and gift market in the corporate space too.
02:09.163 –> 02:16.131
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’ll be pressing rule for some nitty gritty insights into how they’re making that work,
02:16.111 –> 02:19.859
[SPEAKER_01]: and also how they go about managing their overseas sales agents.
02:20.540 –> 02:24.047
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of detail coming up for you if you’re in that arena.
02:24.428 –> 02:30.340
[SPEAKER_01]: Please listen to the end of the show so you don’t miss out on my guest’s top tips and my own take on this episode.
02:35.399 –> 02:37.722
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest.
02:37.742 –> 02:47.197
[SPEAKER_01]: Rule Shotorjay is the founder of Moju, sellers of a reasonable stone paper notebooks, designed to reduce single-use paper and reforest the planet.
02:47.637 –> 02:56.430
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded in 2019, they now sell via wholesale and their Shopify store, in total sales are around 1.5 million euros a year.
02:56.751 –> 02:57.392
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, rule.
02:58.133 –> 02:59.415
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, good to be back.
02:59.635 –> 03:00.276
[SPEAKER_00]: Good to be back.
03:00.897 –> 03:17.033
[SPEAKER_01]: very cool to have you back on the podcast and I anyone who’s seen me at an event will have seen me diligently carrying one of your no-pads which is still getting cleaned and reused very happily so it’s very cool to have you back on the show and it’s been three years what have you been up to?
03:17.975 –> 03:41.907
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot a lot a lot so I think a few things so we kind of noticed one big thing is that from from having the the web shop and the e-commerce sales we noticed that we got more and more wholesale B2B deals so I focused shift there a bit so we do much more business to business now than just e-commerce so that’s nice
03:41.887 –> 03:45.136
[SPEAKER_00]: We rolled out in the Netherlands in a lot of retail stores.
03:45.336 –> 03:47.723
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re in about 150 stores now.
03:47.743 –> 03:48.726
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s also really cool.
03:49.207 –> 03:51.594
[SPEAKER_00]: So people can actually physically buy us in stores.
03:52.556 –> 03:57.550
[SPEAKER_00]: And we’re currently working on two cool new things, which is, uh,
03:57.530 –> 04:04.862
[SPEAKER_00]: developing a product for primary school kids so that they can actually start their school with one notebook and leave it with the same.
04:05.624 –> 04:11.794
[SPEAKER_00]: And lastly, we’re working on reusable packaging, the kind of this new loss coming up, the PPWR.
04:12.615 –> 04:17.824
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of companies are looking into reusable packaging now and I think our materials really good for that.
04:18.004 –> 04:23.233
[SPEAKER_00]: So with that we are developing boxes that
04:23.753 –> 04:28.244
[SPEAKER_01]: So with, I mean, we’ll drill into some of those in a minute, but we’re so many things going on.
04:28.344 –> 04:32.234
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you decide what to focus on and what to pursue?
04:32.314 –> 04:35.362
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I’m guessing that you’ve had a whole load of ideas other than those four.
04:36.003 –> 04:38.169
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you decide what to pursue?
04:38.189 –> 04:41.577
[SPEAKER_01]: And then day to day, how do you decide what to focus on?
04:42.164 –> 04:46.229
[SPEAKER_00]: So all the things that you just heard are cool projects, right?
04:46.249 –> 04:49.474
[SPEAKER_00]: So but most of them are not really generating revenue net yet.
04:49.494 –> 04:50.755
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks especially the last two.
04:51.616 –> 04:57.124
[SPEAKER_00]: So by day to day, it’s just 90% focused on running the business as is.
04:57.384 –> 05:00.067
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really try to have like focus hours every morning.
05:01.129 –> 05:04.193
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s say from 8 to 1, where I just decide to get.
05:04.213 –> 05:07.497
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s going to be like a sales hour or sales hours or.
05:07.477 –> 05:18.887
[SPEAKER_00]: Project X or Project Y and then the other projects kind of develop along the way by meeting new people meeting interesting clients whatsoever and then I just
05:18.968 –> 05:20.331
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in there, bring these things up.
05:20.551 –> 05:23.637
[SPEAKER_00]: If I feel there’s an interest, then I just keep on working on those things.
05:24.679 –> 05:38.766
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, especially for schools and boxes, we’ve been doing that for the last, like, one-half-two years now, and we just got granted a subsidy to have a bit more focus on these projects, so that we can actually invest in it and continue developing these.
05:39.556 –> 05:40.700
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of that makes so much sense.
05:40.780 –> 05:41.221
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
05:41.723 –> 05:44.491
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does the team look like now in the businesses?
05:44.531 –> 05:49.367
[SPEAKER_01]: You made these diversions away from more of the D to C cells into the B to B cells?
05:49.407 –> 05:51.152
[SPEAKER_01]: Did that make a lot of difference to the team?
05:52.145 –> 06:04.644
[SPEAKER_00]: I think last time we chatted, we actually had 10 people, we were at 4 now, so we scaled down the team and we focused a lot on optimizing inefficiency.
06:04.704 –> 06:13.678
[SPEAKER_00]: So every time someone left, we kind of sat with the team and the management like, is something that we can just pick up internally, if we can do it more efficiently.
06:13.918 –> 06:16.262
[SPEAKER_00]: So over the last three years, we kind of did that.
06:16.242 –> 06:24.430
[SPEAKER_00]: And then a part of our team were people that worked on the internationalization, which we had in our own team, on our own non-list, on our own payroll.
06:25.271 –> 06:33.920
[SPEAKER_00]: And we changed that into agents, so we still have five agents working abroad, but they work more on a commission-based rather than being in our own payroll.
06:33.940 –> 06:40.427
[SPEAKER_00]: So this still in total about 10 people working for Moju, but our core team is just four people.
06:41.352 –> 06:55.547
[SPEAKER_01]: And has that, you know, driving efficiency to lower the number of head office team has that been has that involved any AI or is it more been clearer decisions and automations and relying more on tech.
06:56.371 –> 07:02.121
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we follow AI, but it’s that there hasn’t been the reason to be able to work with less people yet.
07:02.562 –> 07:03.924
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps here and there, right?
07:03.944 –> 07:16.726
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, we’ve been doing stuff for the last three years with it, but it’s not because we have developed tool A with AI and therefore we could not, you know, kind of like not, I’ve less people.
07:16.846 –> 07:19.290
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it’s mainly, I think,
07:20.300 –> 07:26.011
[SPEAKER_00]: When you start a business, you kind of, a lot of things just in general go wrong, right?
07:26.052 –> 07:30.380
[SPEAKER_00]: So by eliminating mistakes that are being made, I think that saves you about 50% of the time.
07:30.581 –> 07:33.246
[SPEAKER_00]: So for us, a big mom was,
07:33.412 –> 07:59.942
[SPEAKER_00]: A business requests a quote and then they go into the whole quoting process, design process production process towards our warehouse and shipping and eliminating as many mistakes as possible there, I think that’s safe too much time because the mistakes just give like a lot of double work and also so that’s one part and the other one is I think we were planting a lot of seeds everywhere, you know, like a lot of outreach everywhere and at a one point we also
08:00.260 –> 08:00.501
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
08:00.721 –> 08:04.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Looked a bit like we had a with a person that was doing just retail.
08:04.891 –> 08:15.535
[SPEAKER_00]: It was reaching out to a lot of store owners and then at one point we got a contract with a big supplier in the Netherlands and they kind of have 400 stores in the Netherlands.
08:15.515 –> 08:24.068
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we thought, okay, well, that’s maybe like enough, let’s say stores for that, then we just kind of work with them and the rest is just inbound, you know?
08:24.088 –> 08:28.234
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of like going out to stores, we just work with this supplier and then any inbound.
08:28.855 –> 08:31.920
[SPEAKER_00]: So these kind of things help us to have less people in the team.
08:32.508 –> 08:32.888
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
08:32.928 –> 08:40.256
[SPEAKER_01]: So like a mixture of strategic decisions, general business evolution and then just let’s just stop making the mistake at the beginning of the process.
08:40.276 –> 08:45.181
[SPEAKER_01]: 30 seconds at the beginning of the process can save three hours at the end of it can’t it?
08:45.261 –> 08:47.303
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that.
08:47.804 –> 08:56.592
[SPEAKER_01]: And the B to B and the retail product presumably the retail stores to them you’re selling the same product as you have on the website.
08:57.373 –> 09:01.097
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s the the B to B side of it?
09:01.077 –> 09:15.289
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you selling, you know, because I can see, I could see it could be kind of more of the retail element, they come on, they buy 2030 of whatever existing notebook, but is it more design and customization as you are just a leading to for that sector?
09:15.860 –> 09:16.341
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly.
09:16.842 –> 09:20.189
[SPEAKER_00]: So companies buy our product a lot for gifts, you know?
09:20.430 –> 09:32.215
[SPEAKER_00]: So on events for employees for relations companies want to come across as they are caring for the planet and therefore they choose I gift that’s also sustainable.
09:32.195 –> 09:52.363
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we’ve done is we are really doing that when we spoke last time what we’ve optimized that is We can add the liver your own notebook which you’re on cover within five working days, so then you have your fully customized on notebook within a few working days, so You just send us the design and we make it for you and then you can hand them out to whoever
09:52.343 –> 09:53.706
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, companies love that.
09:53.726 –> 09:59.861
[SPEAKER_00]: So to kind of have their branding on a product that just lasts very long, so then the brand is seen for a very long time.
09:59.921 –> 10:01.705
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time, it’s a sustainable product.
10:01.725 –> 10:07.078
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you give it to someone, then you come across as a company that cares.
10:07.733 –> 10:10.037
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s still got the novelty factor, hasn’t it?
10:10.057 –> 10:14.665
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I’ve been ever since our last call, our last recording for the podcast.
10:14.685 –> 10:17.990
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve been keeping my eye out for more you notebooks in the wild, you know?
10:18.331 –> 10:22.157
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’d go to some of the big trade shows in the UK and I haven’t yet seen one.
10:22.197 –> 10:28.828
[SPEAKER_01]: So there’s, but there’s the standard notebook everywhere and there’s the water bottles or everywhere, you know?
10:28.868 –> 10:29.910
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s like,
10:29.890 –> 10:37.719
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s that there’s still definitely a novelty to your product within that gift giving and that swag world, I think.
10:38.600 –> 10:46.309
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely, we actually like we started with one age in the year ago in the UK and another one in like two months ago.
10:47.291 –> 10:53.518
[SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully in the coming years, there will be much more visibility of our product.
10:53.650 –> 11:04.945
[SPEAKER_01]: Undoubtedly, but anyone, anyone listening who’s plotting their next customer giveaway, you know, where the innovative product is getting contact with Rawl.
11:05.345 –> 11:08.009
[SPEAKER_00]: Did that, did that, did that.
11:08.029 –> 11:11.794
[SPEAKER_01]: So that B2B personalised notebook piece.
11:11.894 –> 11:16.600
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you doing that purely offline with the human relationship?
11:16.841 –> 11:20.265
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it via a B2B website?
11:21.005 –> 11:23.908
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually launched last week a new B2B website.
11:24.429 –> 11:36.642
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what we tried to do is be super open and transparent and have everything as much as possible on the website so that whoever wants to have their own notebooks they should be able to find everything from prices, delivery times, how to make the design.
11:37.403 –> 11:39.105
[SPEAKER_00]: So that part is online.
11:40.186 –> 11:43.890
[SPEAKER_00]: I do see that a lot of sales,
11:43.870 –> 11:47.456
[SPEAKER_00]: Well we say we have like a B to C to B business model.
11:47.717 –> 11:49.540
[SPEAKER_00]: So we sell first to a consumer.
11:50.081 –> 11:52.946
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them will fall in love with the product and then they bring it to their office.
11:53.186 –> 12:00.418
[SPEAKER_00]: Then someone either damn or someone sees it and then they say, oh, this should be great for our colleagues and then they through that day, they order.
12:01.300 –> 12:04.866
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we knew that, or we noticed that,
12:04.846 –> 12:20.475
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment people have the notebook in their hand, they actually understand how cool it is, we also start doing more fears, like events where you, in the end, then physically meet people and have a chat and tell your story, or we’ve skilled up outbound email campaigns.
12:20.455 –> 12:43.881
[SPEAKER_00]: which we’re testing so I’m not sure how successful they are but the only goal with that is that we are kind of like very generous with sampling because we just want to have the notebook in the hands of the persons that could potentially buy it so by that we’re sampling a lot so it is online but I think in the end it’s nice and it’s a physical product so offline can work as well.
12:44.553 –> 12:58.245
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is possible to buy a B-to-B or a via the website, but you’re not forcing people to take that route because there’s still a lot of opportunity in the personal relationship in the physical product sampling.
12:58.686 –> 13:00.427
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely, yeah.
13:00.447 –> 13:12.518
[SPEAKER_00]: And I honestly prefer to also have to actually build a little relationship with someone that everyone has interested in it, but I like the human aspect of doing business as well.
13:13.561 –> 13:17.006
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it’s often so important in building those relationships.
13:17.066 –> 13:20.470
[SPEAKER_01]: Those bigger bulk orders and everything as well, so it totally makes sense.
13:21.091 –> 13:28.601
[SPEAKER_01]: And you also mentioned that you are working on some reusable packaging.
13:28.661 –> 13:32.486
[SPEAKER_01]: So is that reusable packaging to send out your products?
13:32.526 –> 13:35.350
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this another use for the stone paper product?
13:35.870 –> 13:48.704
[SPEAKER_00]: It is stone paper, but we make a corrugated material out of it, and it’s not like our notebook erasable, but the advantage of the material is that it is water resistant and tear resistant.
13:49.004 –> 13:52.488
[SPEAKER_00]: So you kind of get a corrugated box, but it’s much stronger than a regular box.
13:53.409 –> 13:56.853
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore ideal to be used in a reusable system.
13:57.674 –> 13:59.616
[SPEAKER_00]: So it can be either
13:59.596 –> 14:28.000
[SPEAKER_00]: how supplying their store, like a movement it goes from A to B from B to A and using a box that can be reusable there or as we do it now we are mainly focusing on creating e-commerce packaging so our notebook can now be bought in the checkout you can click on a reusable packaging if you’re in the right zip code so in the UK probably not but in the Netherlands if you’re in the right
14:27.980 –> 14:34.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Choose a reusable packaging, you pay deposit, and once you receive the packaging, you hand it back in in your closest bookstore.
14:35.013 –> 14:36.596
[SPEAKER_00]: They will pull them.
14:37.437 –> 14:39.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever they have like them, they get come back to us.
14:39.882 –> 14:40.523
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s the system.
14:41.665 –> 14:49.920
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so it’s even on the direct to consumer side, it can become reusable because you’ve got these hubs for collecting it set up.
14:50.373 –> 14:50.754
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
14:51.255 –> 14:51.916
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do both.
14:52.136 –> 15:01.495
[SPEAKER_00]: So we for businesses we try to co-create the packaging that they need and for consumers Yeah, we we use our own packaging and there’s a system that’s been built in the Netherlands.
15:01.776 –> 15:06.525
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s called boxo and they late The whole logistics whatsoever for annual reusable packaging
15:07.130 –> 15:13.400
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you haven’t had to set up the bringback piece that you’re piggybacking on the system set up.
15:13.440 –> 15:14.321
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it boxo?
15:14.602 –> 15:15.303
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s called boxo.
15:15.864 –> 15:16.665
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s the other way around.
15:16.685 –> 15:21.873
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are kind of like introducing this packaging that we have in their system for any web shop to use.
15:22.855 –> 15:34.133
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s not only our web shop, but any web shop can say like, are we like to have 50 of your stone packaging in stock and then whenever they use them, they just pay as a
15:34.889 –> 15:36.596
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I got you very clever.
15:36.677 –> 15:40.453
[SPEAKER_01]: I can imagine a lot of the, you know, starting with the eco brands.
15:41.276 –> 15:43.988
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s gonna very quickly gain some traction for you.
15:44.137 –> 15:45.138
[SPEAKER_00]: definitely, definitely.
15:45.339 –> 15:51.066
[SPEAKER_00]: And the cool thing is, or cool, they’re interesting about the packaging is a no-one so packaging, right?
15:51.086 –> 15:56.834
[SPEAKER_00]: So as an e-commerce owner, the last thing you think about is like, ah, ah, ah, now I need to ship it.
15:56.914 –> 15:58.876
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I need to buy some boxes and you buy them.
15:58.896 –> 16:01.480
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it’s literally on there for a few hours.
16:01.560 –> 16:07.227
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it arrives at a customer and they also don’t want the box so they add back it and throw it away again.
16:07.287 –> 16:10.031
[SPEAKER_00]: So that this a very short lifetime, actually.
16:10.251 –> 16:11.713
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s super cool,
16:11.693 –> 16:16.480
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s a system that we set up to rethink, to make it reusable.
16:17.522 –> 16:26.876
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I think about most of the boxes I get goods in at home, either at their cardboard, but most of them would be completely reusable.
16:26.956 –> 16:28.699
[SPEAKER_01]: So they haven’t had the rain impact.
16:28.719 –> 16:33.587
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course your product is rainproof or water resistant as well.
16:33.667 –> 16:35.890
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s going to have a longer longevity.
16:36.671 –> 16:38.494
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s huge opportunity there.
16:38.525 –> 16:55.791
[SPEAKER_00]: it’s both, so one of them is I think a cardboard box could also be used two or three times, but ours I think like 15 times, so that’s one, but for the cardboard box there’s also not really a system in place, so theoretically it could be used, but it’s perceived as single use of people always throw it away.
16:56.446 –> 17:04.635
[SPEAKER_01]: And you’ve got the sizing complexity with carbon boxes seem to come in all the sizes under the sun, whereas you’re in more control of what sizes get produced.
17:05.376 –> 17:09.280
[SPEAKER_01]: So it becomes easier, I would have suspected on that side.
17:10.662 –> 17:25.879
[SPEAKER_01]: So last time, the global expansion that you mentioned was very high on your agenda, and you were doing that all in-house, as you’ve just mentioned, you’re now doing it externally with an agent system who are commission-based.
17:26.500 –> 17:30.706
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that because you are less interested in global expansion or just because it’s a better way to do it?
17:32.068 –> 17:34.011
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a more sustainable way to do it.
17:34.051 –> 17:36.995
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are as interested as we were.
17:37.756 –> 17:53.318
[SPEAKER_00]: However, we were just the burn rate was so high and I think getting initial traction in a new country just takes several years for a brand to get some recognition and people to know the product and we were just spending so much money on it.
17:53.298 –> 18:21.297
[SPEAKER_00]: they were kind of took a step back and we said like what what I’ve actually the things that really are adding a lot of value to the international expansion and which don’t and let me give you an example for instance we had a full German website, a full French website so we needed translators for that but a website is not a landing page we’re I think 150 pages or something you know so those need all be translated and then you update something here and everything needs to be translated
18:21.277 –> 18:25.464
[SPEAKER_00]: So just such a simple thing already cost so much money in time.
18:25.945 –> 18:32.015
[SPEAKER_00]: So we now said, let’s just build super nice landing pages for country in their native time.
18:32.155 –> 18:38.866
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a German landing page that’s much longer than our normal home page that has much more information.
18:38.906 –> 18:44.415
[SPEAKER_00]: But it kind of gives the whole story about the product and the personalization and Christmas gifts and these kind of things.
18:44.395 –> 18:46.660
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we only have that website in German.
18:46.680 –> 18:56.781
[SPEAKER_00]: So whoever only speaks German gets to get the whole story of this, but whenever you want to buy something Then you just click on buy and then you come in the web shop and that’s just English, right?
18:56.861 –> 19:00.328
[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of media assumption that people can buy a product in English.
19:00.899 –> 19:13.432
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we had a German guy working in an alliance, and we had a German agent that got a retainer for you as well, quite a high one, because we want him fully involved in the team.
19:14.574 –> 19:20.580
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we just have an agent in Germany that kind of works on his own terms, and he gets a big commission on the sales that he does.
19:21.461 –> 19:25.185
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn’t let’s say we’re not spending money before we get also
19:25.165 –> 19:25.686
[SPEAKER_00]: deals in.
19:25.906 –> 19:36.041
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s what we’re trying now, and we did the same for Sweden, the same for UK, and very much open to fight more agents in different countries, and that our love to sell us.
19:36.221 –> 19:38.745
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can’t say it’s more effective, right?
19:38.905 –> 19:46.055
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think it’s more, we can keep this pace for years, but with the kind of looking at cash flow.
19:46.296 –> 19:47.157
[SPEAKER_00]: And then,
19:47.137 –> 19:58.210
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope to at one point see a bit more traction in a country and then you can then we can reinvest that money in that country and kind of build it from there that will be the model that I’m that we’re trying now.
19:58.561 –> 20:10.031
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it’s kind of like having a number of ions in the fire, if that phrase makes sense to, you know, you’ve got all these countries are just kind of ticking along, not causing you too many cash flow issues, but there’s nice business there.
20:10.232 –> 20:14.856
[SPEAKER_01]: And if one of them takes off, you’ll know where to go and invest the extra overhead.
20:15.336 –> 20:28.568
[SPEAKER_01]: You were talking there about agents being on commission and then some of them having retainers as well, you know, there’s two different models that you can undertake.
20:28.548 –> 20:32.214
[SPEAKER_01]: Employing an agent in another country is a bit chicken and egg.
20:32.395 –> 20:51.467
[SPEAKER_01]: I seem to be a analogy central today, cliche central, sorry everybody, but it is a little bit because it’s kind of like you’re putting them on commission, but they won’t know how well it’s going to work until they test the market, but they’re not yet incentivized to you, you know, to promote you ahead of anyone else they’re representing because
20:51.447 –> 20:55.494
[SPEAKER_01]: they haven’t yet seen how well it converts or what size cash it can bring into them.
20:55.514 –> 21:04.169
[SPEAKER_01]: So therefore the retainer seems good in the early days but then if it gets better then do you want if it’s really driving do you want to incentivise them spend all their time on you?
21:04.510 –> 21:11.582
[SPEAKER_01]: So for you is like the retainer plus commission versus the commission only model is that about?
21:11.562 –> 21:16.567
[SPEAKER_01]: life cycle time in the marketplace, you know, stage of life cycle in the marketplace.
21:16.647 –> 21:18.949
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it more of a strategic business?
21:18.969 –> 21:20.810
[SPEAKER_01]: As you know, does it just depend on the individual agent?
21:20.870 –> 21:21.211
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
21:21.231 –> 21:22.912
[SPEAKER_01]: 20 questions in about one.
21:23.813 –> 21:25.094
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re cool.
21:25.114 –> 21:25.495
[SPEAKER_00]: Good luck.
21:27.636 –> 21:34.142
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so some of the agents that we have, they kind of have, they work, let’s say four days a week, some of it, right?
21:34.182 –> 21:39.047
[SPEAKER_00]: So then they have an extra day and that they want to do something else and then want to develop something for themselves.
21:39.407 –> 21:41.569
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s in Sweden and one in the UK.
21:41.549 –> 22:09.632
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s quite ideal for us because they’re not investing too much time, but they’re testing the waters and then if traction comes they could at one point decide, okay I’m gonna do this full-time and then the agent that we had in Germany and UK Both them were like senior and both of them also brought a big network and they kind of said like well If I’m gonna open my network, I would I would want a retainer fee so for both of them we agreed to start with a retainer fee and
22:09.612 –> 22:20.784
[SPEAKER_00]: We visit the contract once in a while because preferably you get to the point where we give them a bit higher commission and no retainer and then that would be higher than just a retainer.
22:22.106 –> 22:31.556
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I also understand that people have been working in the business for 20 years that they’re not going to like do outreach for you for like a year or without anything in return, right, because then they would.
22:32.397 –> 22:36.261
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it depends a bit on the person depends a bit on the person.
22:36.697 –> 22:45.447
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes for us it’s also hard to pay retainer fees because we’re kind of we’re not really controlling what the agents does because they kind of work for themselves.
22:45.467 –> 22:51.754
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we pay the higher the retainer fee is, the more we demand from the person.
22:51.794 –> 23:01.945
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we pay a three, four K per month, then we also demand that, you know, like we want you four hours per week, we can then we expect these outreach, we expect, it’s what I said.
23:01.925 –> 23:09.032
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so that’s, as a club’s agents also don’t like that, and they also rather have a bit lower retainer fee and a bit more flexibility.
23:11.355 –> 23:16.239
[SPEAKER_02]: E-commerce master plan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
23:16.260 –> 23:24.228
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
23:24.248 –> 23:26.650
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s time for the top six round.
23:29.009 –> 23:34.557
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it’s me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
23:34.617 –> 23:36.279
[SPEAKER_01]: Rule, are you ready for the top tips?
23:37.261 –> 23:37.421
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
23:38.322 –> 23:47.035
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip, if everyone is listening to this podcast, I agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
23:47.690 –> 23:53.837
[SPEAKER_00]: I read this summer in the book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, and it was an amazing book.
23:54.338 –> 23:55.139
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if you know it.
23:55.800 –> 24:03.088
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s about not about designing as a sustainable product, but it’s about designing as a sustainable company.
24:03.549 –> 24:05.731
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s like system thinking.
24:06.532 –> 24:07.974
[SPEAKER_00]: No sustainability is not enough.
24:08.054 –> 24:13.040
[SPEAKER_00]: We should build companies that are making the planet better and not less worse.
24:13.160 –> 24:14.141
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s where the book is about.
24:14.562 –> 24:15.503
[SPEAKER_00]: Super inspiring.
24:15.972 –> 24:23.222
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it sounds great, I love sustainability and I love systems, so, sounds perfect.
24:23.342 –> 24:25.865
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to go and have a look at this one, that one after this.
24:26.686 –> 24:32.454
[SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either price above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
24:33.816 –> 24:43.228
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote down that we’re searching, so I really see traffic changing back in the days we could do like advertisement that was like, just put your money in, let’s go.
24:43.394 –> 24:51.246
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re doing a lot of outreach through LinkedIn and a mill campaigns at this point already for like a year and that was a bit successful.
24:51.326 –> 24:57.575
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I also see if I look at my own mailbox and LinkedIn, I’m just being overloaded with these messages.
24:57.735 –> 25:01.241
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’re everyone is doing it, then it’s also becoming a bit annoying.
25:01.701 –> 25:02.803
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
25:02.783 –> 25:13.983
[SPEAKER_00]: More and more, I have the feeling that real human seals, you know, like physical traffic, what’s your effort like, could be more important over the coming years.
25:14.004 –> 25:14.987
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s my assumption.
25:15.912 –> 25:19.360
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s an interesting time to be trying to work out the perfect traffic option.
25:20.222 –> 25:23.209
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I totally get what you’re coming from with that.
25:23.289 –> 25:24.412
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, tool-top tip.
25:24.492 –> 25:28.842
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone-up, or just a way of working.
25:29.002 –> 25:33.533
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a call at little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
25:34.508 –> 25:35.970
[SPEAKER_00]: I could plug my own product, right?
25:38.694 –> 25:44.183
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I think it’s super valuable to once in a while, take a notebook and just write.
25:44.944 –> 25:48.209
[SPEAKER_00]: Our notebook has a to-do list, a planner, and these kind of things in them.
25:48.289 –> 25:59.706
[SPEAKER_00]: So to write down the things that you want to do, erase them once you’re done, or if you want to be creative, then take a piece of paper and write in it.
25:59.686 –> 26:05.636
[SPEAKER_00]: a set of deck tools, uh, get a reusable notebook or or a no book in general, just write some times.
26:06.578 –> 26:11.186
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so good to get away from the screens and actually physically interact with your thinking.
26:11.647 –> 26:11.887
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
26:11.907 –> 26:13.871
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, love that, I’m idea.
26:14.732 –> 26:19.821
[SPEAKER_01]: Carbon top tip, your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store, please.
26:20.746 –> 26:21.807
[SPEAKER_00]: reusable packaging.
26:22.388 –> 26:25.010
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that’s going to be an amazing solution.
26:25.511 –> 26:29.875
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I think I think there’s a lot to win for e-commerce businesses, right?
26:30.016 –> 26:37.463
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we get to the point where every packaging that will be shipped is going to be reusable, that’s going to be amazing.
26:37.643 –> 26:44.931
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the product that we launched is Stone Packer, that would be a great solution to
26:45.552 –> 26:51.900
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, such a cool system, not one I’ve seen or the tech and the infrastructure that you were talking about.
26:51.940 –> 26:57.147
[SPEAKER_01]: Not one I’ve seen yet in the UK, but it can only be, you know, we’ve got a few companies who do it themselves.
26:58.108 –> 27:05.417
[SPEAKER_01]: Veg Box deliveries and that who are coming around every week anyway, but I’ve not yet seen anyone doing it on a larger scale in the UK.
27:05.397 –> 27:06.899
[SPEAKER_01]: If I’ve got that wrong, anyone listening?
27:07.199 –> 27:08.881
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know, I’d love to know who is doing it.
27:09.622 –> 27:12.426
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it’s definitely got to be where we’re heading.
27:13.027 –> 27:15.630
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect in our world.
27:16.731 –> 27:20.536
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you?
27:20.576 –> 27:23.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Your notebooks, your packaging, your personalized notebooks?
27:24.281 –> 27:26.123
[SPEAKER_01]: On the web and social media, please.
27:26.592 –> 27:33.506
[SPEAKER_00]: This is www.moju.moju.moju.moju.rucks from stone.
27:33.526 –> 27:37.073
[SPEAKER_00]: So, moju.rucks, that’s our website.
27:37.954 –> 27:41.141
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there, like in the header, it is like business and personalized these kind of things.
27:41.161 –> 27:42.323
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be easy to find.
27:42.556 –> 27:48.303
[SPEAKER_00]: The stone peckers or the packaging solution is also on that landing page of on that page somewhere.
27:48.383 –> 27:57.214
[SPEAKER_00]: So it can be a fan there or just reach out to me and I’m happy to chat about it and then all the social slides so you can find us on LinkedIn and Instagram and these kind of things.
27:58.275 –> 27:58.776
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
27:58.796 –> 28:04.082
[SPEAKER_01]: A little it’s been lovely getting to catch up with you again and very exciting to hear how your business is developing.
28:04.142 –> 28:05.644
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks so much for being on the show.
28:05.843 –> 28:09.750
[SPEAKER_00]: Same, same, let’s do this again in three years and see how the packaging is developing.
28:09.770 –> 28:12.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, let’s, great plan.
28:12.234 –> 28:12.875
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Rul.
28:13.796 –> 28:13.957
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
28:19.827 –> 28:25.897
[SPEAKER_01]: Great to get to catch up with Rul there and find out what they’re up to now at MoU and how the business is developing.
28:25.997 –> 28:28.982
[SPEAKER_01]: And absolutely fascinating to see how they are.
28:29.317 –> 28:48.928
[SPEAKER_01]: Still doing the D to C, but now also selling into retail check physical retail chains and then also doing great with their personalized bulk sales to businesses for client gift staff gifts and so on and so forth fascinating stuff hopefully lots of practical tips there for those of you on the similar journey.
28:48.908 –> 28:56.058
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get your hands on the notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we talked about by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.
28:56.498 –> 29:06.652
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our director episode short links, just put ECMP.info for such the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page.
29:07.072 –> 29:14.983
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to the website, you can also add yourself to my email list and then you won’t miss out on any of the things I share to help you improve your business.
29:14.963 –> 29:22.033
[SPEAKER_01]: If you liked this episode, then find out more about where MoU came from in my first chat with rule, which is episode 450.
29:22.133 –> 29:36.212
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want more about great people doing awesome things in the sustainability space, then ECMP.info4-b-corp will take you to the page on the website where we list all our b-corp people.
29:36.428 –> 29:41.296
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode that you do of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
29:41.656 –> 29:52.874
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your business, including encouraging businesses and consumers alike to make more sustainable buying decisions.
29:53.315 –> 29:58.083
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
29:58.443 –> 30:01.508
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a brilliant week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
30:04.390 –> 30:07.781
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the eCommerce MasterBland podcast.
30:08.243 –> 30:13.540
[SPEAKER_02]: Find out more at eCommercemasterplanned.com Slash podcast.
31 min
May 04eCommerce MasterPlan | 593: How to Grow Profits in 2026
In this special episode of the eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast, Chloe Thomas shares a panel discussion from a recent webinar focused on one big question: How can eCommerce brands grow both sales and profits in 2026?

Chloe is joined by three expert voices from very different areas of eCommerce – promotions, CRO and experimentation, and growth strategy – to explore what’s really driving performance right now.

From intelligent offers and smarter discounting to experimentation, retention, and measuring what truly matters, this is a practical, insight-packed conversation designed to help you grow more efficiently in 2026.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why most brands are losing money with discounts (and how to fix it)
The simple shift that separates demand creation vs demand capture
How to stop pouring budget into a “leaky bucket” of customers
The truth about conversion rate – dead metric or still king?
How to grow sales AND profit at the same time (yes, really)
The #1 mindset top brands use to consistently improve performance

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[07:55] Intelligent Offers
[19:15] The advice I’ve been giving most often to brands to help them improve their profits is…
[27:00] How to measure success? KPIS, Metrics, Benchmarks and more
[35:00] CRO improvements are the only way to improve ALL your marketing performance
[44:26] You CAN grow profits and sales at the same time
[52:30] Final takeaways

