eCommerce Master Plan

By Chloe ThomasBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology Marketing

eCommerce Master Plan episodes

March 16eCommerce MasterPlan | 586: WWYD if you were starting a new job as CEO at an 8-figure fashion brand? Rich Chapple, former CMO of Gymshark
Rich Chapple was previously the CMO at Gymshark and the CEO at THG Ingenuity, part of The Hut Group, scaling both companies to unicorn valuations. He is now the co-founder at The Growth Foundation, helping eCommerce and DTC brands grow the right way.

In this What Would You Do episode, Rich shares exactly what he’d do in his first 90 days as the new CEO of an 8-figure fashion brand. From finding the real “truth” in the numbers to sharpening strategy, building the right team, and focusing on profitable growth, this conversation is packed with practical guidance for any eCommerce leader looking to scale with clarity and control.

Hit PLAY to hear:
The exact first 90-day plan for a new CEO stepping into an 8-figure eCommerce brand
How to find the real “truth” in your numbers (and the costly mistakes most brands miss)
The simple Where to Play / How to Win framework to cut complexity and drive growth
Why most 8-figure brands are structured for survival, not scale — and how to fix it
The hidden growth opportunity in CRM and customer insight most teams ignore
A low-cost traffic tactic that can deliver 70–90% off media rates

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:52] eCommerce Evolution and Increased Competition
[09:19] “Defining Truth Across Business Metrics”
[11:45] “Financial Analysis by GP Bands”
[14:46] Strategic Alignment and Execution Framework
[17:09] “How to Win with Strategy”
[22:41] Scaling Strategy and Future Planning
[25:39] “Developing Leaders Through Cross-Discipline”
[28:33] “Testing Strategies for Business Growth”
[31:29] Listen to Rich’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/586
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:04.660
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can ask a new recruit, what’s our objective, where do we play, how do we win?
00:04.700 –> 00:08.347
[SPEAKER_00]: And they play back something like 90% accurate, we’re in a good place.
00:09.109 –> 00:17.365
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we’re obviously around the boardroom or the senior leadership team, if you’re getting different answers as a CEO, you’ve got to do some serious work around strategic alignment in the leadership.
00:19.910 –> 00:23.098
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:23.118 –> 00:27.029
[SPEAKER_03]: It has to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:27.570 –> 00:35.691
[SPEAKER_03]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:38.371 –> 00:39.612
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.
00:39.632 –> 00:40.814
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.
00:40.894 –> 00:44.958
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:45.479 –> 00:52.006
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we get to catch up with the brilliant e-commerce growth strategist Rich Chapel.
00:52.527 –> 00:58.293
[SPEAKER_01]: Rich has held senior roles at Play.com, The Heart Group and Jim Shark.
00:58.954 –> 01:00.636
[SPEAKER_01]: He’s a marketer by heart.
01:00.836 –> 01:05.121
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we’ll be the right way to put it, but he’s also
01:05.101 –> 01:15.319
[SPEAKER_01]: Genius really in the space helping many e-commerce indeed see brands work out their best best-part of growth and he is joining us to share the answer to his what would you do?
01:15.379 –> 01:16.521
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is?
01:16.561 –> 01:22.131
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you do if you were the new CEO of an eight-figure fashion brand?
01:22.617 –> 01:38.787
[SPEAKER_01]: make sure you listen to the end of the episode because as well as sharing all of that, I’ll be cheekily asking Rich for his take on what marketing is the best marketing to be doing in 2026 and he’s sharing some absolute golden nuggets in the top tips at the very end of the episode as well.
01:44.318 –> 01:57.494
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest, Rich Chapel was previously the CMO at Jim Shark and the CEO at THG ingenuity part of the heart group, scaling both companies to unicorn valuations.
01:57.954 –> 02:04.422
[SPEAKER_01]: He’s now the co-founder at the growth foundation, helping e-commerce and D2C Browns grow the right way.
02:04.762 –> 02:05.363
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Rich.
02:06.164 –> 02:09.668
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Chloe, and hi listeners, looking forward to getting stuck into this.
02:09.918 –> 02:14.567
[SPEAKER_01]: very cool to have you on the show so thank you so much for suggesting this what would you do.
02:15.088 –> 02:18.435
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into that though, how did you get started in e-commerce?
02:18.495 –> 02:25.449
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my intro barely covers a tiny, tiny fraction of your e-commerce history.
02:25.810 –> 02:27.353
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell us a bit more about it.
02:27.502 –> 02:33.033
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, so I actually started off on the shop floor at home base here in the UK in the mid-90s.
02:33.754 –> 02:42.912
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know you’re listening to us, but in the room I mean, I’m in my home office, which is a studio and I’m massive fan and very passionate about music.
02:42.892 –> 02:56.837
[SPEAKER_00]: and so I was obviously trying to earn some money to fund my musical passions, being in a band and stuff, and effectively grew up in retail, actually fell in love with it, and got a junior marketing job at Carpet Rights, so still within the home improvement category.
02:56.858 –> 02:58.741
[SPEAKER_00]: And you’re thinking, why are you sticking around in home improvement?
02:59.142 –> 03:06.435
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s obviously like family connections and families or building contractors and electricians and things like that, but actually my passion was to say is in music.
03:06.415 –> 03:11.661
[SPEAKER_00]: And in terms of e-commerce, actually fell in love with e-commerce as a consumer, earlier doctor.
03:11.681 –> 03:27.960
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was the guy in the group of friends that would be early adopter on actually getting into net connection in the early 90s and on dial up, you know, first one with an e-mail, first person to spend hundreds of pounds on a DVD player, all those things, and was desperate to work in that industry.
03:28.380 –> 03:34.988
[SPEAKER_00]: But managed to grab a job at play.com in the early 2000s, Chloe, if you remember that brand.
03:34.968 –> 03:43.155
[SPEAKER_01]: I do and that would have been like the the must have job back then they were they were the case study on everything
03:43.405 –> 03:44.667
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve just phenomenal.
03:44.687 –> 03:48.472
[SPEAKER_00]: So I joined as a marketing manager and grew up to head of marketing in that business.
03:49.593 –> 03:51.616
[SPEAKER_00]: I joined around 20 million turnover.
03:51.676 –> 03:52.818
[SPEAKER_00]: The business was profitable.
03:53.679 –> 04:00.368
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then selling discs in boxes predominantly and that grew to 500 million in the space of about four and a half years.
04:00.508 –> 04:04.113
[SPEAKER_00]: While I was there, just bananas and a conscious of our time together.
04:04.253 –> 04:06.557
[SPEAKER_00]: So to sort of really what fueled that growth.
04:06.617 –> 04:08.299
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately,
04:08.279 –> 04:13.666
[SPEAKER_00]: combination of two things, the addressable market growing massively with people going from analog to digital.
04:13.686 –> 04:29.585
[SPEAKER_00]: People going straight to broadband not to dial up, you know, more via dial up, but also we managed to stay on top of that opportunity and not let Amazon our arch enemy at the time overtake the market share that we held onto and grew over that time, particularly in video and video games.
04:30.706 –> 04:32.348
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, absolutely loved it.