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/593
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:13.571
[SPEAKER_00]: The most fundamental thing is this kind of experimental mindset, don’t just do things and hope they work, measure them, make sure they work, roll back if they don’t give yourself a standing chance.
00:14.092 –> 00:19.660
[SPEAKER_00]: Most large brands I’ve seen understood that experimentation is the right thing to do.
00:22.070 –> 00:25.098
[SPEAKER_04]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:25.119 –> 00:29.190
[SPEAKER_04]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:29.731 –> 00:37.834
[SPEAKER_04]: Cutting through the Heiler to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:40.801 –> 00:41.822
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello and welcome.
00:41.842 –> 00:42.964
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s great to have you here.
00:43.004 –> 00:46.368
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our episodes.
00:46.969 –> 00:51.174
[SPEAKER_03]: Earlier this year, we bought you an episode all about how to grow in 2026.
00:51.976 –> 00:55.080
[SPEAKER_03]: Taken from a webinar I got to host for Ecommerce Tech.
00:55.600 –> 01:03.130
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we did another one all about profits in 2026, so I thought you’d appreciate me sharing that with you here too.
01:03.110 –> 01:09.862
[SPEAKER_03]: In it, I’m joined by three experts, each with a very different take on how to grow and how to increase your profits this year.
01:10.342 –> 01:18.216
[SPEAKER_03]: We’ve got Dan Bond from Rev Lifter, who’s all about intelligent offers and gives us a rundown of what that really means to kick things off.
01:18.196 –> 01:30.371
[SPEAKER_03]: We’ve got Sandeep Shah from web trends who brings the CRO and personalization angle to it all, and we have Jamie Lee, a consultant who’s all about bringing fast growth both Amazon and Deet Seabrans.
01:30.852 –> 01:37.740
[SPEAKER_03]: The four of us had a fascinating time discussing the big stories and answering the live audiences’ questions, so I know you’ll get a ton out of this.
01:38.241 –> 01:40.744
[SPEAKER_03]: We’re kicking off with the guests introducing themselves.
01:46.478 –> 01:48.802
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello panel, let’s create a bit of space for you up here.
01:48.862 –> 01:51.046
[SPEAKER_03]: Very cool to have you all here.
01:51.687 –> 01:56.816
[SPEAKER_03]: We’ll start with Sandeep and then work our way around clockwise.
01:57.437 –> 02:01.804
[SPEAKER_03]: So Sandeep, please let the audience know more about you and more about web trends optimise.
02:02.324 –> 02:09.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, thanks, Cleary and Havon, so I’m sending it ahead of product and co-founder at Web Transoptimize.
02:09.938 –> 02:14.507
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve been with the company now almost, you know, 14 years, give or take.
02:15.309 –> 02:22.442
[SPEAKER_00]: And over that time, you know, Principal focus has been on what we call
02:22.422 –> 02:25.406
[SPEAKER_00]: very important part of the kind of umbrella of CRL.
02:26.066 –> 02:34.716
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I’ve helped brands like, you know, Microsoft, against an MS group, HSBC, airlines, you know, supermarkets, all sorts.
02:35.678 –> 02:44.548
[SPEAKER_00]: And basically get more out of the website, get more people buying and not just turning up browsing and walking away, which is the important thing.
02:45.102 –> 02:48.149
[SPEAKER_03]: an endlessly fascinating area to be involved in.
02:48.169 –> 02:51.857
[SPEAKER_03]: I always think, you know, we must have mastered CRO by now.
02:51.897 –> 02:55.706
[SPEAKER_03]: No, there are new things and new customer behaviors and more tech.
02:55.726 –> 02:57.830
[SPEAKER_03]: So lots for us to get into with you later.
02:57.850 –> 02:59.354
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you so much for being here, Sandy.
02:59.454 –> 03:02.200
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, please let us know what you’re up to at the moment.
03:02.905 –> 03:04.607
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Chloe, thanks for having me.
03:05.008 –> 03:05.809
[SPEAKER_02]: I am Jamie Lee.
03:06.169 –> 03:09.072
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the founder and principal of JME Labs.
03:09.613 –> 03:27.715
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I do is I consult advice, provide fractional leadership in all things e-commerce for a variety of VCs, venture studios, early stage startup brands, all the way to nine figure brands, really helping them sharpen with that next chapter of growth looks like.
03:27.695 –> 03:35.226
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s what we’ll be diving into today, and I bring experience from a variety of smaller scale and larger scale parents as well.
03:35.426 –> 03:42.276
[SPEAKER_02]: So it works at Everlane and Vital Proteins, all US-based brands, and then the likes of Walmart, Nike, and Sony as well.
03:42.316 –> 03:49.045
[SPEAKER_02]: So very excited to be here, happy to chat through anything from any stage of e-commerce growth with you all today.
03:49.531 –> 03:55.420
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome to have you here, Jamie, now, Dan, please give us a little intro to you and Reflifter.
03:55.440 –> 03:56.121
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
03:56.262 –> 04:03.453
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, if anybody wants to make comments, so I recently put some ads up on netter that got me in the moment I’m in the videos and a lot of people commenting on my hair.
04:03.653 –> 04:11.826
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to comment on my hair, feel free, I don’t mind, I’ve got thick skin, say what you like on my hair, say it’s great, say it’s terrible, I don’t mind if that’s something you want to talk about.
04:11.806 –> 04:12.547
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely fine.
04:12.988 –> 04:13.929
[SPEAKER_01]: So my name’s Dan Bond.
04:14.149 –> 04:16.813
[SPEAKER_01]: I work for a company called Rev Lifter and we are sponsoring this.
04:17.654 –> 04:18.535
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re welcome everyone.
04:19.016 –> 04:33.616
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what we do is that very old tactic for growth, the drives growth in e-commerce brands, promotions, discounts and offers or about using those, but using them more intelligently to avoid damaging margins and brand.
04:34.177 –> 04:37.341
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s what I’m going to talk a bit more about today’s session.
04:37.895 –> 04:38.536
[SPEAKER_03]: Excellent.
04:38.696 –> 04:42.219
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, Dan, given what are they saying about your hair?
04:42.279 –> 04:43.300
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, I have to ask.
04:43.340 –> 04:45.942
[SPEAKER_01]: There was both positive and negative comments that’s all I’m going to say.
04:46.002 –> 04:47.424
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re actually know that we’re no positive comments.
04:47.684 –> 04:48.505
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s entirely negative.
04:48.765 –> 04:51.127
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
04:51.147 –> 04:54.750
[SPEAKER_03]: It is mad what comes up when you put something up on the internet.
04:54.830 –> 04:55.931
[SPEAKER_01]: The internet is just like that.
04:55.991 –> 04:58.193
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a very weird place.
04:58.674 –> 04:58.994
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
04:59.775 –> 05:07.902
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan, we are going to leave you to give us a fantastic introduction to a key part of
05:07.882 –> 05:12.167
[SPEAKER_03]: profit and growth, which so many brands failed to capitalize on.
05:12.187 –> 05:14.349
[SPEAKER_03]: So I really love the fact you can be taking us through this.
05:14.369 –> 05:15.951
[SPEAKER_03]: So Dan, the floor is yours.
05:16.411 –> 05:17.452
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, Chloe.
05:17.492 –> 05:18.313
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, hello, everyone.
05:18.353 –> 05:20.676
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we’re going to talk about intelligent offers.
05:20.776 –> 05:25.280
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is all about understanding how to use them, as I say, it’s offers discounts promotions.
05:25.441 –> 05:26.882
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re all basically mean the same thing.
05:27.002 –> 05:31.527
[SPEAKER_01]: But using them in a slightly different way, perhaps to the way they’ve always
05:31.507 –> 05:39.317
[SPEAKER_01]: The concept of discounts offers and promotions is been around for a really long time, spent 150 years they were first used in retail.
05:39.798 –> 05:46.387
[SPEAKER_01]: And originally it was a little hard metal tokens that people could give in to get a discount or a free gift or whatever part of the promotion.
05:46.407 –> 05:48.970
[SPEAKER_01]: And then over time, that mechanism changed.
05:49.010 –> 05:53.396
[SPEAKER_01]: So we moved to cutting out vouchers out of out of the newspaper on magazines.
05:53.436 –> 05:55.118
[SPEAKER_01]: If people remember that, if you’re old enough,
05:55.098 –> 06:00.649
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, of course, we use, you know, you get codes on your phone, you get codes in email, you get codes that get auto-applied.
06:01.029 –> 06:08.083
[SPEAKER_01]: So those mechanisms for applying discounts and promotions have changed, but the basic way they’re used by brands hasn’t many changed in that time.
06:08.123 –> 06:18.102
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all about clearing out stock, so getting rid of things in a sale, or as all about, we’re gonna miss a target, so let’s stick a discount on to make sure we hit that hit that target.
06:18.082 –> 06:38.976
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason offers were basically the way offers work is you have a selling price and you have a minimum price you can sell something for before you start losing money on it and you’ve all these people who are willing to pay a certain price for the product you’re selling and and by using an offer to reduce that price you essentially get more people into that area of acceptability that that is a price they’re willing to pay for the product.
06:38.956 –> 06:43.669
[SPEAKER_01]: you’re offering, the perceived value in their minds, they consider that to be worth it.
06:43.890 –> 06:54.400
[SPEAKER_01]: But you’ve also got a both end, you’ve got people who would be willing to pay what you’re charging all potentially more, and also people who are never going to pay enough to actually make it and let’s go wild.
06:54.380 –> 06:57.949
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually did some research a couple of years ago now.
06:57.990 –> 07:06.231
[SPEAKER_01]: We did some research with IMRG with UK Commessa Association and what they do is they have a panel of retailers and so they survey this panel.
07:06.252 –> 07:10.583
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is actually their data, this isn’t survey data, they dive into their data to look at.
07:10.563 –> 07:19.047
[SPEAKER_01]: how many what share of revenue items transactions was actually generated by discounted products.
07:19.408 –> 07:25.585
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see it’s around 50% just over 54% of revenue 49% of items of 52% of transactions.
07:25.565 –> 07:28.850
[SPEAKER_01]: So discounts really do drive a lot of sales for retailers.
07:29.070 –> 07:37.603
[SPEAKER_01]: And they do work in terms of, you can look at the average selling price for discounted items over all item sold is about £14 higher.
07:37.843 –> 07:41.609
[SPEAKER_01]: So promotions work, and that’s why retailies use them and they use them a lot.
07:42.110 –> 07:48.139
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is a big downside to promotions and discounts and that’s the damage they do to both your margins in the short term.
07:48.600 –> 07:50.082
[SPEAKER_01]: So they reduce the amount of money you make.
07:50.442 –> 07:54.188
[SPEAKER_01]: But also the damage they do to your brand in the long term, you set people up
07:54.168 –> 08:05.844
[SPEAKER_01]: That you’re always going to be a discounting seller and they can come and buy things from you in this and research on the slide there about about proper research has been done that shows that’s the case That was setting expectations.
08:06.105 –> 08:14.136
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got these groups are either end of this if we return to this diagram where it’s the case of There’s people who would actually be willing to pay more, there’s people who are not willing to pay.
08:14.456 –> 08:19.163
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you launch an offer across your site, there’s 20% off for everyone for everything.
08:19.143 –> 08:23.895
[SPEAKER_01]: you’re including in that all the people who would have paid more, you’re including all the people who would never buy anyway.
08:24.155 –> 08:30.631
[SPEAKER_01]: So the two questions you start to ask is what is the right offer to give people and who is the right people to receive that offer?
08:31.373 –> 08:33.458
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s the sort of problem we’re trying to solve at Revlifter.
08:33.478 –> 08:35.042
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s all to do with
08:35.022 –> 08:51.073
[SPEAKER_01]: understanding data, understanding more about the people who were coming to your site, what’s their likely level of intent, how likely are they to buy, and what’s the minimum offer you could potentially give them, it might get them to buy, if they weren’t going to buy or buy more, or buy again, if they were a peak customer.
08:51.053 –> 09:00.130
[SPEAKER_01]: Signed intelligence, which we’re going to tell a lot of our intelligence comes in two key areas in targeting, so who sees the offer and in what context and in optimization.
09:00.190 –> 09:07.864
[SPEAKER_01]: So what’s the right offer and in that classic CRO way can we test can we optimize every offer and our site?
09:07.844 –> 09:14.476
[SPEAKER_01]: So in terms of targeting what we’re talking about is any of these sort of data points we can collect about someone coming to your site where did they come from?
09:14.496 –> 09:17.140
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the first time they’ve come and they come before?
09:17.501 –> 09:18.803
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are they in that funnel?
09:18.843 –> 09:19.745
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they just browsing?
09:19.765 –> 09:21.147
[SPEAKER_01]: They’ve got things in their basket.
09:21.648 –> 09:22.830
[SPEAKER_01]: What products have they looked at?
09:22.870 –> 09:23.451
[SPEAKER_01]: What brands?
09:23.511 –> 09:24.413
[SPEAKER_01]: What categories?
09:24.874 –> 09:25.695
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are they?
09:26.096 –> 09:27.739
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can use in GOIP.
09:27.759 –> 09:31.405
[SPEAKER_01]: We can tell quite a bit about locationally where they are in country or state.
09:31.385 –> 09:35.311
[SPEAKER_01]: And the basket value and the products they’ve got in their basket, how long have they had that basket?
09:35.411 –> 09:38.435
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it high value low value at a expensive items, cheap items?
09:38.836 –> 09:53.477
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these things, if we understand all this data, we process it and we try and understand as much as possible about what people have done before, like how likely were they to buy before or not likely to buy, we can understand more about who needs to see an offer and doesn’t.
09:53.457 –> 09:56.661
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is gives you as a high deal of calculating level of intent.
09:56.701 –> 09:58.364
[SPEAKER_01]: So here goes an example of that.
09:58.684 –> 10:03.971
[SPEAKER_01]: So say you only wanted to target people who are very low and intent and show them an offer to try and get them to buy.
10:04.292 –> 10:09.539
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s how you could, you could shy, sky off that sort of segment of the button to target them, that offer to them.
10:09.739 –> 10:13.044
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is typically what a conversion rate looks like on a website.
10:13.224 –> 10:16.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people don’t buy any two percent people generally convert on an e-commerce site.
10:16.829 –> 10:23.599
[SPEAKER_01]: So in most cases, you’ve got a large number of people who are low intent, are very broad range of mid-intent and then a small number of high intent.
10:23.619 –> 10:31.411
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you can break that up and start to use those segments and target different offers at them to try and get them to do different things, that could be very, very powerful.
10:31.932 –> 10:34.816
[SPEAKER_01]: At the other end, I mentioned testing and optimization.
10:34.917 –> 10:36.078
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the kind of thing we’re talking about.
10:36.118 –> 10:38.923
[SPEAKER_01]: This is exactly the kind of test we run with some of our customers.
10:38.963 –> 10:42.448
[SPEAKER_01]: So 5-10 or 15% off on an email sign up.
10:42.428 –> 10:45.731
[SPEAKER_01]: No prizes for guessing, which gets the best result, 15%.
10:45.791 –> 10:48.053
[SPEAKER_01]: The bigger the discount you offer, the higher numbers go.
10:48.114 –> 10:51.477
[SPEAKER_01]: But the question is, beneath that metric, Wales is going on.
10:51.537 –> 10:53.219
[SPEAKER_01]: How many emails sign-up does it drive in yes?
10:53.259 –> 10:54.660
[SPEAKER_01]: But how many of them converting?
10:54.720 –> 10:55.461
[SPEAKER_01]: How many are buying?
10:55.941 –> 10:57.102
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your offer redemption rate?
10:57.423 –> 10:58.203
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s the AOV?
10:58.243 –> 10:59.004
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they spending more?
10:59.024 –> 11:00.946
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they spending less because they’re getting a promotion?
11:01.266 –> 11:09.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they driving actual incremental revenue, rather than just your serving a sign-up offer to people who were going to buy anyway, and all they’ve done is use that discount.
11:09.074 –> 11:11.658
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can start to dive into these things and actually optimize.
11:11.698 –> 11:17.609
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the case where we did this with an actual customer, 10% off was the winning variant because it was about the balance.
11:18.029 –> 11:33.175
[SPEAKER_01]: We call this office sensitivity testing, so testing how many people respond to a different level of discount or promotional price testing in terms of, you know, if you’ve got an item for sale, how much do you need to drop the price by in order to drive a level of demand, that’s going to make sure that that item doesn’t sit in your warehouse.
11:33.155 –> 11:35.901
[SPEAKER_01]: As a very simple I think this is a fun way.
11:35.961 –> 11:39.429
[SPEAKER_01]: Chloe’s got a shop, I don’t know if you know this Chloe’s got a shop, it’s called Chloe’s Fun Store.
11:40.050 –> 11:43.619
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s down there and Cornwall, if you’re ever in the true-row area, believe it’s around there.
11:44.080 –> 11:48.750
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you’ve got to imagine you’ve got, you know, someone goes into a store to buy something, they could one on one.
11:48.730 –> 11:52.814
[SPEAKER_01]: Kaggle with a shopkeeper and say, you know, this is the thing I want to buy, let’s talk about price.
11:52.834 –> 12:01.722
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you’ve got lots and lots of people coming to your site, hundreds of people, thousands of people a day, it’s all that scale, essentially, and how you do this on a broad scale, they’re very, very fast in real time.
12:02.102 –> 12:11.150
[SPEAKER_01]: So understanding whether people are coming to your site because they’re looking just looking for a bargain, they’ve got plenty of money, they want to spend, they want a specific thing, they’re just browsing, they want to buy right away.
12:11.611 –> 12:18.737
[SPEAKER_01]: If you could understand that thing and break people into these different segments, then you could serve different offers to them and that’s more likely to get what you want
12:18.717 –> 12:22.890
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I’m looking forward to visiting Chloe’s unstalk.
12:24.274 –> 12:26.701
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, open nine to five Monday to Friday.
12:29.670 –> 12:31.496
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m at thanks so much for that, Dan.
12:31.536 –> 12:32.659
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it’s.
12:32.977 –> 12:39.746
[SPEAKER_03]: I love what you talk about with the intelligent office because it’s something which is a fundamental part of human behavior.
12:40.226 –> 12:45.073
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember back when I started my career in the world of mail order, we talked about the sales buyers.
12:46.455 –> 12:48.998
[SPEAKER_03]: But we didn’t have the technology to properly do it.
12:49.018 –> 12:55.947
[SPEAKER_03]: It was very blunt what we were doing and it’s so cool to see that now is possible for everybody.
12:55.927 –> 13:01.907
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie Sandi, is this something you get involved with any thoughts to add to that offer construction side of things?
13:02.348 –> 13:07.084
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, I’m guessing probably more your wheel hasn’t in Sandi, so I’ll come to you first, but then we’ll get to Sandi.
13:07.283 –> 13:32.683
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I’d say Dan, with a lot of the clients that I’m working with, we’re assessing partners like a rev lifter to think of, okay, with current technology, say that you’re in Shopify or Amazon, there are things that you could do or say Clavio for email, where it’s like, hey, from a retargeting perspective, here’s a specific segment we want to leverage to ensure that hey, someone who’s lapsed gets a 10% off offer.
13:32.663 –> 13:42.018
[SPEAKER_02]: or on Amazon, there’s something called brand tailored motions, where you can target based on cohort, high intent, hasn’t shopped in a while, or just high potential consumers.
13:42.439 –> 13:44.622
[SPEAKER_02]: But we know there is a ceiling with that.
13:45.384 –> 13:58.705
[SPEAKER_02]: However, Chloe to your question, we are leveraging all the tools that are natively available across platforms to make sure the audience is that are warm, but not yet come back, are coming back appropriately.
13:58.685 –> 14:05.273
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the biggest question though that we’re always trying to answer, the million dollar question is, how profitable are these customers long term?
14:05.373 –> 14:11.420
[SPEAKER_02]: If we already need this level of push to get them back, are they the right customers to bring them back?
14:11.720 –> 14:13.903
[SPEAKER_02]: Hence why we’re looking at tools like a rev lifter?
14:13.943 –> 14:17.927
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it’s like Dan’s example with the email sign-ups.
14:17.987 –> 14:19.930
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s not just about the volume of email sign-up.
14:19.950 –> 14:26.177
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s about who signs up and how good they are for you over the longer term.
14:27.018 –> 14:33.569
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, find the principle quite interesting because it’s exactly how we talk about experience on a website.
14:34.390 –> 14:51.439
[SPEAKER_00]: So, pretty much with anything you do, you know, this idea of just show everyone the same thing and hope they respond in the same way is a very natural thing to do if you’re building a website, you know, you’re building a page and everyone will go to that template no matter how it looks.
14:51.419 –> 15:14.153
[SPEAKER_00]: But for these kind of cohort segments of people who are coming to the site, you know, the more kind of boxes you get to put around, whether it’s experience or not well, or you know, offers and programmers on your cabinets, you know, it’s this kind of idea of think about what they actually need and be a bit intelligent with what you’re doing, which sounds very straightforward.
15:14.313 –> 15:20.262
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it’s kind of immediately the same as how we think about
15:20.933 –> 15:23.417
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it’s all about that personalization, isn’t it?
15:23.437 –> 15:29.667
[SPEAKER_03]: But before I take you down a personalization standpoint, a little reminder to the audience, if you’ve got questions, please add them into the comments.
15:29.768 –> 15:31.771
[SPEAKER_03]: I know it’s working, Tim proved it was working.
15:32.352 –> 15:39.043
[SPEAKER_03]: And regular attendees will know that I like to kick off these webinars.
15:39.023 –> 15:55.624
[SPEAKER_03]: With a few rather than questions, a few statements or complete the sentences for our panel to really kind of try and get as much as many ideas into the mix as possible before we go too far off on tangents or go through an area.
15:56.025 –> 16:02.213
[SPEAKER_03]: So the first thing I would like our panel to answer or to complete is,
16:02.193 –> 16:06.784
[SPEAKER_03]: have kind of all the stuff you’ve been chatting with brands and merchants about recently.
16:06.824 –> 16:11.495
[SPEAKER_03]: What’s the advice you’ve been giving most often to them to help them improve profits?
16:11.516 –> 16:14.663
[SPEAKER_03]: And you’re welcome to put some sales growth into the answer as well.
16:15.004 –> 16:19.054
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, can I come to you first and I’ll come to Sandeep and then we’ll come back around to Dan.
16:19.374 –> 16:20.016
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie?
16:20.553 –> 16:24.057
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s say there’s two things that I tend to tell brands.
16:24.858 –> 16:30.264
[SPEAKER_02]: One is to ensure that you’re separating demand capture from demand creation.
16:31.005 –> 16:39.736
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean by this is a lot of brands are saying, hey, if I scale spend this equals more revenue without thinking of how do I want to do this?
16:40.196 –> 16:50.188
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, if we take Google or Amazon, a lot of folks might over index or work with agencies or partners that might do this and spend more on branded search.
16:50.168 –> 16:56.157
[SPEAKER_02]: However, I tell them we want to make sure we have the right guardrails, so we’re truly spending on incremental growth.
16:56.718 –> 16:58.280
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone’s already searching for your brand.
16:58.300 –> 17:07.634
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a level of brand defense you want to play, but not let’s not spend 80% of our budget on keywords with that would have likely converted organically.
17:08.055 –> 17:11.400
[SPEAKER_02]: So being smart at looking at what is truly more incremental,
17:11.380 –> 17:14.545
[SPEAKER_02]: versus what could be cannibalizing already organic sales.
17:15.046 –> 17:23.721
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s how we also want to think about channel diversity through marketing, like how do we want to mix Google and Meta together, since each of those channels have a different purpose.
17:24.363 –> 17:29.271
[SPEAKER_02]: Google for more demand capture and Meta for more demand creation.
17:29.251 –> 17:40.686
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other piece too, most of my clients have shifted to really nailing down retention before they start thinking about scaling growth through more tapofunnel, more traffic and new customers.
17:41.227 –> 17:48.978
[SPEAKER_02]: As I say, if you have a leaky bucket and 50% of your folks are dropping off from your first to second shop, that’s a big problem to solve.
17:49.018 –> 17:50.820
[SPEAKER_02]: We don’t want to keep filling that bucket.
17:50.800 –> 17:52.464
[SPEAKER_02]: if there’s a lot of our opportunity there.
17:52.484 –> 17:57.656
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’re really focusing on how do we make sure we get that first customer to come back a second time.
17:58.077 –> 18:05.434
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the third or fourth of the fifth and really hitting what that quote magic shop is to make them a VIP customer for life.
18:05.819 –> 18:33.058
[SPEAKER_03]: I love your first put, I love both your points, obviously Jamie, but I love your first point in particular because I think this is the year where e-commerce brands and merchants are going to have to get to grips with demand capture versus demand creation because over the last 20 years we’ve been able to be pretty lazy 90% of stores and just go after capture and just capture that demand with our advertising strategies, with our email strategies, with everything we’re doing.
18:33.038 –> 18:37.566
[SPEAKER_03]: But actually, if we want to cut through the noise, we now have to do the creation part as well.
18:37.686 –> 18:45.880
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it’s, you know, having more than one line for Facebook ads in a P&L is a bit of a mind-blowing one for people.
18:45.900 –> 18:47.102
[SPEAKER_03]: So I love you’ve brought that up.
18:47.583 –> 18:50.127
[SPEAKER_03]: And Sandi, how would you complete this sentence?
18:52.191 –> 18:55.416
[SPEAKER_00]: It would probably be too experiment.
18:56.037 –> 18:58.742
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, both in that kind of
18:59.077 –> 19:28.105
[SPEAKER_00]: Traditional sense of the word, it didn’t just try things, you know, brands are very obsessed with the next campaign that they need to run, you know, if you look at Odin Siddhamers group, they have the next blockbuster film to promote and there will be a endless cycle of those forever, you know, most fashion sites will have the next season and the next holiday and the next event
19:28.085 –> 19:30.128
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, new products to promote.
19:30.789 –> 19:44.372
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you’re very obsessed with the campaigns, you must forget this idea of, hey, we should be trying things, not just putting stuff out there, but actually trying and testing and playing with things along the way.
19:44.352 –> 20:01.107
[SPEAKER_00]: So both that kind of mindset of, we should experiment, but then in the most strict sense, and in my world, RAM, things like AB testing, where it’s, you know, run control trials, find genuine data on the other end where you know this works better than that.
20:01.647 –> 20:13.077
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, we should steer any given bit of an experience or the entire experience as a whole, in a particular
20:13.057 –> 20:14.659
[SPEAKER_00]: this idea of a leaky bucket.
20:15.440 –> 20:19.144
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think acquisition is becoming more more difficult.
20:20.185 –> 20:24.831
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s very hard to win people, especially the longer tail.
20:25.712 –> 20:30.237
[SPEAKER_00]: And so conversion is kind of your saving grace.
20:30.577 –> 20:35.443
[SPEAKER_00]: A whole bunch of people are coming to the site if you let them leave without having even tried to retain them.
20:37.205 –> 20:37.806
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s crazy.
20:38.507 –> 20:40.549
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, experiment.
20:41.575 –> 21:01.340
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it’s so easy as you’re saying, just to get caught up in the new campaign, new campaign, new campaign, but actually not learning anything, actually not fixing any of that leaky bucket, clearly we’re all going to be using that analogy for the rest of this webinar, but you don’t make those improvements, because you’re constantly focused on the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that’s going on.
21:01.380 –> 21:05.025
[SPEAKER_03]: And Dan, how would you complete this sentence?
21:05.185 –> 21:07.768
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we might already know, but are you going to curve ball us?
21:08.204 –> 21:20.277
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m gonna take it slightly, slightly, so what I’d say is, this is a voice of beginning out a lot recently in general, is having a position or a stance or an approach to something and that’s very clear, you stand by.
21:20.297 –> 21:37.975
[SPEAKER_01]: The one’s interesting when we speak to brands about their discounts is it’s clear they don’t have a clearly stated like, it’s fine to say we never discount or we are a discount brand and we discount everything or somewhere in the middle, but so many brands
21:37.955 –> 21:40.240
[SPEAKER_01]: and this creates a problem.
21:40.260 –> 21:42.725
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s see, I’ll use two different stories with contrast this.
21:42.805 –> 21:47.875
[SPEAKER_01]: So we worked with Ravoli, lovely, lovely, lovely premium handbags accessory, persis, that kind of thing.
21:48.717 –> 21:55.390
[SPEAKER_01]: When we started working with them, their specific challenge was, we know we use discounts too much, we know we over-discount, and we’re supposed to be this.
21:55.370 –> 21:56.272
[SPEAKER_01]: premium brand.
21:56.772 –> 21:58.976
[SPEAKER_01]: We know in the short term of the long term, this is damaging.
21:59.758 –> 22:00.699
[SPEAKER_01]: So we work with them.
22:01.080 –> 22:09.074
[SPEAKER_01]: And really in the early days, it was mostly about deciding when not to use a discount, when not to use a promotion to start saying, well, let’s stop using them so much.
22:09.134 –> 22:18.390
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s figure out where we can start to pull back a little bit with that’s not going to cause you damage in the, in the, in the, in the, your conversion rate now, I’ve met, I’ve met brands who said we tried going cold turkey.
22:18.370 –> 22:19.992
[SPEAKER_01]: and our conversion rate absolutely tanked.
22:20.012 –> 22:21.734
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s like, yeah, that’s not the best way of doing it.
22:21.774 –> 22:23.596
[SPEAKER_01]: We can sort of withdraw a bit more slowly.
22:24.618 –> 22:32.467
[SPEAKER_01]: So you then you’re starting to think, you know, how exactly do we use discounts and how are we going to implement that in a way that actually allows us to meet the goals we need to meet?
22:32.487 –> 22:35.491
[SPEAKER_01]: And then conversely, I’m at a brand actually just very recently an event.
22:35.991 –> 22:37.113
[SPEAKER_01]: A really interesting brand.
22:37.673 –> 22:42.980
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m not going to name them because I don’t have the permission, but they’re very successful brand who bring a lot in the last of the 10 years.
22:43.480 –> 22:45.643
[SPEAKER_01]: And they
22:46.163 –> 22:54.815
[SPEAKER_01]: However, they were aware that with ambitious growth targets, ambitious plans for the future, at some point they were probably going to need to start doing it.
22:55.256 –> 22:56.838
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, that’s a great position to be in.
22:56.858 –> 22:58.360
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got this position we’ve never done it.
22:58.461 –> 23:01.345
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you get to really think carefully about how to implement it.
23:01.705 –> 23:10.618
[SPEAKER_01]: And you could start by just implementing it in a few key places where it really solves a particular challenge that your customers, your prospects might be having.
23:10.598 –> 23:19.494
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, in either case, it’s about start thinking more deeply about, you know, if you do use whatever tactic you use, but in particular discounts, how do you use them?
23:19.574 –> 23:21.718
[SPEAKER_01]: What makes sense in terms of you as a brand?
23:22.159 –> 23:27.568
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you going to implement that to make sure that you can achieve growth in the in the short medium and long term?
23:28.169 –> 23:33.619
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I think I think just having a, I think about that and coming up with an answer is a good start.
23:34.392 –> 23:35.694
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that point.
23:35.814 –> 23:38.357
[SPEAKER_03]: I was, I’m going to name drop now yesterday.
23:38.397 –> 23:50.954
[SPEAKER_03]: I was interviewing Jim Sharks XCMO who took them through that massive growth spot and we were talking about what it takes to grow any comma store from eight figures upwards.
23:51.414 –> 23:54.358
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the key things he was saying is you have to
23:54.338 –> 23:55.659
[SPEAKER_03]: have a clear strategy.
23:56.300 –> 23:58.822
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you have to, this is our approach to promotions.
23:58.922 –> 24:04.167
[SPEAKER_03]: This is our approach to what markets we’re going to focus on, what channels we’re going to focus on, which products we’re going to focus on.
24:04.647 –> 24:09.572
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you’re not making those decisions, you are not giving yourself the best chance of success.
24:09.732 –> 24:11.834
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is that kind of like, what do we stand for?
24:11.874 –> 24:13.295
[SPEAKER_03]: Who are we and what do we do?
24:13.335 –> 24:14.276
[SPEAKER_03]: So, so, love that one.
24:14.576 –> 24:24.345
[SPEAKER_03]: We have had a question coming from our most frequent
24:24.325 –> 24:25.888
[SPEAKER_03]: that phrase.
24:25.908 –> 24:28.532
[SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, random joke, panel, don’t worry about it.
24:30.656 –> 24:31.497
[SPEAKER_03]: He’s got a great question.
24:31.517 –> 24:37.147
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we should go straight to now because it’s a big one and it kind of fits in with what we’ve just been talking about.
24:38.188 –> 24:42.115
[SPEAKER_03]: How does each of the panels suggest retake a like that instruction
24:42.095 –> 24:42.656
[SPEAKER_03]: their Edward.
24:42.696 –> 24:44.317
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m not allowed to ask any one of them.
24:44.337 –> 24:47.301
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to ask all three of you this question, each of the panel.
24:47.681 –> 24:51.706
[SPEAKER_03]: How does each of the panel suggest retailers and brands measure success?
24:52.306 –> 24:54.248
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the age of conversion rate over?
24:54.309 –> 24:55.730
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that’s a big one.
24:55.750 –> 24:58.453
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven’t heard that one being dead yet, but we’ll get well, go with it.
24:59.094 –> 25:03.018
[SPEAKER_03]: And if so, what success factors should we be focusing on?
25:04.440 –> 25:07.443
[SPEAKER_03]: Sandeep, dare I come to you first on this one?
25:07.523 –> 25:11.848
[SPEAKER_03]: For that, is the age of conversion rate over part?
25:12.622 –> 25:15.468
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely not, in my opinion, I guess.
25:15.629 –> 25:16.759
[SPEAKER_00]: And…
25:16.840 –> 25:18.782
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason for it is that it’s just a metric.
25:19.063 –> 25:22.547
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it’s not this idea of, it’s not a destination.
25:23.067 –> 25:27.632
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it’s not like a once I’ve hit my 2% and done mission accomplished.
25:28.393 –> 25:31.197
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, I think the thing to measure is growth.
25:31.637 –> 25:35.141
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how much battery you’re doing then where you are.
25:35.582 –> 25:45.413
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re not improving, you are probably declining at some point because new brands will pop up every day other people are trying to grow.
25:45.832 –> 25:55.422
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless you are a monopoly and congrats, I guess, if you are somehow, but if you’re not, you know, a competition will be taking money away from you in some shape or form.
25:56.062 –> 26:13.780
[SPEAKER_00]: So growth is definitely the right one, and then the question is, how do you measure growth and at least on, you know, properties that are myself and web trends touch like conversion rate on websites, you know, this is how we measure growth, you know, is there an incremental
26:13.760 –> 26:22.386
[SPEAKER_00]: Inclusionary, be it for a group or just, you know, everyone as a whole, and if there is, then that’s successful.
26:22.990 –> 26:28.897
[SPEAKER_03]: So are you a fan of ignoring benchmarks and measuring against yourself?
26:29.218 –> 26:32.542
[SPEAKER_03]: And are you, I’m gonna add another one of my pet things in here?
26:32.822 –> 26:44.897
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you also a fan of not looking at the global conversion rate but rather looking at conversion rate from email conversion rate from ads, conversion rate from organic as a better way of looking at things?
26:45.569 –> 27:13.062
[SPEAKER_00]: ignoring benchmarks 100%, I’m not sure how anyone could look at a benchmark for fashion, which includes, I don’t know, Lou Vuitton, and one of the many fast fashion brands, and expect the two to have any parity or resemblance despite being in the same vertical as each other.
27:13.042 –> 27:28.772
[SPEAKER_00]: This idea of considered purchase, you know, maybe there is something in there, which is close to think about, but even that, you know, if you’re buying an expensive bag versus a call, you know, both could be a considered purchase, but the jannings are entirely different.
27:29.140 –> 27:49.748
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, definitely on that side, you know, I would ignore and have ignored pretty much every benchmark I’ve ever seen, segmentation for me is a massive thing and it’s, you know, people are coming to your site, they are in groups, there is an average of, you know, the site or the app as a whole,
27:49.728 –> 27:50.169
[SPEAKER_00]: great.
27:51.491 –> 27:56.541
[SPEAKER_00]: But that’s formed from a whole bunch of segments that you do together and take them and average of.
27:57.362 –> 28:04.175
[SPEAKER_00]: But where they differ from each other, you know, if you find one of them to be struggling a lot where it doesn’t really make sense that they should.
28:05.096 –> 28:06.078
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s clearly a gap.
28:06.619 –> 28:13.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s a reason to go when experiments come up with a program trying to tackle a problem somewhere.
28:14.078 –> 28:18.483
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, segmentation 100% in benchmarks, 100% there.
28:18.683 –> 28:22.668
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m glad we were of one mind there, Sunday.
28:22.688 –> 28:31.699
[SPEAKER_03]: If I knew there was a reason we invited you on this, because we think like, Jamie, you’re dealing with this with brands big and small all the time.
28:31.739 –> 28:35.563
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you go about measuring success and defining those KPIs?
28:36.269 –> 28:39.833
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s always the hero KPIs of revenue and profit.
28:40.434 –> 28:46.241
[SPEAKER_02]: So once we double-click beyond that, the two metrics I always recommend are tacos.
28:46.821 –> 28:48.944
[SPEAKER_02]: So total average cost of sale.
28:49.505 –> 28:53.109
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s essentially your advertising spend divided by total revenue.
28:53.149 –> 28:58.395
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason we do this is we don’t want to look at just advertising as a cost of
28:58.375 –> 29:18.055
[SPEAKER_02]: purely what that ad spend brings in terms of revenue, say $20 of ad spend brings $60 of ad revenue, but if it’s bringing a hundred dollars of all revenue, we want to see how much are we spending from a marketing perspective, how efficient are we, and how does that compare to how much overall sales were bringing?
29:18.035 –> 29:24.002
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s one core metric we like to use, and then LTV to CAC, especially for high-frequency businesses.
29:24.102 –> 29:34.394
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s your lifetime value divided by your customer acquisition costs, and that gives us a sense of long-term profitability growth for the company.
29:34.975 –> 29:41.663
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we acquiring high-quality customers from an LTV perspective and how much does it cost us to acquire them?
29:41.643 –> 29:49.850
[SPEAKER_03]: I always get myself in knots when I start thinking about LTV, and customer lifetime value or life time value, which everyone from three-letter thing you want to go with.
29:50.271 –> 30:00.140
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I’m like, but there’s time involved in those, so I’m like, I can’t, I can’t look at today’s LTV to optimize my Google ads, because there’s time involved.
30:00.160 –> 30:04.624
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do you, what’s the time bands on that LTV versus Kaku?
30:04.644 –> 30:11.650
[SPEAKER_03]: You’re looking at January’s recruit, the January-recreated cohort
30:11.630 –> 30:13.554
[SPEAKER_03]: or how does time factor in?
30:14.556 –> 30:15.298
[SPEAKER_02]: Great question.
30:15.519 –> 30:25.220
[SPEAKER_02]: I say these are brands that have existed for at least a year, so we have annually at least one year of data, and then at that point we look at the blended average, and then also by month.
30:25.541 –> 30:30.752
[SPEAKER_02]: When I say blended average, I’m just looking at, hey, see you launch January of 2025.
30:30.732 –> 30:34.676
[SPEAKER_02]: in all of 2025, what was our LTV to CAC ratio?
30:35.237 –> 30:38.981
[SPEAKER_02]: And then by cohort, how are we starting to measure that in 2026?
30:39.261 –> 30:48.030
[SPEAKER_02]: So in January, there is a little hard to say what the real LTV is going to look like, but we have some tools that we use to say what their predicted LTV looks like.
30:48.711 –> 30:54.597
[SPEAKER_02]: So okay, based on their predicted LTV and their CAC, do we think this is going to be a valuable cohort for us?
30:54.712 –> 30:55.514
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it’s.
30:55.534 –> 31:00.083
[SPEAKER_02]: But typically, in January, a good window, we like to wait at least six months.
31:00.724 –> 31:07.638
[SPEAKER_02]: So in June, July, we’re then looking at January, I’ve got same year to see what the true old of it, LTV to Kakarisha looks like.
31:08.139 –> 31:08.720
[SPEAKER_03]: Got you.
31:08.740 –> 31:10.143
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a brilliant explanation.
31:10.203 –> 31:10.684
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
31:11.485 –> 31:14.391
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan, you’ll take on Ed’s question.
31:14.877 –> 31:24.152
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my fellow panelists are very smart people, and they have listed a lot of very good metrics to look at, profit, LTV, K. These are all very good things to look at.
31:24.192 –> 31:29.100
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the way I like to look at it and like to explain into e-commerce market is a market is in general.
31:29.120 –> 31:35.670
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes we are a bit guilty of over complicating things and making them sound a bit more technically challenging they aren’t they are.
31:35.650 –> 31:38.595
[SPEAKER_01]: If you’re a retailer, you basically have three things you’re trying to do.
31:38.615 –> 31:41.500
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re trying to sell more things to more people more often.
31:41.940 –> 31:43.843
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s basically the framing for what you’re trying to do.
31:43.863 –> 31:48.491
[SPEAKER_01]: And then within that, there’s lots of metrics and lots of things, ways of measuring those things and achieving that success.
31:48.912 –> 31:54.260
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you keep that at the top of your mind that that’s the main goal is to transfer more things to more people more often.
31:54.821 –> 31:55.903
[SPEAKER_01]: You can’t go far wrong.
31:57.065 –> 31:57.706
[SPEAKER_03]: like it.
31:57.867 –> 32:01.233
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice little summary there Dan, you’re doing my job for me and better than me.
32:01.734 –> 32:04.560
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is always appreciated, I have to say.
32:04.901 –> 32:05.862
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that’s true, Chloe.
32:05.923 –> 32:09.530
[SPEAKER_01]: No one’s going to watch this if I did it every morning.
32:09.570 –> 32:14.179
[SPEAKER_03]: There comes a point in one’s career when you realise it’s completely fine when other people are doing it better than you.
32:14.159 –> 32:41.803
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so I’m going to jump to probably a statement that our panel are not expecting because this was not the next one on the list, but I think it fits in with a few kind of subplots that have been going on in our discussion so far today, which is that that that meeting between conversion rate optimization in which I would include the promotion incentive optimization personalization and all those kind of things.
32:41.783 –> 32:44.967
[SPEAKER_03]: all those things that increase like the herd of actually buying.
32:45.547 –> 32:48.511
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the marketing and traffic driving side of things.
32:48.731 –> 32:51.995
[SPEAKER_03]: And I’ve so often been in a scenario where they’re not playing together.
32:52.015 –> 33:00.444
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually I always think that the CRO improvement, you know, if I’m the market to driving the traffic, bring me some conversion rate optimization improvements.
33:00.544 –> 33:05.971
[SPEAKER_03]: I am all for that, you’re going to make my row-ass body, you’re going to make my cat body, you’re going to make my volume of acquisition better.
33:06.551 –> 33:11.537
[SPEAKER_03]: So RCRO improvements, the only way to improve all your marketing performance.
33:11.517 –> 33:13.734
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a key part of the strategy?
33:14.036 –> 33:16.515
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyone can jump in on this, I’ll let you give it a go.
33:17.457 –> 33:21.881
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m going to not just say, I’ve got a fairly quick deck, which is, yeah, I’m in a way, I agree.
33:22.982 –> 33:24.884
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’ve been a marketer for something like 20 years.
33:24.924 –> 33:25.664
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a very long time.
33:25.704 –> 33:26.165
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m very old.
33:26.205 –> 33:27.126
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m much older than I look.
33:27.146 –> 33:27.786
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for asking.
33:28.467 –> 33:34.673
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that generally, yes, that my pro, whenever I’m on says to me, you know, what is your general approach to marketing?
33:34.693 –> 33:39.137
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all of marketing and all of Toronto grow business is a continual test and learn program, right?
33:39.477 –> 33:40.818
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re always trying things.
33:41.158 –> 33:43.701
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they work, you do them again, and you do them more.
33:43.741 –> 33:45.582
[SPEAKER_01]: And you keep improving them and optimising them.
33:45.602 –> 33:47.464
[SPEAKER_01]: If they don’t work, you stop doing them.
33:47.444 –> 33:50.387
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if you think about that, that’s what CRO is at the end of the day.
33:50.427 –> 33:58.337
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all about taking these elements of your funnel, of your growth, of your system, for getting more customers and get to your buy more stuff.
33:58.657 –> 34:01.600
[SPEAKER_01]: And working out and make it better and work more efficiently and get more people through.
34:01.921 –> 34:08.208
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you think about that, then yes, that has absolutely the way you can test and learn, wait to improve your brand, you can test and learn ways to improve your website.
34:08.508 –> 34:11.332
[SPEAKER_01]: You can test and learn ways to improve your email, your user promotions.
34:11.952 –> 34:14.976
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything can be, can be, you can be optimized and can be tested and learned.
34:14.996 –> 34:16.978
[SPEAKER_01]: So, from that perspective, yes, it’s…
34:16.958 –> 34:26.125
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s true, whether you call it CRO or whatever you want to call it, yeah, you should be optimizing everything as much as you can because that is that is missed opportunities at your time.
34:26.543 –> 34:38.801
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m currently sporting up for a webinar I’m doing with Will Pay next week and that’s it’s possible to get in terms of revenue improvement by improving your credit card failure rate.
34:39.042 –> 34:40.263
[SPEAKER_03]: Is insane?
34:40.283 –> 34:42.647
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean it just does not something we often think about.
34:43.408 –> 34:49.497
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, do you when you’re working with brands, do you find on the growth side you’ll be bringing the marketing in the CRO together hand in hand?
34:49.932 –> 35:14.404
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so while I think Sierra improvements are really critical, I was think, you know, that lower funnel, CRO retention marketing, a big part of it is also bringing the high quality traffic, Chloe, as you mentioned, you got to bring these some good customers, otherwise, CRO can only do so much so observing what is your workhorse channel or most efficient channel that brings you the most valuable consumers and or what is the right blend of channels.
35:14.384 –> 35:26.037
[SPEAKER_02]: given that most people are using MTA, multi-touch attribution, maybe it’s a combination of, I’m making this up, meta first, Google Next, email or SMS is that third touch point to get them through.
35:26.518 –> 35:29.406
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the right sequencing or combination of
35:29.386 –> 35:37.555
[SPEAKER_02]: top of funnel or performance marketing touch points to bring the most valuable consumers then making zero super easy.
35:38.116 –> 35:51.411
[SPEAKER_02]: The one other piece I want to call out that I’m working with brands is also brand and product marketing tends to get left out of these conversations and what I always say is we can only do so much to sell a bad product.
35:51.391 –> 36:05.485
[SPEAKER_02]: So if your product is getting one star reviews across the board, whether it’s D to C, Amazon or other retailers, we have fundamentally need to fix that as partners versus putting e-commerce on the hook for selling a product that’s not resonating with customers.
36:06.308 –> 36:07.250
[SPEAKER_03]: such a good point.
36:08.131 –> 36:22.494
[SPEAKER_03]: And as we kind of as we move into the world of the the the demand capture of the demand generation side of things, the demand creation side of things, I think that whole the branding, the creative, the quality of the products, the UGC that comes into it becomes such an important part of the piece.
36:22.875 –> 36:24.377
[SPEAKER_03]: So I love that you’re bringing that up, Jamie.
36:24.477 –> 36:26.721
[SPEAKER_03]: And Sandi, you’re you’re perspective on this.
36:26.761 –> 36:31.168
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you do you love it when the marketing team are banging on your door going help me with my cat?
36:31.739 –> 36:35.805
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be great, and I wish people would do a lot of things.
36:36.346 –> 36:42.636
[SPEAKER_00]: I think on the question itself, the word all kind of muddies the borders of fraction.
36:43.077 –> 36:59.603
[SPEAKER_00]: In principle, for a lot of most people’s marketing, the idea is to serve them something digital, measurable, get more people to then go and click on the thing that you’re trying to get them to click on or buy,
36:59.583 –> 37:05.756
[SPEAKER_00]: convey or browse or shop around or whatever the goal is in the moment for that particular project.
37:06.537 –> 37:10.706
[SPEAKER_00]: There are forms of marketing which you can’t measure immediately.
37:10.746 –> 37:20.005
[SPEAKER_00]: And my local train station on the platform, you know, I swore some signs for community fibrill who are customer advice and
37:19.985 –> 37:31.513
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do you measure the the effectiveness of a sign on a trained platform or optimize the conversion of that?
37:31.578 –> 37:37.927
[SPEAKER_00]: You could probably move it around a bit and see if more people look at the sign, but beyond that, there’s only so far you can go.
37:37.967 –> 37:51.325
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it is things like email efforts and social and getting people to convert from ads as they come to the site, absolutely, you know, conversion can help make all of those things better.
37:51.305 –> 38:03.666
[SPEAKER_00]: but you know, if you’re running the Super Bowl advert, I’m not sure how conversion would help with those kind of more brand related things as opposed to, you know, messaging based marketing.
38:04.207 –> 38:14.545
[SPEAKER_03]: And given we’re talking brands and deep, do you find that as e-commerce is evolved, you’re now spending more time running tests.
38:14.761 –> 38:21.029
[SPEAKER_03]: that are to do with how the branding appears and how the creative appears rather than should the button be on the right of the left.
38:21.710 –> 38:23.232
[SPEAKER_03]: So there’s kind of softer tests.
38:24.413 –> 38:30.981
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve definitely got away from button testing a good 10 years ago.
38:31.922 –> 38:35.026
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully, we milked that in 2012.
38:35.046 –> 38:37.309
[SPEAKER_00]: That was.
38:37.373 –> 38:41.619
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single company you can imagine really wanted their buttons to be amazing.
38:42.480 –> 38:45.004
[SPEAKER_00]: Proposition matters a lot more now.
38:45.484 –> 38:48.769
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there are a lot of good reasons to buy from most retailers.
38:50.531 –> 38:55.638
[SPEAKER_00]: Very often they do a terrible job of picking the right things for the right people to make them aware of.
38:56.520 –> 39:02.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Be it that they are, you know, UK based as a poster giant global conglomerate.
39:02.568 –> 39:07.397
[SPEAKER_00]: or, you know, they have free returns or they have good ratings or they have a good support network.
39:07.637 –> 39:10.823
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there’s only so many pixels on a page.
39:11.264 –> 39:14.249
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s only so much you can really put in front of people.
39:14.930 –> 39:16.113
[SPEAKER_00]: But what is the right message?
39:16.253 –> 39:17.936
[SPEAKER_00]: And is it the same thing for everyone?
39:18.096 –> 39:19.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not.
39:19.218 –> 39:21.703
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of people are kind of steering more in that direction.
39:22.344 –> 39:26.331
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a lot of focus still on very fundamental things like,
39:26.395 –> 39:30.741
[SPEAKER_00]: We have 100,000 products and people can’t find what they’re looking for.
39:31.201 –> 39:39.933
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we just fix navigation and recommendation engines and all these kind of core UX problems as well still?
39:40.874 –> 39:41.034
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
39:41.054 –> 39:41.294
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
39:41.314 –> 39:41.435
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.
39:41.455 –> 39:44.819
[SPEAKER_03]: The button is just just two obvious and example folds.
39:44.839 –> 39:46.661
[SPEAKER_03]: We’ll see how it is in it.
39:46.681 –> 39:49.125
[SPEAKER_03]: But thank goodness we’ve moved past that.
39:49.265 –> 39:49.645
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
39:49.665 –> 39:53.230
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to go back to another one of the statements now.
39:53.851 –> 39:57.761
[SPEAKER_03]: You guys, can you grow profits and sales at the same time?
39:58.002 –> 40:10.594
[SPEAKER_03]: I think sometimes we think that you have to, if you want growth, you can’t also be profitable, if you want profits, you have to cut back and reduce costs and do clever things.
40:10.574 –> 40:20.870
[SPEAKER_03]: In your experiences, is it possible to increase your profit percentage and increase your overall sales at the same time?
40:21.651 –> 40:27.520
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan, you’re unmuted, so I’m going to come to you first, because I know you’re unmuted, but then we’ll work our way through everybody.
40:28.208 –> 40:30.893
[SPEAKER_01]: I will always be unmuted for you, Chloe, I want you to know that.
40:31.073 –> 40:33.577
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, so yes, you can, I would say.
40:33.657 –> 40:35.921
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when would try to help a brand grow?
40:35.961 –> 40:43.855
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously yes, I remember my early days of rev lifter, a guy said to me, like, if I wanted to get people and buy lots more stuff on my site, I could just stick 50% off.
40:43.835 –> 40:45.920
[SPEAKER_01]: across the whole site, everyone will buy more.
40:46.000 –> 40:49.989
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got people who are coming to your site, some of them want to buy, some of them don’t.
40:50.771 –> 40:51.913
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them are sitting on the fence.
40:52.194 –> 40:58.388
[SPEAKER_01]: And generally, when we’re talking about who to target with promotions, we’re talking about that sort of that middle column of people.
40:58.428 –> 41:00.072
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got people who definitely don’t want to buy.
41:00.172 –> 41:01.455
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don’t want to show them anything.
41:01.435 –> 41:20.288
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got people who definitely do want to buy and you don’t want to show them anything because they’re willing to pay a full price and then you’ve got this big clump in the middle who are on the fence might might buy with the right offer might not and it’s understanding it as many of those people as possible like which ones can you get over the line but you’ve got a big chunk of people there who would buy at full price.
41:20.268 –> 41:27.757
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’ve actually had to retail as we’ve spoken to who when they’ve explained when we had a look at their data and we’ve seen what they sell a lot of.
41:27.777 –> 41:33.724
[SPEAKER_01]: They’ve got some hero products that they sell lots and lots of and we’ve actually even advised you could probably put the price up on these products.
41:33.744 –> 41:34.626
[SPEAKER_01]: They sell lots and lots.
41:34.926 –> 41:41.934
[SPEAKER_01]: If you’re saying lots and lots and you haven’t thought about a pricing increase and there’s probably room there to make even more money on those products.
41:42.195 –> 41:44.858
[SPEAKER_01]: But you’ve also got this big batch of other products.
41:44.838 –> 41:48.285
[SPEAKER_01]: which you’re not selling, which are just sat in your warehouse and they’re just costing you money.
41:48.305 –> 41:52.252
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are the kind of things you should be running price promotions on to try and clear.
41:52.693 –> 42:01.690
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re trying to really understand the user, so the people who come to your site as much as possible, how likely they are to buy what their intentions are and whether they should receive an offer.
42:02.051 –> 42:07.521
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re on the other side of the data, which is your product data, what you’ve got to sell, what the margins are and those products.
42:07.501 –> 42:10.945
[SPEAKER_01]: But the demand is like, and you’re trying to sort of balance those two things.
42:10.965 –> 42:15.089
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got the classic, I don’t want to go all economics, but you’ve got the classic two sides applying demand.
42:15.569 –> 42:22.036
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can try and make those two things marry up, you can make sure you’re selling everything for the maximum amount of money you can sell it for.
42:22.416 –> 42:26.821
[SPEAKER_01]: And that way you can maximize profit, but you can also maximize your sales.
42:27.221 –> 42:32.547
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s definitely possible to do both if you understand as much of possible.
42:32.527 –> 42:38.503
[SPEAKER_01]: of the two sides supply and demand, and that’s what we’re trying to have trying to help retailers do essentially.
42:38.939 –> 42:40.721
[SPEAKER_03]: It does feel like it’s a lot easier now.
42:40.781 –> 42:52.413
[SPEAKER_03]: We have the algorithms that can crunch the data and take all these inputs to therefore extrapolate and guess what is actually going to convert the right person at the right price.
42:52.473 –> 42:56.097
[SPEAKER_03]: It feels a lot more possible than it was 10, 15 years ago.
42:56.137 –> 42:59.220
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, you’re obviously all about growth.
42:59.260 –> 43:04.626
[SPEAKER_03]: Do your clients also want to be growing profits at the same time, or is that an unrealistic expectation?
43:04.606 –> 43:10.855
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I feel like that unicorn desire for a big time is very present.
43:11.456 –> 43:19.509
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d say branching out a little bit from the focus on just digital marketing and zero is thinking about channel differentiation.
43:20.109 –> 43:25.918
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of them are in retail on reatteller.com, on digital marketplaces, and.com.
43:26.339 –> 43:28.582
[SPEAKER_02]: So understanding what is the purpose of each channel?
43:28.843 –> 43:31.727
[SPEAKER_02]: So if dot com is your channel for profit,
43:31.707 –> 43:42.920
[SPEAKER_02]: but not for growth, focusing it in to say, okay, if it’s for profit and we want maybe our second, third time most loyal customers to shop there, we want a great retention ecosystem to support that.
43:43.100 –> 43:49.408
[SPEAKER_02]: But we know that Amazon, for example, is more hair recapturing demand of people that are already searching your brand.
43:49.748 –> 43:57.057
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re going to get high volume here, but we’re going to trade off your full company PNL with knowing that you have a more profitable channel like D to C.
43:57.037 –> 44:13.307
[SPEAKER_02]: So they’re coming to an understanding with the leadership team to understand what is the purpose for each channel can fundamentally change the structure of the profit versus revenue growth, but thinking about it more holistically and accepting the role of each channel in that objective.
44:13.979 –> 44:24.489
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we all know that to expect the same ROI on a marketplace sale that we get being very blanket about it that we get via our own channel is crazy.
44:24.910 –> 44:38.043
[SPEAKER_03]: But if we haven’t actually strategically gone, actually we’re happy to run the marketplace business at this ROI and we’ll run our D2C business at this ROI, then it must save so much bored room time.
44:38.583 –> 44:40.505
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I’m going, oh, but should it be here?
44:40.525 –> 44:43.328
[SPEAKER_02]: Should it not be here?
44:43.409 –> 44:48.882
[SPEAKER_03]: just clarity as well as success and I think clarity is such an important point when we’re trying to do all this.
44:48.922 –> 44:56.559
[SPEAKER_03]: So Sandeep profits sales growth all at the same time from a CRO perspective, what do you reckon?
44:57.862 –> 45:01.992
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if you were to make a lot of matrix of
45:02.292 –> 45:07.300
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, those four possibilities you have, we have hurt cells and profit.
45:07.941 –> 45:10.446
[SPEAKER_00]: We have help cells but not profit.
45:10.666 –> 45:16.175
[SPEAKER_00]: We have improved profit and hurt cells, which have way around the first strike now.
45:16.576 –> 45:20.402
[SPEAKER_00]: All we’ve made cells better and we’ve made profit better and I’ve seen
45:20.382 –> 45:23.746
[SPEAKER_00]: activity in each fall of those, you know, quadrants.
45:24.407 –> 45:30.555
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to look at profitability, which I know Dan mentioned, you know, every product has different margins.
45:31.236 –> 45:49.140
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to show people something they still want to buy, that is cheaper, but higher profit, you know, if you think about own brand versus, you know, kind of main branded products, for example, you know,
45:49.120 –> 45:53.925
[SPEAKER_00]: If people still buy, great, you know, profitability has gone up, but sales may have gone down.
45:54.906 –> 46:16.748
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you fix problems that would stop people from buying, at the same time is getting more sales, so more people buying things, you may also get people who are on the brink of buying a second product as part of that basket and tip them into buying two or three or four things because you’ve solved a genuine problem for them.
46:16.728 –> 46:24.564
[SPEAKER_00]: The fashion example is a very good one, you know, people don’t know what size they are, especially if it’s a new brand that you’ve not, you know, repeatedly bought things from.
46:24.604 –> 46:36.407
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to give them some reassurance, you know, you can ship things back, which are not as painful to handle, but you can return things if you need to, and
46:36.387 –> 46:44.479
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know you are a Ted Baker size, whatever, at Mox and Spencer, here is the equivalent size for you.
46:44.519 –> 46:49.305
[SPEAKER_00]: That may well give people enough of the reaction it’s to go and buy more than they’re expecting to.
46:50.046 –> 46:56.996
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think on every direction of possibility of what could happen both with sales and profit, everything is possible.
46:57.056 –> 47:04.487
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t think anything of the table is just how committed are you to finding the problem in the reason why
47:04.467 –> 47:09.567
[SPEAKER_00]: People aren’t buying more spending more at the same time, you know, all those things.
47:10.323 –> 47:11.124
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that answer.
47:11.144 –> 47:17.913
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Sandeep, and I’m now resisting the urge to get into the profitability or non-profitability of fashion returns.
47:18.915 –> 47:20.216
[SPEAKER_03]: Let’s not go there.
47:20.256 –> 47:23.781
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, we’ve had some fascinating things discussed.
47:24.122 –> 47:29.649
[SPEAKER_03]: I still feel like we barely scratched the surface of the topic we’re here to discuss, because it’s so huge.
47:29.669 –> 47:31.692
[SPEAKER_03]: But we’ve got in some really excellent subject.
47:31.712 –> 47:37.680
[SPEAKER_03]: I know it’s going to help our viewers live and on the replay and on YouTube and and and
47:37.660 –> 47:58.588
[SPEAKER_03]: But what I’d love to ask you each before we say goodbye to the audience is of all the stuff we’ve talked about, of all the stuff we could have talked about, what would be your key takeaway for someone listening who wants to go about growing the sales and profits within their business, where in 2026 would you be focusing, what would be your key takeaway for them?
47:58.608 –> 47:59.770
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can bring up
47:59.750 –> 48:03.574
[SPEAKER_03]: anything we’ve discussed and repeat it all you can throw something new into the mix.
48:03.634 –> 48:04.295
[SPEAKER_03]: I don’t mind.
48:04.956 –> 48:09.641
[SPEAKER_03]: Sandeep, I’m going to come to you first and then we’ll go anti-clockwise back around that.
48:09.661 –> 48:17.870
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the the first one for me and the most kind of fundamental thing is this kind of experimental mindset.
48:18.371 –> 48:21.154
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just because that’s what we do by genuinely believing it as well.
48:21.895 –> 48:22.956
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s
48:23.257 –> 48:31.726
[SPEAKER_00]: don’t just do things and hope they work, measure them, make sure they work, roll back if they don’t, give yourself a standing chance.
48:32.227 –> 48:36.652
[SPEAKER_00]: Most large brands I’ve seen, you know, already have some flavor of this.
48:36.712 –> 48:40.996
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re kind of understood that experimentation is the right thing to do.
48:41.337 –> 48:47.003
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that’s the case, personalization is probably something I’ve seen most people not do very well.
48:47.152 –> 48:49.896
[SPEAKER_00]: which is just creep people like people.
48:50.437 –> 48:58.407
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, individuals, different needs, different goals, different fears and requirements and all that’s kind of stuff, just creep them like humans.
49:00.050 –> 49:00.210
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
49:00.230 –> 49:04.616
[SPEAKER_03]: I had someone on the podcast a couple of years and I cannot remember what branded is, sorry, everybody.
49:05.257 –> 49:11.005
[SPEAKER_03]: And today we’re talking about how they had reduced their number of promotional campaigns a year from like 12 to 10 or something.
49:11.525 –> 49:16.332
[SPEAKER_03]: And that had given them the breathing space to actually iterate and learn.
49:16.312 –> 49:34.763
[SPEAKER_03]: What was before it was just get it out, get out Valentine’s Day, get out Mother’s Day, get out Easter, and then because they reduced it, they’d actually managed to increase over all sales because, and increase profits because they were actually taking the lessons from each campaign and they had the time to take those lessons and to build those experiments in and to take it forward.
49:34.783 –> 49:37.468
[SPEAKER_03]: So huge, huge potential there.
49:37.488 –> 49:38.930
[SPEAKER_03]: So you look like you want to add something.
49:39.611 –> 49:40.092
[SPEAKER_03]: Go for it.
49:40.072 –> 49:42.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I took my own iterations.
49:42.155 –> 49:56.759
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a subject I’ve spoken about and even if you’re in that kind of experimentation world, so many people will commit to the next three months worth work and regardless of whether or not they find a winner, they’re onto the next thing.
49:56.799 –> 50:00.145
[SPEAKER_00]: And this idea of hey, we stumbled onto something helpful.
50:00.245 –> 50:01.928
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s go drill in and iterate.
50:02.448 –> 50:03.490
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just a massive thing.
50:03.831 –> 50:06.535
[SPEAKER_00]: People do not do it enough and just said to
50:06.515 –> 50:09.261
[SPEAKER_00]: Push people to do when they’re for that guy.
50:09.281 –> 50:10.764
[SPEAKER_03]: You found a good avenue.
50:10.965 –> 50:12.127
[SPEAKER_03]: Go down at everybody.
50:12.167 –> 50:13.851
[SPEAKER_03]: Don’t just carry on with planner.
50:13.871 –> 50:15.916
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, totally, totally get me a coming from there.
50:16.296 –> 50:19.343
[SPEAKER_03]: Jamie, what’s your final thought for the audience, please?
50:20.335 –> 50:26.602
[SPEAKER_02]: given that most of the audience are sitting in some sort of digital seat, so to speak with their role.
50:26.762 –> 50:48.587
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d say the one thing for 2026 and one big thing I learned last year is releasing connected to your product team, and when I say product not digital product, but your physical product, if you are selling that, or if you’re selling a SaaS product, because reinforcing what I said earlier, you can’t sell a one-star product in the same way you
50:48.567 –> 50:59.082
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way I’ve, the tactical way I found it most beneficial is being able to share consumer insights to say, hey, digital is a really valuable space where you get very specific consumer reviews.
50:59.543 –> 51:05.251
[SPEAKER_02]: We can aggregate it in cloud, in chat, just to summarize some learnings with privacy pieces in place.
51:05.811 –> 51:18.169
[SPEAKER_02]: And let’s aggregate a lot of these insights to then feed into product development, R&D and creation, to ensure that you as an e-commerce leader or marketer have the right product to
51:18.149 –> 51:21.658
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’d say sometimes that foundation or fundamental step is lost.
51:22.079 –> 51:25.086
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you’re just trying to pull all these tactics to drive growth.
51:25.487 –> 51:28.314
[SPEAKER_02]: But without that fundamental piece, you’re not going to be able to.
51:28.395 –> 51:29.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So stay connected.
51:29.858 –> 51:33.728
[SPEAKER_02]: Be friends, but not best friends with your product partners.
51:33.927 –> 51:36.973
[SPEAKER_03]: That’d be friends but not best friends with the product team.
51:37.334 –> 51:38.155
[SPEAKER_03]: That’s very cool.
51:38.236 –> 51:41.823
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I might have to adopt that as my way of saying break down the silos.
51:41.883 –> 51:43.666
[SPEAKER_03]: No, be friends, but not best friends.
51:43.687 –> 51:45.450
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that’s puts it on the head.
51:45.470 –> 51:46.151
[SPEAKER_03]: Love that Jamie.
51:46.172 –> 51:47.534
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Dan.
51:47.895 –> 51:49.438
[SPEAKER_03]: You’ll take away for the audience, please.
51:50.077 –> 52:03.118
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I would say the goal of any promotion, the goal of basically any kind of activity you do, any bit of messaging, you know, email campaign, you send to people an SMS campaign, a pop up whatever it is, is to try and change behavior, right?
52:03.138 –> 52:10.971
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re trying to get someone, if you’re an advert or something, you’re trying to get someone who wasn’t going to buy something to come and buy it or put more in their basket or buy something again, whatever it is.
52:10.951 –> 52:19.326
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything you do is it changing that behavior, or are you just, this is behavior that was going to happen anyway and all you’ve done is is jump on board, reward it, flow along with it.
52:19.987 –> 52:32.530
[SPEAKER_01]: So the key thing is whenever you’re doing anything, whenever you, you know, whether it’s introducing you promotion, sending a new starting new campaign, sending you messaging out, introducing you payment option, whether it is, is it actually incrementally improving things?
52:32.590 –> 52:33.973
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you getting more customers?
52:34.033 –> 52:34.714
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you selling more?
52:34.734 –> 52:35.355
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you working?
52:35.335 –> 52:35.735
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever it is.
52:36.196 –> 52:41.901
[SPEAKER_01]: So making sure that every time you do that, keep that in mind, high impact changes are definitely more valuable.
52:42.001 –> 52:45.465
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are you doing that is actually going to make a really big difference and change things?
52:45.805 –> 52:48.968
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you focus on those things, you’re more likely to be successful.
52:49.068 –> 52:54.093
[SPEAKER_01]: You’re more likely to have the time to focus on it and not get distracted by other things that are less important.
52:54.533 –> 52:57.076
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a few small things that are really important if you’re a retailer.
52:57.116 –> 53:00.379
[SPEAKER_01]: What you sell, what kind of brand you are, what you stand for.
53:00.439 –> 53:03.942
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the kind of things you want to spend a lot of time on because they’re going to be different.
53:03.922 –> 53:08.186
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, if you always think about anything you’re doing, is it really going to change for how you get it?
53:08.206 –> 53:09.087
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it going to have an impact?
53:09.508 –> 53:10.309
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you measure that?
53:10.349 –> 53:11.830
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you prove that’s the case?
53:11.850 –> 53:14.413
[SPEAKER_01]: And that will guide you in the right direction most of the time?
53:15.494 –> 53:16.115
[SPEAKER_03]: Excellent words.
53:16.235 –> 53:19.738
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you all of the panel for being so excellent.
53:20.199 –> 53:23.682
[SPEAKER_03]: You have done a brilliant job of giving our audience loads a great nugget.
53:23.702 –> 53:24.543
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you all.
53:24.563 –> 53:29.068
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m going to let you all go and relax in the green room now whilst I finish off with everybody.
53:30.736 –> 53:35.745
[SPEAKER_04]: Ecommerce most Atlanta is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
53:35.765 –> 53:37.455
[SPEAKER_04]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
53:42.059 –> 53:46.105
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I hope you found that fascinating as fascinating as I did recording it.
53:46.525 –> 53:50.691
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, to get your hands on our notes from this episode, head to ecommercemostplanned.com.
53:51.072 –> 53:58.342
[SPEAKER_03]: You can use our direct episode short links that’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode and that will take you straight to the right webpage.
53:58.763 –> 54:01.647
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you get to the website, please get yourself on our email list.
54:01.968 –> 54:05.653
[SPEAKER_03]: So you don’t miss out on any of the other things we share to help you improve your business.
54:05.633 –> 54:18.749
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you liked this episode, then I reckon you’re going to enjoy Episode 586, where we have the brilliant rich chapel XCMO of Jim Shark, sharing his playbook for getting from 8 to 9 figures.
54:19.309 –> 54:28.300
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s one of our, what would you do, WWID episodes, and you can find all of them at ECMP.info forward slash WWYD.
54:28.280 –> 54:33.290
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast that you join us for.
54:33.751 –> 54:39.161
[SPEAKER_03]: We bring you a new interview every week because we want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your business.
54:39.542 –> 54:44.532
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
54:44.833 –> 54:47.638
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
54:50.572 –> 54:53.985
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
54:54.447 –> 54:59.687
[SPEAKER_04]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
56 min
April 27eCommerce MasterPlan | 592: How Beevive Built a Multi-Million Pound Brand from a Single Product Idea, with Faye Whitley
Faye Whitley is the co-founder and managing director of Beevive creators of The Original Bee Revival Kit, and recent Dragon’s Den stars. Founded in 2018 they’ve sold over £2million of product via their Shopify store and over 350 wholesale customers selling their products in the UK.