04:32.368 –> 04:37.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Really deep down as a
04:37.034 –> 04:44.665
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually met some incredible operators in that business that have gone on to do very amazing things in the commerce of those community.
04:45.226 –> 04:54.179
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of those sort of you have to ask in the early wild west of Econ when Google had just opened its sort of search advertising Facebook was only a social media platform.
04:54.199 –> 04:55.641
[SPEAKER_00]: You couldn’t advertise on et cetera.
04:55.701 –> 04:57.164
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, really good.
04:57.324 –> 05:01.590
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re say went off then to THG had a number of roles there.
05:01.570 –> 05:11.850
[SPEAKER_00]: actually then went sort of freelance and then met Jim Schalkers part of that journey and that’s brought me up to the growth foundation and I can tell you a bit more about that as and when during our time together.
05:12.016 –> 05:20.064
[SPEAKER_01]: So you, like me, got to play around in the early days where I think of e-commerce as being kind of like a crazy land grant.
05:20.124 –> 05:22.126
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, you know, every everyone was adopting.
05:22.447 –> 05:25.169
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Wild West, the consumers were just piling in.
05:25.209 –> 05:32.777
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we had to do clever things to keep growing and to keep selling, but nowadays with levels of competition, everything, I think it’s a lot harder.
05:33.277 –> 05:35.700
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think it’s changed a lot over that timespan?
05:35.740 –> 05:38.783
[SPEAKER_01]: How you go up the mechanics of growing a brand?
05:39.151 –> 05:42.354
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the principles and maybe we’ll get into them in our content in a minute.
05:43.055 –> 05:51.802
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there’s some that are evergreen and even with a similar paradigm shift, you could argue the AI has a similar world west feeling about it at the moment.
05:51.882 –> 05:52.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
05:52.483 –> 06:09.158
[SPEAKER_00]: I think even with those in place, those frameworks that I’ve, I suppose, spotted been part of putting in place or actually testing and learning through are applicable because I suppose it comes down to the execution channel as the things that are changing.
06:09.138 –> 06:11.383
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is tough for now.
06:11.543 –> 06:18.779
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose if I go back to those early days for us, Chloe, there was only, remember, looking at similar web data or the equivalent back then.
06:19.380 –> 06:23.529
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were like only, let’s say hundreds of sites with over a million visitors a year, right?
06:23.549 –> 06:24.852
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are now.
06:24.832 –> 06:26.094
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose tens of thousands.
06:26.114 –> 06:41.734
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it was just getting the early time right in terms of competition and particularly, again, if you remember technically, you had to have quite, I suppose, weapons grade development help to get any commerce site working to do millions of turnover, right?
06:42.275 –> 06:48.223
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you can go on to Shopify or other platforms and you can be trading within a couple of hours.
06:48.203 –> 06:52.971
[SPEAKER_00]: with a fully, very, actually with a very beautiful, kind of templated site, ready to go.
06:52.991 –> 06:58.480
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so the difficulty of actually connecting a payment gateway to a website, you know.
06:59.461 –> 07:08.896
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there’s about 20 tangents of PC IDSS implementation and and the mind-blowing thing of when Shopify came up.
07:08.936 –> 07:14.245
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ll give you just what I’m very quickly is to bring that to life
07:14.225 –> 07:15.407
[SPEAKER_00]: at Play.com, right?
07:15.427 –> 07:22.719
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were a department store for a friend’s team and actually interestingly, well over a million skews, not all in stock.
07:23.360 –> 07:30.532
[SPEAKER_00]: But that development team at the time around, sort of 500 million would have been around 100 people maintaining a high-briss environment.
07:31.093 –> 07:39.186
[SPEAKER_00]: And like a roll forward to Jim Sharp, for example, we were on Shopify, the IT team that was working with Shopify directly in a few partners, but it’s a team of four.
07:39.419 –> 07:40.640
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s mad, isn’t it?
07:40.660 –> 07:41.662
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s so mad.
07:43.083 –> 07:51.773
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I’m not gonna tangent on my tangents because we’ll be here for the rest of the episode just reminiscing, which as entertaining as that would be is not what everyone’s changing for, so.
07:52.674 –> 08:00.904
[SPEAKER_01]: Rich, what would you do is, if you were starting a new job as a CEO at an eight figure fashion brand, what would you do?
08:01.458 –> 08:04.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I’ve thought about this and actually replaying my experience.
08:04.962 –> 08:10.950
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve been to pretty much those business I mentioned play, the heart group and Jim Shock at that eight figure moment.
08:10.970 –> 08:15.876
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I thought about deconstructing this into the first 90 days, which I thought could be helpful for listeners.
08:16.096 –> 08:16.296
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
08:16.517 –> 08:29.693
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and I think there are five work streams that I would prioritise, but as a CEO, there are many more as we know to get into, but I think like truth is, is one
08:29.673 –> 08:36.383
[SPEAKER_00]: like the strategy, so what are the guiding rules and principles that everyone’s operating under and are they really clear everywhere?
08:36.463 –> 08:41.812
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, is there strategic clarity and narrative clarity everywhere on that?
08:42.493 –> 08:43.795
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s the truth about the customer?
08:43.915 –> 08:51.126
[SPEAKER_00]: As a marketer, obviously, I’ve been promoted to CEO, but I’m a marketer at heart, so obsessing about the customer and understanding that.
08:51.146 –> 08:54.972
[SPEAKER_00]: I’d want to know where we are on a talent and organization point of view.
08:54.952 –> 09:01.520
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I suppose operating leverage in terms of what are our, what’s the opportunity particularly now with AI and systems and those other things.
09:01.780 –> 09:05.965
[SPEAKER_00]: So they’re the kind of the five work streams I’m going to look at.
09:05.985 –> 09:09.108
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously they work across those sort of first 90 days really.
09:09.849 –> 09:10.090
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
09:10.110 –> 09:11.611
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s going backwards.
09:11.671 –> 09:19.120
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s operating leverage, talent and organization, truth of the customer, truth of strategy,
09:19.252 –> 09:30.284
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that’s what actually called truth as a work stream overall, because I think like there’s things like I’ve got them like you know financial truth like what’s going on there really key like channel and cohort truth.
09:30.424 –> 09:44.820
[SPEAKER_00]: So percentage of revenue is repeat versus knowing our cohorts, you know, what’s the Pareto is there a very concentrated percentage of customers like I’ve seen in many businesses like 5% of customers generate 30% of your revenue.
09:44.800 –> 10:02.549
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, getting to understand those things, you know, is it actually I suppose, and a product or channel truth, depending on this apparel business that I’ve now taken the leadership challenge on, is it distributed across TikTok shop Amazon, D to C and wholesale, or is it purely direct to consumer Shopify, right?
10:02.589 –> 10:06.235
[SPEAKER_00]: So is there a channel truth to understand?
10:06.215 –> 10:16.391
[SPEAKER_00]: quite often is there a hero skewer here a product line truth and quite often in the brands that I’ve worked with more recently that are in eight figures found of his visionary led still.
10:16.932 –> 10:26.006
[SPEAKER_00]: There is actually a hero product and quite often they’re getting distracted by newness and other things you’re like, hang on we need to really focus on the hero and we’ll be still haven’t really unlocked that.