In this episode, Faye shares how a simple idea turned into a fast-growing, purpose-led eCommerce brand. We explore how Beevive scaled through community, crowdfunding, and smart channel strategy – while staying true to its mission of helping bees and educating customers.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How a single moment saving a bee turned into a £2M eCommerce brand
The exact steps Beevive used to grow from idea to multi-channel success
Why community-led marketing (not ads) drove real traction
The smart way they use Kickstarter to fund and launch new products
How wholesale + DTC unlocked faster, more stable growth
The simple brand mission that made customers care—and keep buying

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[03:53] Saving a struggling bumblebee
[06:41] Creating eco-friendly bee solutions
[11:40] Viral video boosted early growth
[14:02] Giving back through education
[16:55] Launching through Kickstarter
[22:45] Preparing for a product launch
[25:11] Listen to Faye’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/592
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:24.132
[SPEAKER_00]: The education is a key part for me and I do it because I want to do it but the customers that buy our products I think they like value that we give back and that we’re not just selling to make money we’re like selling to make a difference so it’s a personal thing really but incidentally obviously it has an effect on the business.
00:26.542 –> 00:29.049
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:29.610 –> 00:33.681
[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:34.222 –> 00:42.323
[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:45.273 –> 00:46.375
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, and welcome.
00:46.395 –> 00:47.497
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.
00:47.597 –> 00:51.223
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:51.624 –> 00:55.591
[SPEAKER_02]: Huge thanks to Craig Thomas for the intro to this episode’s guest.
00:55.611 –> 00:56.292
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Craig.
00:56.773 –> 01:03.805
[SPEAKER_02]: And in this episode, we are talking about bees, because that is the why behind this person’s business.
01:03.785 –> 01:08.653
[SPEAKER_02]: you’ll be hearing about how passionate she is about that and also how that passion has shaped the business.
01:09.114 –> 01:26.603
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll be talking about community, we’ll be talking about partnerships, we will be talking about how they’ve grown the business from an idea eight years later to over two million in sales and we’ll also be getting quite deep into the Kickstarter campaign.
01:26.583 –> 01:33.433
[SPEAKER_02]: that they were about to run when we hit the record button on this and that will have finished by the time you hear it.
01:33.934 –> 01:40.463
[SPEAKER_02]: So well worth going and checking out their Instagram and LinkedIn to see how all that went as well because you’ll have heard the before on here.
01:40.904 –> 01:48.855
[SPEAKER_02]: And make sure you listen to the end of the episode so you don’t miss out on my guest top tips including a brilliant traffic top tip all about the IB club.
01:49.456 –> 01:54.784
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you’re making assumptions about what that is you’re probably wrong so you’re going to have to listen to the end to find out what it really is.
02:00.552 –> 02:02.695
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.
02:03.135 –> 02:11.946
[SPEAKER_02]: Fay Whitley is the co-founder, a managing director of B5, creators of the original B revival kit, and recent Dragon’s Den stars.
02:12.387 –> 02:21.438
[SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2018, they’ve sold over £2 million worth of the product via their Shopify store and over £350 wholesale customers selling their products in the UK.
02:21.779 –> 02:22.780
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Fay.
02:22.760 –> 02:24.787
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, thank you for having me.
02:25.409 –> 02:26.835
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome to have you on the show.
02:26.855 –> 02:30.688
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get started in the world of Ecommerce?
02:30.708 –> 02:34.542
[SPEAKER_02]: Was B5 your first experience or do you go back further?
02:34.977 –> 02:54.707
[SPEAKER_00]: I do go back further so my previous career was in fashion design and so yeah I was a graduate and actually worked for a multiple brands on like the high street slash a rock star clothing designer which was amazing the call got made redundant.
02:54.687 –> 03:01.140
[SPEAKER_00]: and kind of led me on this new path that where I started working for a workware company essentially.
03:01.160 –> 03:08.876
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a business development manager, but I feel like I always had this itch in me that I wanted to run my own business.
03:09.618 –> 03:13.506
[SPEAKER_00]: And so whilst I was working full-time, I set up my own like
03:13.486 –> 03:14.127
[SPEAKER_00]: smaller.
03:14.247 –> 03:22.517
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was startup, where I would embroider sweaters with animals on, because I’ve always loved insects and nature.
03:22.557 –> 03:25.720
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was my first intro.
03:25.760 –> 03:27.482
[SPEAKER_00]: So I built my own website.
03:27.643 –> 03:28.924
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was on Wix.
03:29.865 –> 03:32.708
[SPEAKER_00]: And I launched, I launched from there.
03:32.729 –> 03:38.295
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had, I had some, but I was definitely learning as I was going.
03:38.275 –> 03:53.567
[SPEAKER_02]: and then what led you to to go from embroidering jumpers and being a business development rep to creating B-Vive, a completely completely new product, brand new business, what was the catalyst for that?
03:53.969 –> 03:56.937
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it was really by chance.
03:57.920 –> 04:00.306
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner had taken me away for my birthday.
04:00.326 –> 04:05.420
[SPEAKER_00]: I was working, had this business, and so he took me to the Sheppard’s heart to have a break.
04:05.741 –> 04:06.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s not working for a bit.
04:07.666 –> 04:10.273
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was on our last day that we were like,
04:10.253 –> 04:25.343
[SPEAKER_00]: exploring a local town and we came across this bee that was grounded on the floor and we just couldn’t leave her like she was really struggling almost rolling over on her back and so scooped her up and carried her to well first we tried to find flowers.
04:25.508 –> 04:33.340
[SPEAKER_00]: which sadly they were not in the vicinity and it was Jake he said on my grandma said you know if you can’t find a flower then you know drop a sugar water will do.
04:33.380 –> 04:49.744
[SPEAKER_00]: So we carried her to this cafe, asked a lady for some sugar water and a spoon gave us a really odd look and yeah ten minutes later south side on the little bench and the bumblebee to cough and if you’ve ever saved a bee
04:49.724 –> 04:51.406
[SPEAKER_00]: The feeling is so great.
04:51.766 –> 04:54.789
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt like heroes as we kind of described it.
04:55.310 –> 05:00.896
[SPEAKER_00]: And so on the way home, we were like googling like, I said something that I can carry around with me for the next time.
05:00.916 –> 05:01.517
[SPEAKER_00]: This happens.
05:02.418 –> 05:07.063
[SPEAKER_00]: And really, that just that was the catalyst of a year’s worth of research.
05:07.824 –> 05:12.829
[SPEAKER_00]: And we found out so many amazing fun facts about bees that kind of…
05:12.809 –> 05:14.851
[SPEAKER_00]: made us full of further in love with them.
05:15.612 –> 05:37.298
[SPEAKER_00]: But also the challenges they were facing and we were thinking if we could create a product that not only had a purpose but it was a tool to raise awareness and create conversation that we could inspire people to take action like lots of different you know planting building be houses, those kind of things and so that’s when there’d be a
05:37.885 –> 05:42.711
[SPEAKER_02]: And how, as you let’s just talk about the product as it is now, we are product range.
05:42.731 –> 05:49.659
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you sell multiple versions of the B revival product and then you have other products as well now in the mix.
05:49.679 –> 05:57.748
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the original B revival kit is like an aluminium shell key ring and it contains a bottle which is pre-filled with a B food syrup.
05:57.828 –> 06:06.238
[SPEAKER_00]: So it basically mimics nectar and it is resistant to microbiological spoilage, which means you can carry it round with you safely.
06:06.218 –> 06:26.083
[SPEAKER_00]: and each keyring we create has a tag attached and if you scan the tag, it loads an identification guide so you can visually identify what type of B you’ve saved and then if you really want to learn more you can click on the link and read a further blog about that B so the idea being that people could
06:26.063 –> 06:37.575
[SPEAKER_00]: Go out for a walk, let’s see if struggling be, couldn’t find a flower, save it, scan the guide and be like, I’ve just saved a redtailed bumblebee and like share that experience with other people.
06:38.112 –> 06:41.237
[SPEAKER_02]: and then what was the next product you launched?
06:41.257 –> 06:48.348
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we moved on to the bamboo version of our key ring, which was a hundred percent plastic free, and it also came with seed balls.
06:48.409 –> 06:57.403
[SPEAKER_00]: So we did it in collaboration with a company so that people could plant as well as like sugar water is a emergency solution.
06:57.383 –> 07:14.295
[SPEAKER_00]: But the bigger problem is that we’ve lost 97% of the wildflower medows in the UK, and that’s food and habitat for bees, and so more and more often we’re finding that we can’t carry a beta flower, so the seed balls came as a package with that.
07:14.275 –> 07:31.380
[SPEAKER_00]: and then back to that same point about the loss of wildflower medows, that’s where they live, like solitary bees, bumblebees, and they live in the wild, and those particular species that aren’t kept by beekeepers, like honeybees are, are losing their, they’re losing their homes.
07:31.901 –> 07:41.835
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are bee hotels out on the market anyway, but back from like all my research that I’ve done, and by this point we were quite a few years in,
07:41.815 –> 08:02.018
[SPEAKER_00]: I decided I wanted to create my own be hotel kit that was like based on science and we made it so it was flat packed so you could build it yourself at home in like 20 minutes and then you come it came with some instructions to make sure you put it up in the right place in your garden and they’re designed for cavity nesting solitude ease.
08:02.740 –> 08:10.257
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, having had a good poke on your round on your website, you’ve gone into to selling other people’s products as well, which is a big leap for a manufacturing company to start stocking other people’s things.
08:10.338 –> 08:10.959
[SPEAKER_02]: So what led you to do that?
08:10.979 –> 08:11.360
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
08:11.440 –> 08:18.657
[SPEAKER_02]: I think basically, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we
08:18.637 –> 08:22.184
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite quickly realized that our products had become very giftable.
08:22.845 –> 08:29.037
[SPEAKER_00]: So, although people were buying them for themselves, they were then buying them for other people, to like shared experience.
08:29.057 –> 08:31.782
[SPEAKER_00]: But also our products are very unique.
08:31.802 –> 08:33.806
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there’s nothing like it on the market.
08:33.926 –> 08:38.876
[SPEAKER_00]: So, therefore, like, you probably didn’t have a B revival kit on you.
08:38.996 –> 08:41.100
[SPEAKER_00]: So, people were buying them in like, you know,
08:41.080 –> 08:54.783
[SPEAKER_00]: multiples and giving them as way for like Christmas, birthdays and adversaries, the BeHoTow kits for like moving in presence and we kind of wanted to expand on that range of like giftable products.
08:54.803 –> 08:57.488
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have like for example three different types of books.
08:57.548 –> 08:59.711
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re like my favorite books I’ve read about these.
09:00.272 –> 09:03.578
[SPEAKER_00]: The aren’t too science, science heavy, we’ve lots of Latin in.
09:03.558 –> 09:07.664
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, but it’s a very carefully-created collection.
09:07.725 –> 09:10.268
[SPEAKER_00]: We don’t just stock anything that has a B on it.
09:10.689 –> 09:13.133
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to really have a purpose.
09:13.954 –> 09:20.945
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’ve just met so many other amazing founders and manufacturers on our journey events.
09:21.386 –> 09:28.878
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, talks and things like that that I felt were relevant and had the same like values and ethos as us.
09:28.938 –> 09:31.742
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the kind of other products we’ve brought in.
09:31.722 –> 09:36.250
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you, as well as buying other people’s products, you now sell your products to other retailers.
09:36.270 –> 09:39.095
[SPEAKER_02]: So how did you end up going into the whole sale?
09:39.115 –> 09:41.599
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that like a strategic plan?
09:41.619 –> 09:43.382
[SPEAKER_02]: Or was it an opportunity that just arose?
09:43.863 –> 09:52.979
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it was definitely strategic from like the beginning, because when we were launching, well, we were like looking to launch the B-revival kit, obviously nothing else existed like this.
09:53.039 –> 09:54.962
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re like, what price point?
09:54.942 –> 09:56.224
[SPEAKER_00]: can we retell this out?
09:56.264 –> 09:58.187
[SPEAKER_00]: What are people going to pay for this item?
09:58.667 –> 10:01.512
[SPEAKER_00]: But also we need flexibility to like grow.
10:01.532 –> 10:07.961
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew from my business background that in order to manage wholesale you obviously have to allow for the margin.
10:08.762 –> 10:15.011
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really, it’s not just the key ring, like it really has a use.
10:15.472 –> 10:21.861
[SPEAKER_00]: So we knew I knew that it could have a higher retail value as opposed to a couple of
10:21.841 –> 10:24.245
[SPEAKER_00]: and it’s, you know, a face of a bee.
10:24.426 –> 10:26.990
[SPEAKER_00]: It genuinely has, it does something.
10:27.050 –> 10:29.214
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve acted that in from the beginning.
10:29.735 –> 10:34.664
[SPEAKER_00]: And we launched in 2019 of the Back of a Crowdfunding campaign.
10:34.704 –> 10:38.871
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, about a year later, went into COVID.
10:39.256 –> 10:45.083
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we started on Ecommerce, we didn’t really gain like enough momentum to launch retail.
10:45.103 –> 10:51.731
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was only really when we came out of COVID that we were able to start approaching those type of customers.
10:52.432 –> 10:55.115
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, most of them were coming to us.
10:55.275 –> 11:03.205
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so grateful to say that that we feel like a reputation over that period online.
11:03.185 –> 11:13.219
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our passion for what we did really shown through and so therefore they started being like, well, we won’t be viving our store so that people can pick them up.
11:13.239 –> 11:21.890
[SPEAKER_00]: When they’re visiting a net of like, um, a world-left truss center or maybe they’re in Q Gardens, those those kind of outlets.
11:23.052 –> 11:30.542
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’re always speeds up the deal a little bit if they’re coming to you because they know you know what you’re talking about in the first place and it is like,
11:30.522 –> 11:32.985
[SPEAKER_02]: that’s an easier, an easier discussion.
11:33.025 –> 11:37.311
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I’m guessing the other thing that’s really changed to the business since you launched is the team.
11:37.411 –> 11:39.074
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what does the team look like?
11:39.094 –> 11:40.696
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I’m guessing it’s no longer just you.
11:41.036 –> 11:42.118
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, it’s no.
11:42.198 –> 11:57.559
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it was me in the beginning and I was making you have doing it all from my spare room and that it grew to big and that we realized we had to move it out and so we moved it into our first premises.
11:57.539 –> 12:02.647
[SPEAKER_00]: and that was kind of off the back actually of a video going viral.
12:03.408 –> 12:13.084
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Mackie Bella, um, amazing author, she had a key ring that I wasn’t aware of and she was running one day and came across the bee.
12:13.064 –> 12:34.347
[SPEAKER_00]: saved it, recorded the whole thing and posted it online which didn’t ask her to do and her following was they follow you along your journey so like if you do something they’re like oh that’s great let’s do it too they’re really hot they’re really in it with her and so um we like sold out of our products in like 24 hours and it gave us enough
12:34.327 –> 12:38.898
[SPEAKER_00]: funds to fund that first move into and I actually did move into it alone.
12:38.938 –> 12:41.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I had the space to actually bring people in.
12:42.366 –> 12:48.220
[SPEAKER_00]: We have since moved to another unit which is like a barn conversion with taken all of our machinery there.
12:48.340 –> 12:51.728
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve upgraded it all and now we are a team of seven.
12:51.708 –> 13:07.573
[SPEAKER_00]: So we manufacture in-house, so we have components come from multiple different places from the UK where possible, but also Europe and China and then we put it all together.
13:08.110 –> 13:10.413
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’ve got the manufacturing team out of that seven.
13:10.453 –> 13:12.655
[SPEAKER_02]: What else are you doing as a team?
13:12.835 –> 13:15.078
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you out sourcing anything or is everything in-house?
13:15.638 –> 13:18.862
[SPEAKER_00]: So like our web development is out of house.
13:20.123 –> 13:23.607
[SPEAKER_00]: We do our marketing in-house, the manufacturing in-house.
13:24.168 –> 13:25.689
[SPEAKER_00]: I manage most of the sales.
13:26.510 –> 13:27.532
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but we try.
13:27.652 –> 13:30.675
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re a small team, but we keep very busy.
13:30.655 –> 13:33.180
[SPEAKER_02]: clearly very busy.
13:34.242 –> 13:48.011
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the other things I noticed you’re doing a lot of is kind of it’s not just about selling products, you’re busy with charities, with organisations, with schools and training and everything.
13:48.371 –> 13:48.732
[SPEAKER_02]: What
13:48.712 –> 13:54.224
[SPEAKER_02]: led you to, I think a lot of startups would just go, yeah, we’re just going to, that’s just not, we’re all about growing the business.
13:54.886 –> 14:01.641
[SPEAKER_02]: But you’ve made that an essential part of the business, tell us a bit about why that’s a key part of B-Vi-F-E.
14:02.363 –> 14:20.018
[SPEAKER_00]: The education is a key part for me and I do it because I want to do it and because I feel like really grateful that I have the time, like when I was working full time, I’d be like, and schools would reach out to me, I’d be like, oh, I can’t, like,
14:19.998 –> 14:26.645
[SPEAKER_00]: I just calm like I’m employed during the day and then I’m packing orders at night and obviously the schools aren’t open on a weekend.
14:27.145 –> 14:32.291
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, oh, one day when I run V-v-v full-time, I’ll make sure that I have time.
14:32.851 –> 14:48.688
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess maybe it’s more of like a personal reason for doing it and like, but off the back of it, then it just incidentally comes along
14:49.006 –> 14:58.042
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they like value that that we give back and that we’re not just selling to make money, we’re like selling to make a difference.
14:58.803 –> 15:07.699
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it kind of, it was for me, it’s a personal thing really, but incidentally, obviously it has an effect on the business.
15:08.420 –> 15:11.586
[SPEAKER_02]: And you partner with a lot of charities and other organisations as well.
15:11.926 –> 15:13.950
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us a bit about that, how that fits in.
15:14.099 –> 15:28.355
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so like I remember having a dream board like my first dream board like white board when I first started and I had like key names written on there and the WWF was one of them and I will never forget the day they reached out to us.
15:28.455 –> 15:31.382
[SPEAKER_00]: I it took a few years because obviously they had to see I like
15:31.362 –> 15:37.654
[SPEAKER_00]: brand reputation build and you know, see that we’re going to still be in it for the long game.
15:37.674 –> 15:48.595
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we actually have a collection of like co-branded products with them and all the sales from the shop on their website go to fund their vital projects.
15:48.575 –> 15:57.852
[SPEAKER_00]: And that are pollinated, pollinated, but also worldwide, as we know, and yeah, that’s just like a very, very rewarding feeling.
15:58.393 –> 15:59.074
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.
15:59.295 –> 16:08.572
[SPEAKER_02]: When you, like someone who you’ve always wanted to work with, just kind of comes to you, must be an amazing, an amazing moment of kind of, we are on the right track.
16:08.592 –> 16:09.734
[SPEAKER_02]: We are doing the right things.
16:09.894 –> 16:12.118
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s definitely validation.
16:12.098 –> 16:14.022
[SPEAKER_02]: that’s the word I was looking for and couldn’t find.
16:15.645 –> 16:29.972
[SPEAKER_02]: So you were telling me about me before we hit the record button that you’re just about to launch a Kickstarter and you’ll see you you began the business with a Kickstarter and what eight years later you’re about to do another one.
16:29.952 –> 16:33.997
[SPEAKER_02]: And audience, by the time you hear this, the Kickstarter will have fully happened.
16:34.578 –> 16:41.025
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of see the results, I suppose, if you’re going to have a look on the link linked in our when you’re hearing this.
16:41.386 –> 16:46.152
[SPEAKER_02]: But we’re going to talk about how why you’re doing it, how you put it together and so forth.
16:46.172 –> 16:51.218
[SPEAKER_02]: So why a Kickstarter now when you’re you’re such a growing business?
16:51.398 –> 16:54.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did you choose Kickstarter as the way to do what you’re about to do?
16:55.298 –> 17:03.168
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so as I mentioned before we started with the crowd funder, it was basically the two reasons on the funding.
17:03.429 –> 17:07.834
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’d got to the point of like final prototype and we needed to place the first order.
17:08.375 –> 17:09.376
[SPEAKER_00]: So we needed the funds.
17:09.396 –> 17:11.219
[SPEAKER_00]: We’d like run out of our own personal money.
17:11.860 –> 17:17.627
[SPEAKER_00]: But also like for me, like the crowdfunding aspect of it is
17:17.793 –> 17:34.215
[SPEAKER_00]: is like you’re creating a community to launch a product before it’s like a thing and you take them on that journey with you and you educate them on the product that you’re trying that you’re creating and like why do we need this product and how will it benefit the
17:34.685 –> 17:37.950
[SPEAKER_00]: my garden on the environment or so and so.
17:38.671 –> 17:50.770
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we know that Kickstarter is a good platform for us because it’s going to help us reach a new audience and build our community further as well as funding this new
17:50.750 –> 18:16.639
[SPEAKER_00]: item and essentially we’re looking to fund for the mold and creating the keyring was not as complex as this mold is and so therefore we are going to be like offering incentives so essentially you can get the the item at like cost price and so you’ll kind of be like all of our community can get like
18:16.990 –> 18:24.281
[SPEAKER_02]: So the basic why is we’ve got an idea for a new product, we need to be cash injection, we know this works.
18:24.301 –> 18:25.502
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we’ll do this.
18:26.243 –> 18:27.245
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
18:27.265 –> 18:32.112
[SPEAKER_02]: Other people would, I don’t know, ask family and friends, go to the bank, Chuck it on a credit card.
18:32.372 –> 18:34.856
[SPEAKER_02]: What for you was the reason for doing the Kickstarter?
18:35.296 –> 18:37.059
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there more elements that?
18:37.079 –> 18:46.052
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you’ve talked about community a lot, so I want to say that element in it as well, of the joy of running a Kickstarter could one say, the side benefits of it?
18:46.437 –> 18:49.604
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s like, camaraderie, like, let’s do this.
18:49.644 –> 18:57.099
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think by building a Kickstarter, I mean, the amount of assets that you have to curate to create a Kickstarter is immense.
18:57.701 –> 19:04.615
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn’t so big, like, back then, like, actually remember, I did, like, one video sat in a field.
19:04.595 –> 19:10.646
[SPEAKER_00]: and like pitch the idea of my prototype in my hand for about 30 seconds.
19:11.086 –> 19:16.015
[SPEAKER_00]: But nowadays, obviously what you’re able to create is so vast.
19:16.035 –> 19:23.809
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Kickstarter, it’s like a catalog into what this new product is going to be and how it works.
19:24.470 –> 19:25.692
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
19:26.026 –> 19:48.085
[SPEAKER_00]: it’s yeah you could go to a bank or maybe ask family and friends or credit card but they don’t they don’t listen to you, they don’t understand, they don’t understand it and we want to get this product out there because the more people that see it then the more bees that we’re going to be able to hone and help survive
19:48.065 –> 19:52.675
[SPEAKER_02]: So how did you decide when to run the Kickstarter?
19:52.695 –> 20:01.112
[SPEAKER_02]: You said the first time you did the Kickstarter, you reached the point where you needed to place the first order for raw materials, which is obviously the point in which you needed to cash.
20:01.473 –> 20:03.778
[SPEAKER_02]: This one has clearly been
20:03.758 –> 20:05.561
[SPEAKER_02]: been very strategically thought out.
20:05.722 –> 20:09.549
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, is it like the day after the kickstarter ends?
20:09.589 –> 20:14.719
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s when you need to hit go on the buying the mold or is it?
20:14.899 –> 20:19.268
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got an idea and you want the cash ready to then you’ll build the mold a month later.
20:19.709 –> 20:22.594
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you decide when to actually run it?
20:22.574 –> 20:23.396
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s ready.
20:23.997 –> 20:26.243
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been working on this for a long time.
20:26.303 –> 20:29.651
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner and co-founder of B5 Jake.
20:30.213 –> 20:38.473
[SPEAKER_00]: He is background as in architectural technician and so it’s basically a combined effort of like my research.
20:38.453 –> 20:42.522
[SPEAKER_00]: and his technical ability kind of amalgamated.
20:42.542 –> 20:44.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Then obviously our design background.
20:44.687 –> 20:50.680
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have like very very very opinionated or like what it should look like and those kind of things.
20:51.081 –> 20:57.154
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s literally ready to go like it’s been as soon as we receive as soon as we hit 100%.
20:57.134 –> 21:12.460
[SPEAKER_00]: then it will literally be like go and we want to get them in people’s hands before so that these nesting this spring summer can utilize it otherwise waiting another year another life cycle and so yeah that’s the that’s the reason why
21:12.440 –> 21:13.121
[SPEAKER_02]: Got it.
21:13.141 –> 21:21.173
[SPEAKER_02]: And then how long, not some bolts time, how many days is your kickstarter going to run for and let’s tie into that?
21:22.335 –> 21:26.962
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of the business is going to be, you know, the resources of the business, the humans, etc.
21:27.022 –> 21:32.431
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s going to be focused on that kickstarter for that time period, because I would assume it’s down tools on everything.
21:32.471 –> 21:34.294
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody is manning the kickstarter.
21:34.694 –> 21:37.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s like, so it’s 30 days.
21:37.297 –> 21:46.476
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner is pretty much his full-time job, and then the rest of the team were basically manufacturing all of our other products.
21:46.516 –> 21:49.201
[SPEAKER_00]: So essentially, we’re getting prepared.
21:49.282 –> 21:52.909
[SPEAKER_00]: So May is like one of our business times of year.
21:52.889 –> 22:22.187
[SPEAKER_00]: the bees are out, they’re buzzing, they’re like causing loads of joy in the garden and then it’s no mome, so like the campaigns that we run around that and then on the 20th of May as well would be day where we celebrate bees and so what we’re doing is preparing all of our stock and so as soon as the Kickstarter is over funded and the products start arriving then everyone is all hands
22:22.167 –> 22:26.173
[SPEAKER_02]: Gosh, it’s more like the actual kickstarter time period.
22:26.653 –> 22:32.261
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got Jake ring fenced to work on that, you know, what’s pulling on anyone else.
22:32.281 –> 22:35.787
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to be a bit the rest of you are working on preparation for kind of post kickstarter.
22:36.347 –> 22:43.838
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the time when everyone’s like fully on it is as soon as you can do the dispatching and make all those people who’ve supported you happy.
22:44.138 –> 22:46.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s almost like pre-imposed.
22:46.840 –> 22:50.023
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you’ve just got like the communicator in between.
22:50.464 –> 23:06.818
[SPEAKER_00]: And that communicator is actually really important because if I had invested in somebody else’s idea, I would wanna know where it’s at, what are they doing, let’s see some photos, like communicate with your audience, like they are believing in you and what you can create.
23:06.878 –> 23:12.863
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s why we haven’t launched it until we knew we were ready, like everything is covered.
23:12.843 –> 23:27.038
[SPEAKER_00]: everything is thought about and then yeah and then basically as soon as they land we know how to do with it and it’s good because we’ve done it before and yeah so we prepared our tea.
23:27.811 –> 23:30.417
[SPEAKER_02]: a full wand is for all.
23:31.660 –> 23:42.985
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly exactly and so yeah and then we’ll work basically that those who contributed they’ll get there’s first and then we’ll the rest what we’ll follow online.
23:42.965 –> 23:56.165
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned, you know, we talked about four wonders for our, and you talked about having so many assets created in advance for the Kickstarter, and you talked about the communications between end of Kickstarter and actual product delivery.
23:57.047 –> 24:11.689
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of that, you know, kind of percentage wise of that communication, that copy, those graphics, the videos, have you already done, and how much will you be kind of, I guess pivoting on what, you know,
24:12.513 –> 24:17.541
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so everything is created apart from one video.
24:17.681 –> 24:20.806
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got one video, less left to film tomorrow.
24:20.846 –> 24:22.548
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was because of the weather.
24:23.350 –> 24:26.014
[SPEAKER_00]: And today’s, yeah, so it was either today or tomorrow.
24:26.034 –> 24:33.525
[SPEAKER_00]: So today I’m here and tomorrow, I’ve got a final video to record, which is like the opening scene of,
24:33.505 –> 24:50.630
[SPEAKER_00]: basically telling everyone what the product is and why we’ve created it and how they can get involved and then yeah and then it’s and then it’s ready to go but yeah you’re right you do have to pivot in between and so we’ll just basically take as it as as it comes.
24:53.814 –> 25:00.424
[SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector
25:06.563 –> 25:08.847
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top tips round.
25:11.571 –> 25:16.900
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
25:16.920 –> 25:18.603
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, are you ready for the top tips?
25:19.504 –> 25:19.925
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, go.
25:20.867 –> 25:22.369
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, then the book top tip.
25:22.389 –> 25:28.960
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
25:29.716 –> 25:32.722
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is my top book that I recommend to everyone.
25:32.883 –> 25:36.290
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s called It’s Your Ship by Make Michael Obrashos.
25:37.111 –> 25:43.725
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can read it if you have a team or an anticipation of building a team, because it’s all about,
25:44.600 –> 25:46.562
[SPEAKER_00]: it’s your ship.
25:46.763 –> 25:47.924
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not my ship.
25:48.164 –> 25:49.546
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re like in this together.
25:50.047 –> 25:57.456
[SPEAKER_00]: And that probably actually now saying it out loud is like all the way through my business, but it also is all the way through your team.
25:58.377 –> 26:04.725
[SPEAKER_00]: And it has to feel like they’re part of the mission, part of the, you know, like we all do it together.
26:05.426 –> 26:07.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so yeah, I loved that book.
26:08.039 –> 26:09.463
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.
26:09.483 –> 26:10.747
[SPEAKER_02]: I shall have to go and have a look.
26:10.767 –> 26:11.389
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
26:11.650 –> 26:17.307
[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
26:18.097 –> 26:21.722
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, so social media gets the press, it deserves.
26:21.902 –> 26:24.125
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it’s the way that you use it.
26:24.706 –> 26:34.279
[SPEAKER_00]: So plugging, not necessarily putting loads of money into meta ads, like, gives you the return on investment that you would like.
26:34.980 –> 26:37.444
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we’ve done other types of incentives.
26:37.644 –> 26:40.628
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, we have the ViB.
26:40.608 –> 26:41.009
[SPEAKER_00]: club.
26:41.269 –> 27:01.907
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a very, very important B-viva play on words and basically it came from where people were saving bees and then videoing it, sharing it and we were like how do they were taking the most amazing photos and videos and we were like how do we reward them for this marketing and so that’s how we did it so you could write into us.
27:01.887 –> 27:08.153
[SPEAKER_00]: and claim your VIP, but we still can, people do it all that every day, and we ship it out.
27:08.354 –> 27:19.084
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s always like a, it’s been compared to like a blue-peer badge, and I just think that way of that marketing style, I think, is underestimated on those platforms.
27:20.125 –> 27:29.515
[SPEAKER_02]: So the VIP club isn’t a kind of influencer recruitment campaign, it’s a customer reward campaign for doing what they were going to do anyway to something certain.
27:29.495 –> 27:30.777
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
27:30.797 –> 27:31.517
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:31.898 –> 27:32.619
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.
27:32.639 –> 27:33.220
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that.
27:33.580 –> 27:36.664
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s clearly fits with your business ethos as well.
27:37.024 –> 27:37.925
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s like kind.
27:37.985 –> 27:47.177
[SPEAKER_00]: I just remember the first year looking at a folder of images that honestly I had like 1500 images and I was like that’s so cool.
27:47.237 –> 27:50.581
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven’t had to pay for photography for in the entire year of my business.
27:51.282 –> 27:53.865
[SPEAKER_00]: What can I do to say thank you?
27:53.845 –> 28:06.261
[SPEAKER_00]: and then that’s this pin came in my head and I was like, that’s going to cost me nothing compared to, but make them feel so valued and they’re doing something really great and they can put it on their coat.
28:06.661 –> 28:09.264
[SPEAKER_00]: And people can ask them like, what does that mean?
28:09.324 –> 28:17.895
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they can, it’s just, it’s really, I think it’s a really fun way of marketing that everyone kind of benefits from.
28:18.483 –> 28:18.944
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
28:18.964 –> 28:20.408
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s genius move.
28:21.109 –> 28:22.152
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s all top tip.
28:22.312 –> 28:31.294
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone app or just a way of working, is there a call little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day.
28:31.780 –> 28:42.557
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we use a sauna as a project manager and tool and we love it is actually one of my colleagues who brought it into the team.
28:42.617 –> 28:54.936
[SPEAKER_00]: I had previously another company and now we say we have like just a funny thing about basically if it’s not on a sauna or it doesn’t happen and yeah.
28:54.916 –> 29:01.286
[SPEAKER_02]: So true, Asana is the rocker that we do everything via, and just the idea of trying to leave it.
29:01.306 –> 29:02.187
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just a point.
29:02.207 –> 29:03.188
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, you can’t.
29:03.208 –> 29:03.649
[SPEAKER_02]: My creation, huh?
29:03.949 –> 29:10.299
[SPEAKER_00]: The flows, the ultimate, the autumn, autumnizations that I just, I just like, really like it.
29:10.840 –> 29:11.220
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
29:12.022 –> 29:17.410
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you’re preaching to the conversation, but hopefully we’ll, hopefully we’ll, you’ll convince some of the audience to switch over as well.
29:18.151 –> 29:20.534
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, thank the carbon top tip.
29:20.554 –> 29:24.400
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
29:25.325 –> 29:52.480
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh so I think when I think of the commerce, I think a lot about packaging, like all the time, because packaging could be so much better for so many businesses and it takes me back to the whole like reduce for use for a cycle and I honestly believe that by monitoring your packaging
29:52.460 –> 29:56.426
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re using, so like, how can you reuse your recycling?
29:56.446 –> 29:59.451
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, we have one of those great, like, industrial shredders.
29:59.912 –> 30:05.540
[SPEAKER_00]: So it turns cardboard that comes in back into a cardboard that goes out and recycling.
30:05.841 –> 30:10.468
[SPEAKER_00]: So actually, I was at talk the other day and we were talking about household.
30:10.448 –> 30:21.140
[SPEAKER_00]: recycling and how 55% of people don’t recycle their household recycling, and it’s similar in business but apart from it’s slightly lower, 37%.
30:21.580 –> 30:36.777
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that all of the amount of the million of tons, like even if we progressed, one, two, one, two, per cent every year,
30:37.043 –> 30:38.385
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I answered your question.
30:38.405 –> 30:40.468
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you did answer the question.
30:40.488 –> 30:41.991
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but you make such a good point.
30:42.291 –> 30:45.777
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s like there’s so much, you make two good points.
30:45.797 –> 30:56.173
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there are so many good ways of being able to reuse stuff within your own control without having to pay for recycling bin or whatever else you have to do as a business.
30:57.014 –> 31:02.663
[SPEAKER_02]: But there’s also small changes can have a big impact.
31:02.761 –> 31:26.693
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’ve been talking about like progress over perfection because you can’t do everything in one day and maybe you don’t have the resources to Or the finance too, so it’s like what can you do in your control and there’s so many ways to reduce carbon But I think I’m thinking from an e-commerce perspective if you’re delivering products packaging has to be one of them
31:27.398 –> 31:28.680
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally agree.
31:29.281 –> 31:31.484
[SPEAKER_02]: The in packaging and the out packaging.
31:32.005 –> 31:32.265
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
31:32.305 –> 31:38.334
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we say goodbye, could you please at the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?
31:38.995 –> 31:42.980
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so you can find us online at bv.com.
31:44.162 –> 31:47.827
[SPEAKER_00]: And similarly on Instagram, Facebook at bv.
31:48.268 –> 31:51.793
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also have a discount code for you all.
31:52.094 –> 31:57.321
[SPEAKER_00]: If you made it this far, just to say thank you.
31:57.301 –> 31:57.942
[SPEAKER_00]: the scent off.
31:58.664 –> 32:05.498
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose now is the perfect time to be getting your be revival kit because they’re out and about aren’t they the bees they’re everywhere now?
32:05.879 –> 32:18.465
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah so they’ve just started waking up obviously early March and they might not have much to forage from so that this is a great kind of opportunity to use your be revival kit and then solitude be species.
32:18.445 –> 32:23.994
[SPEAKER_00]: get around now, but well now, get the be-ho-tow up, keep and make your own.
32:24.074 –> 32:43.305
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an activity you can download from the blog of our website, but if you want one prepackaged with instructions, then you can also, you can also get the you can support these all throughout the year, like even people say like you can spot them in December, they shouldn’t be around, but
32:43.285 –> 32:43.746
[SPEAKER_00]: you know.
32:44.407 –> 32:45.109
[SPEAKER_02]: But they might be.
32:45.950 –> 32:47.894
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
32:47.914 –> 32:59.438
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been fascinating chatting with you and I wish you huge luck for the Kickstarter and the packaging that comes after the Kickstarter as well because it sounds like that’s going to be the busier time period.
32:59.498 –> 33:02.243
[SPEAKER_02]: So so good luck with it all and thank you so much being on the show.
33:02.945 –> 33:04.568
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me.
33:10.201 –> 33:16.552
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, listening to this, you can’t help but be aware of how passionate they are about bees and the purpose of her business.
33:17.173 –> 33:22.362
[SPEAKER_02]: And it makes all those different bits and pieces she’s got going on fit together so seamlessly.
33:22.402 –> 33:29.354
[SPEAKER_02]: And fascinating to hear about how they are structuring the business around that Kickstarter this year.
33:30.295 –> 33:31.838
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all,
33:31.818 –> 33:37.386
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, prepping everything in advance, so just one person is permanently distracted by it for the 30 days, it’s running.
33:37.987 –> 33:41.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the rest of the team during that time catching up on everything else.
33:41.452 –> 33:50.827
[SPEAKER_02]: So as once the kickstart is done and they’ve got that mold in and then then able to quickly do the manufacturing to fulfill those orders and then continue with the product launch.
33:50.847 –> 34:01.082
[SPEAKER_02]: Really fascinating house strategically, they are kind of focusing week by week on what they’re doing to get through all of
34:01.062 –> 34:06.049
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not exactly a custom-armed appastor club, it’s not exactly a loyalty club, but it has the impact of all of that.
34:06.830 –> 34:14.962
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and the links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
34:14.982 –> 34:24.757
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can also use our special direct episode short links just put ECMP.info for such the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page on the website.
34:25.117 –> 34:28.302
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get there, why not add yourself to the Chloe Thomas?
34:28.282 –> 34:28.743
[SPEAKER_02]: email.
34:28.943 –> 34:29.644
[SPEAKER_02]: Newsletter list?
34:29.804 –> 34:30.125
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
34:31.427 –> 34:37.416
[SPEAKER_02]: I would love to be sending you messages to keep you up to date what’s going on on this podcast or other podcast and the other stuff we’re up to.
34:38.417 –> 34:40.620
[SPEAKER_02]: So do sign up for that whilst you’re there on the site.
34:40.721 –> 34:50.475
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you like this episode, why not have a listen to episode 428 where I’m chatting with another B-obsessed business with a guest called Fay.
34:50.455 –> 34:51.516
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the chances?
34:52.537 –> 35:08.752
[SPEAKER_02]: Faith from Green and Blue, an episode 428, is all about their journey becoming a B-Corp and staying a B-Corp. And if you’re really passionate about B’s, then episode 160 is where that faith, Faith from Green and Blue, not Faith from B5.
35:09.612 –> 35:13.136
[SPEAKER_02]: First came on the show to talk about their guest blogging program, that’s episode 160.
35:13.156 –> 35:17.880
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s 1648 to fill your B needs.
35:17.860 –> 35:23.447
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also hear all our episodes with Shopify, sellers at ECMP.info for as I Shopify.
35:23.907 –> 35:28.553
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode that you do of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
35:28.573 –> 35:36.522
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new interview every week so I want to inspire and help you all to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
35:37.103 –> 35:42.309
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
35:42.670 –> 35:45.353
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
35:48.151 –> 35:51.987
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
35:52.008 –> 35:57.250
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
37 min
April 20eCommerce MasterPlan | 591: How Sticking to One Core Product Drove Project Repat’s $12M eCommerce Success, with Nathan Rothstein
Nathan Rothstein is co-founder of Project Repat, who turn your favourite old t-shirts into quilts. Founded in 2012 they now sell via a Shopify site and do $12million a year.

Returning to the podcast a decade after his first appearance, Nathan shares how staying focused on one core product, building trust, and adapting to challenges like COVID and iOS changes have powered their long-term growth – while continuously refining their marketing and operations.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How they built a $12M eCommerce brand by not launching new products
The “triple down” strategy that turned one idea into long-term success
Why trust is the #1 factor driving conversions (and how to build it fast)
The “nice nagging” email strategy that turns procrastinators into customers
What really happened to their business after Apple’s iOS changes
How Meta’s new algorithm helps small brands find the right customers

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[06:00] “T-Shirts Into Memory Blankets”
[07:19] “Turning T-Shirts Into Memories”
[10:48] Remote Team Dynamics.
[15:40] “T-Shirt Prep & Deadlines”
[18:30] Women Athletes & Trust Building
[20:46] Listen to Nathan’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/591
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:07.604
[SPEAKER_02]: To stay in business, you have to find at least one thing that you do really well and then triple down on it.
00:07.865 –> 00:16.740
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think try to figure out other things that you can do, but don’t spend too much time and money trying to do something that maybe is just not the right fit for you.
00:18.982 –> 00:21.489
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:22.031 –> 00:26.102
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:26.643 –> 00:34.746
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:37.409 –> 00:38.572
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, and welcome.
00:38.592 –> 00:39.674
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.
00:39.694 –> 00:43.544
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:44.145 –> 00:49.157
[SPEAKER_01]: As part of our 10 years of podcasting celebrations, we’ve been catching up with some of our past guests.
00:49.658 –> 00:55.873
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this episode, we’ve gone way back to our guest of episode 43.
00:55.853 –> 01:02.547
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, one of the first 100 guests, first 50 guests, in fact, and that’s taking us all the way back to 2016.
01:03.208 –> 01:13.609
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we’ll be finding out how they’ve evolved their business over the last 10 years, how they handled COVID and post-COVID, why they’re now
01:13.589 –> 01:21.540
[SPEAKER_01]: just as focused on email marketing and Facebook ads as they always were about how they’ve been pivoting to take advantage of those Facebook ad changes.
01:21.980 –> 01:27.668
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ll also be talking about trust about systems, lots of lots of interesting nuggets in this episode.
01:28.189 –> 01:34.197
[SPEAKER_01]: Please do listen to the end so you don’t miss out on my guest’s top tips and my own take on this episode.
01:39.982 –> 01:41.884
[SPEAKER_01]: and now to introduce our special guest.
01:42.345 –> 01:48.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice and Rothstein is co-founder of Project Repact who turned your favorite old t-shirts into quilts.
01:48.432 –> 01:53.578
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded in 2012, they now sell via a Shopify site and do around $12 million a year.
01:54.238 –> 01:55.220
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Nathan.
01:55.880 –> 01:56.942
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, thanks for having me.
01:57.442 –> 01:59.184
[SPEAKER_01]: Great to have you back on the show.
01:59.224 –> 02:04.711
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s actually been 10 years madly since you were last on your last on in 2016.
02:04.771 –> 02:06.833
[SPEAKER_01]: So, how’s the last decade being?
02:08.298 –> 02:11.205
[SPEAKER_02]: well we’re still in business so that feels great.
02:12.648 –> 02:27.522
[SPEAKER_02]: We survived the pandemic and then the Apple privacy collateral damage marketing war between Apple and Mark Zuckerberg and so we feel good to still be here.
02:28.328 –> 02:33.375
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that a lot of our listeners totally get to where you’re coming from at a feeling very much the same way.
02:33.936 –> 02:39.363
[SPEAKER_01]: And what has there been any highlights that we say over the last 10 years, other than pure survival?
02:41.026 –> 02:49.457
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think we’ve just solidified what we’re doing and we’ve gotten just a lot better at everything.
02:49.477 –> 02:56.327
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you would hope for doing this too long that there’s some things that you learn and we’ve tried to not make
02:56.307 –> 03:00.831
[SPEAKER_02]: the same mistake twice, or at least not three times.
03:01.312 –> 03:13.663
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’ve also brought on a technology consultant that we who had built a lot of our Shopify tools and websites and operation systems.
03:13.703 –> 03:16.265
[SPEAKER_02]: And we actually brought him on full time.
03:16.425 –> 03:26.314
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that feels really nice that we can iterate and make changes really quickly to improve conversions
03:27.037 –> 03:34.125
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the interesting things I’ve found about having you back on the show is that sometimes we have people back on the show.
03:34.145 –> 03:40.893
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost looks like they’ve created a completely different business to the one they had three years ago, or four years ago, depending on how long the time spans been.
03:41.554 –> 03:49.483
[SPEAKER_01]: But it feels from my very surface level view of what you’re up to at the moment that you’re essentially doing
03:49.463 –> 03:52.866
[SPEAKER_01]: The same thing, you’ve kind of stuck to your guns and this is a model that works.
03:52.926 –> 03:55.088
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re just going to do it better and better and better.
03:55.128 –> 03:58.271
[SPEAKER_01]: We year by year, you know, there’s no crazy range expansion.
03:58.312 –> 03:59.172
[SPEAKER_01]: No rebranding.
03:59.252 –> 04:03.917
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, oh, we’ve given up on websites and we’re now doing everything on Twitter or something.
04:04.978 –> 04:07.440
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like you’ve really stuck to your guns.
04:07.480 –> 04:12.605
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that a conscious decision with you and the founders?
04:12.825 –> 04:15.488
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is that something that’s just kind of you realise as you look backwards?
04:15.923 –> 04:22.391
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think we’ve always every year we’ve tried to make some significant changes.
04:22.451 –> 04:29.259
[SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, we have not found another product that really moves at scale.
04:29.899 –> 04:35.206
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we’re making these, we’re doing them in a custom manufacturing.
04:35.226 –> 04:37.608
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re actually all done in North Carolina.
04:37.649 –> 04:39.771
[SPEAKER_02]: And…
04:39.751 –> 05:00.443
[SPEAKER_02]: For us to work, we have to do things at scale, but we’ve built a very complicated custom product and drilled it down to something that can be made in a factory line, which really had not been
05:00.423 –> 05:09.239
[SPEAKER_02]: more technology to that process to help improve operations, which helps with profit as well.
05:09.339 –> 05:19.317
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think to stay in business, you have to find at least one thing that you do really well and then triple down on it.
05:19.357 –> 05:24.085
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think try to figure out other things that you can do, but
05:24.065 –> 05:30.213
[SPEAKER_02]: don’t spend too much time and money trying to do something that maybe it’s just not the right fit for you.
05:30.253 –> 05:45.634
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s the lesson that we’ve learned and I can’t say that we’ve made every decision in a strategic thought way, but that’s running a business as you ride the roller coaster and try to figure things out.
05:46.154 –> 05:46.514
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
05:46.534 –> 05:52.141
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let’s do it some, I should not assume that everyone’s heard every episode of this podcast and can remember what you actually do.
05:52.161 –> 05:55.405
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s expand on my tiny, terrible intro.
05:56.286 –> 05:58.649
[SPEAKER_01]: Where in the world, actually, let’s just talk about the product first.
05:58.850 –> 05:59.891
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about the product.
06:00.512 –> 06:00.832
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
06:00.852 –> 06:09.923
[SPEAKER_02]: So at least in the United States, most people believe their house, they get a t-shirt for every single thing that they do.
06:10.163 –> 06:13.107
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether it sports or feed or
06:13.272 –> 06:16.196
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever you’re into, there’s a shirt for it.
06:16.777 –> 06:36.546
[SPEAKER_02]: And people hold on to them for a reason that, I think a lot of people can relate to, which is you just have memories attached to clothing and t-shirt, you wear t-shirts all the time, and but then they end up sitting in a drawer and you can’t wear 10 t-shirts at the same time.
06:36.526 –> 06:48.400
[SPEAKER_02]: And what’s interesting is that the donation model in the United States of Goodwill or Salvation Army, for the most part, they can’t resell your T-shirts.
06:48.981 –> 07:01.656
[SPEAKER_02]: The resell market of T-shirts is very specific for like a unique 40 years ago,
07:01.636 –> 07:04.461
[SPEAKER_02]: really has no value other than to yourself.
07:05.202 –> 07:15.881
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve tried to create a very accessible way to turn your t-shirts into something and turn them into a patchwork blanket is what we’re doing.
07:16.002 –> 07:18.987
[SPEAKER_02]: And what we found product market fit for.
07:19.658 –> 07:23.222
[SPEAKER_01]: I still find it’s such a fascinating model, because it works on so many levels.
07:23.283 –> 07:31.092
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got like the recycling element of these t-shirts rather than sitting in a drawer they’re given a new life as a useful item.
07:31.533 –> 07:44.569
[SPEAKER_01]: But you’ve also got that memory part, and I still find it amazing that people would, and we don’t have that same t-shirt culture here in the UK, but I totally get the few t-shirts and jumpers I have from uni.
07:44.549 –> 07:52.602
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m not separating myself from those, they’re not going anywhere, they are staying in the cupboard in the box, they might occasionally get warm but they’re very precious.
07:52.622 –> 08:04.380
[SPEAKER_01]: So I find it, find it brilliant you build up that trust with the customer that they’re willing to send those memories to you to be turned into something because I could see that that would be a big barrier in the sales process.
08:04.715 –> 08:13.284
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s a lot of the work that we’re doing from a marketing perspective is how do we convey trust?
08:13.304 –> 08:14.006
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this real?
08:14.087 –> 08:17.779
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there’s just more scams.
08:18.012 –> 08:21.858
[SPEAKER_02]: things that are nefarious out on the internet.
08:21.958 –> 08:31.954
[SPEAKER_02]: And so how do we get people comfortable with buying and then how do we get people comfortable with sending and receiving?
08:31.974 –> 08:37.223
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s really what we’re spending most of our marketing brain on.
08:38.745 –> 08:43.733
[SPEAKER_01]: And is it mainly self purchase or is it a lot of
08:43.865 –> 08:52.018
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I would say it’s about 70% gifting and they’re buying it for somebody in their family.
08:52.038 –> 09:02.734
[SPEAKER_02]: So the typical customer is a mom buying it for their kid as a birthday gift, a holiday gift or a graduation gift.
09:03.052 –> 09:05.216
[SPEAKER_01]: with the added benefit of clearing out that rule.
09:05.857 –> 09:22.866
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been annoying to them doing less, maybe doing less laundry, getting more space, and having something meaningful that they can show off, instead of just like, oh, I take this one t-shirt out and tell you about it at a time.
09:23.673 –> 09:33.952
[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned that you’ve now hired the technical expertise to be part of the team, which I guess makes so much sense because you’ve got inbound and outbound.
09:33.973 –> 09:36.718
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got a lot of unique technical challenges going on.
09:37.579 –> 09:38.301
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
09:38.361 –> 09:40.585
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a Shopify.
09:41.088 –> 09:53.147
[SPEAKER_02]: is really set up for drop shipping where you see a pair of pants that you like and you press shop and then you just sit back and wait for something to arrive.
09:53.207 –> 09:57.854
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the whole internet e-commerce world is set up like that.
09:58.195 –> 10:07.990
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we’re so different in the way that once you click buy, the customer has to do work for us to start the process.
10:08.442 –> 10:14.150
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we built out our own operations admin system.
10:14.210 –> 10:20.138
[SPEAKER_02]: So customers can tailor the quilt and by shipping through our system.
10:21.240 –> 10:26.827
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it makes it easier to track everything and they can see everything in their own portal.
10:27.588 –> 10:32.114
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s been an awesome feature for us, but it is a lot of technology.
10:32.835 –> 10:37.622
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so they can track their parcel into you on the same system they’ll use to track it coming back.
10:37.855 –> 10:38.416
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
10:38.717 –> 10:38.938
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:39.699 –> 10:40.361
[SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.
10:40.461 –> 10:43.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can definitely see how that would build the trust side of it.
10:43.208 –> 10:46.516
[SPEAKER_01]: So the rest of the team, are you in-house outsourced?
10:46.576 –> 10:47.358
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of you are there?
10:47.378 –> 10:48.019
[SPEAKER_01]: What are they up to?
10:48.741 –> 10:49.002
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:49.022 –> 10:52.570
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have customer service person.
10:53.493 –> 10:54.936
[SPEAKER_02]: We have
10:55.051 –> 10:57.674
[SPEAKER_02]: a marketing social media person.
10:57.714 –> 11:07.165
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we’ve worked for many years with a person who does Facebook and Google and email marketing.
11:07.486 –> 11:14.034
[SPEAKER_02]: And she’s not an employee of ours, but she works very closely with us.
11:14.835 –> 11:19.320
[SPEAKER_02]: But what’s interesting is we have a small little office in Cambridge,
11:19.300 –> 11:33.630
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re in North Carolina and then we have five or six people that we’re talking to on a weekly basis and they’re all over the United States different time zones and and that’s the way it was before 2020.
11:34.285 –> 11:44.270
[SPEAKER_02]: but it allowed us to stay relevant when everyone went home and did things virtual is that we kind of understood that process before that.
11:44.451 –> 11:50.185
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’ve been able to keep the team pretty, pretty much the same for a long period of time.
11:50.688 –> 12:01.060
[SPEAKER_01]: which is great when your, who’s great for stability generally, but it’s great when you’re on, you know, trying to ever improve those marketing messages to build that trust and to get those results.
12:01.660 –> 12:07.927
[SPEAKER_01]: The, you mentioned about, you know, they’re not being able to move around in 2020, so much in 2021.
12:08.668 –> 12:10.530
[SPEAKER_01]: Did that lead to a spike for you?
12:10.550 –> 12:16.797
[SPEAKER_01]: I would assume people were at home staring at their teachers going, all right, I’ll get around to,
12:16.777 –> 12:17.919
[SPEAKER_01]: turning that into a blanket.
12:17.959 –> 12:19.261
[SPEAKER_01]: Did that have a positive effect?
12:19.281 –> 12:22.406
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were you kind of neutral from the COVID impact?
12:22.867 –> 12:25.812
[SPEAKER_02]: We did see a bump those first few months.
12:25.932 –> 12:33.945
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, exactly people were just in their house board trying to knock off projects that made them feel productive.
12:33.985 –> 12:35.788
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we definitely did a spike.
12:36.670 –> 12:41.097
[SPEAKER_02]: Our team actually started making mass as well.
12:41.077 –> 12:48.626
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we stayed open and we tried to create a safe of a working environment as possible.
12:48.686 –> 12:51.849
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so we added mass.
12:51.930 –> 12:57.476
[SPEAKER_02]: We sold about a million mass within the first three weeks of April, which was kind of wild.
12:58.077 –> 13:00.580
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we kept making, making quilt.
13:00.660 –> 13:04.384
[SPEAKER_02]: So that did, that did help us.
13:05.157 –> 13:09.581
[SPEAKER_02]: for a few years because of the iPhone changes.
13:09.682 –> 13:12.825
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that really took a Jack Hammer to our business.
13:13.545 –> 13:19.672
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when we first recorded it was, your funnel was very much Facebook ads site purchase.
13:20.693 –> 13:26.839
[SPEAKER_01]: And with the war between Apple and Facebook, has that led you to diversify?
13:26.859 –> 13:29.882
[SPEAKER_01]: Has that led you to become even cleverer at Meterads?
13:30.588 –> 13:36.574
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think we’ve tried to diversify, but it just didn’t really work.
13:36.814 –> 13:45.322
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we’ve gotten better and the indromeda changes in Meta’s algorithm have actually helped us, I think.
13:45.742 –> 13:50.847
[SPEAKER_02]: But we always had a lead-based focus on our ad spend.
13:50.867 –> 13:59.835
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we’re trying to become more like other businesses where you try to get them to convert quickly.
14:00.473 –> 14:18.594
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that’s been a transformation for us as had to add a lot more content quickly, had to iterate, had to use the algorithm and the data to make changes quickly and to create a workflow for all of this, which were constantly figuring out and making changes too.
14:19.394 –> 14:30.447
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it’s a lot easier to build that trust if you’re sending someone a welcome series, post email sign-up than it is in that quick passage from the deal on Facebook to website homepage.
14:30.781 –> 14:47.845
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I, Claybio has been a huge part of our business since the beginning, and yeah, we’re doing a lot of flows, and then we’re doing a lot of campaigns and we’re, I say we’re in a nice way nagging people.
14:49.597 –> 14:56.909
[SPEAKER_02]: it’s just a kind of product where a lot of people are into it, they think about it, but it takes work.
14:57.209 –> 15:03.559
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I get, you know, you’re busy with your life and with all the things that people have gone on.
15:03.640 –> 15:08.207
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we like to remind people about it frequently.
15:09.489 –> 15:15.739
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can imagine it’s one of those things that the customer guys, I want to do this, but not this week.
15:15.803 –> 15:16.143
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
15:16.224 –> 15:25.034
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it has to be, because they’ve got to have the mental bandwidth to find the cheat t-shirts, select the right ones, package them up, take them to the store to post them.
15:25.595 –> 15:28.138
[SPEAKER_01]: So you could kind of keep putting it off.
15:28.158 –> 15:37.409
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you find that having a message like, there’s no delay, there’s no time limit on how long it needs to take you to get us the t-shirts.
15:37.429 –> 15:39.972
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a positive message to get the purchase?
15:40.576 –> 15:49.104
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we try to incentivize people to do it right away with urgency and discounting.
15:49.364 –> 16:03.178
[SPEAKER_02]: And you are, if you want to done by a specific date, the Christmas holiday industrial complex helps us in the sense that there’s a specific date that they need it by.
16:04.659 –> 16:08.963
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is helpful to us, same with graduation.
16:09.061 –> 16:27.324
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think some people think that, well, when I buy, I have to like, immediately go to the mail carrier that same day and do this and we try to educate people that they can buy and they can spend time with their shirts and organize and they don’t have to go right away.
16:27.384 –> 16:32.470
[SPEAKER_02]: But it’s a marketing message and no matter how many times you say something,
16:32.450 –> 16:59.048
[SPEAKER_02]: people are going to miss it and that’s the other thing that we’ve really worked on over a decade is how do you give instructions to people so that they prepare their shirts in a way that make it easiest for our operations team to create the greatest product they can and for the customer more to be really happy with what they get because T-shirts were not created to cut them into squares.
17:00.327 –> 17:11.282
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we’ve tried to create an organized system for this, but there’s still a lot of variations, but our production team is really talented.
17:11.735 –> 17:19.647
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was going to ask you about UGC, maybe I’ll ask you about UGC in a bit, but it looking at the UGC content on the home page.
17:20.409 –> 17:23.553
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there’s some, the blanket’s all different sizes.
17:23.634 –> 17:28.501
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s somewhat you’ve almost got like a pink stripe and a blue stripe of different t-shirts.
17:28.601 –> 17:32.748
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that something the customers informing you that they want?
17:32.868 –> 17:38.637
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is that something your team are going, oh, actually, if we look at what we’ve been sent, we could do a stripey blanket.
17:38.870 –> 17:46.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s mostly what they, what they say, and we’re, we’re cutting the same size square out of every shirt in 90% of cases.
17:46.863 –> 17:47.968
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
17:48.235 –> 17:51.338
[SPEAKER_02]: we try to make do with what they send us.
17:51.499 –> 17:55.643
[SPEAKER_02]: And we try to give instructions of, here’s what we can work with, here’s what we cannot.
17:55.663 –> 18:04.533
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you want your grandmother’s quilt that could be used in a museum, we’re not the right fit.
18:04.693 –> 18:16.065
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want a durable patchwork blanket quilt that you can easily throw on the wash and feels like a sweatshirt, that’s where the right fit for that.
18:16.484 –> 18:17.747
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes so much sense.
18:17.788 –> 18:21.598
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s come back to the UGC thing then, because you’ve got quite a lot of it on the homepage.
18:22.200 –> 18:30.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you bought that into your meta ads creative, as well that UGC feel to up the trust element that early in the buying process?
18:30.490 –> 18:38.379
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we’ve tried to have as many people go through this process and record it as possible.
18:39.199 –> 18:41.402
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve worked with a lot of athletes.
18:41.442 –> 18:45.366
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve really focused on women athletes.
18:45.867 –> 18:56.278
[SPEAKER_02]: We had done Instagram deals with US women’s soccer players back in 2016, 17, 18 before.
18:56.258 –> 19:01.206
[SPEAKER_02]: the women’s sports really took off on a financial scale.
19:01.266 –> 19:17.231
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we’ve continued to do a lot of marketing partnerships with college athletes and women’s pro sports leagues, which just helps us to create trust and that’s been an awesome part of our business.
19:17.612 –> 19:24.122
[SPEAKER_02]: And then just finding moms and UGC people and our audience gears,
19:24.895 –> 19:31.868
[SPEAKER_02]: a little bit older than a lot of other Shopify stores.
19:32.789 –> 19:43.349
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve tried to think about what makes people want to do this, get a good reaction from the person they’re gifting it to and make sure that they can trust something.
19:43.829 –> 19:48.017
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’re constantly thinking about that from a content perspective.
19:48.689 –> 19:53.437
[SPEAKER_01]: And what’s got you excited about 2026 in the year ahead?
19:53.457 –> 19:57.102
[SPEAKER_01]: Does there anything you’re particularly excited about testing or that’s coming up in the business?
19:58.144 –> 20:11.305
[SPEAKER_02]: I like the creative using creative as the way to find your audience, the mentality of meta now, where it used to be like tinkering with,
20:11.858 –> 20:16.890
[SPEAKER_02]: lists and audiences and trying to find the right, look like ad.
20:16.930 –> 20:26.492
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we can say, all right, I’m going to say in this video, I’m looking for moms of class of 2026.
20:27.248 –> 20:32.636
[SPEAKER_02]: and Meta will go out and find those parents, which is pretty amazing.
20:33.557 –> 20:46.836
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as that algorithm gets better and as the robots get more efficient, that actually helps a small business like us a lot.
20:46.856 –> 20:51.743
[SPEAKER_00]: E-commerce most of the land is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
20:51.763 –> 20:53.425
[SPEAKER_00]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
20:59.598 –> 21:01.881
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s time for the top tips you’re out.
21:04.505 –> 21:09.432
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me an I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
21:09.512 –> 21:11.214
[SPEAKER_01]: Nathan are you ready for the top tips?
21:11.735 –> 21:11.955
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
21:12.476 –> 21:14.018
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.
21:14.038 –> 21:20.948
[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
21:21.400 –> 21:37.350
[SPEAKER_02]: I just read Reset by Dan Heath and I’m really into operations and figuring out how to make systems work better and it just gave a lot of really interesting examples like
21:37.432 –> 21:51.646
[SPEAKER_02]: One example was how sweet green the salad maker in the US, they were, it was taking a lot of the time to mix all of their ingredients and these big balls and the transfer them to go balls.
21:51.866 –> 22:00.014
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they figured out how to create a compostable ball that you could also mix the salads in.
22:00.215 –> 22:02.697
[SPEAKER_02]: So it cut five, six minutes,
22:02.677 –> 22:03.999
[SPEAKER_02]: almost out of every order.
22:04.900 –> 22:11.189
[SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of stuff is just fascinating to me and he and Dan Heath just went through a lot of examples like that.
22:12.070 –> 22:12.511
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, nice.
22:13.212 –> 22:20.763
[SPEAKER_01]: When you’re dealing with that kind of thing, sometimes having a ton of examples is more useful than someone explaining the theory.
22:21.364 –> 22:21.764
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
22:22.545 –> 22:22.926
[SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.
22:23.106 –> 22:24.348
[SPEAKER_01]: I will have to have a look at that one.
22:24.949 –> 22:30.777
[SPEAKER_01]: A traffic top tip, which
22:31.583 –> 22:44.264
[SPEAKER_02]: I always think about email marketing people, people always are looking for the new thing, but email marketing is still the greatest tool to get people to buy.
22:44.284 –> 22:49.693
[SPEAKER_02]: From I would have said this to that 2016 and I still say this now.
22:50.635 –> 22:53.159
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, remain so powerful if you actually put the effort in.
22:53.660 –> 22:53.881
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
22:54.361 –> 22:55.083
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally agree.
22:55.203 –> 23:05.320
[SPEAKER_01]: Are the tool-top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone-up or just a way of working, is the recall little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day.
23:06.312 –> 23:21.944
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of other people were figuring out the next wave of the internet, which is AI and chatGBT has helped us just create different systems for what we’re going and to iterate.
23:22.185 –> 23:26.093
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m constantly using it to as a brainstorming.
23:26.073 –> 23:35.287
[SPEAKER_02]: mechanism being like okay here’s what I want to do let’s talk about this and work it out and then I come up with a plan that I then share with my team.
23:35.367 –> 23:40.095
[SPEAKER_02]: So as a brainstorming ideas for managers it’s a great tool.
23:41.036 –> 23:45.303
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice and not an unpopular top tip recommendation at the moment.
23:46.444 –> 23:51.372
[SPEAKER_01]: Carbon top tip what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of any commester?
23:51.773 –> 24:02.408
[SPEAKER_02]: Since we last talked, we figured out how to partner with an organization in North Carolina that can turn the scraps that we create into yarn that can be spun into socks.
24:03.230 –> 24:13.765
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are creating tons and tons of text out waste and then upcycling that all into yarn and we’re selling socks that are made from t-shirts scraps.
24:14.504 –> 24:21.767
[SPEAKER_01]: How cool, because as we spoke about earlier, there’s a huge part of the product, which is about recycling and keeping things out of landfill.
24:22.610 –> 24:26.944
[SPEAKER_01]: But you are left once you’ve cut that square out, you’ve got a lot of t-shirt fabric.
24:27.667 –> 24:28.288
[SPEAKER_01]: left over.
24:28.708 –> 24:29.089
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
24:29.109 –> 24:41.865
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’ve since we started, we’ve always had this waste problem where when we were starting, we were literally going around the country trying to find people who could recycle this.
24:41.985 –> 24:46.271
[SPEAKER_02]: And we spent a lot of money on textile recycling.
24:47.072 –> 24:53.640
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this was a way to
24:54.211 –> 25:08.683
[SPEAKER_01]: and a functional product where not only are you making money and instead of spending money, but you’re also, you know 100% that that product is being recycled because you’re physically selling it and turning it into a product and everything else.
25:08.723 –> 25:09.484
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
25:09.544 –> 25:11.305
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a great suck.
25:11.325 –> 25:13.067
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I saw the reviews on the website, actually.
25:13.107 –> 25:14.288
[SPEAKER_01]: There are people love it, don’t they?
25:14.608 –> 25:15.409
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
25:15.429 –> 25:15.889
[SPEAKER_01]: They love it.
25:17.591 –> 25:23.796
[SPEAKER_01]: Nathan, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business
25:24.552 –> 25:36.730
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are at project repat.com and I create a discount 30% discount called Master Plan for any listeners.
25:36.790 –> 25:41.017
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, we’re only in the United States and Canada.
25:41.577 –> 25:50.070
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you’re there or have to know anyone there, hope you’ve been by for us and then we’re on our Instagram account is project repat USA.
25:50.793 –> 25:52.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much for the discount code.
25:52.896 –> 25:59.084
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m sure our American and Canadian listeners will be all over it, digging out those t-shirts and getting their orders in.
25:59.345 –> 26:01.007
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much for that.
26:01.067 –> 26:02.509
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for coming back on the show.
26:02.529 –> 26:07.556
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s been lovely getting to catch up with you again, and I wish you huge success for the next 10 years.
26:08.257 –> 26:09.038
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much.
26:14.688 –> 26:20.896
[SPEAKER_01]: I find it is equally interesting with our guest we’re bringing back for this these 10 year celebrations.
26:21.437 –> 26:23.800
[SPEAKER_01]: What people haven’t changed is much of what they have changed.
26:24.881 –> 26:38.839
[SPEAKER_01]: And great chatting to Nathan about how a project repap they are continuing to improve their solutions to the same challenges and they are continuing to build that trust with the consumers as they will place the order and send in the goods.
26:38.819 –> 26:43.608
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re continuing to narrow down who their target customer is and how to get in front of them.
26:43.789 –> 26:50.021
[SPEAKER_01]: I continue to get better and better and better at the Facebook ads can undrum and at the email marketing can undrum.
26:50.041 –> 26:52.105
[SPEAKER_01]: So great to get to chat to him about all of that.
26:52.125 –> 26:59.038
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love that carbon top tip about taking your own waste product and finding a way to turn it into another product that you can sell.
26:59.018 –> 27:09.871
[SPEAKER_01]: In get your hands on our notes from this episode, including all those top tips and the links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com, you can also use our direct episode short links.
27:10.312 –> 27:18.262
[SPEAKER_01]: Just put ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar, and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page of the site.
27:18.722 –> 27:19.844
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get there, go on.
27:20.104 –> 27:21.786
[SPEAKER_01]: I just
27:21.766 –> 27:27.818
[SPEAKER_01]: If you like this episode, then make sure you check out our first chat with Nathan.
27:27.918 –> 27:38.138
[SPEAKER_01]: Episode 43, yes, you can have to scroll almost all the way back to the beginning, but it’s well worth hearing about how they got the business up and running and how they dealt with their first growth spurts.
27:38.118 –> 27:46.871
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you want more episodes about homewares and blankets and things like that, then head to ECMP dot info forward slash home.
27:47.472 –> 27:51.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode that you do of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
27:52.199 –> 28:03.096
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new one every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along that path to sustainability.
28:03.076 –> 28:08.908
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
28:08.928 –> 28:23.717
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
29 min
April 13eCommerce MasterPlan | 590: From 1795 to Shopify: Building a £12M eCommerce Toy Brand, with Joe Jaques
Joe Jaques is the CEO at Jaques of London, inventors of croquet, ping pong and chess as we know them, and championing play as the foundation of learning. Founded in 1795 (yes over 200 years ago) Joe is the 8th generation toymaker to lead this family business, winning multiple awards in recent years. Now selling via their Shopify site and Amazon they are on track for £12million this year.