10:26.026 –> 10:31.935
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s that truth obviously the organization truth and then those kind of things that’s quite kind of what I’m after in those truths.
10:32.472 –> 10:56.387
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the fact you start with those truths because I think it’s so easy to assume that when you come in in that high position in a big business, you take all that for granted and just start making decisions, but it’s that’s not the way to go about it, is it you need to actually make sure that when you’re looking at an apple, it’s an apple, when you’re looking at a pair, it’s a pair and so on and therefore you’ve actually got those accurate stuff.
10:56.890 –> 11:22.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and even, and I’m sure you’re the same client, I meet a number of, I say, eight figure founders or investors or senior leisure teams, and still the vast majority are still arguing about the truth or actually revenue, like net revenue yesterday, you know, excluding returns, cancellations, tax VAT, Shopify will have its own slightly unique algorithm of what it calls sales.
11:22.473 –> 11:33.229
[SPEAKER_00]: The finance system has a slightly different view of that and actually getting it and I was understanding where some of these untruths are really quickly and that really helps.
11:33.249 –> 11:40.359
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’d imagine actually look, if you’ve got an opportunity to join a CEO, this might be day minus 30 as you’re sort of a preparing to start, right?
11:40.379 –> 11:44.065
[SPEAKER_00]: You’d start to immerse on these and get to know the business and things like that.
11:44.105 –> 11:44.986
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that’s really key.
11:45.006 –> 11:48.852
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, on the financial
11:49.321 –> 12:10.587
[SPEAKER_00]: the contribution margin and one of the things that we do, or I’ve got into the habit of doing, is grouping or lining contribution margin is the different sort of aspects, sections, I suppose, down the PNL as it were, I’m trying to think it would be a better word for it, but yeah, you’ve got gross cost of goods, and then that GP1, GP2, I look at that as brand, so any sort of more fixed.
12:10.651 –> 12:26.532
[SPEAKER_00]: mid to upper funnel investment, GP3 sort of variable performance marketing, GP4 trading costs to acquire the customer at the point of sale, and you put potentially your payment processing fees in there, but it could be a rent for a shop or the license fee for Shopify in there as well.
12:27.253 –> 12:40.270
[SPEAKER_00]: Ops, you know, outbound fulfillment, you know GP5, then GP6 overhead, so you look at all those different bandings, right the way down to GP7, final ones, what salary, and you can get
12:40.250 –> 12:46.818
[SPEAKER_00]: great particularly D to C businesses have brilliant GP one right where you’ve got I’m feeling all that great charging.
12:47.639 –> 12:51.663
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting again, go back to my play in early THG days.
12:52.284 –> 13:01.555
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, GP one would be like 35, 40% which you know, again, shows you how cheap it was to acquire customers in the early days as well, right, compared to what it is now.
13:01.775 –> 13:02.956
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so nice.
13:02.976 –> 13:03.757
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that would be one.
13:03.857 –> 13:07.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we spoke a bit about the sort of cohort tree.
13:07.361 –> 13:09.784
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, looking at customer
13:10.068 –> 13:19.707
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think organization treats really interesting one and conscious again, we could probably spend an hour talking about this, but I just meet a lot of again, those sort of eight figure.
13:19.838 –> 13:43.838
[SPEAKER_00]: sort of early eight figure brands where you’ve got founder and again, so it’s like early loyalists who are friends, family, sort of founder, centric decision making around all design and actually that’s an interesting thing to have to fix or manage in terms of how do we upskill the operating horsepower or capacity of the team but also keep some of this loyalist in place, you know, that’s really interesting dynamic.
13:43.818 –> 13:55.816
[SPEAKER_00]: is a true ownership of the P&L where actually one of the things I mentioned when we were together last as like particularly with AI and the pace of decision-making actually where is the power of attorney and agency in the business?
13:56.337 –> 13:59.301
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it truly a performance market’s desk or that?
13:59.321 –> 14:02.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Does it go back to the finance director every day for example, right?
14:02.166 –> 14:05.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Just understanding that but yeah that’s that’s first 30 days truth.
14:06.008 –> 14:17.855
[SPEAKER_01]: all about the trees and it’s, I like the fact that you’ve included both the metrics, the numbers, which I was going to say called the hard and fast numbers, but as we’ve just gone through, they’re not necessarily hard and fast.
14:17.875 –> 14:20.741
[SPEAKER_01]: They should be, but you’ve got to find that tree and get them solid.
14:21.102 –> 14:25.452
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got that kind of the black and white of the numbers, but you’ve also got that soft decide of.
14:25.432 –> 14:27.856
[SPEAKER_01]: does everyone actually think we’re doing the same thing?
14:27.896 –> 14:35.827
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there, you know, confusion at the board table of what we’re actually here to be, are we a retailer or are we an online store?
14:35.867 –> 14:46.022
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we a marketplace and all that kind of cultural values but kind of even harder than culture and values side of things that needs to be outlined.
14:46.458 –> 15:09.637
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and this is a perfect segue actually into my next sort of month month two, which is actually, once you’ve looked at the truths and sort of captured them, I think even if there is, let’s say, strategic alignment, but codifying it and then creating a system or a way of becoming a broken record and a consistent narrator of strategy throughout the business is really, really key.
15:09.677 –> 15:10.558
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
15:10.538 –> 15:23.377
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve got a framework, the great foundation that we’ve developed and actually look, I bumped into different sort of strategy frameworks and things throughout the last particularly 10 to 15 years and I’ve sort of grabbed the best bits from all of them and pulled them up.
15:23.938 –> 15:35.095
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, situation capturing what’s happening now and being brutally honest is first one, both strategically I suppose macro what’s going on in the market, everything else, especially internally.
15:35.075 –> 15:36.616
[SPEAKER_00]: strengths and weaknesses and things like that.
15:36.917 –> 15:43.442
[SPEAKER_00]: The vision and mission, so again, why does the brand-up permission or the company of permission to exist is really key for us all to remember?
15:44.183 –> 16:04.440
[SPEAKER_00]: An objective, capturing that, which actually is very much a quantitative process of how much by when, and that’s not just like revenue and an EBITDA or contribution, but also some of the softer things like maybe customer satisfaction, employees satisfaction, sentiment and other things
16:04.420 –> 16:22.581
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the way we deconstruct the strategic choices here is actually a phenomenal PNG or Proxer and Grable Framework, which is where to play and how to win and you might have bumped into that before Chloe, but it’s a lovely way of like sort of the symbiosis between the rational choices you have to make strategically in the emotional ones and you say the hard and soft so
16:22.561 –> 16:29.509
[SPEAKER_00]: in the way to play, and anyone listening, I’d look at this through for your own businesses, you know, who is the target audience?
16:29.529 –> 16:32.453
[SPEAKER_00]: We mentioned about obsessing about that, which I’ll come onto.
16:32.493 –> 16:48.552
[SPEAKER_00]: The product that you make, so you know, a customer product, the channel you sell through and the geography you’re in, and you can make, obviously you could say, I’m going to be to every customer, we’re going to make every product in all channels, in all countries,
16:48.532 –> 16:54.338
[SPEAKER_00]: the skills, the capital, and the sort of limited resources you have a business probably won’t succeed, if you went, let’s just do everything.