In this episode, Joe shares how he transformed a centuries-old games company into a modern eCommerce brand. He talks about pivoting into educational toys, building a highly data-driven marketing strategy, and navigating the challenges of rapid growth, financial restructuring, and rebuilding the business stronger than before.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How an 8th-generation family business reinvented itself as a £12M eCommerce brand
Why obsessing over your data is the key to surviving rising CAC and scaling profitably
The surprising strategy behind pivoting from classic games to educational toys for under-5s
How running their own warehouse in China gives Jakes of London a huge quality advantage
The behind-the-scenes story of their COVID boom, debt crisis, and business rebuild
How Joe uses AI and data tools to uncover hidden eCommerce growth opportunities

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[06:09] “Educational Play for Early Childhood”
[08:07] In-House Operations and Control
[13:04] Rooted Values and Solid Growth
[14:57] “Facing Collapse After Growth”
[18:11] “Navigating Challenges with Support”
[22:22] “AI for Data Analysis”
[24:19] “In-House Creative and Personas”
[25:47] Listen to Joe’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/590
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:11.318
[SPEAKER_01]: If your cash flow is breaking, you really need to get to exactly why if your cack is skyrocketing, you need to understand exactly why and the only way you can find that is by spending the time to go on the data.
00:11.699 –> 00:15.829
[SPEAKER_01]: Just having a hint of truth across all the platforms is absolutely critical.
00:18.053 –> 00:20.560
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:21.101 –> 00:25.172
[SPEAKER_02]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:25.713 –> 00:33.835
[SPEAKER_02]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:36.818 –> 00:38.040
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome.
00:38.080 –> 00:39.221
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s great to have you here.
00:39.301 –> 00:43.326
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:43.807 –> 00:47.712
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess for this episode is here because they applied to be on the show.
00:47.732 –> 00:56.022
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’ve got something you love to chat with me about and share with the audience, just go to ECMP, that’s short for e-commerce master plan.
00:56.523 –> 00:59.887
[SPEAKER_00]: ECMP.info for slash guest to apply.
01:00.287 –> 01:03.231
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe we’ll be chatting very, very soon.
01:03.211 –> 01:07.335
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, I am chatting with Joe from Jacks of London.
01:07.836 –> 01:11.860
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re talking about how he’s kind of pivoted.
01:12.320 –> 01:15.804
[SPEAKER_00]: He’s very old family business into the world of children’s toys.
01:16.024 –> 01:23.191
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ll also be talking about the interesting time they had post COVID and how they survived that.
01:23.351 –> 01:31.159
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be talking about how he keeps everything in house right from the team in China
01:31.139 –> 01:42.136
[SPEAKER_00]: And a whole host of other topics, there’s some great marketing stuff around Facebook ads and influences if you listen right to the end of those top tips and four, four tips in the book top tip as well.
01:42.657 –> 01:45.862
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know you’re going to really enjoy this when I thoroughly enjoyed recording it with Joe.
01:45.882 –> 01:48.906
[SPEAKER_00]: So huge thanks to Joe for applying and to listening as well.
01:49.467 –> 01:56.438
[SPEAKER_00]: And hello, Joe, if you are able to listen to your voice and you’re listening back to that one, to this one, it’s a pleasure to have you tuning in.
01:56.418 –> 01:57.204
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, everyone.
01:57.425 –> 01:57.869
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go.
01:57.889 –> 02:01.213
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure to listen to the end because you do not want to miss out on Joe’s top tips.
02:06.998 –> 02:08.760
[SPEAKER_00]: And now to introduce our special guest.
02:09.160 –> 02:14.965
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe Jakes is the CEO at Jakes of London, inventors of croquet ping pong and chess, as we know them.
02:15.366 –> 02:22.693
[SPEAKER_00]: And championing play as the foundation of learning, founded in 1795, yes, over 200 years ago.
02:22.773 –> 02:29.239
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe is the eighth generation toy maker to lead this family business, winning multiple awards in recent years.
02:29.759 –> 02:35.925
[SPEAKER_00]: Now selling via their Shopify site and Amazon, they are on track for 12 million pounds this year.
02:36.462 –> 02:41.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Chloe, thank you very much for having me on the show as you know I’m a massive fan of this show, so I’m truly humbled to be here.
02:42.250 –> 02:45.656
[SPEAKER_00]: always a treat to get to interview one of our own listeners.
02:45.856 –> 02:53.590
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you Joe so much for applying to be on here and very cool to have Jake’s on the show as well.
02:53.810 –> 02:54.010
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
02:54.030 –> 02:57.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Having been a croquet player at uni in a very amateur sense.
02:58.418 –> 02:59.319
[SPEAKER_00]: This is very cool.
02:59.920 –> 03:06.672
[SPEAKER_00]: But rather than us go off and talk about the history of croquet ping pong and chess, which I must admit I did have to go and look up.
03:06.652 –> 03:08.434
[SPEAKER_00]: to serve to writing the intro.
03:09.075 –> 03:10.497
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds a bit unbelievable, doesn’t it?
03:10.517 –> 03:21.150
[SPEAKER_01]: That one family is invented ping pong, readers on the store and chess are invented, happy family, snap, ludo, snakes, ladders, tiddly winks, you know, Lewis Carol is my great, great uncle.
03:21.631 –> 03:27.258
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a quite unusual family to now sit here talking about selling things online, but we find us sounds here today.
03:27.578 –> 03:28.319
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are here.
03:28.359 –> 03:31.343
[SPEAKER_00]: So how did you end up in the world of e-commerce?
03:31.627 –> 03:33.771
[SPEAKER_01]: So I joined the family business in about 2001.
03:34.953 –> 03:37.517
[SPEAKER_01]: Was a salesman on the road selling here there and everywhere.
03:37.537 –> 03:46.613
[SPEAKER_01]: And gradually, over from that period up to about 2010, gradually, all of the customers that we were selling well too and we’re selling well, we’re selling online.
03:46.994 –> 03:49.418
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sat there and said, look, this is completely pointless.
03:49.438 –> 03:51.021
[SPEAKER_01]: We might as well learn to do this ourselves.
03:51.402 –> 03:56.571
[SPEAKER_01]: Starts is selling ourselves on Amazon, initially in about 2014.
03:56.551 –> 04:02.983
[SPEAKER_01]: and just in the days of Amazon hacking and ranking and now you have to do all sorts of started doing that.
04:04.280 –> 04:12.549
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really, really happy that we suddenly became the first second and third best selling backgammon’s set, but really cut our teeth when I got into data.
04:13.570 –> 04:26.684
[SPEAKER_01]: And effectively discovered how much bigger other toy market was had a daughter in 2012 and pivoted the whole business really to start reselling toys, you know, we used to sell toys years ago and started selling them a game about 2018.
04:27.746 –> 04:33.612
[SPEAKER_01]: And really now we’re a toy company, but we’re very recently become a toy company again.
04:33.592 –> 04:35.677
[SPEAKER_01]: and that was all kind of my vision and creation.
04:36.399 –> 04:39.005
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, so you went from literally out on the road?
04:39.507 –> 04:39.707
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
04:39.867 –> 04:41.471
[SPEAKER_00]: Driving rounds, stop this.
04:41.512 –> 04:42.394
[SPEAKER_01]: With an A to Z map.
04:44.258 –> 04:46.183
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and learning the internet.
04:46.585 –> 04:49.489
[SPEAKER_00]: and clearly becoming somewhat obsessed with it.
04:49.569 –> 04:51.692
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m completely, as I’m a complete data geek.
04:52.333 –> 04:56.399
[SPEAKER_01]: I love numbers and I love the money and I love the fun and the winning of it all.
04:56.820 –> 05:00.084
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love, obviously, we’re a family of creatives and have been vandres of years.
05:00.184 –> 05:09.117
[SPEAKER_01]: So understanding how we can dream up products and then sell products and understand the size and the scale of the market for those products is highly, highly addictive as we all know.
05:09.451 –> 05:10.315
[SPEAKER_00]: isn’t it, just?
05:10.376 –> 05:13.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let’s cover off the basics of the business for those who aren’t in the know.
05:13.772 –> 05:16.626
[SPEAKER_00]: Where in the world are you and where are you selling to?
05:17.062 –> 05:20.626
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re based in Eden Bridge and Kent, and we sell just to the UK.
05:20.747 –> 05:41.072
[SPEAKER_01]: We have sold all across the world in the past, but my belief is sort of master a market first, and if you’re trying to build a brand where people know and can buy a game, you know, particularly with acquisition cost being what they are, you need to sell to the same person multiple times and you’ve got a much better chance of doing that in better concentration, in my opinion.
05:41.613 –> 05:46.579
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m pretty sure I don’t know the numbers of the top of my head, but the size of the markets you play in in the UK,
05:46.627 –> 05:49.593
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s huge, it’s absolutely huge, just like three and a half billion.
05:49.953 –> 05:51.376
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s plenty of scope there, isn’t there?
05:51.396 –> 05:53.259
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s loads, there’s absolutely loads.
05:53.299 –> 05:57.427
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of think people go obsessed with being a global business when you don’t need to be.
05:57.808 –> 05:58.669
[SPEAKER_00]: Life’s a lot simpler.
05:59.311 –> 06:01.114
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is, you ever tickling nowadays.
06:01.455 –> 06:03.518
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell us a bit about that product.
06:03.579 –> 06:08.668
[SPEAKER_00]: We mentioned a couple of things, but what’s the core focus and what else are you doing these days on the product front?
06:09.020 –> 06:18.355
[SPEAKER_01]: So the core folks with the products is people talk a lot about purpose in business and why you’re doing what you’re doing, what’s the problem that you’re trying to fix.
06:18.959 –> 06:22.143
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve always been a educational play company.
06:22.183 –> 06:29.671
[SPEAKER_01]: We were making sort of lotto games 200 years ago about how you learn about the history and the different parts of history.
06:29.792 –> 06:41.305
[SPEAKER_01]: So now everything we do is about educational play and read the focuses on sub-five year olds and how much the brain develops by the age of three.
06:41.285 –> 06:46.011
[SPEAKER_01]: and how incredibly important it is to do the right activities with children at that age.
06:46.131 –> 06:56.864
[SPEAKER_01]: And really then, you know, we include learning cards with all our wooden toys, just to help sleep deprived parents have prompts to help get the most out of all of our toys.
06:56.924 –> 07:04.153
[SPEAKER_01]: And with the only people that are doing that really well, you know, loads of people may wooden toys, but no one does it with a clear clarity of purpose that we do.
07:04.589 –> 07:12.902
[SPEAKER_00]: as I mentioned, I used to play Croquet Unie, so I think of Jack’s as big old Croquet sets and you know, kind of posh sporting paraphernalia.
07:13.343 –> 07:17.509
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, you’ve got this huge history in backgammon, chess, et cetera.
07:18.290 –> 07:27.745
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems slightly odd, but then completely obvious when you talk about it, that you’ve now branched into the underfives as a court as the court market.
07:28.045 –> 07:28.606
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
07:28.626 –> 07:34.892
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, used to do children’s things and it’s not like we’ve havened untoys, but and we are still the biggest dominoes center in the UK.
07:34.912 –> 07:36.713
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re still the biggest chess sets center in the UK.
07:37.194 –> 07:56.112
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we do own those markets and we still very much against, but really play is at the heart of everything we do rather than games, so the importance of playing interaction, how you play with the toys, the same as, you know, everything is for our entertainment, but if you can make your entertainment part of learning, then I think that’s a really important thing.
07:56.328 –> 07:58.031
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s when it makes so much sense.
07:58.051 –> 08:01.516
[SPEAKER_00]: So actually, this is just all different ways of different age people are getting to play.
08:02.177 –> 08:02.698
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
08:02.718 –> 08:04.862
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does the team look like?
08:05.042 –> 08:05.883
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing in-house?
08:05.903 –> 08:06.865
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you outsourcing?
08:07.326 –> 08:08.968
[SPEAKER_01]: We do everything in-house.
08:09.529 –> 08:21.128
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do have a visor on our account on our Meta account only, but everything we do, our self-talk Google ads, and then we’ve learned it across the team, Meta, all our Amazon account, all our Amazon listings.
08:21.769 –> 08:22.690
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, we’ve
08:22.670 –> 08:25.112
[SPEAKER_01]: what they now call in the world vertically integrates.
08:25.132 –> 08:27.974
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve got our own warehouse in China, which I set up 15 years ago.
08:28.015 –> 08:31.898
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do all of the products, all of the product designing ourselves.
08:32.438 –> 08:35.781
[SPEAKER_01]: We quality control, wrap packing QC, everything ourselves.
08:35.861 –> 08:45.549
[SPEAKER_01]: So the reason our quality is so high is because all the deliveries come into our warehouse in China, we wrap pack and actually make sure everything’s totally perfect before it leaves there.
08:45.609 –> 08:52.255
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’re really, really,
08:52.235 –> 09:00.655
[SPEAKER_01]: about that peak hundred people, but including China, but normally sort of 40 to 60.
09:01.216 –> 09:10.699
[SPEAKER_00]: And are they mostly, you’ve got the team in China doing the initial pick and pack, and then you’ve got it coming into your own warehouse in the UK for the film?
09:10.898 –> 09:14.745
[SPEAKER_01]: in Toro and where house in the UK and actually obviously all around is in order to fill by them.
09:15.526 –> 09:22.199
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, everything here and all our containers come here and, you know, we shift a bow at a container a week, they’re on theirabouts.
09:22.880 –> 09:26.747
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you break down the head office team between the different functions?
09:27.115 –> 09:49.495
[SPEAKER_01]: Head of finance, a small-ish team looking after Amazon, and then a bigger team looking after social, product design, customer service, E-mail, it’s about 10 people in the office here, but fundamentally, all bar one or bar two dedicated to marketing and sales.
09:49.846 –> 09:53.451
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, oh, so many things, I could ask you about your business.
09:53.491 –> 09:55.594
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s really, you know, the background is fascinating.
09:55.634 –> 09:57.397
[SPEAKER_00]: What you’re selling today is fascinating.
09:57.897 –> 10:03.865
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose one of them is the, one of the obvious places to go is the price point range you have in the business.
10:03.886 –> 10:05.247
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just looking at the chest sets.
10:05.688 –> 10:12.678
[SPEAKER_00]: You’ve got a 15 pound travel’s chest set, roughly speaking, to beautiful chest sets that are over 5,000 pounds.
10:13.018 –> 10:13.519
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
10:13.539 –> 10:19.347
[SPEAKER_00]: That, for most e-commerce business, that would be something we advise against that diversity
10:19.327 –> 10:22.931
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I’m not sure I’d advise to do it either to be totally honest with you.
10:23.351 –> 10:27.216
[SPEAKER_01]: And we obviously are very high and very collectible, very limited production.
10:27.236 –> 10:30.059
[SPEAKER_01]: We are the original designer of the store and chess sets.
10:30.079 –> 10:36.866
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do sell these collector sets, but make no mistake the bulk of the business is in consumer goods effectively.
10:37.046 –> 10:39.369
[SPEAKER_01]: And sub-hundred pound price points.
10:39.489 –> 10:43.393
[SPEAKER_01]: That is really 95% of our turnover.
10:43.711 –> 10:50.734
[SPEAKER_00]: So a very different mindset or prioritization of marketing activity, et cetera, across those different ranges.
10:51.035 –> 10:58.023
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly and everything you do, you know, my objective is to get into people’s houses and have as many repeat users as possible.
10:58.043 –> 11:02.989
[SPEAKER_01]: My on a daily basis are repeat customers rate is 30 to 40% every single day.
11:03.490 –> 11:11.399
[SPEAKER_01]: So for a non-consumable non-deteriorating good and in fact something that we pride ourselves on lasting for a long time, we’re trying to sell people other things.
11:11.499 –> 11:14.022
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it’s what about portfolio expansion.
11:14.204 –> 11:15.065
[SPEAKER_00]: got you.
11:15.085 –> 11:21.773
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that that sub-hundred pound price point and then the larger ones of the specialist collect as market.
11:22.294 –> 11:24.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and it’s a very small part of that business to be honest.
11:25.057 –> 11:33.808
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that would be loud and we’d take great care of, but in terms of getting, you know, driving about 12 million, it’s very much, it’s not, it’s not driven by that.
11:33.828 –> 11:42.439
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you, you know, we occasionally get people running, we know working at family businesses on the show and
11:42.419 –> 11:46.490
[SPEAKER_00]: to have 200 odd years of history to deal with.
11:47.032 –> 11:53.911
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it’s seen, you know, from our conversation thus far, clearly it doesn’t leave you scared to innovate, scared to change the business and to adapt it.
11:53.951 –> 11:57.120
[SPEAKER_00]: But do you feel, do you feel the weight of it?
11:57.826 –> 12:14.687
[SPEAKER_01]: You do, but I think, I mean, I inherited the business that had debts of £1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
12:15.190 –> 12:23.159
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think you become confident in your own test, don’t you know, a lot of what we do is 1% better every day.
12:23.239 –> 12:31.169
[SPEAKER_01]: And you evolve, and I think the business has had to evolve over that period, you know, we used to make force teeth out of his behibopotamist teeth.
12:31.189 –> 12:33.531
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a hell of a very odd thing to do.
12:33.591 –> 12:35.133
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have had to evolve.
12:35.173 –> 12:36.675
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, um,
12:36.655 –> 12:49.567
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of it, it’s really good because it keeps you really true to, you know, you won’t make a bad products, you know, you really put the effort and everything that comes to market, you’re really want to put yourself behind.
12:50.148 –> 12:54.812
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don’t think that makes me particularly exclusive because I make a generation.
12:54.872 –> 12:58.236
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people that run their businesses put their whole life behind it anyway.
12:58.756 –> 13:03.861
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so I think it’s just part of the honesty that we buy which you sort of operate.
13:04.229 –> 13:18.942
[SPEAKER_00]: From how you talk about it, it feels a little like, you know, when people are talking about the values and the focus in their business, as we’ve talked about fair bit already in this chat, you know, you get the feeling that sometimes that stake is really firmly rooted in the ground.
13:19.002 –> 13:30.172
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it’s not gonna wobble very much because it’s really firmly there, which can be down to like force of conviction or in your case it can be down to, we’ve got 200 years of history under the soil and that will keep us on track.
13:30.192 –> 13:34.236
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we can see that the clever stuff
13:34.216 –> 13:38.556
[SPEAKER_00]: But that gives you that really solid DNA to grow on.
13:38.755 –> 13:39.636
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it does.
13:39.676 –> 13:43.000
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, but also you’ve become more familiar.
13:43.020 –> 13:44.361
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve been here 25 years now.
13:44.822 –> 13:58.476
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you get so much more familiar with the entity within which you exist, that it becomes an extension of you and you’re so proud of everything you’re doing, that it just becomes your absolute dying passion.
13:58.717 –> 14:00.959
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m not so fussed about the turn over in bits and pieces.
14:00.999 –> 14:02.220
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make amazing products.
14:02.801 –> 14:08.307
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, as my father once said to me,
14:08.287 –> 14:11.380
[SPEAKER_01]: always one success and if you have success the money comes for free.
14:13.147 –> 14:14.432
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think chase success.
14:14.834 –> 14:16.436
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, why is man your father?
14:16.556 –> 14:17.317
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he was.
14:19.639 –> 14:26.526
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so changing tax lightly before we hit the record button, you mentioned you’ve had an interesting journey since 2020.
14:26.686 –> 14:31.871
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I think I’ll try and a really potty history.
14:31.932 –> 14:33.934
[SPEAKER_01]: So we introduced toys in 2018.
14:35.275 –> 14:36.396
[SPEAKER_01]: We were doing three million year.
14:36.857 –> 14:40.200
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to five million in 2019.
14:41.260 –> 14:47.471
[SPEAKER_01]: We then hit 17 million in 2020, but for my own optimism is as much as she pitted.
14:47.531 –> 14:50.336
[SPEAKER_01]: What had actually happened is January, 2020, I’m in China.
14:51.178 –> 14:53.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Launch 93 new toys got really excited.
14:53.762 –> 14:55.485
[SPEAKER_01]: Launch them at the same time as COVID.
14:55.505 –> 14:57.689
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously sold out of everything and it was completely amazing.
14:57.790 –> 14:58.671
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought, there we go.
14:58.751 –> 15:00.855
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, after all these years, I cracked it.
15:00.835 –> 15:07.670
[SPEAKER_01]: went and borrowed money, often various in places to continue fueling that growth, and obviously came unstuck.
15:08.191 –> 15:15.267
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually continue to hold some okay turnover numbers after that, but really will weigh down by.
15:15.567 –> 15:16.990
[SPEAKER_01]: all your cash is going on debt.
15:17.832 –> 15:23.684
[SPEAKER_01]: We were advised to go for a raise, went and worked with one of the big financial institutions as an advisor.
15:23.724 –> 15:26.530
[SPEAKER_01]: They were actually, you know, quite helpful.
15:27.252 –> 15:35.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have people like BGF desperate to invest in us, but literally that was in about 2021, 2022.
15:35.108 –> 15:42.599
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we were going through that process, obviously the world started collapsing and every door that was begging us to come in just suddenly started slamming our face.
15:42.680 –> 15:44.142
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought, oh dear, here we go.
15:44.182 –> 15:45.784
[SPEAKER_01]: Got too much debt.
15:45.824 –> 15:53.496
[SPEAKER_01]: The only way through it was to put the business for a CVA company voluntary administration wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy being totally honest with you.
15:53.536 –> 15:56.661
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the most miserable thing I’ve ever done.
15:56.641 –> 15:59.345
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, does have you questioning your life a lot?
15:59.585 –> 16:04.873
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yeah, you also get through these things at that point.
16:04.893 –> 16:08.559
[SPEAKER_01]: My business partner left the business as well, just as it was all a bit tough.
16:09.781 –> 16:14.428
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, and now we’re here and I’m running the business on my own for the last two and a half, three years.
16:14.788 –> 16:18.514
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, which I’ve never enjoyed any more than I am now, which is totally epic.
16:20.502 –> 16:23.847
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’m finally doing all the new exciting products that I wanted to do in 2021, 2022.
16:24.007 –> 16:30.677
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of got all the inheritance from my father and that journey piled it all into the business to rescue it, stuck it all on red.
16:31.237 –> 16:35.223
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I’ve got it through the other side and the business is now trading nicely, growing and profitable.
16:35.604 –> 16:37.707
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s been a bit of interesting journey.
16:38.448 –> 16:41.532
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking back, would you have done the same things you did?
16:42.220 –> 16:50.572
[SPEAKER_01]: we made some mistakes of trusting people within the business of not really getting as close to the finances as I could.
16:50.712 –> 16:57.221
[SPEAKER_01]: I followed the commercial finance much more so than the daily sort of cash flow bits and pieces.
16:57.321 –> 17:00.065
[SPEAKER_01]: I was all about margin of bits and pieces of following detail.
17:00.706 –> 17:06.133
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I’d like to have done it differently, but I think it was not the 64 million dollar question.
17:06.153 –> 17:08.376
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you change in the past with all the things I got wrong?
17:08.396 –> 17:10.219
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep doing all the things I got right.
17:11.532 –> 17:13.334
[SPEAKER_01]: So I definitely can have done loads of things.
17:13.394 –> 17:17.580
[SPEAKER_01]: I’d love to have had a proper education and no now.
17:17.980 –> 17:20.424
[SPEAKER_01]: No what I do now, even 10 years ago would be amazing.
17:21.385 –> 17:23.127
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, business is like that, isn’t it?
17:23.267 –> 17:30.717
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sure an MBA is a good thing, but I doubt it teaches you how to run a small dynamic business, particularly, well, if that makes sense.
17:30.797 –> 17:32.599
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of that side of things.
17:33.080 –> 17:33.901
[SPEAKER_01]: Resilience.
17:33.921 –> 17:38.367
[SPEAKER_01]: Resilience is the number one thing, and I think it comes up time and again, and I think that’s the number one thing.
17:38.870 –> 17:47.764
[SPEAKER_00]: But I suspect given how the economy is at the moment, and the continuing post-COVID full and rise challenges that businesses are still dealing with a little bit.
17:48.185 –> 17:53.794
[SPEAKER_00]: For anyone who’s thinking about doing the voluntary… What is it there?
17:53.814 –> 17:55.577
[SPEAKER_01]: CVA, comedy, voluntary administration.
17:55.817 –> 17:56.298
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s the one.
17:56.358 –> 17:58.000
[SPEAKER_00]: I always get the letters wrong when I try.
17:58.020 –> 18:00.044
[SPEAKER_00]: As everyone just heard, I always get the letters.
18:00.064 –> 18:03.409
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I had to practice saying it before I came on the podcast because I wanted to get into.
18:03.676 –> 18:11.045
[SPEAKER_00]: if anyone planning on doing one of those or thinking about doing one of those, what advice would you give them before during or after?
18:11.866 –> 18:14.569
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s very hard, very, very, very emotional.
18:14.789 –> 18:23.540
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think a bit like a lot of these things, whether it’s a CVA, whether whatever it may be, they are huge hurdles that you have to work through.
18:23.560 –> 18:24.961
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was very lucky.
18:25.102 –> 18:27.945
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought on board an advisor.
18:27.925 –> 18:33.215
[SPEAKER_01]: Chairman, as we went into the race and he stuck with me through the CBA, it’s just still six with me now.
18:33.857 –> 18:42.914
[SPEAKER_01]: And just having someone as a bit of a rock to, you know, when you’ve got a sack, you’ll see a foe having someone there to say, right, you’ve got to go and do it now, Joe.
18:43.556 –> 18:45.259
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, right, okay.
18:45.239 –> 18:47.905
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he was the XCO of self-register.
18:47.926 –> 18:49.610
[SPEAKER_01]: He’s been through some big things in his cell.
18:49.810 –> 18:55.063
[SPEAKER_01]: So, having that, that CO of self-register and advice just really helped be a stable robot.
18:55.083 –> 18:59.453
[SPEAKER_01]: So, talk to people, you know, most of these things have been done by for, by somebody else.
18:59.534 –> 19:01.358
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, talk to people.
19:02.131 –> 19:09.001
[SPEAKER_00]: having taken a business through something similar, and various redundancies and stuff I’ve had to run in the past.
19:09.021 –> 19:22.080
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s like, when you’re the person in charge of the business, it becomes really difficult because you, there’s so much you can’t tell the team legally at certain points, which is I found the hardest thing of all was not to be able to tell people.
19:22.100 –> 19:30.552
[SPEAKER_00]: So to have someone who’s a key advisor, who knows everything, who you can talk to and understands it, family and friends are great, but someone who actually is aware,
19:30.683 –> 19:34.187
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and good people always want to help good people.
19:34.407 –> 19:43.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if you’re able to deal with it and be honest with yourself and honest with somebody else, then you will get honest to help for reply.
19:44.019 –> 19:52.489
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that part of the hardest part is actually facing these scenarios and being truthful to yourself, but there we go.
19:53.414 –> 19:59.200
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to ask you about something slightly more positive if you’ve been more challenging before we head towards the top tip.
19:59.240 –> 20:19.860
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is Jay, you mentioned that you’re doing everything in house and that the Google ads and the Facebook ads are super important to the business and we’ve gone through a very challenging time with running Google ads and Facebook ads in particularly where I know a lot of people are now deliberating whether
20:19.840 –> 20:25.913
[SPEAKER_00]: creative in-house, somebody else running the accounts or outsourcing everything or keeping everything in-house.
20:26.695 –> 20:34.491
[SPEAKER_00]: How have you navigated that massive shift in how the Facebook ads, how we have to use Facebook ads to deliver the result?
20:35.787 –> 20:39.353
[SPEAKER_01]: I think measuring of session in detail and measuring.
20:39.373 –> 20:41.756
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, lots of people are talking about it being a huge shift.
20:41.776 –> 20:44.120
[SPEAKER_01]: I just always view these things as part of the evolution.
20:44.160 –> 20:48.647
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, when you’ve been doing it for a while, it is just always hard work.
20:48.687 –> 20:50.109
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s about finding on this data.
20:50.129 –> 20:51.291
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that’s the hardest part.
20:51.311 –> 20:53.695
[SPEAKER_01]: We know you use AAA, which will come on to in a minute.
20:53.675 –> 20:58.640
[SPEAKER_01]: but just having a point of truth across all the platforms is absolutely critical.
20:59.001 –> 21:03.966
[SPEAKER_01]: A bit like everything, you know, if your cash flow is breaking, you really need to get to exactly why.
21:03.986 –> 21:08.230
[SPEAKER_01]: If your cack is skyrocketing, you need to understand exactly why.
21:08.250 –> 21:11.113
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only way you can find that is by spending the time to go on the data.
21:11.414 –> 21:12.575
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re lucky enough nowadays.
21:12.595 –> 21:22.365
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got so many different ways of extrapolating data and dropping data into AI that you can start to ask challenging data.
21:22.345 –> 21:34.656
[SPEAKER_01]: I ask, you know, either Claude or Jackie BT, this is what I want to know, and I’ll ramble into it, tell me what the best prompt is and what data do you need from Mobie to kind of understand this.
21:34.816 –> 21:43.484
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will get prompts from one AI to feed into Mobie for triple well and then pull all that data back in so I can really understand the data as to what’s what.
21:43.844 –> 21:52.352
[SPEAKER_01]: So that sort of data analyst that a world class day journalist we’ve always wanted
21:52.332 –> 21:56.233
[SPEAKER_01]: asking more proactive questions and getting more and more data.
21:56.585 –> 21:57.506
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s interesting, isn’t it?
21:57.526 –> 22:04.617
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I used to say, like, about 10 years ago, that one of my roles as an advisor to people was to tell them what to Google.
22:05.539 –> 22:07.221
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it’s like, I’ve got this problem glow.
22:07.241 –> 22:08.944
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, this is the key word you need to Google.
22:08.984 –> 22:11.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you’ll find the potential supplies and the potential solutions.
22:11.788 –> 22:17.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you don’t know that area of e-commerce, you don’t know what the words people use for it are.
22:17.798 –> 22:22.525
[SPEAKER_00]: But listening to you talk about that, it’s like, actually now, AI gives us the right key words, C.E.s.
22:22.927 –> 22:27.817
[SPEAKER_01]: It does dictate and ramble into it, and it will work out what you’re trying to do.
22:27.857 –> 22:36.293
[SPEAKER_01]: It deciphers mass amounts of information, be that your own ramblings, what your own problem is, what it may be, or all the dates from all the answers.
22:36.354 –> 22:38.117
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a huge piece.
22:38.333 –> 22:42.077
[SPEAKER_01]: all about Tam and the totally drippable market that I could do for Domino’s and chess.
22:42.097 –> 23:01.499
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to exactly, by month, how much of the UK market I had for Domino’s and chess, by, and I went through, went through all the keywords search volume, just for numbers of this is, went through all the keywords search volume, went through all the different conversion rates, went through everybody’s rankings, dumped it all in and got to a pretty good point of exactly how much of the market we are for each of those things.
23:01.959 –> 23:02.620
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s,
23:02.600 –> 23:06.947
[SPEAKER_01]: all data that exists, but it isn’t pulled together in a place yet.
23:07.428 –> 23:15.040
[SPEAKER_01]: But by having multi-stage questions into an AI, I can get all that data, ask the right questions of the data, and then let it process it.
23:15.160 –> 23:18.285
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally overnight I had to do it, but it got to it.
23:19.026 –> 23:23.393
[SPEAKER_00]: And then of course you can decide how much more should we push those products on Amazon?
23:23.754 –> 23:24.635
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely correct.
23:24.715 –> 23:25.617
[SPEAKER_01]: Where’s the opportunity?
23:25.757 –> 23:27.780
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we at 90% or are we at 10%.
23:27.862 –> 23:28.303
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s it.
23:28.483 –> 23:34.211
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, I run two Mexican trained ominous sets on Amazon, one in a Tim box, one in a wooden box.
23:34.231 –> 23:39.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Our theory is if one’s out of stock, the other one sells, it was very apparent running the data that that’s not what happens at all.
23:39.998 –> 23:42.201
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s absolutely a critical that you run them both.
23:42.662 –> 23:47.989
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s why because it couldn’t see a shift in sales volume of that particular item when the other one was out of stock.
23:48.370 –> 23:53.717
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I couldn’t really get to that in a way quickly the way that it did.
23:54.170 –> 23:58.798
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, very complicated spreadsheet and some manual looking at things and two days later.
23:58.818 –> 24:02.284
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re not entirely sure, but that’s exactly that.
24:02.304 –> 24:11.439
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas you can you can get some pretty good understanding now where they are in dates from analysis and on the creative side of Facebook ads, how are you you tackling that?
24:11.479 –> 24:17.629
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’ve got you know video studio set up a using AI for it, how are you in the team creating the creative you need to feed it?
24:18.166 –> 24:18.587
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
24:19.048 –> 24:20.711
[SPEAKER_01]: So all the creative is done in house.
24:21.132 –> 24:30.109
[SPEAKER_01]: We do, you know, or we do, we’ve got some lights and a bit some pieces and we do some of the ASMR kind of stuff, piece to camera and bits and pieces.
24:30.169 –> 24:35.179
[SPEAKER_01]: I do a like a fake podcast adverts for founder videos and stuff like that.
24:35.159 –> 24:37.061
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we do it all in house.
24:38.003 –> 24:43.890
[SPEAKER_01]: The hardest part of the moment now is that all this persona shifting that we’re working, which I’m sure you’re going to cover in due course.
24:44.151 –> 24:49.858
[SPEAKER_01]: But looking changing one variable whilst not having due to the content.
24:50.519 –> 24:57.207
[SPEAKER_01]: So having a different angle of a very similar video, but making sure that it comes across in a different way.
24:57.808 –> 24:59.310
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think a lot of that,
24:59.290 –> 25:03.454
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, people got all the persona and the face and they’re there and what the advertiser isn’t working.
25:03.954 –> 25:07.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Hang on, isn’t this just what we used to call the type of customer in the olden days?
25:10.321 –> 25:20.070
[SPEAKER_01]: So really, I look at who’s going to buy a backgammon set and why, who’s going to buy a wooden toy tractor and why, and you kind of answer all these questions anyway.
25:20.190 –> 25:26.496
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think there’s a lot of
25:29.227 –> 25:34.077
[SPEAKER_02]: E-commerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
25:34.218 –> 25:44.620
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
25:46.878 –> 25:52.152
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level, Joe.
25:52.192 –> 25:53.496
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you ready for the top tips?
25:53.957 –> 25:54.278
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
25:55.000 –> 25:56.303
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the book top tip.
25:56.424 –> 26:03.182
[SPEAKER_00]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
26:03.533 –> 26:06.158
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’ve got three books, which I’ll whisk through super quick.
26:07.260 –> 26:11.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Poor Charlie’s Albiniac, which is the book.
26:11.648 –> 26:20.405
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all the pieces of work and advice that Charlie Munga did, which Charlie Munga was Warren Buffett’s right handman, and it’s the whole logic about how we approach as everything.
26:20.525 –> 26:23.871
[SPEAKER_01]: They simplified every piece of investing they ever did.
26:23.851 –> 26:28.718
[SPEAKER_01]: He said that the danger with intelligence is that everybody gets something know something that goes really deep.
26:28.979 –> 26:34.127
[SPEAKER_01]: So before you run into it, the logic is you need to keep on that.
26:34.147 –> 26:38.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Before you start any opinion, you need to keep understanding everything from the broadest possible perspective.
26:38.794 –> 26:41.638
[SPEAKER_01]: So they when took every view in every bit of knowledge.
26:41.698 –> 26:42.940
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think,
26:42.920 –> 26:46.485
[SPEAKER_01]: teaching you to think broadly and not nail down too much.
26:46.826 –> 26:50.872
[SPEAKER_01]: I love black box thinking by Matthew side, who’s a fantastic bloke.
26:51.272 –> 27:02.228
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all about the power of diverse thinking and having a diverse team as possible so that you will challenge each other and you know, Mr. Average doesn’t exist.
27:02.208 –> 27:05.900
[SPEAKER_01]: So break that up a bit and I love Malcolm Gladwell tipping point.
27:06.021 –> 27:09.351
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m pretty sure people have spoken about before on this podcast.
27:10.014 –> 27:14.428
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I just like it for the emotional reason that they might be a tipping point out there where it all becomes a bit easier.
27:17.800 –> 27:28.553
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it’s the logic that it does build and momentum builds and I think that’s the key thing when you’re doing lots of social leader influencing or whatever it may be that it does take a tipping point to get to.
27:29.053 –> 27:32.898
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’m going to be crazy if I may and add a watch top tip.
27:33.218 –> 27:38.745
[SPEAKER_01]: Please do my favorite thing that I’ve watched in many many years is a program called the Thinking Game.
27:39.434 –> 27:51.932
[SPEAKER_01]: which is a documentary about Demisa Sarbes, who’s the now the CEO of Google DeepMind, about how he went about solving the protein-folding problem, and how they did alpha-fold, to solve that.
27:51.952 –> 28:08.395
[SPEAKER_01]: They did alpha-go to beat the world champion at go, and just the way that somebody with a great mind thinks and progresses, and he’s now arguably one of the most influential people in the world, but just the humbornist and the way he thinks about things,
28:08.375 –> 28:09.456
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely beautiful.
28:10.017 –> 28:12.060
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that cheeky extra tip.
28:12.220 –> 28:13.261
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really sorry.
28:13.882 –> 28:15.965
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of lots of great advice there, Joe.
28:15.985 –> 28:20.971
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so definitely expecting good things from you from the rest of the top tips, pressures on.
28:21.913 –> 28:27.340
[SPEAKER_00]: Traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others, or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
28:28.401 –> 28:35.290
[SPEAKER_01]: For us, I always think it’s a pop-up, because we spend a lot of time worrying about how much traffic we get and where it comes in.
28:35.590 –> 28:36.812
[SPEAKER_01]: And
28:37.012 –> 28:40.036
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, our pop-up now converts to about 7%.
28:40.116 –> 28:48.485
[SPEAKER_01]: So 7% of the people that rock up at our site, 10,000 people, the difference between 3% of the 7% is quite a huge amount of people.
28:48.545 –> 29:04.504
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you’re pulling those people in and bringing them into a conversation with you and just making that conversation last a little bit longer than the time they’re on the site, I think that’s a hugely valuable thing that we’ve got our pop-up spots on our flows, we’re still working on to get as good as I want them to be.
29:04.872 –> 29:11.262
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the email pop-up is a, or email capture pop-up is an under-appreciated tool.
29:11.382 –> 29:13.165
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love that you’ve, you’ve flagged that one.
29:13.725 –> 29:18.793
[SPEAKER_00]: The tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app, or just a way of working.
29:18.813 –> 29:23.320
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
29:23.722 –> 29:26.985
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, my three, again, are life timely.
29:27.005 –> 29:29.767
[SPEAKER_01]: I love because it’s just an easy way of catching margin.
29:30.068 –> 29:33.691
[SPEAKER_01]: Not perfect margin, but you can follow your daily performance.
29:33.771 –> 29:35.152
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice and easily across the business.
29:35.252 –> 29:38.074
[SPEAKER_01]: Life timely, uh, Trifleware, I’ve already mentioned.
29:38.134 –> 29:43.039
[SPEAKER_01]: I think has been an absolute godsend and, and understanding and using that as it should be.
29:43.199 –> 29:48.483
[SPEAKER_01]: I hated it for the first three months, nearly cancel my subscription when I went to go and cancel bits and pieces.
29:48.524 –> 29:50.265
[SPEAKER_01]: They said maybe you’re not using it right, Joe.
29:50.906 –> 29:52.067
[SPEAKER_01]: So I dug, dug deep.
29:52.127 –> 29:53.728
[SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn’t do without it now.
29:53.708 –> 29:59.860
[SPEAKER_01]: And we also use upfloments, which is a really handy tool for putting all of your product seeding influences all together.
30:00.041 –> 30:03.066
[SPEAKER_01]: And we now do hundreds of products seeds a month.
30:03.948 –> 30:04.910
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s a really good thing.
30:04.950 –> 30:08.838
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s not about paying huge influences, tens of thousands of pounds.
30:08.918 –> 30:12.966
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s about getting people that really love your products to really talk about them honestly.
30:12.946 –> 30:28.181
[SPEAKER_01]: If you’ve got a really good product, people will want to talk about it, we’re not in beauty, where we’re forcing people to talk about a miracle face cream, we’re making really beautiful lovely toys and we want people to film their children playing with really beautiful lovely toys is not a big ask.
30:28.702 –> 30:29.925
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, up until this is awesome.
30:30.057 –> 30:36.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Has lots of people, I think, fail to make as much impact as they should with the influencer strategy.
30:36.571 –> 30:40.900
[SPEAKER_00]: You said you used your sending out to what is it 500 odd people at time with this?
30:40.920 –> 30:41.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:41.361 –> 30:46.412
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it a case of kind of go big with the micro influences is where you found the sweet spot?
30:46.595 –> 30:48.581
[SPEAKER_01]: But that’s where I’ve got it.
30:48.881 –> 31:02.038
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’ve done product influence of stuff seeding for absolutely ages, but I’ve always done it and then back to how and then done it and back to how and then you see it in the cost line you hate it and what we did now was actually dive in and actually do it properly.
31:02.018 –> 31:29.680
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I tracked a graph of impressions and a graph of product seeds and then I tracked branded search tone volume both across mainly across Amazon because you can kind of see where people then start searching your brand and then got the two graphs and then look for a graph correlation with AI and generally saw that within a week of the product seed dump going out
31:29.660 –> 31:33.470
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I can start to have some comfort actually that is working over here.
31:34.572 –> 31:41.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and that’s it’s so hard to track but if you can see those correlation do you can see the impact going in the product sales then it’s you know.
31:42.080 –> 31:47.126
[SPEAKER_01]: If you’re struggling to track something, it’s always like, hey, I, this is what I’m trying to do.
31:47.146 –> 31:51.551
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any way at all, any creative ideas or has anybody else had this problem before?
31:51.751 –> 31:54.134
[SPEAKER_01]: And Penny to a pound someone has and you can come up with it.
31:54.274 –> 31:58.940
[SPEAKER_01]: That was actually one of my ideas of graph correlation, but you know, I always can help too.
31:59.941 –> 32:05.387
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
32:05.941 –> 32:08.466
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s an old saying, which is by cheap, by twice.
32:09.147 –> 32:14.537
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of carbon can get wasted in resending out things that are broken.
32:14.577 –> 32:17.904
[SPEAKER_01]: So buy nice things and make sure it’s considered.
32:17.924 –> 32:26.059
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you do, when you’re lucky enough to get a sale for heaven, say, make sure that that product arrives and somebody wants to keep it, because it’s not junk.
32:26.039 –> 32:42.602
[SPEAKER_01]: And also if there is any problems, you know, damaged in transit, whatever it may be, work out some sort of resolution, have a human conversation with the customer, try and work a way of not having to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, you know, automation can very much be the enemy in carbon footprints.
32:43.182 –> 32:44.765
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially when it comes to returns.
32:45.225 –> 32:46.207
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, very much so.
32:46.807 –> 32:52.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?
32:52.853 –> 32:57.998
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we are Jake’s of London, J.Q.U.U.S., so you can find Google that and you’ll find us.
32:58.238 –> 33:18.439
[SPEAKER_01]: And on LinkedIn, if anybody wants, you know, in all seriousness, Joe Jake’s, J.O.E., J.A.Q.U.E.S., yeah, dropped me a message on LinkedIn, I’m super happy to help anyone in anything positive, like all the stuff I’m spoken about, or if anybody’s going through a bit of a tough time and balancing and working their way through a dip.
33:18.419 –> 33:24.327
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m happy to be here for that person to talk to about something because I know how blooming hard it is and I’ve done it now and got through the other side.
33:24.387 –> 33:25.629
[SPEAKER_01]: So do reach out.
33:26.010 –> 33:34.722
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m always happy to help anybody at whichever side of that sea so you may be currently sitting on after the storms come the sun shines and keep peddling everybody.
33:35.443 –> 33:37.126
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so such wise words.
33:37.406 –> 33:40.350
[SPEAKER_00]: Jay, thank you so much for coming on the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
33:40.390 –> 33:42.073
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been a real treat getting to chat with you.
33:42.093 –> 33:43.735
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for being here.
33:43.875 –> 33:45.237
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, Victoria, thank you so much for having me.
33:51.241 –> 33:52.784
[SPEAKER_00]: fascinating to chat to Jay there.
33:52.804 –> 33:56.591
[SPEAKER_00]: I can’t believe how many topics we got through in the course of that chat.
33:57.854 –> 34:13.384
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the bit which resonated the most with me was the clarity of who they are and what they’re doing, you know, that they’re doubling down on the play part of the story, which reminds me of
34:13.364 –> 34:37.060
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if it’s an urban myth or reality, but where Nintendo were originally a playing card manufacturer, and then decided that their USP was not being a playing card manufacturer, it was being a creator of games, and therefore they evolved into what they are today, and the way
34:37.040 –> 34:43.172
[SPEAKER_00]: back to an element of its roots really feels very similar to that story to me and is you know clearly working well for them.
34:43.473 –> 34:50.366
[SPEAKER_00]: Fascinating stuff on the marketing front with the influencers and the ads approach there and lots of other bits and pieces in there.
34:50.466 –> 34:53.412
[SPEAKER_00]: I suspect several of you will be listening to this one again.
34:53.392 –> 35:01.503
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to get your hands on our notes from this episode including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com?
35:01.523 –> 35:10.615
[SPEAKER_00]: You could also use the direct episode short link just put ECMP.info4sash, the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page.
35:10.635 –> 35:18.285
[SPEAKER_00]: When you get to the website you can also add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things we share to help you improve your business.
35:18.265 –> 35:41.860
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you like this episode, then why not check out recent episode number 588, where we’re covering vaguely similar topic, but with some of the very, very similar mindset to business to Joe, so I think you’ll really like that episode as well if you haven’t caught it yet, that’s 588 just a couple before this one.
35:41.840 –> 35:50.868
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want more on Shopify sellers, then head to ECMP.info for such Shopify for all our interviews with people on the Shopify platform.
35:51.648 –> 35:56.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
35:56.212 –> 36:05.240
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
36:05.761 –> 36:10.885
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you know someone this show can help please tell them to listen to
36:10.865 –> 36:25.718
[SPEAKER_02]: out if we’re great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
37 min
April 06eCommerce MasterPlan | 589: Fashion and Sustainability – what do consumers want now, and how can brands benefit from it?
Bhavishya Ramchander is the CEO at Reloom, a platform where conscious consumers meet verified, sustainable fashion brands. Founded in 2025 they’ve been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Vogue Europe and at the Drapers Conscious Fashion Summit, they already have over 20 verified brands on the platform.
In this episode, Vishy shares what today’s fashion consumers really want when it comes to sustainability—and why good intentions alone aren’t translating into purchases. She breaks down the key barriers holding shoppers back, and reveals how brands can turn transparency, data, and circular models into real commercial advantage.
Hit PLAY to hear:
Why shoppers say they want sustainable fashion—but still buy fast fashion
The 2 biggest barriers killing sustainable sales (and how to fix them)
How adding the right data to product pages can boost conversions
Why sustainability should be treated like a product feature—not a marketing message
The resale opportunity most fashion brands are still missing
How upcoming regulations could become your biggest competitive advantage
Dive in:
[05:57] “Sustainable Fashion: Price & Trust”
[09:22] “Sustainable Shopping by Values”
[12:25] Sustainability: Asset, Not PR Stunt
[16:47] “Sustainability Data Boosts Conversions”
[17:31] “Resale Market and Circular Design”
[23:40] “Plan Early for Brand Success”
[25:40] Listen to Vishy’s Top Tips!
[29:57] Episode sponsored by Reloom. Visit the Reloom website.
Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/589
Episode sponsored by Reloom. Visit the Reloom website.
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:00.407
[UNKNOWN]: You
00:00.503 –> 00:08.872
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the brands that are going to win, quote unquote, will be the ones that can prove their sustainability journey, not just tell it.
00:08.972 –> 00:14.758
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of brands these days start seeing this LCA analysis at a little bit of a PR stance.
00:14.838 –> 00:30.274
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the best way to use this LCA analysis is to embed that into your product story to show where each garment was manufactured, where the yarn was produced, where it was stitched together
00:30.254 –> 00:52.431
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s just about using that information to your advantage.
00:55.465 –> 00:58.109
[SPEAKER_00]: hello and it’s great to have you here.
00:58.229 –> 01:02.314
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
01:02.334 –> 01:06.079
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode we’re getting deep into fashion and sustainability.
01:06.740 –> 01:10.766
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re going to be looking at how consumers are trying to become more conscious.
01:10.866 –> 01:16.714
[SPEAKER_00]: What their behavior is at the moment around sustainability and what they’re doing, what they want, what the
01:16.694 –> 01:17.837
[SPEAKER_00]: barriers are to them.
01:17.937 –> 01:27.604
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we’re going to flip it and talk about how you as a brand can take advantage of and learn from that to take action in your business that will grow better business.
01:28.046 –> 01:32.458
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess going to be taking us through three key action you should be taking.
01:32.438 –> 01:40.508
[SPEAKER_00]: will also be diving a little bit, not too heavily into the legislation that’s coming in in sustainability and how to deal with that as well.
01:41.269 –> 01:46.595
[SPEAKER_00]: Really love today’s guest, she really knows her staff and she’s super enthusiastic in the space as well.
01:47.196 –> 01:56.607
[SPEAKER_00]: So you’re going to look at, I think inspired and get lots of good ideas from this one too and make sure you listen to the end of the episode because she was really good in the top tips round as well.
02:02.645 –> 02:07.634
[SPEAKER_00]: And now to introduce our special guest, Fissi Ram Chandler is the CEO at Realme.
02:08.035 –> 02:12.283
[SPEAKER_00]: A platform where conscious consumers meet verified sustainable fashion brands.
02:12.763 –> 02:20.057
[SPEAKER_00]: Founded in 2025, they’ve been featured in Forbes, business insider, Vogue Europe, and at the Drapers Conscious Fashion Summit.
02:20.517 –> 02:25.767
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, they already have over 20 verified brands on the platform, hello, Fissi.
02:25.747 –> 02:27.191
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Clary, how are you?
02:27.231 –> 02:32.584
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m getting really excited to be talking about this topic with you, such an exciting topic.
02:33.245 –> 02:39.300
[SPEAKER_00]: But before we get into all of that, how did you get into the world of e-commerce?
02:40.276 –> 02:49.853
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually just stumbled upon it at a frustration, honestly, though, I think I was a conscious consumer long before I was a founder.
02:49.873 –> 02:55.963
[SPEAKER_02]: I kept trying to shop more sustainably, but I felt the experience was quite broken.
02:56.003 –> 02:58.327
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I grew up in an Asian household.
02:58.588 –> 03:00.411
[SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in Indian Singapore, where
03:00.391 –> 03:16.037
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you have this whole use and dispose mentality when it comes to fashion and fast fashion was quite prevalent and since moving to UK and then Europe, I’ve kind of educated myself around the world of sustainability and how I can contribute.
03:16.017 –> 03:18.700
[SPEAKER_02]: towards living a more conscious lifestyle myself.
03:19.240 –> 03:29.891
[SPEAKER_02]: However, when I started trying to be more conscious, I, you know, that was greenwashing everywhere, no way to really verify claims and no single trusted place to go.
03:29.951 –> 03:39.821
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that frustration was my seat, if you will, and re-loom, previously we called it, have it sourced, was built to fix exactly that for consumers like me.
03:40.341 –> 03:43.965
[SPEAKER_02]: We essentially verify brand sustainability credentials.
03:43.945 –> 03:54.023
[SPEAKER_02]: using a five-pillar rubric which is EU aligned and connect those verified brands with consumers who actually want to shop more responsibly and more consciously.
03:54.344 –> 03:56.628
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s how I kind of ended up here.
03:58.611 –> 04:04.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Just feeling that frustration that so many other people is I want to do better but I have no idea how to do better.
04:04.442 –> 04:05.463
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s a real struggle.
04:05.784 –> 04:06.966
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
04:06.946 –> 04:11.555
[SPEAKER_00]: And it remarkably continues to be, which is why we need services like yours.
04:11.795 –> 04:21.293
[SPEAKER_00]: And would it be fair to say that whilst you are bringing those brands together on the platform, you’re also enabling those brands to promote themselves with more rigidity elsewhere?
04:21.458 –> 04:28.267
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think one of the things is with brands, we offer two kind of areas of support.
04:28.948 –> 04:34.435
[SPEAKER_02]: One is primarily around their impact when it comes to sustainability and their imprint as we call it.
04:34.796 –> 04:39.102
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s the five-pillar rule which is people, planet, animal, circularity, and transparency.
04:39.462 –> 04:43.888
[SPEAKER_02]: So we help them evaluate where they stand right now.
04:43.868 –> 04:46.652
[SPEAKER_02]: as well as areas of improvement.
04:46.673 –> 05:08.087
[SPEAKER_02]: So any low-hanging fruit that they can tap into and to show to the consumers exactly how they are improving their sustainability scores and imprint, but we’re also helping them with other things like storytelling, their journey as a founder,
05:08.067 –> 05:13.896
[SPEAKER_02]: They are in their journey and where they are in their journey of transparently recording their sustainability imprint of the consumers.
05:13.936 –> 05:18.242
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I feel more consumers now are demanding more information.
05:18.282 –> 05:29.940
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that’s where we’re also trying to help that gap, which is helping brands communicate that story and that sustainability record in a in a fun way for consumers to digest.
05:29.920 –> 05:38.794
[SPEAKER_00]: So how are you seeing, you know, the consumer needs around sustainability and fashion change, like we all see the vintage got really busy.
05:39.215 –> 05:39.415
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
05:40.176 –> 05:48.029
[SPEAKER_00]: But there’s more nuance to that and there’s more that, you know, the advice to brands isn’t simply do a partnership with vintage.
05:48.049 –> 05:49.090
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a lot more going on.
05:49.110 –> 05:52.235
[SPEAKER_00]: So what’s the real story of how consumers now in 2026?
05:52.315 –> 05:57.143
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it they’re wanting
05:57.595 –> 06:05.431
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting question and I think right now the dominant consumer behavior is still cheap and fast.
06:05.812 –> 06:07.435
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m sorry.
06:07.455 –> 06:09.339
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s kind of what it is at the moment.
06:09.359 –> 06:10.662
[SPEAKER_02]: But I’ll tell you why it’s going to change.
06:11.123 –> 06:17.275
[SPEAKER_02]: I think fast fashion still remains a 40 billion dollar annual industry and you’re alone.
06:17.255 –> 06:18.676
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the cracks are showing.
06:19.077 –> 06:36.874
[SPEAKER_02]: So our own paid consumer community survey that we sent out shows that 77% of consumers say sustainable fashion is too expensive, which sounds like a barrier, but it actually tells you that there is intention there to improve and the intention exists, but the friction is price and clarity.
06:37.314 –> 06:43.060
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think, you know, one of the things is,
06:43.040 –> 06:58.180
[SPEAKER_02]: Sustainability Consumer Report back in 2024, which found that 61% of people don’t adopt a more sustainable lifestyle because it felt too expensive and 46% cited a lack of clear information.
06:58.160 –> 07:06.272
[SPEAKER_02]: So the problem isn’t apathy, I think it’s accessibility and trust, and I feel like this will definitely shift in the future because of two things.
07:06.513 –> 07:22.216
[SPEAKER_02]: One is consumers are being more educated around what sustainability means to them and are more open and vocal about demanding that from brands, which is a really good kind of really good thing, I think personally, for consumers to be more aware of their decisions.
07:22.677 –> 07:26.783
[SPEAKER_02]: But I also think EU regulations will also help
07:27.033 –> 07:31.224
[SPEAKER_02]: brands make that first initial push to be more transparent about their data.
07:31.244 –> 07:43.455
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think when you think about just consumers as they stand right now, steep, cheap, and fast is still the way, however, there are cracks of consumers demanding more from brands that are starting to show in my opinion.
07:43.790 –> 07:56.096
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that makes so much sense from what I’m seeing going on as well as we’ve got the consumers who are, they want to do better, they say they’re going to do better, but then they still go and buy the cheap and far.
07:56.116 –> 07:59.804
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but this is, but this is quite, this is exactly the problem, right?
07:59.884 –> 08:01.107
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s about accessibility.
08:01.087 –> 08:03.612
[SPEAKER_02]: and sustainable fashion is inaccessible yet.
08:03.993 –> 08:09.665
[SPEAKER_02]: When I started this journey, I was looking to buy a bride’s make stress for my best friends wedding, and this is exactly where the frustration came.
08:10.146 –> 08:17.661
[SPEAKER_02]: I quit on Google, sustainable evening cocktail dress, and the first 30 results were all fast fashion brands claiming to be a friendly sustainable.
08:17.641 –> 08:21.645
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like, you know, I will have to buy from them because that’s what’s accessible to me.
08:21.665 –> 08:31.476
[SPEAKER_02]: But I feel like if there are more options available and more data that is more transparent, I feel that more consumers will be able to confidently make those alternative decisions.
08:31.917 –> 08:39.165
[SPEAKER_02]: And who knows, might even be able to pay a little bit extra, you know, to have something that lasts longer than in their wardrobe.
08:39.605 –> 08:40.927
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that’s exactly what you said.
08:40.967 –> 08:41.808
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s accessibility.
08:41.828 –> 08:42.889
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s the problem.
08:42.869 –> 09:12.133
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s that it’s also that that understanding of the sustainability decisions you make because there is the, you know, the only perfectly sustainable dress is the one that’s already in your wardrobe horse, you let along those on so there’s if you’re purchasing fashion and trying to do sustainably arguably you have to have an opinion about plastics versus silk versus cotton versus wool versus recycled plastics and you have to have some idea of which bits.
09:12.113 –> 09:22.026
[SPEAKER_00]: you care about on which bits you don’t, which unless the brands are talking about it more, the consumers just going to get confused because they’re not going to get that educational piece.
09:22.446 –> 09:23.348
[SPEAKER_02]: No, exactly.
09:23.748 –> 09:24.970
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly that.
09:25.130 –> 09:35.303
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s also why we split it into the five pillars, which is people planet animal circularity transparency, because if say you’re someone who’s
09:35.283 –> 09:44.845
[SPEAKER_02]: You can come on to our platform and say, no, I do want to sort to my brands through the filter of animals being for or five out of five because that’s super important to me as my values.
09:45.166 –> 09:54.287
[SPEAKER_02]: So you as a consumer can also come to a platform and shop just not based on your budget or what you are wanting to buy for, but also based on your
09:54.267 –> 09:55.930
[SPEAKER_02]: values which I think is quite important.
09:56.331 –> 09:59.937
[SPEAKER_02]: And hey, but you can also trust the brands when it comes to what they’re saying.
09:59.997 –> 10:07.831
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s also an added level of the importance when a consumer has that purchasing decision they want to make.
10:07.971 –> 10:15.685
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s about making more sustainable brands also accessible to them while skipping them the right amount of information at that time of purchase.
10:16.323 –> 10:36.576
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like my entire 20 plus year career we’ve talked about barriers and removing the barriers to purchase and all of this is about removing the barriers to purchase and the reason the fast version of winning is because it’s easier I mean yeah and we’ve just got to find ways of making it easier and educating at the same time so I I love all that so anything else.
10:36.556 –> 10:47.412
[SPEAKER_00]: that is brands we need to know about about what consumers want right now or what they’re like, how that’s likely to change in the next five, ten years before we go on to what the brands can do about it.
10:47.872 –> 10:51.718
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I honestly think that the shift is already underway.
10:51.778 –> 11:04.757
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the question is moving from how do I get it cheap and fast like we just discussed to how do I get it relatively affordable reasonably fast and from a brand I can actually trust.
11:04.737 –> 11:19.022
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the EU is accelerating that shift through regulation, so through the digital product passport roll-ups, the DPP rollout in 2027, with full compliance across fashion and footwear expected by 2030 and beyond.
11:19.042 –> 11:27.657
[SPEAKER_02]: So when product level sustainability data is legally required on every garment, conscious of shopping, stops being,
11:27.637 –> 11:31.004
[SPEAKER_02]: a niche behavior, it ends up becoming a little bit more of a norm.
11:31.024 –> 11:37.818
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, like I said, that’s why the EU regulations are a super important player because it pushes brands to make that first move.
11:38.399 –> 11:46.776
[SPEAKER_02]: And our research shows that 78% of consumers said that they would regularly or occasionally use a trusted platform like re-loom.
11:46.756 –> 11:49.141
[SPEAKER_02]: But 90% weren’t already using one yet.
11:49.201 –> 11:51.286
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think there’s a big gap in the market.
11:51.666 –> 12:05.676
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what will accelerate the growth over the next five to 10 years will be regulations as well as brands being more transparent, not because it’s a nice to have, but it’s a must have in this day and age.
12:06.196 –> 12:13.327
[SPEAKER_00]: As we’ve seen time and time again, when that consumer desire meets with the push of regulation, things start changing very, very fast.
12:14.750 –> 12:14.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:14.870 –> 12:18.495
[SPEAKER_00]: So as as brands, how can we support our customers?
12:18.556 –> 12:24.525
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we for want to better phrase take advantage of this shift in consumer desires?
12:24.961 –> 12:27.245
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s a really exciting time to be a brand.
12:27.565 –> 12:43.071
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the key things that I tell some of our pioneer brands that join our platform is brands need to stop treating sustainability as a PR exercise and start treating it as a product feature and as a commercial asset.
12:43.051 –> 12:51.571
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the brands that are going to win, quote unquote, will be the ones that can prove their sustainability journey, not just tell it.
12:51.631 –> 13:02.055
[SPEAKER_02]: So in fashion you have something called the life cycle analysis or the LCA and that has different tiers and different compartments that brands need to be
13:02.035 –> 13:03.477
[SPEAKER_02]: compliant with.
13:03.497 –> 13:10.887
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I think a lot of brands these days start seeing this LCA analysis at a little bit of a PR stunt.
13:10.907 –> 13:30.895
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the best way to use this LCA analysis is to embed that into your journey into your product story, into each garment to show where each garment was manufactured, where the yarn was produced, where it was stitched together and how it’s shipped
13:31.448 –> 13:36.238
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s already so much detail in a brand’s LCA already.
13:36.258 –> 13:42.090
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just about using that information to your advantage and putting it in the right places.
13:42.150 –> 13:49.626
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether that’s on your website or whether that’s on a tag on your product, I think using that information to
13:49.606 –> 13:52.250
[SPEAKER_02]: your advantage could really put you in a better place.
13:52.670 –> 14:10.635
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think brands that take this as a as a first step and start having this as an early mover advantage will benefit a lot from the trust and loyalty of consumers and we’ll start seeing a higher not just conversion rate but also a retention and loyalty rate from the conscious consumer community.
14:10.784 –> 14:17.114
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think when we talk about trust, it all, it all ends up feeding through to that lifetime value and the to the retention piece.
14:17.715 –> 14:32.337
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think we’ll all spot us to speak, we’ll come back to trust, but it strikes me that there’s an opportunity in the next couple of years with a short term opportunity with shouting about improvements, you know, as everyone starts focusing on these LCA’s.
14:32.907 –> 14:53.211
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be the our headline jeans now use 80% produce 80% less waste than they did, which is such a simple way of of explaining to the consumer, this is a better choice than it was 12 months ago, it’s got a big fat number on it and all the rest of it, I can see that being being super powerful across marketing and tags and things.
14:53.427 –> 14:54.409
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, definitely.
14:54.429 –> 15:11.790
[SPEAKER_02]: And it should always be on the product page, not in your annual report because the number of runs that come to us and like, they’re like, you know, do you do you have this information, you have the D and I scored, you have your grievances, you know, they’re like, we have all of it and like where they’re like in our annual report, I’m like,
15:11.770 –> 15:16.959
[SPEAKER_02]: put that on your product page right now because that’s what consumers will be drawn to.
15:17.039 –> 15:21.568
[SPEAKER_02]: That level of transparency, that data and brands will say, oh, but that’s that’s overkill.
15:21.648 –> 15:22.589
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, no one will read it.
15:22.609 –> 15:25.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Trust me, people care, people will read.
15:26.136 –> 15:29.542
[SPEAKER_02]: And so just put it out there, put it in it in a very engaging way.
15:29.602 –> 15:30.964
[SPEAKER_02]: Trust me, it will help.
15:31.245 –> 15:32.968
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very, very useful information.
15:33.185 –> 15:43.056
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s another example of how that wide a piece that’s going on in e-commerce at the well at the moment about killing silos and the barriers between different departments.
15:43.417 –> 15:51.406
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like, you’ve got all the data and you’ve just given it to the sustainability person who comes in on a Tuesday, and nobody else makes it in.
15:51.446 –> 15:55.210
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like there’s this rich mind of information.
15:55.190 –> 16:00.780
[SPEAKER_00]: then if you can put it in a consumer-facing way, which doesn’t mean emailing your consumers, your annual report.
16:00.901 –> 16:03.145
[SPEAKER_03]: No, please don’t do that, please.
16:03.666 –> 16:08.895
[SPEAKER_03]: I beg you, if you take one thing from this podcast, do not send your annual report in a newsletter.
16:08.935 –> 16:12.662
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you do, that’s also okay, but try put it on your product page.
16:12.682 –> 16:16.009
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it’s not, you get out of jail free on this.
16:16.029 –> 16:16.810
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not.
16:16.790 –> 16:28.887
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, there’s a whole load of useful stuff in there which can spin out content ideas, can spin out social stories, email news letters, home page improvements, product page improvements.
16:29.168 –> 16:36.398
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s just so much we can do with that data to build that consumer trust to educate the consumer and so forth.
16:36.418 –> 16:39.943
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s kind of a big thing is getting some of that data onto the product page.
16:40.644 –> 16:46.392
[SPEAKER_00]: What else should should brands be doing as a result with this knowledge of consumers?
16:46.945 –> 16:48.827
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there’s a few things.
16:49.368 –> 16:55.414
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things is what we mentioned, I mean, what brands call boring stats using that as a conversion driver.
16:55.474 –> 17:03.964
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is this massive missed opportunity with brands not communicating their sustainability records and not putting that onto the right pages.
17:04.625 –> 17:15.957
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that’s super important is most of this information lives in PDFs that nobody reads and but we’ve seen that placing verified sustainability data directly on product pages, what we call PDPs.
17:15.937 –> 17:21.085
[SPEAKER_02]: can drive a 0.3 to 0.5 percent point-lifton conversion.
17:21.146 –> 17:26.354
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’ll see a direct relation to how quickly you make sales or the loyalty and the retention.
17:26.374 –> 17:31.382
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the biggest tips like I always say will be to put it in the right places where consumers can actually see.
17:31.443 –> 17:35.970
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think one of the other things that I do want to mention is
17:35.950 –> 17:58.819
[SPEAKER_02]: the second-hand market and that is super important and very like you know we mentioned vintage earlier today but I think the resell market is also growing really fast and it’s projected to reach around I think $77 billion globally by 2026 and this is this is massive because for brands that don’t use their resell kind of platforms to
17:58.799 –> 18:07.271
[SPEAKER_02]: A, empower consumers to come back, you know, to resell their products to other consumers or B.C.
18:07.311 –> 18:17.086
[SPEAKER_02]: it as a, you know, way to bring back material to upcycle, to recycle and resell, they will also see a big drop in conversions.
18:17.186 –> 18:25.718
[SPEAKER_02]: I think resell is the way to move forward as well end of life and circular design is also kind of something that Brad should keep in mind.
18:25.698 –> 18:29.624
[SPEAKER_02]: I think with also circular design, there’s two ways to look about it.
18:30.845 –> 18:32.768
[SPEAKER_02]: The first is when you actually design the product.
18:33.249 –> 18:38.897
[SPEAKER_02]: So lots of brands have started thinking about circularity before the product even goes into manufacturing.
18:38.917 –> 18:41.941
[SPEAKER_02]: So how can they create three outfits from one?
18:42.142 –> 18:48.651
[SPEAKER_02]: How can they make sure that the buttons and the zips, which are the hardest to recycle,
18:48.631 –> 18:54.622
[SPEAKER_02]: can be collected at the end of a consumer not wanting to use a particular outfit and send that back to the brand.
18:55.023 –> 19:11.955
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s all in the design phase, but there’s also the resell aspect where brands are now starting to use their own website to have a small resell, kind of like a mini-vinted itself on their platforms, to be able to get consumers to come back and build a bit of a community,
19:11.935 –> 19:31.638
[SPEAKER_02]: within the brand itself to exchange and sell products at a lower cost, I think what that does is build a community and the second you build a community within the space you’re really winning because you have a higher level of loyalty, conversion and retention within your customer profile.
19:31.698 –> 19:39.327
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think resell is a big on-tapped area as well in general that we’re seeing within
19:39.661 –> 19:43.591
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s kind of fundamentally why not make money off the same government more than once if you can.
19:43.631 –> 19:45.876
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
19:45.896 –> 19:46.317
[SPEAKER_00]: So why not?
19:46.638 –> 19:52.894
[SPEAKER_00]: And we spoke earlier about how things, the barriers keeping consumers out of this trust is a huge one.
19:52.934 –> 19:54.497
[SPEAKER_00]: And prices are big one.
19:55.099 –> 19:55.199
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
19:55.219 –> 19:57.585
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we can run a,
19:57.565 –> 20:10.137
[SPEAKER_00]: second hand resell marketplace on the brand’s website, all of a sudden that’s so much more trustworthy than it going through a third party supplier, exactly, because it’s on the brand’s site.
20:10.157 –> 20:26.273
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a recourse if there’s issues with someone who doesn’t want to lose your business because they want you to buy the news stuff, but there’s also that element of price point, both in terms of you can buy the second hand item for the less, but also if you’re looking to buy
20:26.253 –> 20:34.595
[SPEAKER_00]: You can immediately see when you’ve got, you know, your Bridesmaid example, you know, you wear the Bridesmaid dress once, maybe you managed to wear it to another party.
20:34.635 –> 20:38.024
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s an immediately route to set it out again.
20:38.365 –> 20:41.193
[SPEAKER_00]: So it gives in so many ways to a brand.
20:41.213 –> 20:42.456
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that resale piece.
20:42.537 –> 20:46.023
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that’s really important as well because you still have it’s still your product.
20:46.464 –> 20:55.080
[SPEAKER_02]: So what you can still do is use the same information when it comes to your digital product passport, everything to do with the actual product, you already have the information.
20:55.140 –> 21:03.415
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can already put your sustainability impact imprint score and your overall
21:03.395 –> 21:06.119
[SPEAKER_02]: product DPP on the resell platform as well.
21:06.139 –> 21:09.503
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’re able to use the same information twice to increase loyalty.
21:09.564 –> 21:13.048
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the third thing is also turning regulation into benefit.
21:13.249 –> 21:22.982
[SPEAKER_02]: I think people, you know, one of the sort of things that I one of our brands from the Netherlands mentioned is, Viti, the second ICE, your regulation, ICC cost as a brand.
21:23.082 –> 21:27.188
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m like, that’s very fair, but we see as a competitive advantage.
21:27.208 –> 21:31.714
[SPEAKER_02]: You get a first mover advantage if you act quick
21:31.694 –> 21:38.504
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the digital product passport, the DPP requires verified product level, sustainable the data for all fashion brands at the rate by 2030.
21:39.505 –> 22:01.296
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so key for brands that act sooner because consumers are already aware of this change and they’re already starting to demand DPPs from brands and I think the brands that do it early won’t just be compliant, they’ll have verified marketing assets that
22:01.276 –> 22:14.587
[SPEAKER_02]: a really high level of what we call a trust signal in fashion with consumers where, you know, you do have that level of blinded trust from consumers when you have such high levels of transparency in your data.
22:14.968 –> 22:17.293
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think early movers here definitely win.
22:17.611 –> 22:25.482
[SPEAKER_00]: I find it so mad when any business goes, oh, the regulations not coming in for two years are ignore it until the month before.
22:25.642 –> 22:31.371
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like, I mean, yes, by all means wait until someone’s delivered the software that would do it for you.
22:31.391 –> 22:41.785
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe wait a couple of months and start talking to some people, but between nor at when it’s such a huge systems change in the business, so much stuff needs a capturing that you probably haven’t been capturing before.
22:42.246 –> 22:45.070
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all mighting into a different place, but if you get a
22:45.944 –> 22:49.592
[SPEAKER_00]: then you’re building it into those systems and processes.
22:49.632 –> 22:53.842
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s new rather than trying to essentially rebuild the whole business the month before.
22:53.902 –> 23:02.502
[SPEAKER_00]: And like you say, there is, you know, the Sun you start doing at the Sun you can make it efficient and work internally, but also the Sun you’re getting that data to consumers.
23:02.600 –> 23:03.081
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:03.101 –> 23:03.321
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:03.621 –> 23:06.645
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is so funny because I remember, Chloe, you’re going to laugh at this.
23:07.066 –> 23:09.750
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember the first time I pitched this idea to my mom.
23:09.770 –> 23:12.834
[SPEAKER_02]: I always think, if I can pitch something to my mom and she understands, I’ve done well.
23:13.394 –> 23:17.139
[SPEAKER_02]: I told her, I was like, you know, this is a concept that I am trialling out.
23:17.360 –> 23:22.887
[SPEAKER_02]: And I told her, like, it’s a platform, conscious consumers, you know, they can talk to verified brands and great.
23:22.867 –> 23:25.190
[SPEAKER_02]: She’s like, why would brands act now?
23:25.510 –> 23:30.717
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, well, if you’re a brand that acts now, you’re able to then have that as marketing assets.
23:30.737 –> 23:33.040
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go to trade shows with confidence.
23:33.060 –> 23:34.222
[SPEAKER_02]: You can show your score.
23:34.262 –> 23:40.190
[SPEAKER_02]: You can be super transparent about claims that you’re making and you get a high level of customer loyalty and retention.
23:40.590 –> 23:52.806
[SPEAKER_02]: And she actually said, it looks like you back in middle school, trying to do your homework at the last minute, whereas if you had just done it a few days before, you could have gone to the playground and posted it off to all your friends.
23:52.786 –> 23:59.256
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s exactly that, but within a business world, but I think it’s so important.
23:59.276 –> 24:07.890
[SPEAKER_02]: I think don’t wait till the last minute because you’re going to have such a big advantage as a brand doing the sooner, and you’ll also be able to improve.
24:08.091 –> 24:12.077
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the biggest things Chloe is right now brands that join a re-loom.
24:12.260 –> 24:19.046
[SPEAKER_02]: They are able to already see exactly where they stand on the different pillars and they’re able to see what they can do to get better.
24:19.446 –> 24:27.653
[SPEAKER_02]: So every month they will get a little recommendation or personalized newsletter that says, Brand X, you’re doing really well in these different pillars.
24:27.793 –> 24:35.039
[SPEAKER_02]: However, we suggest you focus the next month’s effort on trying to procure these documents, trying to solidify these data points.
24:35.260 –> 24:41.625
[SPEAKER_02]: So you already can start even becoming better when it comes to how you are operating as a brand when it comes to sustainability.
24:41.605 –> 24:49.320
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas if you start this in 2027 or 2028, yeah, you will have the data and you will be able to, you know, be able to comply.
24:49.360 –> 24:50.964
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that’s what I keep saying.
24:50.984 –> 24:53.489
[SPEAKER_02]: I think compliant complying isn’t enough.
24:53.509 –> 24:59.260
[SPEAKER_02]: You will have to start early as a brand to ensure that you’re able to
24:59.375 –> 25:22.243
[SPEAKER_02]: improve your score, improve your overall compliance and data, but also be able to communicate that effectively to the world and to the conscious consumers out there who want to shop with you and give them the trust to do so.
25:28.366 –> 25:30.670
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top tips round.
25:33.354 –> 25:38.442
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I love this section, because it gives our listeners some really quick ideas for taking up businesses to the next level.
25:38.502 –> 25:40.265
[SPEAKER_00]: Viti, are you ready for the top tips?
25:40.966 –> 25:41.567
[SPEAKER_00]: I am ready.
25:42.969 –> 25:43.069
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
25:43.089 –> 25:43.971
[SPEAKER_00]: The book’s top tip.
25:44.091 –> 25:51.623
[SPEAKER_00]: If everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
25:51.822 –> 25:55.571
[SPEAKER_02]: I do have a lot, but it would have to be the lean start-up.
25:55.912 –> 25:57.997
[SPEAKER_02]: By Eric, I always butcher his last thing.
25:58.078 –> 26:01.446
[SPEAKER_02]: Eric reads or Eric cries, I don’t know, but it’s called the lead start-up.
26:01.747 –> 26:08.363
[SPEAKER_02]: It is my holy grail, and because I think everything that we’ve built at Re-loom has been about validating what we’ve…
26:08.343 –> 26:09.064
[SPEAKER_02]: what we build.
26:09.445 –> 26:16.875
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, we ran paid consumer surveys, interviewed 50 plus brands, ran focus groups before we wrote a single piece of code.
26:17.015 –> 26:24.726
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think this book really helps you as a founder have implement that mindset at a very early stage in your startup.
26:24.806 –> 26:26.368
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it really helped me a lot.
26:26.348 –> 26:41.826
[SPEAKER_00]: it isn’t it because I’m a lot of people think all that research that doesn’t sound very lean but know everybody the point is you make sure you’ve got the right answer before you start yeah it’s a lot easier to change the plan when there’s no code exactly exactly
26:41.806 –> 26:47.077
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press?
26:47.257 –> 26:47.998
[SPEAKER_00]: It deserves.
26:48.580 –> 26:49.301
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I love this.
26:49.722 –> 26:51.485
[SPEAKER_02]: It has to be community-led growth.
26:51.746 –> 26:52.868
[SPEAKER_02]: I think without a question.
26:53.570 –> 26:57.317
[SPEAKER_02]: I think having built a company that
26:57.297 –> 26:58.779
[SPEAKER_02]: thrives on community.
26:59.120 –> 27:02.986
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there’s no way we would have been able to get where we are without that.
27:03.086 –> 27:12.441
[SPEAKER_02]: I think those communities, whether that’s us being at Drupers’ conscious fashion summit or sustainable fashion fest, those communities are pre-qualified.
27:12.842 –> 27:16.427
[SPEAKER_02]: So they’ve already got an interest in what you’re trying to sell them.
27:16.848 –> 27:22.056
[SPEAKER_02]: So I personally don’t think paid ads or any type
27:22.036 –> 27:30.306
[SPEAKER_02]: the quality of attention and how organic that attention can be when it’s coming from a community that really cares about what you’re trying to say.
27:30.346 –> 27:33.109
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, communities so powerful.
27:33.229 –> 27:42.561
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s so many ways you can use it as well, isn’t that you can dip into other people’s communities and then you can create your own community and in an all of it just creates so much so much impact.
27:42.881 –> 27:43.302
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
27:43.342 –> 27:44.483
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
27:44.648 –> 27:54.760
[SPEAKER_00]: The tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone up or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
27:55.420 –> 28:02.949
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what, it is overdone, I do know this, but call me out if you want to, but notion for everything.
28:03.670 –> 28:08.175
[SPEAKER_02]: Strategy docs, brand onboarding flows, investor updates,
28:08.155 –> 28:11.639
[SPEAKER_02]: We, we have a system on notion for everything.
28:12.019 –> 28:18.386
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also think for a lean team like ours, and it’s the closest thing you can get to having an extra person on your team.
28:18.887 –> 28:19.908
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s our Holy Grail.
28:20.629 –> 28:32.222
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so embedded in Google Docs that I don’t think will ever make it to notion, but oh, I’d love to spend a whole week playing around with it, but it was such a bad view of my time.
28:32.202 –> 28:40.797
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think it’s one of those things that once you’ve cemented your ways in one system and it just works, there’s no feeling like it really.
28:40.837 –> 28:48.189
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, so I’m, I totally get where you’re coming from and maybe one day, the next idea may be our building notion.
28:48.610 –> 28:49.832
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:49.852 –> 28:54.480
[SPEAKER_00]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
28:55.085 –> 29:04.980
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I’m biased here, but I think get your sustainability story verified, not just for marketing, but just so you know where your biggest impact areas are.
29:05.000 –> 29:12.151
[SPEAKER_02]: I think brands consistently tell us that going through our scoring process reveals blind spots that they didn’t know that they had.
29:12.592 –> 29:22.948
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the biggest thing that you can do as a brand is to be aware of what your carbon footprint is and where you’re making the most impact and where you can grow.
29:22.928 –> 29:26.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally a great countered basically everybody.
29:26.294 –> 29:29.039
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly and you can’t reduce what you have in measured.
29:29.320 –> 29:32.826
[SPEAKER_02]: So start collecting document and start measuring things.
29:32.886 –> 29:35.591
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s the best carbon tip I could provide.
29:36.072 –> 29:39.117
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you haven’t measured it, you can’t shout about it going down.
29:39.598 –> 29:40.159
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
29:40.460 –> 29:41.361
[SPEAKER_00]: Which ever is the good one?
29:41.401 –> 29:43.485
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, exactly.
29:44.174 –> 29:57.492
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it’s been really cool talking to you about this most brilliant of topics and such a hot topic for everyone too, but before you say goodbye, tell us a bit more about re-loom and what you offer to brands and how they can get in contact with you.
29:57.809 –> 29:58.390
[SPEAKER_02]: amazing.
29:58.430 –> 29:59.533
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Chloe.
30:00.295 –> 30:16.273
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so at Realum, we are really here to be your right hand platform for measuring your sustainability impact and to help you story tell it in a very effective way and also to improve what you’re currently already doing a great job in.
30:16.253 –> 30:28.935
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to find out more, you can come on to our website or visit us on Instagram at Reloom or LinkedIn at Reloom as well or just DM me and I will be more than happy to have a quick chat with you.
30:29.696 –> 30:31.580
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, thank you so much, Vishi.
30:31.600 –> 30:33.243
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
30:33.263 –> 30:34.645
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been a real pleasure having you here.
30:35.186 –> 30:36.388
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Larry.
30:42.005 –> 31:01.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there you have it, everyone, lots to be getting your teeth stuck into as an opportunity not a threat in the world of the conscious consumer fashion sustainability and all those legislations and bits that are coming in I love fishies enthusiasm for the topic and I love that in her business they are combining.
31:01.748 –> 31:05.412
[SPEAKER_00]: that PR and how to tell your story with the analysis.
31:05.993 –> 31:12.181
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the one thing having the analysis, but if you’re not shouting at it’s the consumers, then you’re not going to be getting the results you want from it.
31:12.901 –> 31:24.916
[SPEAKER_00]: So lots to take into account there are really just bear in mind that accessibility and the trust elements and all those things we can do to take advantage of and to support the consumers in their journey to more conscious buying habits.
31:25.196 –> 31:29.882
[SPEAKER_00]: And to get ahead of that legislation and take start taking advantage of it right now,
31:29.862 –> 31:37.716
[SPEAKER_00]: being at your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
31:37.736 –> 31:46.351
[SPEAKER_00]: You could also use those special direct episode short links, that’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode, put that in and you’ll go straight to the right page.
31:46.391 –> 31:47.533
[SPEAKER_00]: When you’re there,
31:47.513 –> 31:49.276
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not add yourself to our email list?
31:49.817 –> 31:50.999
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not go on, do it.
31:51.500 –> 32:06.164
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you like this episode, then I highly recommend scrolling back up your feed a bit to check out episode 567, 567, where I’m chatting with Bert from mod genes about their approach to turning second hand clothing into new products.
32:06.184 –> 32:12.214
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a different one, but it’s really fascinating and it’s he’s such a leader in the world of fashion sustainability.
32:12.234 –> 32:13.656
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you’re really like that one.
32:13.636 –> 32:22.345
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want more on fashion in general than ECMP.info, forward slash fashion will take you to all our fashion episodes.
32:22.365 –> 32:25.248
[SPEAKER_00]: And there’s plenty of them for you to get stuck in to you.
32:25.268 –> 32:26.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning into this.
32:26.449 –> 32:43.626
[SPEAKER_00]: And every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast, I bring you a new interview every week, but as it goes, I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your business, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make
32:43.606 –> 32:49.518
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
32:49.878 –> 33:05.850
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a brilliant week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
34 min
March 30eCommerce MasterPlan | 588: From Market Stall to £25M: How Valentte Built an 8-Figure eCommerce Brand with Luke Bream
Luke Bream is the Chief Executive and Co-founder at Valentte, sellers of organic skincare and home fragrance. Founded on a market stall in 2011, they now do £25 million via their WooCommerce store and some on Amazon.