16:55.058 –> 17:08.271
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s then coming down to how do we choose should we be, you know, as you say, when do we launch a new country, when do we launch into TikTok shop or not, become quite interesting strategic choices on the where to play?
17:08.331 –> 17:18.201
[SPEAKER_00]: And then how to win comes after once you’ve got the confidence in that where to play is the way the almost other way you act
17:18.181 –> 17:22.106
[SPEAKER_00]: the offer architecture and it’s own right, which I look at as being, okay, what is the brand?
17:22.146 –> 17:25.650
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there some heroic myth or story we can tell how unique is the product?
17:26.491 –> 17:29.735
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there an irresistible call-to-action that we can create?
17:29.755 –> 17:30.996
[SPEAKER_00]: Which doesn’t necessarily mean discount.
17:31.036 –> 17:32.718
[SPEAKER_00]: It means it could be scarcity or something.
17:32.758 –> 17:36.062
[SPEAKER_00]: It just makes people act today and then social proof.
17:36.082 –> 17:39.126
[SPEAKER_00]: And all those kind of, it’s then like the how and also
17:39.106 –> 17:42.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve where I’ve helped influence and build these strategies with other brands.
17:43.630 –> 17:54.180
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a true ability to point them externally to customers and they work, kind of this how-to-win sort of set of rules, but also internally in terms of how we behave as people it works as well.
17:54.580 –> 18:09.113
[SPEAKER_00]: If that makes sense, like it, there’s a real kind of blurring of that internal external in terms of the way the brand behaves and how to win within those choices you make.
18:09.093 –> 18:15.683
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose that all the limits test for me is as if you can ask a new recruit, you know, does it matter any level?
18:15.883 –> 18:16.584
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s the objective?
18:16.604 –> 18:17.125
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do we play?
18:17.145 –> 18:17.646
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we win?
18:17.686 –> 18:20.610
[SPEAKER_00]: And they play back something like, you know, 90% accurate.
18:20.630 –> 18:21.351
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re in a good place.
18:22.093 –> 18:32.969
[SPEAKER_00]: And if, obviously, around the boardroom or the senior leadership team, if you’re getting different answers, then there’s probably, as a CEO, you’ve got to do some serious work around strategic alignment in the leadership, right?
18:33.149 –> 18:33.750
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s really key.
18:33.916 –> 18:46.340
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re talking about this as what you would do as the CEO started in New Job, but both at month one and even more importantly, the month to activity, this isn’t used squirled away in your quarter office, working things out.
18:46.360 –> 18:48.203
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it this is a whole company project?
18:48.905 –> 18:49.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
18:49.225 –> 18:53.173
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and depending on the size and complexity of that, it may be that there are
18:53.609 –> 19:11.010
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe it’s not a whole company, but very much a not an insular, you know, as you say, squirled away in the corner office, you’ve got to understand, particularly I suppose, in that first month, like just getting everywhere and actually into the warehouse, get to the manufacturer, get as much truth as you can, I think is really key.
19:10.990 –> 19:38.652
[SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose there is probably a little bit more remote synthesis in the strategy because you probably have a view, if you’ll see, but actually making sure if you let’s say create a draft in terms of, I think this is our where to plan how to win, going get that tested and challenged across the business actually from, you say, from junior all the way to senior levels around and find out, particularly potentially you might think as a CEO, actually we’ve opened a a new market, for example, you know, let’s say you’re 100% direct to consumer,
19:39.070 –> 19:51.014
[SPEAKER_00]: You’ve got 80% of your sales in the UK and let’s say that 20% long-tow is 30 countries and the comb team are distracted positively by launching a French website or something else, right?
19:51.495 –> 19:55.864
[SPEAKER_00]: You can actually, is that the best use of how much energy is spending that’s using half your week to create?
19:55.844 –> 19:57.947
[SPEAKER_00]: 5% revenue should we put that?
19:57.967 –> 20:00.271
[SPEAKER_00]: 50% of your time back into driving the UK more.
20:00.291 –> 20:15.895
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there might be some interesting challenges you’ve got and quite often I’ve seen them sometimes they’re linked to people’s bonuses and incentives, which is particularly around channel conflict, retail versus D to C and there’s all sorts of things going on there isn’t there to unpack.
20:16.263 –> 20:17.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, how much to unpack?
20:17.805 –> 20:28.015
[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess that’s why you’ve got to spend that first month trying out and cover as much truth as possible, because then as you start building the strategy, you start to then, it’s a lot easier to find the conflicts and the issues.
20:28.295 –> 20:29.016
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, completely.
20:29.096 –> 20:45.612
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think so often when people here say, oh, we’re going to create a strategy and announce it to the team, they think it should be this big kind of wow surprise moment, but in the way you build a strategy and in what the actual strategy is, I found it’s often more likely to be a,
20:45.592 –> 20:55.747
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that’s not unexpected, you know, it’s always like if you announce the strategy to the company and everybody’s shocked or surprised, then you’ve probably got it wrong because it should be kind of obvious in some ways.
20:56.227 –> 21:00.714
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and often my experience is usually doing less but doing it better.
21:00.754 –> 21:10.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s usually what I find happens around the eight figures because it’s just sort of got a bit distracted and not kind of really focused in on that.
21:10.729 –> 21:14.434
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the other thing
21:14.414 –> 21:21.767
[SPEAKER_00]: actually creating a KPI around measuring the recall of the strategic propaganda in the business.
21:21.907 –> 21:38.937
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I’ve been in another senior roles in other businesses using a sort of a PR tactic, which is like, you might get a question from a colleague or a co-worker and then reframing a question back that includes the strategy to say, oh, yeah, because either in your apply,
21:38.917 –> 21:46.434
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is this, and that’s because our worth of plays just constantly referring back to it to get it into the muscle memory of the business.
21:46.834 –> 21:54.411
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think you said, called it the consistent narrator of strategy, which I think is so critical isn’t that you have to keep reminding everybody.
21:54.931 –> 21:55.372
[SPEAKER_00]: correct.
21:55.432 –> 21:56.454
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
21:56.474 –> 21:59.619
[SPEAKER_00]: And you find again, I’ve been, I’ve previously been quite a few different organizations.
21:59.659 –> 22:06.872
[SPEAKER_00]: You find sometimes you get natural narrators as CEO’s are in the leadership team and sometimes there isn’t a natural narrator.
22:07.032 –> 22:13.143
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s again, sometimes you can find other individuals in the organization that seem to have a impact and influence and relationship with the organization.
22:13.163 –> 22:18.593
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, might be one of those legacy loyalists have been there, OG employee for.
22:18.573 –> 22:38.026
[SPEAKER_00]: they can be really impactful on getting them on board on narration of where we’re going because obviously the trust has been built or you know always a case you have to proactively engineer it into particularly leadership roles is that that you know strategic clarity is part of a KPI a soft KPI is aware right for for that team.
22:38.627 –> 22:42.353
[SPEAKER_01]: So month three what comes next after
22:42.704 –> 22:48.072
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think well there’s particularly probably now I’ve got a bit of understanding of talent truth and things like that.
22:48.092 –> 22:54.441
[SPEAKER_00]: So looking at then is the organization designed for sort of scale or in future scale or survival.
22:54.762 –> 23:03.615
[SPEAKER_00]: So quite often at eight figures I find typically under investment in CRM and I’ll bump into that probably a few times in our conversation today.
23:03.595 –> 23:09.763
[SPEAKER_00]: dedicated obsession on customer insight and customer relationship management to build LTV.
23:10.364 –> 23:23.461
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose the interesting one here, as well as the nuance around if the founder is still in the business like in your CEO working through a really understanding decision-making governance of who’s doing what is really interesting.
23:24.242 –> 23:25.283
[SPEAKER_00]: That might be the
23:25.263 –> 23:38.425
[SPEAKER_00]: the founder becoming more non-executive and floating around and impacting brandy products and customer and things like that, or versus, you know, the real operating daily pulse of the business that would be really key.
23:39.106 –> 23:46.258
[SPEAKER_00]: And typically what I would look at doing in that them, I’d be like future gazing into what is the organization need to look like a twice our revenue now.
23:46.238 –> 23:49.342
[SPEAKER_00]: and then working right where are the major gaps?
23:49.362 –> 23:51.485
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do we have to prioritise right in terms of that?
23:52.165 –> 23:55.610
[SPEAKER_00]: And being very pragmatic around look I can’t tie up all our working capital.
23:55.770 –> 24:00.115
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like to buy stock and demand with by putting another 30 people in for example, right?
24:00.135 –> 24:06.323
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to be very pragmatic but getting a sense of what does that organization look like if we’re twice as big?
24:06.303 –> 24:08.507
[SPEAKER_00]: and on the current run rate, how quickly is that?
24:08.567 –> 24:12.594
[SPEAKER_00]: So kind of really had 12 to 24 months horizon on that would be really key.
24:13.375 –> 24:28.260
[SPEAKER_00]: The thermo cash and working capital disciplines are making sure all over the inventory, mark down production lead times, margin guide, guardrails, and I suppose back then he has been making any changes if that, if the businesses, let’s say we come that would be really key.
24:28.983 –> 24:48.088
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing I suppose is getting out to that understanding if you’ve got the strategy set and happy, you can then think about the execution of that strategy and I suppose particularly now more than ever where is it appropriate for an AI to all or system or ways of working to help increase product, productivity or
24:48.068 –> 24:53.554
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we get, you know, is it much more, I suppose, utilising brand and creative, for example, are we using more influential and planning?
24:53.574 –> 25:03.945
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m sure there are opportunities, of course, the whole business around where it can be used, and how it could be leveraged, so I’d be thinking about that in particular, in tandem with the talent organisation piece, as well, yeah.
25:04.485 –> 25:15.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I suppose that having your vision of where the company is going to go, but also the vision of where the organisation of the people is going to go, you know, what that structured chart looks like when you’ve doubled.
25:15.625 –> 25:30.723
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s not just about hiring, or AI, these days, that’s also about who you developed to get into which role, because you’ve got a time window until you get there of, I think, Sukey could actually become a head of marketing, but she needs this, this, this, and this done.
25:30.743 –> 25:40.654
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the time you get to month to, end of month to, and you’re in to month three, you’ve got some idea of who the stars are in the business, who are the best cultural fits, and all those elements and how you can keep them.
25:41.174 –> 25:57.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’ve done that in a few other organizations been in where you’d find those, that’s a really high potential, like all kinds of high horsepower people, and given them actually, they’re often leaning in high bias fraction, problem solving, and actually, you know, some of those more.
25:57.222 –> 26:15.501
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose things you don’t quite get to on the to-do list that’s still with very much within the strategy, you know, can say like a special project, like one of you get together as a group and actually cost functionally, they may not be, get them to own a task or a project that isn’t maybe in their core discipline, but you’re helping progress their skill outside of their core discipline as well, so you get, you know, perhaps a,
26:15.481 –> 26:31.505
[SPEAKER_00]: ahead of finance, you know, seeing your performance, marketing manager and a campaignman, whatever, to get together and go, right, we’ve got a problem around our returns rate, fix, you know, whatever, right, and you’ve got smart people from different places thinking about that holistically from just instead of just an operational challenge, for example, right?
26:32.105 –> 26:37.894
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other one that’s really key actually in this third week, sorry, third month, now you’ve got that strategic.
26:37.874 –> 26:40.258
[SPEAKER_00]: and third week it could be because it was like that doesn’t it?
26:40.278 –> 26:42.341
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that’s an A like all isn’t it?
26:42.761 –> 26:56.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and actually anyone listening, I’m sure as we all work in e-commerce, perhaps when we look around our peer and friend group, we realise a day in e-commerce is a week in anyone else’s life, like they generally are dog days aren’t they?
26:56.943 –> 26:57.684
[SPEAKER_00]: in our industry.
26:58.205 –> 27:08.359
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the governance and decision cadence as well, like, you know, weekly trading monthly strategic reviews or quarterly, also, what’s the right operating cadence for the business?
27:08.640 –> 27:13.206
[SPEAKER_00]: And does it need to flex around peak moments or launches and things like that?
27:13.226 –> 27:15.930
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, I’ve been in business where there’s a very-
27:16.417 –> 27:36.882
[SPEAKER_00]: I so standard sets of let’s say campaign ideation on a monthly basis, but actually when you get to peak intensive periods, perhaps in Q4, that’s actually a daily stand-up, which is around blockers and it just flexing, making sure we’ve got real clarity of, again, why we meet the objectives of the meeting, how frequent, are they valuable and keeping really on top of that?
27:36.942 –> 27:45.613
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, meetings can be a material time suck when you start to get into large
27:45.779 –> 27:56.381
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I totally get what you mean, holding on to the same meeting structure you had in year one when you’ve got to make figures is probably a bad idea, but Richard, I love that three month breakdown.
27:56.541 –> 27:58.105
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect many of our listeners are going right.
27:58.145 –> 28:00.209
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re doing this as of next week.
28:00.269 –> 28:03.516
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re just going to do it ourselves and sort it out, fix all these problems.
28:03.556 –> 28:06.943
[SPEAKER_01]: This time of year is a great time to be doing it, but
28:06.923 –> 28:10.909
[SPEAKER_01]: You are, as you said, a marketer at heart, your greater growth.
28:11.109 –> 28:12.972
[SPEAKER_01]: So an extra question for you.
28:13.012 –> 28:22.285
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were a CMO at an e-commerce store this year, what would be the key things going into your marketing team?
28:22.566 –> 28:24.208
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you have them working on this year?
28:24.228 –> 28:25.770
[SPEAKER_01]: Would it be a CRM focus?
28:25.810 –> 28:31.338
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you be diving into TikTok shop and channels doubling down on meta?
28:31.679 –> 28:34.483
[SPEAKER_01]: What would your recipe, if I can ask?
28:34.683 –> 28:46.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, it’s so hard because I suppose one of the things I always think about if I depending on the financial health of the business, I suppose again I’ve put this on a spectrum of is the business in wartime.