In this episode, Luke shares the story behind Valentte’s journey from a small market stall to an 8-figure eCommerce brand, including the pivotal decisions that accelerated their growth. He explains why the team keeps marketing in-house, how they approach scaling paid ads and creative testing, and what founders must change in their leadership to grow a business from millions to $100M and beyond.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Luke scaled Valentte from a market stall to £25M in eCommerce revenue
The £50k loan + Facebook ads decision that triggered explosive growth
Why Luke believes most brands should run their ads in-house (not with agencies)
The creative testing strategy behind ad accounts running thousands of ads
How Valentte gets 80% of orders from returning customers
Why AI changes the game for eCommerce execution — and what it still can’t replace

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:48] Breaking Business Growth Limits
[07:54] “Scaling: A Personal Business Choice”
[10:36] “Challenges in Scaling Growth”
[14:31] Reducing Complexity in Manufacturing
[19:16] In-House Creative: Key to Ads
[20:17] “Ad Strategy Requires Scale”
[23:34] “Embracing Iteration and Letting Go”
[26:45] Listen to Luke’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/588
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:13.615
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back 20 years free internet, then information was to preserve big companies, then the internet came along and the real skill set was about search, could you search and find the correct information?
00:14.396 –> 00:17.421
[SPEAKER_02]: Now with AI, everybody has the information.
00:17.742 –> 00:25.195
[SPEAKER_02]: To now it’s about speed of execution, can you figure out what to execute on and can you do it faster than anybody else?
00:27.520 –> 00:30.024
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:30.665 –> 00:34.631
[SPEAKER_01]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:35.172 –> 00:43.285
[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:46.218 –> 00:47.300
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, and welcome.
00:47.320 –> 00:48.442
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s great to have you here.
00:48.502 –> 00:52.429
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:52.810 –> 00:57.658
[SPEAKER_00]: A huge thanks to Adam Pearce from Blend for suggesting we get in touch with today’s guest.
00:57.798 –> 00:58.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Adam.
00:59.321 –> 01:04.270
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we are talking to a brand that are already on eight figures.
01:04.650 –> 01:07.956
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking to their founder and CEO about…
01:07.936 –> 01:15.688
[SPEAKER_00]: how they’ve got to the eight figure total and how they are going to get to nine figure total.
01:15.768 –> 01:19.273
[SPEAKER_00]: We are also getting into how they are approaching AI.
01:19.734 –> 01:27.145
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re getting into the plan or his theories on whether you should outsource your ads or not, what it takes to grow.
01:27.566 –> 01:31.632
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re talking about whether or not you should have fulfillment in house, whether or not you should have
01:31.612 –> 01:32.453
[SPEAKER_00]: in-house.
01:33.574 –> 01:36.478
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a really, really inspiring, interesting episode.
01:36.498 –> 01:42.065
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s lots of nuggets of cool little stuff you could implement straight away, but also a lot of big pictures stuff to get you thinking.
01:42.526 –> 01:44.208
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you’re going to enjoy this one.
01:44.228 –> 01:45.489
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ll be very surprised if you don’t.
01:45.950 –> 01:51.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, please, please make sure you listen to the end of the episode because my guest top tips are just as good as the rest of the interview.
01:57.548 –> 02:00.031
[SPEAKER_00]: And now to introduce our special guest.
02:00.051 –> 02:06.881
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke Bream is the chief executive and co-founder at Valente, sellers of organic skincare and home fragrance.
02:07.101 –> 02:15.333
[SPEAKER_00]: Founded on a market stall in 2011, they now do £25 million a year via their WooCommerce store and some on Amazon.
02:15.393 –> 02:16.394
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Luke.
02:16.414 –> 02:17.896
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, hello, thank you for having me.
02:18.377 –> 02:26.408
[SPEAKER_00]: Very cool to have you on the show and congrats on going from market stall to £25 million in what
02:26.624 –> 02:28.646
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I think really have to consider that.
02:28.666 –> 02:32.390
[SPEAKER_02]: That was being in two stages for 10 years of that.
02:32.570 –> 02:33.191
[SPEAKER_02]: We were tiny.
02:33.791 –> 02:35.313
[SPEAKER_02]: We were doing 500,000 the year.
02:36.054 –> 02:37.735
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’re trading from market stores.
02:38.196 –> 02:39.377
[SPEAKER_02]: And then COVID came along.
02:40.198 –> 02:42.580
[SPEAKER_02]: And five years later, we were 50 times bigger.
02:43.421 –> 02:48.907
[SPEAKER_02]: So we had the most extraordinary growth from early 2020 onwards.
02:49.607 –> 02:50.268
[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy time.
02:50.408 –> 02:54.032
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s mad how much success can come out of a constraint.
02:54.265 –> 02:59.832
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as I look back and actually think we were exceptionally lucky through that phase, the business was just at the right point.
02:59.932 –> 03:02.075
[SPEAKER_02]: We had an online business, but it was pretty small.
03:02.555 –> 03:06.300
[SPEAKER_02]: And that time we were probably doing about 10,000 a year through our website.
03:07.161 –> 03:16.933
[SPEAKER_02]: And we didn’t have much money in the UK government put in a bounce back loan where we could have £50,000 and we’d never had £50,000 before in the bank.
03:17.554 –> 03:18.315
[SPEAKER_02]: And
03:18.295 –> 03:42.784
[SPEAKER_02]: all the consumer shows that we were doing were cancelled and we took the business online and we took the bounce back loan and put it into Facebook ads the first week we spent a thousand pounds by the end of that first year we spent nearly a million pounds on Facebook and we never looked back from that and we just went through an extraordinary series of growth over the next five years and
03:42.764 –> 03:44.927
[SPEAKER_02]: Ponsently having to reinvent ourselves both.
03:44.967 –> 03:46.689
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re physical business as well.
03:46.709 –> 03:48.271
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to we manufacture the product.
03:48.291 –> 03:49.232
[SPEAKER_02]: We do our own fulfilment.
03:49.313 –> 03:52.717
[SPEAKER_02]: We develop the products in-house and we do all our marketing in-house.
03:53.198 –> 03:58.565
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was a colossal element of learning there of financial implications.
03:58.605 –> 04:04.873
[SPEAKER_02]: So I under business 100% and going that through that growth was very challenging financially.
04:04.853 –> 04:22.980
[SPEAKER_02]: And also from a learning perspective, as we’ve scaled, you encounter different challenges and we’re facing those again now, as we figure out how to go from our aim over the next two or three years is to get to 100 million in sales and unlocking how we do that is a very significantly different.
04:22.960 –> 04:43.687
[SPEAKER_02]: different challenge, the skills that got us to 25 million was scrappy and sort of top-down management where I’m so I’m generally doing all of figuring out and then I’m telling the team going to this, this is this is the answer to the solution, doesn’t work, you know, including agency at peak, we’ve got more than more than 200 staff and you can’t run the business like that at that scale.
04:43.827 –> 04:47.652
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a very different thing that we’re going through at the moment as we
04:47.632 –> 05:02.586
[SPEAKER_02]: prepare, bring in very experienced senior leadership to help, and really unlock who know what good looks like, and also who know what a much bigger business actually looks like, and they bring their expertise and systems in, and that’s really helped us over the last six months.
05:03.072 –> 05:14.368
[SPEAKER_00]: nice loads for us to get it getting to there, but before we do, Luke, going through that shift from all the shifts you’ve gone through, I suppose, as you’ve been growing the business.
05:14.848 –> 05:20.997
[SPEAKER_00]: I often think, you know, there’s a, there’s a cohort of thought that
05:20.977 –> 05:34.991
[SPEAKER_00]: your as a person you have a sweet spot of business growth, you know, some people are great at the scrappy, some people are great at the one to five or the five to twenty, although you know wherever those breaks are.
05:35.651 –> 05:40.256
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you occasionally you come across people who just love the constant changing nature of the business.
05:40.776 –> 05:47.963
[SPEAKER_00]: How have you, you personally, as one of the leaders in the business,
05:48.162 –> 06:16.853
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the truth of the matter is you identify a very real problem when you describe that and I think I watched a later homozy talk about exactly that that most businesses cap out at somewhere between $3 million and $30 million to penny on the industry they’re in and the skill set of the founders very few businesses break through that because it requires an order of magnitude change in the founders ability and the job that they do.
06:16.833 –> 06:29.661
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the first thing is for me it’s been, I’m fascinated by learning and it’s about recognizing what the key constraint within the businesses at any one time.
06:29.793 –> 06:36.905
[SPEAKER_02]: When I think about my working day, I work in say now as, but doesn’t most people earn lead in businesses, but that’s a choice.
06:37.526 –> 06:41.633
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m probably spending six or eight hours of my day learning.
06:42.174 –> 06:50.067
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m learning, whatever, the limit of the business is knowledge, trying to figure out what the next stage is.
06:50.628 –> 06:51.750
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think
06:51.730 –> 07:08.550
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, the most recent phase of that is being understanding that I needed to bring people in who are better than me, who are specialists, rather than generalists, and the business, we earn the right to get bigger, and as an individual leader, I earn the right to stay the leader in the business.
07:09.351 –> 07:16.400
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I don’t continue to grow, either the business stalls, or I have to replace myself.
07:16.921 –> 07:21.366
[SPEAKER_02]: So I take the view all the time that I have to continually
07:21.346 –> 07:24.952
[SPEAKER_02]: be at the front leaning and understanding how I need to grow.
07:25.052 –> 07:33.947
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if I don’t grow my skillset, my knowledge, my understanding of the market, my understanding of what leadership is required, the business stops.
07:34.307 –> 07:37.212
[SPEAKER_02]: It always caps out of the leaders ability to do the job.
07:37.765 –> 07:38.527
[SPEAKER_00]: so true.
07:38.707 –> 07:45.042
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess the other side out for me is, you know, did you always have the desire to make it as big as you could?
07:45.062 –> 07:52.158
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think some people would have stayed at that original small level because they were happy with it and they had no desire to go bigger.
07:52.178 –> 07:54.002
[SPEAKER_00]: So for you it was the desire always been there.
07:54.151 –> 07:55.454
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s nothing wrong with that.
07:55.474 –> 08:05.656
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs of all different sizes, and they talk of come to me talking about growth and I would say, is that what you actually want?
08:05.857 –> 08:12.852
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it’s super important that people are clear and honest with themselves about the scale that what they’re actually trying to build.
08:12.832 –> 08:18.862
[SPEAKER_02]: because not everyone wants that next stage and actually you can harm your business quite a lot.
08:18.923 –> 08:24.352
[SPEAKER_02]: If you overgrow the business beyond what you personally either have the skill to run or want to run.
08:24.973 –> 08:29.541
[SPEAKER_02]: So coming back to myself, I always want his ability to grow your business.
08:29.521 –> 08:38.334
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, I from the time I was at school, I wanted to build a billion pound business and, you know, that ambition has never gone away.
08:38.654 –> 08:40.237
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s getting ever more realistic, sure.
08:40.297 –> 08:42.500
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m in a big global marketplace.
08:42.520 –> 08:47.888
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we think we can do a hundred million from just inside the UK, which massively reduces complexity.
08:48.369 –> 08:51.734
[SPEAKER_02]: My current site, we can do two to three hundred million.
08:51.754 –> 08:53.176
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got capacity for that there.
08:53.256 –> 08:57.402
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but I, I always wanted to build that business.
08:57.382 –> 08:58.483
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t do it for the money.
08:58.744 –> 09:00.846
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s an intellectual challenge, am I good enough?
09:01.007 –> 09:04.191
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I do I have the ability?
09:04.231 –> 09:13.603
[SPEAKER_02]: I look around at me at business leaders around the world who I look up to and respect and admire and I ask myself constantly, am I as good as them?
09:13.623 –> 09:14.964
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I be better than them?
09:14.984 –> 09:15.986
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s not about money.
09:16.246 –> 09:22.454
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just kind of a lot of the challenge, kind of solve the problems to face each stage.
09:22.534 –> 09:24.857
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me it’s an intellectual challenge as much as anything else.
09:25.580 –> 09:37.815
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s such a clear answer, and one I suspect, a lot of our audience are resonating with your with how you see it and also resonating with your you don’t have to grow if you don’t want to grow fine.
09:38.696 –> 09:52.633
[SPEAKER_00]: So as I love that, let’s just talk about the kind of the the brass tax about the business, you know, the facts about the business, you said, you know, you’ve got that growth target within the UK so you pure you but UK based in selling only to the UK at the moment.
09:52.765 –> 10:14.638
[SPEAKER_02]: More or less we have a small business in Ireland so we’re direct consumer, we manufacture everything in house and we have a small Amazon business as well but it’s not massive and it’s more born out of reducing complexity because I think growing a business is hard enough as it is and why tackle multiple fronts at the same time.
10:14.618 –> 10:22.367
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have very much taken the view that we can do that size business in the UK, so why fight on more fronts than we need to.
10:22.948 –> 10:25.951
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I think, yeah, that’s what we’re sitting.
10:25.971 –> 10:36.784
[SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously, like, the American market for our in our category is, you know, probably 10 times the size of the UK could even be 20 times the size of the UK, the home fragrance market there.
10:36.824 –> 10:44.473
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, and the Middle East is what is growing really fast in that
10:44.453 –> 10:48.822
[SPEAKER_02]: But it requires a different, you know, it feels like that’s a different, a slightly different challenge.
10:48.863 –> 10:55.397
[SPEAKER_02]: Why try that challenge when I, when I’ve got enough on my plate, figuring out the stage that the stage that we’re at.
10:55.778 –> 11:00.047
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think coming back to me, I said, we earn the right to get bigger.
11:00.588 –> 11:02.412
[SPEAKER_02]: What I’ve come to realises.
11:02.392 –> 11:05.596
[SPEAKER_02]: growing sales is actually relatively using.
11:06.057 –> 11:14.147
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are, you know, reason to be capable of Facebook ads or you’ve got a short-form content or you’ve got a skill set about driving traffic.
11:14.347 –> 11:15.649
[SPEAKER_02]: Growing sales, you can do great sales.
11:16.370 –> 11:19.333
[SPEAKER_02]: Not having the wheels fall off your business during growth.
11:19.474 –> 11:22.257
[SPEAKER_02]: Either financially, you need to control operationally.
11:22.237 –> 11:27.448
[SPEAKER_02]: you don’t figure out how to manage big teams or delegate properly and so on you super challenging.
11:27.929 –> 11:35.065
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that becomes the crux of the challenge as you as you get bigger and certainly that’s been it’s been like that for us.
11:35.652 –> 11:44.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I think too many businesses try and go global earlier for the sake of going global, whereas there’s so much growth potentially.
11:44.041 –> 11:48.025
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if there’s enough growth potentially in your home market, why make life more difficult?
11:48.586 –> 11:49.527
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, exactly.
11:49.547 –> 11:51.869
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s not fashionable or trendy.
11:51.930 –> 11:56.434
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, everyone thinks it’s easier to go global.
11:56.675 –> 11:57.455
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think it is.
11:57.796 –> 12:01.660
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it just massively increases complexity.
12:01.640 –> 12:10.451
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my business specifically is more complex than most when we’re choosing to a developer and products manufacture them for fill them, do the marketing.
12:10.491 –> 12:11.793
[SPEAKER_02]: So why add to that?
12:12.694 –> 12:18.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you mentioned that you had 200 odd people in the team and you’re doing the manufacturing etc in house.
12:19.163 –> 12:22.827
[SPEAKER_00]: How do those people divide across the functions of the business?
12:22.887 –> 12:24.930
[SPEAKER_00]: And is there anything you’re choosing to outsource?
12:25.433 –> 12:38.953
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got about 20 in our marketing team, and then probably six or eight on a technical side developers and that kind of thing, and then all the rest to split, almost 50, 50 between fulfillment and a manufacturing.
12:39.237 –> 12:40.438
[SPEAKER_00]: plenty of square foot then.
12:40.899 –> 12:43.962
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I think I think we’ve got we’ve got two building side by side.
12:43.982 –> 12:47.526
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got about 40,000 square foot of space between the two buildings.
12:48.207 –> 12:50.870
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, a reasonable amount of space now.
12:51.371 –> 12:57.898
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn’t have, I mean, you know, we started, or as I said, we started on a market store and making a product at home through COVID.
12:58.559 –> 13:05.106
[SPEAKER_02]: Just leading up to COVID, we had a single, we were trading from an old dairy farm and a small unit.
13:05.146 –> 13:06.628
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we had about, um,
13:06.608 –> 13:08.050
[SPEAKER_02]: 1500 square feet.
13:08.070 –> 13:11.976
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as we started to scale during COVID, we kept adding units on on this farm.
13:12.336 –> 13:16.723
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we took another building and we were splitting our operations that there were 10 miles apart.
13:17.424 –> 13:20.869
[SPEAKER_02]: And about three and a half years ago we moved into the site we’re in now.
13:21.309 –> 13:23.392
[SPEAKER_02]: But you underestimate the cost of that.
13:23.472 –> 13:25.776
[SPEAKER_02]: It was colossal and they were brand new build.
13:26.076 –> 13:27.839
[SPEAKER_02]: And they didn’t have fencing around them.
13:27.859 –> 13:28.980
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t have alarm systems.
13:29.061 –> 13:31.324
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t have then I do the floor properly.
13:31.364 –> 13:33.527
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s no you go into a new build.
13:33.507 –> 13:35.610
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re 13 meters high, they don’t put lights in.
13:36.150 –> 13:37.592
[SPEAKER_02]: They just give you a fuse board on the wall.
13:38.193 –> 13:41.136
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was not for the fame-hearted.
13:41.177 –> 13:55.094
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s really been the case over the last couple of two or three years where you’ve got a lot of levels of investment going on in physically and equipment because we’re manufacturing in people, you need better and better quality of people coming into the business.
13:55.234 –> 13:58.037
[SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, don’t forget, you still got a quiet customer.
13:58.057 –> 14:01.742
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’re advertising to a quiet customer,
14:01.722 –> 14:16.575
[SPEAKER_02]: the challenge of every consumer facing business and how do you do that, either at break even, profitably, whatever your model is, or you’re gonna trade for a few months to get your money back, but it’s figuring out the mechanics of that challenge.
14:16.595 –> 14:21.199
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s doing your own manufacturing as that blessing and curse, isn’t it?
14:21.219 –> 14:30.868
[SPEAKER_00]: You have complete control over your supply chain, but it can become a constraint to growth.
14:30.983 –> 14:45.280
[SPEAKER_02]: The strengths and weaknesses are of it and I think the key strength of it is that you are reduction in working capital from a stock perspective because we can manufacture products in the morning and send it out to a customer in the afternoon.
14:45.301 –> 14:47.183
[SPEAKER_02]: So that gives us immense flexibility.
14:47.844 –> 14:52.249
[SPEAKER_02]: We can make in very small batches which allows us to test a lot of things.
14:52.617 –> 15:06.069
[SPEAKER_02]: The downside is you’ve got, you’ve got, you’ve got, I did complexity, you know, I came from manufacturing backgrounds, so I understood manufacturing and operation is pretty well, so that did make life a bit easier and was a more natural fit for us to go down that route.
15:06.570 –> 15:11.301
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as I look forward in the business, you know, like when I think about what the next
15:11.281 –> 15:12.743
[SPEAKER_02]: three or four years looks like.
15:13.204 –> 15:15.828
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I think it’s about reducing complexity.
15:15.889 –> 15:21.618
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, you begin to think about whether you should be outsourcing for film at rather than doing it in house.
15:21.978 –> 15:26.466
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, ultimately have to look at whether most values added in the business.
15:26.506 –> 15:29.411
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the most value is added at around marketing.
15:29.451 –> 15:32.175
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you’re never going to outsource marketing.
15:32.155 –> 15:35.619
[SPEAKER_02]: But is wrapping and packing shipping orders as the least value?
15:35.699 –> 15:52.337
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have said it’s a very commoditized operation because I want to do that and particularly lend itself to, as we start to look to go international, then we outsource wrapping and packing in the UK first to understand that before we then go and do it overseas.
15:52.778 –> 15:59.665
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would imagine that’s a travel and we would continue to manufacture and we would just use the extra space to increase manufacturing capacity.
15:59.847 –> 16:03.572
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you don’t have to do another move, which is exactly that.
16:03.592 –> 16:07.518
[SPEAKER_00]: A huge destruction of cash and manpower and everything else.
16:07.538 –> 16:11.844
[SPEAKER_00]: So you mentioned there that you wouldn’t ever outsource the marketing.
16:11.864 –> 16:14.027
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was all your marketing done in house.
16:14.388 –> 16:17.232
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody running the Facebook house, the emails, everything.
16:17.431 –> 16:17.751
[SPEAKER_02]: 100%.
16:18.672 –> 16:25.660
[SPEAKER_02]: We have periodically used agencies to acquire skills and learn things, but I’m not a fan of the agency model.
16:25.900 –> 16:36.032
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be honest, what we do now, if we need advice, is we typically use refined experts in that and we use them more like a consultant, some mentors, so we might have them for two hours a week.
16:36.572 –> 16:40.877
[SPEAKER_02]: And to myself, for my team, we’re dipping in out of that resource, but we’re still implement ourselves.
16:41.037 –> 16:41.818
[SPEAKER_02]: Because
16:41.798 –> 16:52.670
[SPEAKER_02]: We take the view that marketing is a core competence and, you know, you take ads, for example, you know, you cannot build a direct consumer business without being well class at ads.
16:53.110 –> 17:01.459
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I just don’t think it’s possible and you can’t learn that if you’re outsourcing that to an agency, you need to be in need to be doing that in-house in the team and building the people.
17:02.320 –> 17:03.401
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, ads are so important.
17:03.421 –> 17:05.123
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve got 10 people in my ad team.
17:05.103 –> 17:07.025
[SPEAKER_02]: emails are hugely important channel.
17:07.065 –> 17:19.357
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the thing that we’ve always concentrated on, and I suppose it comes back to thinking about a spear rather than a sort of scattergun approach, we have tried to become experts, a very limited number of things.
17:19.717 –> 17:22.420
[SPEAKER_02]: So we were very poor, for instance, a social media.
17:22.440 –> 17:23.461
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn’t give it any time.
17:23.501 –> 17:26.944
[SPEAKER_02]: We basically concentrated on ads and email.
17:26.965 –> 17:31.549
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’ve got very high retention of customers, 80% of our transactions are returning customers,
17:31.529 –> 17:41.601
[SPEAKER_02]: 20% of customers come in and make a second purchase within 30 days, and we normally cap out at about 65% of customers will turn into repeat buyers.
17:42.182 –> 17:48.629
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can be pretty confident about acquiring customers and doing that, so we want to do that in-house.
17:48.750 –> 17:56.659
[SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, for me, that’s the big challenge, that’s the interesting bit, and I spend my time working.
17:56.639 –> 18:24.385
[SPEAKER_02]: on whatever I consider to be the hardest challenge in the business, so I’m always working at the cutting edge of the business, the cutting edge of the sort of edge of my knowledge and the business is knowledge, but I suppose my skill set is knowledge acquisition, sorting through thousands and thousands of pieces of information to glean the really key thing is and and I spend a huge amount of my time benchmarking and modeling what the best companies in the world
18:24.365 –> 18:37.487
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what’s interesting about the time we live in at the moment is that if you go back 20 years free internet, then information was to preserve big companies and it was, those are moto is walled garden, you couldn’t get that information.
18:38.048 –> 18:47.925
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the internet came along and the real skill set that put underpin success was about search, could you search and find the correct information?
18:47.905 –> 18:55.053
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the last few years that’s all turned on its head and it’s been about AI and about execution.
18:55.273 –> 18:58.316
[SPEAKER_02]: Now with AI, everybody has the information.
18:58.677 –> 19:05.144
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve only got to search into chatGQP or Claude and you have got the knowledge now to do it.
19:05.444 –> 19:07.506
[SPEAKER_02]: So now it’s about speed of execution.
19:07.807 –> 19:12.772
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you figure out what to execute on and can you do it faster than anybody else?
19:13.433 –> 19:15.415
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it’s a very exciting time.
19:16.373 –> 19:26.067
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a very exciting time, and I’m going to pick your brains on AI shortly, but before we do that, I want to come back something you said about the marketing and the ads, and that keeping it all in house, you’ve got the knowledge in house.
19:27.188 –> 19:36.762
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things which as the ad platforms are evolving and how the algorithms are evolving that I’ve been thinking about is that businesses which get to your size.
19:36.742 –> 19:47.899
[SPEAKER_00]: when the ad success is so down to matching the creative with the or target audiences desires and the audience that are going to buy the product.
19:48.368 –> 19:51.453
[SPEAKER_00]: that creative bit is really hard to outsource.
19:51.933 –> 19:57.241
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, add add add agency’s made sense when it was the targeting, targeting one zero is easy to outsource.
19:57.261 –> 20:11.062
[SPEAKER_00]: The creative part, I think any business who’s got a sizable marketing team and they’re budget for it, it makes so little sense to have someone else running your ads and friends of mine who are running add agencies, please don’t hate me for this.
20:11.082 –> 20:17.211
[SPEAKER_00]: But is that one of the reasons you think it’s ever more important is because that, that importance of the creative.
20:17.377 –> 20:19.780
[SPEAKER_02]: they cannot understand the messaging.
20:19.800 –> 20:34.055
[SPEAKER_02]: And they also, the agency modeler, I think is currently broken because if you think, even if you go back three months ago, it wasn’t untypical to see Adercount, a busy Adercount might have 300 Adercount, 300 Ads in it, 400 Ads.
20:34.375 –> 20:36.378
[SPEAKER_02]: The average might have had 50 or 60 ads.
20:36.698 –> 20:39.641
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I looked at Adercount recently, I had 25,000 Ads in it.
20:40.142 –> 20:47.029
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there’s a step change in, and it gone of the days where an agency can come back
20:47.009 –> 20:49.993
[SPEAKER_02]: 20 new ads a month or we’re going to give you 15 new ads a month.
20:50.353 –> 20:51.715
[SPEAKER_02]: It just doesn’t work like that anymore.
20:51.735 –> 20:55.679
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you’ve got to create quality ads and you need thousands of them.
20:56.100 –> 21:05.051
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s a melting pot between one set work, you know, how do you unlock the persona or the avatar with angles to actually create the right messaging?
21:05.651 –> 21:11.198
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you unlock the ad types and have an understanding about creative diversity?
21:11.238 –> 21:16.965
[SPEAKER_02]: And then how do you do that on steroids in enormous volume?
21:16.945 –> 21:17.806
[SPEAKER_02]: Adds now.
21:19.368 –> 21:36.586
[SPEAKER_02]: Before it was about the technical aspects of running your account to a structure and things like it’s not really about that anymore, it is about nailing created and iterating and understanding I think the biggest takeaway for us now on ads is really understanding what is a good ad.
21:37.026 –> 21:44.995
[SPEAKER_02]: So can you or team on pick a good ad, recognise it and then recognise why that’s a good ad, and then build on that.
21:45.127 –> 21:50.414
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then roll out 10 or 20 iterations based on that to really capitalize on that audience, yeah.
21:50.434 –> 21:51.575
[SPEAKER_02]: 100%.
21:52.136 –> 22:01.488
[SPEAKER_00]: So coming back to AI, I’m assuming you’ve been testing a whole load of stuff with AI, both internally and for external purposes.
22:02.089 –> 22:05.413
[SPEAKER_00]: Any wins or tips you’re willing to share?
22:05.697 –> 22:11.282
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the first thing I would say is probably the most valuable thing we did was to employ someone, an AI-class.
22:11.502 –> 22:13.784
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have physically got someone in the business.
22:14.525 –> 22:32.200
[SPEAKER_02]: He did his first degree in Mumbai, an AI, then he came over and did a master’s at Manchester an AI and then spent a year working for an American company, an AI and then he joined us and done a young guy super bright and that was a real step change in our understanding of AI.
22:32.240 –> 22:34.422
[SPEAKER_02]: How to do it is just in the building.
22:34.402 –> 22:45.620
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, and he’s so important to the business, he is in the next office for me, and he’s in and out like, you know, those junior members of staff, he’s almost reporting directly to me, because I think that’s so important.
22:46.241 –> 22:50.588
[SPEAKER_02]: That thing, and then the other thing is, is to understand I think with AI, that,
22:51.260 –> 22:54.866
[SPEAKER_02]: AI does not mean full automation, not even remotely.
22:54.926 –> 22:57.932
[SPEAKER_02]: The technology is just not there and I don’t think it ever will be.
22:58.252 –> 23:09.031
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way that we look at AI, you still need a strategy person sitting there thinking about AI and you still need a creative person sitting and thinking about AI.
23:09.753 –> 23:10.534
[SPEAKER_02]: And
23:10.514 –> 23:15.901
[SPEAKER_02]: what the technology now allows you to do is magnifies everything.
23:15.961 –> 23:21.149
[SPEAKER_02]: So you get 10 times the volume out, but you still need the intelligence behind it.
23:21.229 –> 23:22.090
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not there.
23:22.150 –> 23:24.313
[SPEAKER_02]: You can’t just leave it on its own and do it.
23:25.134 –> 23:35.408
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose if you think about creative guardrails, that when you’re thinking about, say, adds specifically using AI, but we use it in email as well.
23:35.388 –> 23:41.096
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to close the eyes of your brand managers and your brand team for a while.
23:41.597 –> 23:46.323
[SPEAKER_02]: And you just have to accept that you’re going to make content that really is off-brand.
23:46.964 –> 23:54.274
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you have to remove the guardrails to allow the team who’s using it to create content and learn and iterate and so on.
23:54.574 –> 24:01.564
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what we found was, then we could gradually bring the guardrails back in place as we understood the technology better.
24:01.544 –> 24:14.556
[SPEAKER_02]: so it’s an iteration that you have to accept in the first instance that you’re going to produce content you don’t love, but you need to go through that process of iteration and learning.
24:15.058 –> 24:16.842
[SPEAKER_02]: That was one really interesting fact.
24:16.862 –> 24:18.827
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the other thing to learn is that
24:19.752 –> 24:29.929
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is quite a hard, that if you’re used to controlling something, one of the things that we’ve realized is, probably we’ll let it’s more to add to the AI, but we’ve realized you can’t actually pick the winners.
24:30.570 –> 24:38.604
[SPEAKER_02]: Like so, you can put 10 ads in front of me, even now I’ve spent millions of pounds on ads, and I basically cannot pick the winner from them.
24:39.085 –> 24:41.068
[SPEAKER_02]: And what we’ve come to realize is,
24:41.048 –> 24:44.332
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s better to almost automate that decision-making process.
24:44.372 –> 24:48.397
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’re generating ads and then we are not second-guessing them.
24:48.457 –> 24:56.367
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’ve spoken to a founder of a French founder of an AI platform that had got very fast growth.
24:56.387 –> 25:02.714
[SPEAKER_02]: They had grown in nine months from zero to 20 million a year and by annual rate on their figures.
25:03.375 –> 25:05.418
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, what was underpinning that?
25:05.438 –> 25:10.684
[SPEAKER_02]: When they first started running their own ads, they were writing and scripts themselves
25:10.664 –> 25:26.597
[SPEAKER_02]: checking at all and so on and what they realized was it couldn’t pick the winners and they started completely automating that process and everything just went live and they let the algorithm decide what the winning ad was and that was infinitely more successful than trying to reselect it.
25:26.577 –> 25:28.881
[SPEAKER_02]: So AI is a very interesting space.
25:28.901 –> 25:30.103
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re fascinated by it.
25:30.403 –> 25:30.904
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s tough.
25:31.465 –> 25:37.154
[SPEAKER_02]: It needs strong leadership from someone at the top of the business has got to embrace AI.
25:37.174 –> 25:38.756
[SPEAKER_02]: I am really wanted to be there.
25:39.077 –> 25:44.165
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a fair amount of resistance from people within the specialist subjects.
25:44.345 –> 25:52.939
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you think graphic design, you could think video editors, you could think creative strategies in ads,
25:52.919 –> 26:01.147
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever else they are resistors to it because they see it as a threat to the job, it changes their work flows and so on.
26:01.187 –> 26:13.760
[SPEAKER_02]: And it needs somebody senior in the business to drive through the change and also provide a level of reassurance that this doesn’t mean job losses, it just means it actually means increased productivity.
26:14.321 –> 26:17.644
[SPEAKER_02]: But that needs a senior leader to manage that process.
26:20.358 –> 26:25.227
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce most at land is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
26:25.348 –> 26:35.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
26:38.093 –> 26:43.281
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I love this section because me and our listeners are really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
26:43.341 –> 26:45.304
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, are you ready for the top tips?
26:45.945 –> 26:46.225
[SPEAKER_00]: I am.
26:46.746 –> 26:47.267
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.
26:47.367 –> 26:48.388
[SPEAKER_00]: The book top tip.
26:48.408 –> 26:54.858
[SPEAKER_00]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
26:55.659 –> 26:58.003
[SPEAKER_02]: Alex Ormosi’s $100 million offer.
26:58.203 –> 27:06.295
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’re in the, if you’re any commerce, that is the most sensational book and your reader is super short and you’ll read it in three or
27:06.781 –> 27:10.699
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve never heard of that one, what’s it, what does it get into, can you give us any spoilers?
27:10.932 –> 27:18.683
[SPEAKER_02]: Alex almost he has a, I think he cut his chops or built his business first of all in gyms teaching gym owners how to run their businesses.
27:19.184 –> 27:31.001
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he’s just going to the Guinness World Records for doing a $100 million in sales over a long weekend and essentially he unpicks how to construct a world class offer.
27:31.442 –> 27:38.172
[SPEAKER_02]: And essentially that you can think of the premise of the book is how to create an offer that people feel stupid to say no to.
27:38.152 –> 27:39.393
[SPEAKER_02]: We read the book.
27:39.994 –> 27:45.919
[SPEAKER_02]: I then got my team to read the book and then I told them to go and create an offer and I genuinely promise this is true.
27:46.480 –> 27:51.585
[SPEAKER_02]: We put that offer live and overnight, we added £200,000 a week to our sales.
27:51.645 –> 27:55.729
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like we turned Christmas on and that just stayed at that level.
27:55.789 –> 27:59.632
[SPEAKER_02]: It caused us a loss or problems in the middle of last year as a consequence.
28:01.234 –> 28:06.859
[SPEAKER_02]: But what he says in that book works without question when we’re living proof of that from
28:07.042 –> 28:09.886
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, anyone who didn’t want it the first time you mentioned it, definitely wants it now.
28:09.906 –> 28:12.490
[SPEAKER_00]: So could you just please repeat the name of the book at the author?
28:13.050 –> 28:16.956
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s by Alex Homosi and it’s called $100 million offers.
28:17.477 –> 28:20.781
[SPEAKER_00]: There we go, proof everybody for this week’s booktop tip.
28:21.142 –> 28:27.210
[SPEAKER_00]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
28:27.713 –> 28:48.924
[SPEAKER_02]: Or yeah, I’d be torn between email and ads and I think that I think it’s about ads and everyone knows it’s about ads, but I think the key thing about ads is about new customer acquisition you must you must split if we spend a tiny budget on on getting our own customers back on returning customers.
28:48.944 –> 28:53.451
[SPEAKER_02]: So figuring out how to acquire new customers on ad.
28:53.431 –> 28:54.853
[SPEAKER_02]: is the Holy Grail.
28:54.874 –> 28:59.602
[SPEAKER_02]: And it should occupy 99.9% of every founders’ time.
29:00.363 –> 29:01.024
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple as that?
29:01.185 –> 29:02.166
[SPEAKER_00]: Or not simple as that?
29:02.948 –> 29:03.569
[SPEAKER_02]: Or not simple.
29:03.589 –> 29:05.532
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but that’s it.
29:05.552 –> 29:07.796
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, definitely to focus on.
29:08.137 –> 29:18.595
[SPEAKER_00]: The tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app, or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team at more efficient from day to day?
29:19.098 –> 29:21.362
[SPEAKER_02]: notion without question.
29:21.622 –> 29:39.975
[SPEAKER_02]: So, one of the things that we use notion for, we have an ideas wiki, and every single time I consume a colossal amount of information, every single time I find something, I will put playbooks into there, and now we have got
29:39.955 –> 29:43.380
[SPEAKER_02]: thousands and thousands of pieces of content in that notion.
29:43.420 –> 29:45.563
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s got a fantastic AI tool.
29:45.844 –> 29:53.936
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go and say, tell me about some landing pages, tell me about video sales letters and it will give you because it’s all curated because it’s our content.
29:54.556 –> 30:01.086
[SPEAKER_02]: And then every two or three days, I send my team
30:01.066 –> 30:04.029
[SPEAKER_02]: I send them all the things that I’ve added to there.
30:04.049 –> 30:08.374
[SPEAKER_02]: It gives them a created list and it’ll be pre- I think this is relating to ads.
30:08.414 –> 30:09.615
[SPEAKER_02]: This is email.
30:09.635 –> 30:10.536
[SPEAKER_02]: This is personnel.
30:10.576 –> 30:13.459
[SPEAKER_02]: This is this is to do with mindset.
30:13.499 –> 30:16.242
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I’ve had every single thing that I’m interested in.
30:16.322 –> 30:17.683
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s valuable into there.
30:18.044 –> 30:20.186
[SPEAKER_02]: And then my team, my shell at the whole business.
30:20.827 –> 30:22.428
[SPEAKER_02]: And they’ve all got access to it.
30:22.448 –> 30:23.189
[SPEAKER_02]: They can add to it.
30:23.229 –> 30:24.430
[SPEAKER_02]: But it’s mostly me doing it.
30:24.971 –> 30:30.837
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can then see an evolution of what I’m learning at the time
30:30.817 –> 30:34.422
[SPEAKER_02]: that are relevant to their job or where they’re in chastising.
30:34.903 –> 30:40.991
[SPEAKER_02]: But to be honest, we’ve been doing that about six months, and I wish I’d been doing that for 30 years.
30:41.051 –> 30:51.385
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m 52 now and I’ve forgotten more than I’ve ever learnt as it’s such thing, and I look back and how many thousands of notebooks have I had over the years written notes and then you lose them and you never go back to them.
30:51.766 –> 30:54.610
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, with AI, it’s all available.
30:54.630 –> 30:59.777
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’ve got the entire knowledge I’ve acquired over the last six
30:59.757 –> 31:01.941
[SPEAKER_02]: and I wish I’d known that 30 years ago.
31:02.461 –> 31:04.445
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that’s such a brilliant use of notion.
31:05.006 –> 31:05.607
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that.
31:05.847 –> 31:14.702
[SPEAKER_00]: And a great way of creating like a company library of knowledge that isn’t SOPs, it’s the level above that.
31:15.002 –> 31:15.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that.
31:16.264 –> 31:21.613
[SPEAKER_00]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
31:21.593 –> 31:30.952
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve got, I don’t know if it reduced our carbon footprint, but funny story, we had, we had Fort Namemasons come and see us because they wanted us to to manufacture some product for them.
31:31.633 –> 31:41.273
[SPEAKER_02]: And they sent them at the five of their buyers came out, visited the factory, and the thing they were most excited about and they took pictures of, it was our recycling system.
31:41.253 –> 31:48.224
[SPEAKER_02]: So out the back of our one of our fulfilment warehouse, we have all these bailing machines.
31:48.705 –> 31:53.213
[SPEAKER_02]: So one does it for plastics and the other one big machine.
31:53.253 –> 31:56.899
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s probably about the size of three large pallets I suppose, something like that.
31:57.600 –> 31:59.263
[SPEAKER_02]: And that bail’s up the cardboard.
31:59.283 –> 32:05.573
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve gone from a situation where we were spending thousands of pounds each month having our rubbish taken away.
32:05.553 –> 32:26.548
[SPEAKER_02]: to now we get a Laurie collection every week or so they come in and they collect a full Laurie load of cardboard that’s all being bailed up with cell rats or the recycling thing and it’s so it will we make a small amount of effort from it but it’s turned a big cost for us into something that’s now not costing us any money and is doing a bit for what we can do to for recycling and so on so
32:26.528 –> 32:29.391
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and for them, so we’re incredibly excited about that.
32:29.411 –> 32:35.899
[SPEAKER_02]: And they took loads of pictures, they took the pictures of these, and these, uh, could these bail see, they were powered like three or four high, this big area.
32:35.919 –> 32:37.801
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m so, it’s a nice thing that we can do.
32:37.861 –> 32:44.149
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and it’s, and I think that’s where a sensible use of, um, of technology and, um, and so on.
32:44.189 –> 32:46.051
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t understand why all companies don’t do it’s crazy.
32:46.091 –> 32:49.735
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not, it’s not expensive to start and a new seller cardboard.
32:50.035 –> 32:57.726
[SPEAKER_00]: and presumably it’s a much easier way to manage all that waste, all those waste items when they’re compressed into a lovely tidy bail as well.
32:58.187 –> 33:10.704
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s in a bail in, I suppose the bail is about the size of a pallet, maybe a little bit smaller than a pallet, and they stack, and yes, it makes it super easy and they can sit outside.
33:10.744 –> 33:12.006
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn’t matter if they get wet.
33:12.247 –> 33:15.351
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I really recommend that as a solution to
33:15.668 –> 33:16.109
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that one.
33:16.129 –> 33:17.972
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve never had that before and I think it’s brilliant.
33:18.614 –> 33:24.184
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke, before we say goodbye, though, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social?
33:24.725 –> 33:34.563
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you’ll get the website isvelentid.com and you will also find me on LinkedIn, so this is find me as Luke, bring on LinkedIn or on Instagram as well.
33:34.664 –> 33:39.212
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I’m Luke,
33:39.462 –> 33:40.063
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant league.
33:40.083 –> 33:41.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
33:41.687 –> 33:50.348
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been absolutely fascinating talking to you and I wish you all the luck in the world getting to your nine figure target in the next few years.
33:50.669 –> 33:53.736
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sure it’s going to be a fascinating journey, but thank you so much for being here.
33:54.478 –> 33:54.758
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
33:54.778 –> 33:56.322
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d love to it really interesting into you.
33:56.342 –> 33:57.184
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much.
34:03.003 –> 34:11.734
[SPEAKER_00]: fascinating, getting to chat with Luke there, let me know if you’d like me to get him back in a year or so, it’s time to find out how that growth plan is going.
34:12.755 –> 34:27.694
[SPEAKER_00]: Such clear work that he does in his role as the leader of the business, understanding where he wants it to go, what they’re going to be good at, where his role as a leader is in terms of shaping and building the business
34:27.674 –> 34:36.216
[SPEAKER_00]: Solving those business problems but in a really practical way plus some lots of really cool tips But a lot to get you thinking in that one.
34:36.717 –> 34:40.828
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I’ll be thinking about this chat with Luke for a good few weeks to come if not longer.
34:41.289 –> 34:42.713
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you’ve enjoyed it too
34:42.693 –> 34:49.925
[SPEAKER_00]: To get your hands on the notes from the episode, including those top tips and the things we mentioned, head over to ecommercemasterpland.com.
34:49.945 –> 34:55.433
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also use the short link ECMP.info for us at the number of this episode to go there as well.
34:55.914 –> 34:58.558
[SPEAKER_00]: When you get to the website, you can add yourself to our email list.
34:58.579 –> 34:59.580
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, please do it.
34:59.740 –> 35:00.782
[SPEAKER_00]: Get yourself on our email list.
35:00.842 –> 35:02.625
[SPEAKER_00]: We’d love to have you join us.
35:02.605 –> 35:14.084
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you like this episode, then what my notes say, I’m to tell you to check out episode 531, which is one of our most popular episodes of 2025, with the brilliant Jamie from cookie haircare.
35:14.104 –> 35:23.079
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m also going to recommend that you have a listen to the episode that’s just a couple before this one that we did, or what would you do, episode?
35:23.099 –> 35:28.748
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve Richard Chapel X of Jim Shark, where he is talking about how
35:28.728 –> 35:33.919
[SPEAKER_00]: You grow a business from eight figures to nine figures, which is the journey that Luke’s about to go on.
35:33.999 –> 35:42.216
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you listen to those two episodes back to back, I think we can safely say it will be a real surprise if Luke and his team don’t get to that point.
35:42.396 –> 35:49.791
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s the what would you do, I per se, we’ve rich chapel at episode 286, just a couple of episodes before this one.
35:49.771 –> 35:58.302
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you’re on WooCommerce and want to hear some other WooCommerce stories, then head to ECMP.info4-WooCommerce for all our episodes with WooCommerce people.
35:58.863 –> 36:02.648
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode that you do of the e-commerce master plan.
36:02.708 –> 36:05.091
[SPEAKER_00]: Podcasts we love to have you listening in.
36:05.572 –> 36:12.100
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses.
36:12.080 –> 36:15.126
[SPEAKER_00]: including progressing along the path to net zero.
36:15.526 –> 36:20.515
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you know someone this show can help please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
36:20.876 –> 36:35.623
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
37 min
March 23eCommerce MasterPlan | 587: Growing eCommerce Sales with Values, Strategy, and Multi-Product Innovation at Microbz with Katie Ward
Katie Ward is the Managing Director at Microbz, a natural microbial solutions business. Founded in the 2000s and rebranded in 2024, they are on track for around £1million this year across their Shopify store & partner network.