28:46.760 –> 29:01.821
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know where it might be thinking or we’ve got a cash wrong way of x and we might struggle to pay our team in a few months’ time or are you at the other end in peace time where you’ve got really amazing working capital
29:01.801 –> 29:14.341
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re in the more in the piece-time side of the world, I think having a test budget around either incremental 20% on top of what you’re responding to tests, those different things, Chloe’s absolutely brilliant.
29:14.802 –> 29:18.108
[SPEAKER_00]: And she’s really exciting for the team again, perhaps the work cross-functionally around.
29:18.688 –> 29:21.373
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve got some money for demand and awareness creation.
29:22.174 –> 29:24.778
[SPEAKER_00]: What are those new and emotion channels that we can go and test and try?
29:24.859 –> 29:27.623
[SPEAKER_00]: So is it
29:27.603 –> 29:32.189
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, I’m like a remnant snatch deal on above the line posters.
29:32.910 –> 29:37.396
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sorry, you know, our home posters on the underground that I’ve managed to get and can be just thinking about that.
29:37.816 –> 29:46.147
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose testing and learning, I suppose principle of particularly probably if you’ve got to ape figures, that’s probably it’s part of the business of why it’s got there.
29:46.808 –> 29:48.891
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you apply that to new and emerging channels?
29:49.272 –> 29:51.855
[SPEAKER_00]: I always put, I suppose.
29:52.325 –> 29:55.588
[SPEAKER_00]: extra confidence and investment into CRM.
29:55.808 –> 29:57.049
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the more you can do there.
29:57.109 –> 30:01.353
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, AI is doing a great job of helping do more at scale.
30:01.373 –> 30:04.136
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s pacing that function or in that channel.
30:04.776 –> 30:05.977
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s definitely something there.
30:06.138 –> 30:11.262
[SPEAKER_00]: I think never underestimate the power of actually just meeting your customers.
30:11.823 –> 30:20.931
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, one of the things I’ve spot off and if we’ve listened to PURPAD to see listeners and hear of Chloe, is that I often ask who’s your top customer and they go, oh, I don’t know.
30:20.911 –> 30:21.872
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, who are you top 10?
30:22.012 –> 30:24.716
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don’t know the name, they don’t know where they live, they don’t know anything about them.
30:25.357 –> 30:34.670
[SPEAKER_00]: So, spending some time actually either talking or interacting with customers at ideally in different value segments, so very valuable, you know, medium value, low value.
30:34.750 –> 30:35.751
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, what’s going on?
30:35.951 –> 30:36.552
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you buy it?
30:36.672 –> 30:37.153
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don’t you?
30:37.353 –> 30:38.034
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you buying?
30:38.655 –> 30:40.257
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just getting to know them.
30:40.297 –> 30:47.166
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s so much comes from those little conversations you can have around a piece or an a beer or some other thing you could do with them relative to your brand.
30:47.287 –> 30:49.129
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ll be doing that for sure.
30:49.109 –> 31:01.125
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that comes straight to mind, and of course, experimenting with productivity through AI and seeing where that gain is, is it on content production, is it on analytics?
31:01.165 –> 31:02.266
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sure you’ve seen these clearer as well.
31:02.286 –> 31:08.655
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see there are a lot of power if you can connect truth into these systems to help you make decisions quicker.
31:11.839 –> 31:18.508
[SPEAKER_02]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
31:24.631 –> 31:29.679
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s time for the top tips round.
31:29.699 –> 31:34.987
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
31:35.067 –> 31:36.669
[SPEAKER_01]: Rich, are you ready for the top tips?
31:37.290 –> 31:38.332
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, go for it.
31:38.352 –> 31:39.514
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.
31:39.634 –> 31:46.825
[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?
31:47.092 –> 31:56.225
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, but it’s really difficult to choose one, but the one that I find most of my people I talk to haven’t read is The Hidden Persuaders by Events Packard.
31:57.147 –> 32:07.682
[SPEAKER_00]: Written in the 60s, Events was a consumer psychologist that worked for the Madison Avenue ad agencies, and it’s a brilliant thing around psychological depth of
32:07.662 –> 32:12.367
[SPEAKER_00]: like how cognitive bias, consciously and subconsciously works on decision-making.
32:13.028 –> 32:27.424
[SPEAKER_00]: So, very quick story and I’m conscious of time, but there’s a really good example of this that one section in the book talks about ad agency were approached by a big chocolate company in the U.S., and they would ask to design like the full packaging, the pricing, architecture, absolutely everything.
32:28.044 –> 32:34.311
[SPEAKER_00]: And they counterintuitively fall as a low-espendring power consumers,
32:34.291 –> 32:40.017
[SPEAKER_00]: The packaging was really, let’s say, opulent lots of bows and foil and ribbons, and you can’t see the chocolate.
32:40.678 –> 32:48.246
[SPEAKER_00]: And then for the highest-bending power cohort of target audience, it’s all about having clear and open chocolates that you can see the chocolate inside.
32:48.286 –> 32:50.288
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s still true today.
32:50.328 –> 32:53.371
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at like a five-pound box of chocolates, you can’t see inside them.
32:53.911 –> 32:55.173
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s very nice box.
32:55.333 –> 32:58.456
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the expensive chocolate you’re actually looking at the products inside.
32:58.516 –> 33:01.459
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s this live perception of my giving this a gift, this is for myself.
33:01.539 –> 33:04.062
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a lovely things in this book around.
33:04.042 –> 33:13.410
[SPEAKER_00]: your offer architecture and thinking of some of the more subconscious decisions that customers make around status and what it says about them and their needs is amazing.
33:14.011 –> 33:14.671
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
33:14.692 –> 33:24.821
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven’t come across that one and I think as a marketer, you can’t ever read too many books on consumer psychology because it hasn’t changed.
33:24.881 –> 33:26.042
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s how we’re hard-wired.
33:26.062 –> 33:33.188
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s a game when you think about AI and all the other kind of big, again, where we’re
33:33.370 –> 33:48.330
[SPEAKER_00]: We still act, I think, unless we’ve all got AI chips in our heads or anything else, but we still act in, actually, there’s a brilliant, my second book on there was thinking fast and slow by any camera right, which is that, again, conscious, slow thinking brain versus the fast subconscious brain.
33:48.350 –> 33:51.074
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s linked to Vans Packard’s one very much.
33:51.594 –> 33:58.163
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it will still be wanting our posh chocolate visibly and our cheap chocolates wrapped in boxes.
33:58.396 –> 34:01.420
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, or particularly, I’m now the CEO of an apparel brand.
34:01.660 –> 34:06.126
[SPEAKER_00]: What the apparel brand says about me was on walking round or when I look at myself in the mirror, right?
34:06.246 –> 34:09.891
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s some interesting things that can consciously subconsciously.
34:10.451 –> 34:11.292
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, right.
34:12.033 –> 34:18.902
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
34:19.102 –> 34:20.484
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mentioned Sierra Merleus.
34:20.504 –> 34:21.826
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m not going to leverage that one again.
34:22.507 –> 34:26.993
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been a big fan of my whole career actually on remnant above the line inventory.
34:27.694 –> 34:29.597
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s some amazing deals to do.
34:29.657 –> 34:34.364
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can approach a media owner directly and say, look, I’ve got artwork ready.
34:34.885 –> 34:38.850
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can phone me once a week or tell me what you’ve got left over, I can pick that.
34:38.870 –> 34:45.480
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can usually get deals as good as 10 to 30p on the pound at full rate card.
34:45.460 –> 34:52.111
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, during my play.com days and at the hot group in particular, where we used to get marketing co-op from brands.
34:52.712 –> 34:57.020
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s an amazing arbitrage opportunity there, where we would go out and buy remnant tree.
34:57.080 –> 35:00.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s say remnant at 30 pence and the rate card is at 100, right?
35:01.007 –> 35:03.030
[SPEAKER_00]: You can imagine that, and we used to buy…
35:03.010 –> 35:23.263
[SPEAKER_00]: tens of millions of eyeballs at a 70% discount from the rate, just but then the flexibility is then knowing I can’t plan it exactly around the start day end day but I’ve still got that access to the consumer and focus on the frequency so yeah there’s amazing opportunities in particularly our home audio TV still if you’re in that remnant space.
35:23.513 –> 35:30.109
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve having started my career in mail order, huge fan of remnant stuff and remnant above the line.
35:30.349 –> 35:42.197
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know though, the strangest thing I have never been approached for a last minute deal on podcast sponsorship or email newsletter advertising at the risk of being out being bombarded with it.
35:42.177 –> 35:42.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:42.958 –> 35:44.900
[SPEAKER_01]: No one has ever gone, Chloe.
35:45.321 –> 35:47.243
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there’s ads we ran two months ago.
35:47.263 –> 35:50.727
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a space later this year, what could you do it for?
35:51.028 –> 35:52.670
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it expires.
35:52.690 –> 35:55.553
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s just like the magazine industry or the side of a bus shelter.
35:55.954 –> 35:56.895
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know how you feel as well.
35:56.935 –> 36:01.360
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s interestingly that again, I don’t think I’ve been probably in the last 10 to 15 years.
36:01.460 –> 36:11.172
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s very rare for me to go into an eight figure brand and find an individual with any traditional above the line or non-digital buying experience.
36:11.152 –> 36:22.347
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think even with a prep potentially immediate buying partner and attempt to focus on remnant, they still get a commission and they’re so much opportunity and again, I think some of the upsides of why would you do it by the line?
36:23.188 –> 36:34.003
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a still has a trust and again, there’s a brilliant thing, you know, when I think a few years back when Facebook had to apologise around a scandal of some kind of, you know, they use billboards and newspaper ads to do it.
36:34.220 –> 36:34.921
[SPEAKER_00]: because we trust it.
36:35.242 –> 36:36.684
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, exactly.
36:36.724 –> 37:00.683
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a brilliant trust, and it does bring you out from the other, let’s say, I’m going to call everyone, you know, bedroom operators, that’s not appropriate, but there’s a sense of you in the real world, suddenly becomes, there’s something, again, coming back to our conscious psychology of a consumer, oh, you’ve turned up here, you know, why banks used to build big monolithic, columns, buildings at the end of high streets is because it’s around trust, and similar thing works there in the media choice.
37:01.000 –> 37:03.565
[SPEAKER_01]: are completely a tool-top tip then.
37:03.665 –> 37:07.813
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone up or just a way of working.
37:07.933 –> 37:12.301
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a call little tool you use that makes you and your team at more efficient from day to day?
37:12.361 –> 37:17.892
[SPEAKER_00]: These aren’t tools predominantly, but ways of kind of build a bit more productivity for myself.
37:17.932 –> 37:22.300
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think turning off all notifications while you’re at work.
37:22.567 –> 37:28.376
[SPEAKER_00]: except maybe VIP, but the ease of getting distracted by a ping or a ding or anything else absolutely key.
37:28.916 –> 37:30.058
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s an amazing feature.
37:30.118 –> 37:32.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in the Apple ecosystem now.
37:32.041 –> 37:33.744
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve done for the last sort of 10 years.
37:33.764 –> 37:35.747
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if you are you in Apple as well.
37:35.927 –> 37:37.609
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m not an app owner.
37:37.629 –> 37:46.903
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the Apple ecosystem there is a thing called text replace where you can put a shortcut on your keyboard and it can replace it with any text.
37:46.883 –> 37:54.932
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve got probably 30 different like just at and then three letters and it can replace the thing I type quite frequently.
37:54.952 –> 38:16.317
[SPEAKER_00]: I think generally over the last five years I’ve saved a week of my work in life by not having to copy, paste manual, type these things out and it can be things like email addresses, maps, instructions for X, things like that and calendar link
38:16.769 –> 38:18.031
[SPEAKER_01]: love those kind of tools.
38:18.172 –> 38:24.524
[SPEAKER_01]: I have one myself in my PC world called Type Desk, which has whole emails.
38:25.105 –> 38:25.446
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
38:26.387 –> 38:29.413
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can insert them with two character hits on the keyboard.
38:29.433 –> 38:33.040
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s just like alt C and up it pops.
38:33.020 –> 38:34.423
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I’ve been a bit of a minor raises.
38:34.603 –> 38:37.951
[SPEAKER_00]: So like exclamation mark, whatever the next, like three letters or whatever.
38:38.131 –> 38:38.312
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
38:38.332 –> 38:39.194
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s really key.
38:39.735 –> 38:48.594
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other one, I spend a lot of time in spreadsheets, obviously as a more sort of commercial analytical marketer, um, two things that drive me crazy, merge cells.
38:48.835 –> 38:49.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Don’t merge cells.
38:51.008 –> 38:52.532
[SPEAKER_00]: and learn keyboard shortcuts.
38:52.712 –> 39:04.260
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the speed of very quick story about school, I did a when I grew up, I was in the late 80s and only 90s, like going through secondary school and yeah, there were four computers at school, but I had a guy that taught us like XL1.
39:05.142 –> 39:07.768
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn’t have any mice on the computer.
39:07.748 –> 39:31.697
[SPEAKER_00]: everything was lent by keyboard and you can see where I’m showing spreadsheets to other colleagues or people that like see me work the keyboard moving around the spreadsheets a bit like oh my god hating that instead of holding the mouse on the scroll to the right-hand side and it takes 30 seconds to get to the outside I can go straight to the other end of the table in a keystroke or hatch to that so honestly it’s bending half hour learning keyboard shortcuts in x-hour or google
39:31.913 –> 39:37.980
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also like your little plea to anyone working with you to not merge the cells in a spreadsheet.
39:38.000 –> 39:40.023
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, I see a merge now.
39:40.223 –> 39:43.707
[SPEAKER_01]: I completely concur with all your recommendations there, Rich.
39:43.727 –> 39:47.872
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that merge cell features should be like admin level switch on or offable.
39:47.892 –> 39:57.263
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
39:57.580 –> 39:58.962
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m with you.
39:59.782 –> 40:00.924
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the carbon top tip.
40:00.944 –> 40:04.568
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
40:05.229 –> 40:12.317
[SPEAKER_00]: This one actually came up really struggling to be crazy because obviously I’m rail running an agency business and we’re pretty light on carbon and all those things.