In this episode, Katie shares how they’ve grown in one of the most competitive supplement markets by focusing on real customer pain points, building trust before pushing subscriptions, and expanding lifetime value through a “probiotic life” strategy. It’s a candid conversation about balancing mission and margin, managing multiple channels, and scaling sustainably without compromising your values.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Microbz scaled toward £1M in revenue without slashing their product range
The smart way to introduce subscriptions after 2–3 purchases (and boost LTV)
Why starting with customer pain points beats leading with brand vision every time
How to balance D2C, Amazon, B2B & agriculture without losing focus
The unexpected growth upside of sticking to your mission over “expert” advice
How giving away a free cleaner can unlock a whole new category sale

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[03:58] Nature’s Solution for Wellbeing
[07:21] Microbial Fermentation and Herbal Remedies
[11:32] “Managing Business Complexity Effectively”
[13:29] “Healthy Soil, Nutritious Life”
[18:25] “Probiotics: Educating and Building Trust”
[20:36] Listen to Katie’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/587
—
Download our ebook… https://ecmp.info/ebook 500 Tips to Increase Your Profits
Get all the links and resources we mention and join our email list at https://ecmp.info
Love the show? Chloe would love your feedback – leave a review here: https://ecmp.info/review or reply to the episode QandA on Spotify.
Interested in being a Sponsor? go here: https://ecmp.info/sponsor
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:18.985
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I speak to people, it’s always, I’ve really suffering with this problem, so if we can help them with that problem and there’s a bit of trust there then they come back to us again and then it’s the people who have bought two or three times that we say here’s a subscription and then on your third order of a subscription here’s a free cleaner try that out.
00:21.175 –> 00:23.702
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:24.323 –> 00:28.815
[SPEAKER_02]: It has to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:28.835 –> 00:36.957
[SPEAKER_02]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:39.535 –> 00:40.857
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.
00:40.877 –> 00:42.058
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.
00:42.159 –> 00:47.265
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing list to listen to another of our inspiring guests.
00:47.285 –> 00:49.128
[SPEAKER_01]: I have an intro thanks for this episode.
00:49.148 –> 00:54.936
[SPEAKER_01]: We would not have found this brilliant guest if it wasn’t for web designer Craig Thomas from Craig Thomas online.
00:55.156 –> 01:00.243
[SPEAKER_01]: No relation I should add and Craig put us in contact with this brilliant guest.
01:00.263 –> 01:03.227
[SPEAKER_01]: So huge thanks Craig for the recommendation and the intro.
01:03.928 –> 01:06.471
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode we’re talking
01:06.451 –> 01:12.858
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of big picture strategy in and my guess would hate me for saying this, the supplement space, sorry Katie.
01:14.219 –> 01:15.821
[SPEAKER_01]: But we’re talking about that.
01:15.841 –> 01:21.146
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re talking about how to balance selling to different customer bases across different product lines.
01:21.727 –> 01:32.138
[SPEAKER_01]: We are getting into how you, how important it is to stick with the strategies that support your values and your mission and we will also be
01:32.118 –> 01:36.691
[SPEAKER_01]: send what messages to what customer to get them to increase their customer lifetime value.
01:36.751 –> 01:38.275
[SPEAKER_01]: Some really cool stuff in this episode.
01:38.295 –> 01:40.100
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a real treat to get to talk to Katie.
01:40.582 –> 01:45.435
[SPEAKER_01]: Please listen to the end so you don’t miss out on her top tips and my own take on this episode.
01:51.423 –> 01:53.546
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest.
01:53.566 –> 01:59.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Katie Ward is the managing director at Mike Crobs, a natural microbial solutions business.
01:59.294 –> 02:09.610
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded in the 2000s and rebranded in 2024, they are on track for around £1 million in sales this year across their Shopify store and partner network.
02:09.690 –> 02:10.491
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Katie.
02:10.871 –> 02:12.574
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, thank you so much, Fabmy.
02:12.634 –> 02:13.575
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate it.
02:14.236 –> 02:16.740
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s very cool to have you on the podcast.
02:17.541 –> 02:20.265
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you get started in e-commerce?
02:20.701 –> 02:23.124
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I was kind of thrown into it, I guess.
02:23.164 –> 02:26.189
[SPEAKER_00]: So before I did this, I did a different kind of commerce.
02:26.209 –> 02:27.210
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked for charities.
02:27.270 –> 02:34.600
[SPEAKER_00]: So I worked for quite big NGOs in the UK trying to get people to, I was marketing manager for those.
02:35.281 –> 02:38.005
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I had my babies and I left that.
02:38.165 –> 02:41.650
[SPEAKER_00]: And my parents had this company and they really needed some help.
02:42.331 –> 02:50.202
[SPEAKER_00]: So I decided to get on board and that was my crib.
02:50.182 –> 02:57.087
[SPEAKER_00]: We started from the ground up, so built a website that actually worked and started just
02:57.303 –> 02:59.105
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the rebrand was a massive pop for us.
02:59.125 –> 03:01.887
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first kind of a couple of years, I was kind of gearing up for that.
03:01.907 –> 03:05.250
[SPEAKER_00]: And then since then, it’s just been doing better and better.
03:06.211 –> 03:11.276
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a great time to be selling a, and you may win as I said it, a supplement brand.
03:12.136 –> 03:16.260
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we seem to be on this huge kind of health trip at the moment.
03:16.320 –> 03:20.124
[SPEAKER_01]: So did that factor into your decision to join the family business?
03:20.664 –> 03:22.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there’s a big opportunity here at the moment?
03:22.666 –> 03:23.887
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that a factor that went into it?
03:23.907 –> 03:27.310
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it just mum and dad need help?
03:27.290 –> 03:42.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I’ve always been passionate, so growing up around probiotics, I’ve seen the solutions that they offer and we’re a bit different, so we use our probiotics and every aspect of our lives, so we harvest them from our organic soil on the farmland and then we use them again in every area.
03:42.198 –> 03:45.163
[SPEAKER_00]: So, spring the land.
03:45.143 –> 03:49.488
[SPEAKER_00]: vegetable growing, also in our bodies in our houses with our animals.
03:49.849 –> 03:53.273
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve seen first hand just the benefits that come from using them.
03:53.893 –> 03:58.679
[SPEAKER_00]: I want the biggest one for me is the amount of wildlife that’s come back to our land.
03:58.759 –> 04:03.104
[SPEAKER_00]: So we now have just amazing dragonflies and butterflies and birds.
04:03.765 –> 04:07.309
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also in my body, you see those changes for my health.
04:07.570 –> 04:14.458
[SPEAKER_00]: So as more that I could see that it was a solution, I could see the difference that it made for me
04:14.438 –> 04:25.109
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do wits away from the kind of supplement arena because it is full of noise and it is full of products and are the way that we come at that is slightly different.
04:25.649 –> 04:41.205
[SPEAKER_00]: The main in the supplement industry most people are telling you which ones to get, you know, this probiotic strain versus that probiotic strain and our whole ethos is about going back to nature, so going back to soil and going back
04:41.185 –> 04:47.213
[SPEAKER_00]: of microbial life that lives in soil which kind of underpins all life animal and human life.
04:47.373 –> 05:08.020
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a very different ethos and actually it’s been very hard to communicate that because people are so into you know which strain and the science behind which strain and the world of probiotics is so incredibly complex that one strain in my body will have a
05:08.000 –> 05:15.008
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a complicated picture and we offer something that is different, that hard to communicate.
05:16.349 –> 05:16.990
[SPEAKER_01]: Communication.
05:17.010 –> 05:18.852
[SPEAKER_01]: We may welcome back to that first off though.
05:18.872 –> 05:22.756
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s explain a bit more about the business before we get into anything else.
05:22.796 –> 05:25.319
[SPEAKER_01]: So where in the world are you and where are you selling to?
05:25.840 –> 05:28.843
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re in the UK and we’re primarily selling to the UK.
05:29.844 –> 05:35.290
[SPEAKER_00]: We do sell a bit in Europe and we do get questions all the time from different places around the world.
05:35.270 –> 05:41.678
[SPEAKER_00]: but at the moment is you’re up partly because it is really hard to export a living probiotic with multiple strains.
05:42.099 –> 05:48.647
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why most people most global companies put them in a pill because that is very easy to transport.
05:49.248 –> 06:01.204
[SPEAKER_00]: So exporting is kind of on the agenda and I’m looking mainly at Ireland because it’s a wonderful market for us and it’s going to be a really high-income country and then it’s kind of a couple of years.
06:01.224 –> 06:03.707
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s where I’ve got my eye on
06:03.687 –> 06:11.775
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s always challenging when there’s a challenge like that against the business, but in some ways it kind of makes you make better decisions.
06:12.376 –> 06:15.880
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if it was easy to do it, you could accidentally end up selling everywhere badly.
06:17.161 –> 06:21.546
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it’s hard, you’ll end up selling in a couple of places really well, if that makes sense.
06:21.566 –> 06:26.371
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, because it’ll take us five years to get over the regulation once we get in and we’re going to really get in.
06:27.092 –> 06:28.513
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, less is more.
06:28.493 –> 06:39.224
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the product, we know it’s probiotics and it’s microbes, but tell us a bit and it’s probably not a pill, give them what you just said, but tell us about the nuts and bolts of the product.
06:39.524 –> 06:39.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
06:40.145 –> 06:43.528
[SPEAKER_00]: So we make everything in our farm and then in our factory.
06:43.908 –> 06:50.155
[SPEAKER_00]: So we harvest the microstrom soil by putting into the ground a starch supplement, a starch product, I guess.
06:50.635 –> 06:55.480
[SPEAKER_00]: We dig a big hole and we’re in a place with loads of worms and loads of organic matter.
06:55.460 –> 07:04.601
[SPEAKER_00]: And the microbes kind of come to that starch when we pull out the ground that has the most amazing kind of rainbow like color on it and it smells kind of like fresh earth.
07:05.102 –> 07:14.363
[SPEAKER_00]: So we take that starch and we ferment it four times that goes to a process of fermentation which each of which lasts about two to a half weeks.
07:14.697 –> 07:17.661
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s just to, we have that microbial population.
07:18.041 –> 07:28.094
[SPEAKER_00]: We test that, we’ve got at least 15 different kinds of microbes, but bearing in mind, we know that we only know 1% of soil microbes, we can safely assume there’s more than just there’s 15 in there.
07:28.615 –> 07:33.321
[SPEAKER_00]: So we take that, we’ve meant it four times, which is just to increase the number of microbes.
07:33.962 –> 07:38.608
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in the last stage, we add in traditional herbs and minerals based on different things.
07:39.189 –> 07:43.995
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve got a crazy amount of products because my dad loves to invent new products.
07:43.975 –> 07:49.622
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have one for women which has 18 different herbs which are really good for women’s health.
07:50.103 –> 07:56.551
[SPEAKER_00]: We have one for sleeping which has lots of different kind of herbs for calming the nervous system.
07:56.611 –> 08:03.379
[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of last stage we work with a medical herb list who knows a lot about the herbs for different aspects.
08:03.399 –> 08:06.263
[SPEAKER_00]: And one which is our best cello is all about seeding the gut.
08:06.323 –> 08:10.388
[SPEAKER_00]: So making that gut lining really strong and not too permeable.
08:10.368 –> 08:19.694
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s our kind of human health range, but we also have a best-selling range in pet care, so horses, dogs, and cats, and then again, back for agriculture.
08:19.754 –> 08:24.647
[SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of do probiotics for everything, which is a bit of an Achilles heel.
08:25.589 –> 08:32.379
[SPEAKER_01]: So the probiotic bit is the same in everything but then with the herbs you tweak the impact.
08:33.020 –> 08:33.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
08:33.441 –> 08:40.271
[SPEAKER_00]: So the base culture is exactly the same for everything in the gardening and agriculture products.
08:40.291 –> 08:43.556
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve heard a bit of a microrisal fungi and a bit of other stuff.
08:43.576 –> 08:48.464
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thinking behind that goes that the microbes are really good at communicating things.
08:48.504 –> 08:54.533
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re good at breaking things down and rebuilding things, but they need kind of ingredients with which
08:54.513 –> 08:55.795
[SPEAKER_00]: extract goodness.
08:56.315 –> 09:07.029
[SPEAKER_00]: So the herbs kind of give the microbes a lunchbox which they can that they can take the spirulino or whatever it is and make it by our available for your body to absorb and the same is true in the soil.
09:07.149 –> 09:16.521
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need lots of microbes but you also need a lot of organic matter, macros are fungi because the microbes need to be able to absorb something to create life, health.
09:16.501 –> 09:38.188
[SPEAKER_01]: got you and then you know you said it’s in a killies heel doing all these products I think a lot of lessons will be oh wow they do pets and humans and then and then like coming on the on the websites and all they do men stuff as well as women stuff you we’ve got into this space where everyone goes so niche that to be wider and then when you’re kind of wholesaling to other farmers to help them improve their soils.
09:38.168 –> 09:43.236
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s a lot of different business models to be dealing with in what I assume is a small team.
09:43.296 –> 09:45.659
[SPEAKER_01]: As you before we get into the business models, what does the team look like?
09:45.719 –> 09:47.041
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of you are there?
09:47.061 –> 09:53.271
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s 11 core members of the team and then we probably have another 10 freelancers.
09:53.511 –> 09:56.155
[SPEAKER_00]: So Amazon, my Amazon guy is amazing.
09:56.195 –> 09:57.477
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s freelance.
09:57.457 –> 10:09.717
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a marketing woman who’s kind of a whiz who comes in every now and against the port me, brand stuff, the design and stuff is all kind of external meta, of course, which is its own beast, yeah, and a handful of others.
10:09.777 –> 10:12.261
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have kind of extra people we can call on.
10:12.281 –> 10:14.925
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it’s such a
10:14.905 –> 10:31.007
[SPEAKER_00]: important part to have these kind of add-on pieces of people who are really specialist in their area, but my gosh, we’ve been to a lot of them because it’s hard to find people, I think they were really good at certain aspects, all that fit you and where you are in your business, well.
10:30.987 –> 10:55.240
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that’s so true that the fit part, you know, you could have three people who are equally good at, we’ll go and metarads for, for one of the better example, equally good at it, but what only one of them is the right fit for your size of business, your aspirations, the sort of stories you’re telling and all that, all that kind of jazz and it’s, it often the only way of actually finding them is by testing, which is frustrating.
10:55.220 –> 10:57.345
[SPEAKER_01]: time consuming, but.
10:57.947 –> 10:58.749
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s hardening.
10:58.769 –> 10:59.290
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if you get it.
10:59.310 –> 10:59.631
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
10:59.811 –> 11:06.147
[SPEAKER_00]: But the matter ones, we got it wrong again and again and again and by the time, you know, you’re ready to go out and find somebody.
11:06.167 –> 11:12.202
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re so we’re warm wounded that the poor person you come across gets a list of questions, a size of a house.
11:12.222 –> 11:13.144
[SPEAKER_00]: You don’t it’s like,
11:13.124 –> 11:16.391
[SPEAKER_00]: keeping that kind of faith that there are people that are wonderful at this.
11:16.471 –> 11:25.790
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just about finding that fit and and across whether they’re really good at the creative side or the or the numbers side or the, you know, strategic side.
11:25.850 –> 11:32.483
[SPEAKER_00]: So without hiring a big agency, it’s hard to get somebody who’s actually good at the range of aspects of it.
11:32.463 –> 11:52.172
[SPEAKER_01]: but at least you didn’t give up after the first failed attempt, which I think a lot of brands go, oh right, it must be that the platform isn’t for me, was actually it was the strategy, the approach and the manpower, it’s the problem and yeah, as a former agency owner, I could rant on this for quite some time, but let’s let’s spare, okay, to let’s bet you and the audience that.
11:52.192 –> 11:57.981
[SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna, so you’ve got a team of 11, plus your 10 super duper freelancers running everything.
11:57.961 –> 12:01.627
[SPEAKER_01]: and you’re managing essentially two different business models.
12:02.509 –> 12:14.429
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, I guess actually you’ve got the Shopify store, you’ve got the Amazon store, you’ve got the partners, network of people who are selling your product to their clients, and then you’ve got the farming piece as well.
12:14.850 –> 12:17.134
[SPEAKER_01]: So most of all different business models, and then,
12:17.114 –> 12:22.060
[SPEAKER_01]: definitely three different customer groups, the people, the pets, and then the farmers.
12:23.381 –> 12:26.405
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m a farmer’s daughter, so I’m allowed to say the farmers are an odd bunch.
12:26.425 –> 12:29.749
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, everyone can play the way that I’m allowed to say this.
12:31.090 –> 12:34.314
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s a lot to be managing with just a team of 21.
12:34.874 –> 12:43.905
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you prioritize, as the MD, how do you prioritize where you’re focusing and what projects you’re working on to keep all those parts of the business developing?
12:44.766 –> 12:46.648
[SPEAKER_00]: Great question.
12:46.628 –> 12:47.730
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to be realistic.
12:47.870 –> 12:55.484
[SPEAKER_00]: The part of the business that brings me in the money is our B2B website sales, so that makes me the most margin on every bottle.
12:55.584 –> 13:05.582
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I can sell 2003, 2004,000 bottles a month through the website, that is my kind of bread and butter income, which is just fantastic.
13:05.562 –> 13:09.671
[SPEAKER_00]: What we’ve always been passionate about is what we call a probiotic life.
13:10.131 –> 13:15.162
[SPEAKER_00]: So replacing the chemicals and antibiotics in our home environments with probiotics.
13:15.182 –> 13:19.411
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’ve seen those be so helpful for cleaning for animals for home.
13:19.471 –> 13:21.495
[SPEAKER_00]: So this idea of a probiotic life.
13:21.515 –> 13:25.343
[SPEAKER_00]: But we extend that into agriculture because
13:25.323 –> 13:29.853
[SPEAKER_00]: our food, the way that our food is grown, impacts our gut health directly.
13:30.314 –> 13:36.948
[SPEAKER_00]: If our food is grown in soils that are really healthy, it can be more nutritious, it can be better for our microbiome.
13:37.770 –> 13:43.382
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to extend our lens out into this food and farming sphere which involves
13:43.362 –> 13:47.747
[SPEAKER_00]: talking to farmers who are already on their incredible regeneration journey.
13:47.787 –> 13:57.259
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there’s such a big movement in the UK to really look at soil health because it’s the foundation of their well-being and also their the how we grow our food.
13:57.319 –> 14:01.444
[SPEAKER_00]: So luckily that is a kind of on its own root.
14:01.804 –> 14:12.137
[SPEAKER_00]: But every brand person or marketing person we’ve ever spoken to has said, you’re mad, just cut back all of these ranges, concentrate on three of your top selling product and just go for them.
14:12.117 –> 14:19.003
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart always kind of sinks when that happens because we miss the kind of breath of the possibility to change the way that we live.
14:19.564 –> 14:25.369
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have the kind of probiotic life which is the website sales across those different channels.
14:25.429 –> 14:30.454
[SPEAKER_00]: And we work quite hard to try and understand what can help people go from gut health to cleaning.
14:30.594 –> 14:42.124
[SPEAKER_00]: If we give them a free cleaner, will they use it and like it and come back and then will they take in more.
14:42.104 –> 14:47.675
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on the agriculture side, you know, it’s a slow burner, but it’s a bigger, it’s a bigger sale.
14:48.316 –> 14:52.324
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve been kind of, you know, investing in that I’d say the last 18 months.
14:52.364 –> 14:55.751
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there’ll be another kind of two, three years of investment into it.
14:56.512 –> 14:58.296
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s really exciting.
14:58.536 –> 15:03.606
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you see the, you don’t see the farmers in their land that you spread it on has changed.
15:03.586 –> 15:09.497
[SPEAKER_00]: One farmer got a 50% uphill in up increase in yield this last summer when it was very dry summer.
15:09.517 –> 15:11.080
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a difficult summer for farmers.
15:11.120 –> 15:15.409
[SPEAKER_00]: So every time we do a little trial, things are really exciting.
15:15.509 –> 15:21.621
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess it goes back to our ambition, which isn’t necessary to make millions of pounds.
15:21.741 –> 15:24.987
[SPEAKER_00]: But to try and change the system for the healthier.
15:25.658 –> 15:32.528
[SPEAKER_01]: I suppose, what I mainly take, I’ll take a few things from your answer there, one of which is actually Chloe, it’s not that diverse.
15:33.068 –> 15:37.815
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all, it all so fits with the value of the business and the mission that you’re on.
15:37.875 –> 15:41.500
[SPEAKER_01]: It will be crazy to drop any of those parts of the pie.
15:41.540 –> 15:47.048
[SPEAKER_01]: And I totally get that someone like me and a former life or other experts would come in.
15:47.068 –> 15:51.835
[SPEAKER_01]: And there immediately actually would be too many excuse, too complicated.
15:51.815 –> 16:12.912
[SPEAKER_01]: pick one, double down on it, get fast growth, but if the whole message is that, you know, the that all encompassing lifestyle approach to the microbes and everything else, then it would be madness if you were telling someone, you know, that you should be taking this, this probiotic, but at the same time,
16:12.892 –> 16:17.278
[SPEAKER_01]: continue using the hideous off the shelf cleaning products that are killing it at the same time.
16:17.619 –> 16:26.151
[SPEAKER_01]: Kill your microbes when you when you have the means and the product that are to sell them and then you’re making the pets healthier making the soil healthier and everything.
16:26.191 –> 16:38.950
[SPEAKER_01]: It would kind of be it would be so anti-values emission that it wouldn’t work but it’s just going to take you longer to get to that flywheel point at tipping point where it goes more boom I suppose.
16:39.267 –> 16:57.985
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, I feel like I’m at the bottom of a very big hill and and I also feel I wonder if everyone who was kind of climbed a big hill at this, I feel kind of bored of the sound of my voice, you know, because I keep on saying the same thing and I know that I if I could stand out of that bubble for a second, I would realize that I’m kind of on my own.
16:57.965 –> 17:07.212
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are more and more people coming, you know, more and more people understanding, you know, but you’ve just said that your microbiome is not just in your body, it’s related to the environment you live in in the home.
17:07.773 –> 17:13.189
[SPEAKER_00]: And with the care for ever chemicals, I think that that lens and you give us a new lens to look at.
17:13.169 –> 17:31.352
[SPEAKER_00]: how toxic our environments have become, and ways in which we can bring nature back in to those environments or bring microbes that we’ve always thought kill us and have to be killed back into these environments because actually they’re the foundation of resilience and they support us to be healthy.
17:31.392 –> 17:42.906
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah exactly that is going to take us a long time and I think I’m going to be very
17:42.886 –> 17:52.520
[SPEAKER_00]: keeps going and that people start to really think about how these systems linked together and how important our food is in that system.
17:53.301 –> 18:04.557
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the D to C side of things, the B to C probiotic sales, via the site, how are you going about getting that message across to people?
18:04.537 –> 18:13.194
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, is it like, is it what’s in the first Facebook ad that they see or is it in the email welcome sequence or is it after they bought a couple of projects?
18:13.214 –> 18:25.077
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hooking them in with the Perry menopause or the anti biotic gut nightmare and then trying to sell them the bigger dream or are you going out there with the bigger dream first and then converting after the fact
18:25.057 –> 18:28.620
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we did some an audience research before our rebrand.
18:29.000 –> 18:34.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we basically found out from that was our audience then were very well educated on probiotics.
18:34.765 –> 18:35.886
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew liquid was better.
18:35.906 –> 18:37.067
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew about the strains.
18:37.107 –> 18:38.669
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew some about soil health.
18:39.089 –> 18:44.654
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve never been able to talk to your kind of average Yakult user because they don’t understand.
18:45.174 –> 18:54.422
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a huge education piece and that cannot all be done in the first Facebook ad.
18:54.402 –> 18:58.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I speak to people it’s always I’ve really suffering with this problem.
18:58.293 –> 19:06.115
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve really I haven’t had a regular bowel movement for two years or I my daughter’s skin is just terrible or my dog won’t stop itching.
19:06.175 –> 19:09.745
[SPEAKER_00]: No, so it has to start with everybody’s
19:10.265 –> 19:18.038
[SPEAKER_00]: issue that they’re currently facing or, you know, our audiences, whichever we choose, as you say, menopause, what are the kind of main pain points?
19:18.619 –> 19:28.155
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we can prove to people, buying the product helps with that, and I’m not going to say it’s always going to do that for every for 100% of people, you know.
19:28.135 –> 19:52.742
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we can help them with that problem and there’s a bit of trust there then they come back to us again and then again and then it’s the people who have bought two or three times that we say Here’s a subscription and then on your third order of her subscription here’s a free cleaner try that out and then here’s a free plant boost so you can spray up indoor plants with it see what happens then so I think we have to take them on this journey
19:52.722 –> 20:05.462
[SPEAKER_00]: and hopefully we do it in kind of a warm style, you know, we want people to feel that it’s family made, we care, we care about how we produce them, we care about how we harvest them.
20:05.942 –> 20:07.244
[SPEAKER_00]: When we ferment them, we keep them warm.
20:07.264 –> 20:12.392
[SPEAKER_00]: We, you know, really appreciate them and that whole process also comes through.
20:12.412 –> 20:14.916
[SPEAKER_00]: I would hope in that story telling.
20:17.765 –> 20:22.616
[SPEAKER_02]: The Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
20:22.757 –> 20:33.141
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
20:35.551 –> 20:40.861
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section, because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
20:40.921 –> 20:42.624
[SPEAKER_01]: Katie, are you ready for the top tips?
20:43.646 –> 20:44.387
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm, I am.
20:44.888 –> 20:46.330
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.
20:46.431 –> 20:53.323
[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listing to this podcast, I agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
20:54.012 –> 20:55.915
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve gone with finding the mother tree.
20:56.015 –> 20:57.998
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s all about how trees communicate.
20:58.279 –> 21:01.464
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love the way that it really puts us into nature.
21:02.405 –> 21:04.929
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole tree’s communicating thing is just mind blowing.
21:05.770 –> 21:10.337
[SPEAKER_01]: But so new, yet also so obvious in retrospect.
21:10.357 –> 21:12.641
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we not think they are communicating?
21:13.122 –> 21:15.225
[SPEAKER_01]: So love that recommendation, thank you, Katie.
21:15.766 –> 21:21.775
[SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
21:22.092 –> 21:22.873
[SPEAKER_00]: in real life.
21:23.834 –> 21:32.166
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve our thing this year is just to go to every event we can speak at every up-speaker opportunity, force our way into every kind of event.
21:32.727 –> 21:35.651
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, getting back out, meeting people.
21:35.671 –> 21:45.906
[SPEAKER_01]: And are you doing that for all parts of the business from pets across or are you focusing that on the agricultural bit or the due to sea bit or
21:45.886 –> 21:52.854
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve got two big agricultural events this year, five or six big gut health events, and then one pet one.
21:52.974 –> 21:54.276
[SPEAKER_00]: So a little bit across everything.
21:54.296 –> 21:56.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice, get out there and actually talk to people.
21:57.400 –> 21:57.920
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:57.940 –> 22:01.084
[SPEAKER_01]: Never, never a bad move in the e-commerce space.
22:01.445 –> 22:03.307
[SPEAKER_01]: Real human beings, magical.
22:04.328 –> 22:14.340
[SPEAKER_01]: The tall top tip, maybe a collaboration told a social media plug in a phone app or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team a more efficient
22:14.320 –> 22:23.007
[SPEAKER_00]: So we used this thing called Breeman, which is actually for brewers, people who make beer, and every time it was every now and again it pops up with which alcohol we’re using, there’s no alcohol.
22:23.408 –> 22:34.057
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s the most incredible tool because we can put in all of our fermentations, text test the pHs and the temperatures and record everything, and the whole team can collaborate on it.
22:34.157 –> 22:35.338
[SPEAKER_00]: I just absolutely love it.
22:36.058 –> 22:43.905
[SPEAKER_01]: So brewing software for probiotic manufacturer?
22:44.847 –> 22:50.036
[SPEAKER_01]: One, one which arguably is not about wellness, being repurposed with one that is about wellness.
22:51.399 –> 22:53.583
[SPEAKER_01]: But let’s not get into the alcohol debate right now.
22:54.585 –> 22:57.069
[SPEAKER_01]: The carbon, the carbon top tip, Katie.
22:57.089 –> 23:01.337
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
23:01.317 –> 23:05.724
[SPEAKER_00]: So when things get delivered, we try and use as much of that as possible.
23:05.804 –> 23:10.632
[SPEAKER_00]: So we shred all of our cardboard thread deliveries to use within our packages that go out the door.
23:11.193 –> 23:13.877
[SPEAKER_00]: So kind of thinking is circularly as possible.
23:14.378 –> 23:22.591
[SPEAKER_00]: And we also use our microbes wherever we can to kind of help us break down staffs so composting and in the kind of cleaning areas.
23:22.651 –> 23:28.320
[SPEAKER_00]: So thinking circularly, I guess, would be my overarching carbon tip.
23:28.638 –> 23:29.560
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I like that.
23:29.920 –> 23:35.470
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s so easy just to think of one thing and think we’re done, but actually it’s a bit of big-old mindset change to do it properly.
23:35.851 –> 23:38.676
[SPEAKER_01]: So that definitely qualifies as a quality tip.
23:38.816 –> 23:45.769
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Katie, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?
23:45.749 –> 23:53.343
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure, please come and check us out where at www.microbs.mi-c-r-o-b-z.co.uk.
23:54.224 –> 23:56.729
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an agriculture site there as well, which you can check out.
23:57.089 –> 24:01.277
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
24:01.297 –> 24:05.344
[SPEAKER_00]: So just search Micro’s Probite, and you’ll be able to find us on all of those platforms.
24:05.324 –> 24:16.619
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a question, we have a registered nutritionist on our website, you can email them with a question about which product to take or if you have something you’re suffering with right now and you’d like a specific response.
24:17.480 –> 24:18.962
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, we’d love to hear from you.
24:19.002 –> 24:20.284
[SPEAKER_00]: We’d love to feed to check us out.
24:21.065 –> 24:21.385
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
24:21.405 –> 24:22.006
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Katie.
24:22.026 –> 24:24.229
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you so much, being such a fascinating guest.
24:24.349 –> 24:25.972
[SPEAKER_01]: Really love chatting with you today.
24:26.052 –> 24:27.053
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for being on the show.
24:27.674 –> 24:28.615
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
24:34.450 –> 24:40.657
[SPEAKER_01]: always a pleasure to chat with a business owner who’s on such a mission and values driven journey.
24:41.478 –> 24:57.555
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, the big takeaways there were around structuring your business to suit your desires, not necessarily the playbook that everyone else is following, in terms of their products selection and who they’re serving and the messaging they’re putting out there.
24:57.535 –> 25:08.391
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can do that and you can grow at a level that keeps you happy and you’re making a profit, that makes you happy, then you don’t have to follow any of the standard advice if it’s wrong for your values and the mission of your business.
25:08.932 –> 25:20.269
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other part about why she was talking about how they get the message to the audience at what point they, you know, what they used to hook them in and then at what point they deliver various bits and pieces and the
25:20.249 –> 25:22.812
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, as they order a few, then we get them onto the subscription.
25:22.832 –> 25:34.007
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they’ve had a few subscriptions, only then do we start introducing them to the cleaning products as well, really fascinating to chat to Katie there, really fascinating to see where they are in a few more years time.
25:34.508 –> 25:41.397
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode, including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
25:41.377 –> 25:44.701
[SPEAKER_01]: You could also use our direct episode short links that’s ECMP.
25:44.961 –> 25:47.424
[SPEAKER_01]: Info4sash the number of this episode.
25:47.944 –> 25:51.428
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you get to the website, please do add yourself to the email list.
25:52.149 –> 26:00.198
[SPEAKER_01]: If you liked this episode, then why not check out episode 512 with Judith Harvey from Natural Skincare Products Business Nitrune.
26:00.218 –> 26:00.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Naturalismo.
26:02.180 –> 26:06.025
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want more on Shopify businesses, then head to ECMP.
26:06.245 –> 26:08.127
[SPEAKER_01]: Info4sash Shopify.
26:08.107 –> 26:11.991
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
26:12.372 –> 26:20.841
[SPEAKER_01]: We bring you a new interview every week so we can inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your business, including becoming more sustainable.
26:21.262 –> 26:27.468
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help and inspire, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
26:27.809 –> 26:30.672
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
26:33.706 –> 26:37.097
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
26:37.578 –> 26:42.855
[SPEAKER_02]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
27 min

About eCommerce Master Plan

From the publisher's feed

Trying to work out how to acquire more customers? Need to improve customer retention? Or just looking for some reassurance you’re on the right track? That’s what the eCommerce MasterPlan is here for.

Share eCommerce Master Plan

Sign up to save your podcasts

eCommerce Master Plan

eCommerce Master Plan episodes

About eCommerce Master Plan