40:12.337 –> 40:15.200
[SPEAKER_00]: You don’t print it if you’re and I’ll think you’re getting, got it.
40:15.520 –> 40:26.693
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve been working over the last six months actually on a lot of subscription supplements businesses looking at, you know, I’m doing commercial due diligence for investment
40:26.673 –> 40:43.804
[SPEAKER_00]: impact also a commercial benefit so this is a double win on shipping quarterly instead of monthly so a quarterly supply on a quarterly basis so you know it’s three times as less or you know the packaging the fuel all those things slightly heavier package
40:43.784 –> 40:47.330
[SPEAKER_00]: but in terms of cardboard uses and everything else, like no brainer.
40:47.690 –> 40:58.387
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually what you look like, commercially, when I do my LTV analysis over these cohorts that are on the three months, they’re typically worth more money, over the same period of time than a monthly subscriber as well.
40:59.048 –> 41:01.713
[SPEAKER_01]: So that would be… Love that one, thank you Rich.
41:01.773 –> 41:07.041
[SPEAKER_01]: Now before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know how they can get in contact with you and your business?
41:07.409 –> 41:08.170
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.
41:08.190 –> 41:10.714
[SPEAKER_00]: For it, the growth.foundation is our website.
41:10.734 –> 41:14.681
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a form there on the foot of the page, but you can also find me on LinkedIn.
41:14.801 –> 41:16.564
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m just forward slash Richard Chapel.
41:17.305 –> 41:19.709
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’m looking forward to hearing from you guys.
41:19.729 –> 41:24.076
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m very open by the way for any questions or ideas or anything you want to know, please feel free to drop me a line.
41:24.337 –> 41:24.597
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
41:24.617 –> 41:26.460
[SPEAKER_01]: Rits, thank you so much for coming on the show.
41:26.480 –> 41:30.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you giving us all a ton of stuff to think about, which I love.
41:30.046 –> 41:31.388
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much for being here.
41:31.929 –> 41:32.590
[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.
41:38.172 –> 41:40.175
[SPEAKER_01]: always a treat to catch up with Rich.
41:40.236 –> 41:42.179
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do I summarize that?
41:42.259 –> 41:46.807
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s what would you do if you were starting a new job as CEO at a Nate figure fashion brand?
41:47.608 –> 41:51.716
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the way he split it down into what you do in each of the first three months.
41:51.776 –> 42:01.092
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, finding that truth, the truth and the numbers, the truth and the strategy, the truth in how the business is operating and how everyone is kind of culturally aligned.
42:01.072 –> 42:17.916
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, month two, getting into strategic alignment, both working out what the strategy should be, and then becoming that consistent narrator of strategy, obsessing about the customer and working out where to play and how to win, and then making sure everybody is on board with that and kind of living and breathing it.
42:17.896 –> 42:23.623
[SPEAKER_01]: And then month three, start looking at, is the organization designed to scale?
42:23.643 –> 42:24.965
[SPEAKER_01]: You now know what your strategy is.
42:25.005 –> 42:29.831
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, now know you’ve got the numbers and the truth throughout the business.
42:30.592 –> 42:33.536
[SPEAKER_01]: So how are you gonna go about doing that scale?
42:33.997 –> 42:36.820
[SPEAKER_01]: Organizationally, has there been enough investment in the CRM?
42:37.682 –> 42:40.145
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have clarity on your customer insights?
42:40.886 –> 42:45.051
[SPEAKER_01]: How is the CEO working alongside that founder role?
42:45.031 –> 42:50.240
[SPEAKER_01]: build that what does the organization or structure need to look like when we’re doubled when in turn over.
42:50.600 –> 42:51.782
[SPEAKER_01]: How does AI fit into that?
42:51.802 –> 42:52.844
[SPEAKER_01]: How does hiring fit in?
42:52.864 –> 42:54.667
[SPEAKER_01]: How does talent acceleration?
42:54.727 –> 42:55.508
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s not the right word.
42:55.548 –> 42:56.870
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it talent development work?
42:57.712 –> 42:59.374
[SPEAKER_01]: So many bits of these.
42:59.394 –> 43:02.379
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there’s so much just in the top tips that you could pick out.
43:02.399 –> 43:02.820
[SPEAKER_01]: But
43:02.800 –> 43:23.357
[SPEAKER_01]: such a good, a good rundown there from rich, and I think even if you’re not a new person who’s just got a new job of CO and eight figure fashion round, I think we could probably all apply that to our businesses in this off-e-commerce season of the spring and work our way through those things to make our businesses tighter and stronger.
43:23.337 –> 43:30.869
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode, including those top tips and links to what we’ve mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
43:30.889 –> 43:37.460
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use ECMP.info for such the number of this episode to go straight to the right page of the site.
43:37.941 –> 43:41.427
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to the website, please do add yourself to our email list.
43:41.447 –> 43:45.053
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don’t miss out on any of the things we share to help you improve your business.
43:46.195 –> 43:49.480
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you liked this episode, then make sure you check out.
43:49.814 –> 43:58.363
[SPEAKER_01]: All our other what would you do episodes, which you will find via the website at ECMP.info forward slash WWID.
43:59.064 –> 44:02.948
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
44:03.409 –> 44:13.740
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
44:14.301 –> 44:19.787
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to
44:19.767 –> 44:34.688
[SPEAKER_03]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep up to Mising.
45 min
March 09eCommerce MasterPlan | 585: How Seep Scaled eCommerce Growth to £10M: Meta Ads, Retention & Hero Product Strategy with Ed Hamilton
Ed Hamilton is the Head of Growth at Seep, a certified B Corp selling eco house cleaning tools. Founded in 2020 they are now on target for £10million in sales this year, via their Shopify store, Amazon and wholesale.

In this episode, Ed shares how Seep is turning a surge of awareness into sustainable, long-term growth. We explore the strategies behind scaling acquisition, improving retention, diversifying beyond Meta, and building a growth engine designed for lasting success—not just short-term wins.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Seep turned a Dragons’ Den spike into a £10M growth engine
The hero product strategy that powers customer acquisition (and why it works)
How to balance Meta performance with smarter channel diversification
The retention playbook for products with a long repurchase cycle
Why founder stories can outperform polished brand ads
How to grow faster by focusing on lifetime value—not just new customers

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:44] “Dragon’s Den Success Momentum”
[07:19] “Growth Beyond Customer Acquisition”
[11:56] “Embracing Hero Product Strategy”
[14:01] Driving Repurchases Through Storytelling
[17:05] Diversify Advertising Beyond Meta
[23:07] Listen to Ed’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/585
—
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
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:04.999
[SPEAKER_00]: The digital platforms are where millions of people are consuming their media each day.
00:05.299 –> 00:13.492
[SPEAKER_00]: So being as visible as you can on there and having 10 people talk about you in a week instead of one big person on paper.
00:13.512 –> 00:16.977
[SPEAKER_00]: This sort of feminine effect at that over time really builds up.
00:19.471 –> 00:21.978
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:22.520 –> 00:26.611
[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:27.132 –> 00:35.235
[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.
00:37.882 –> 00:38.964
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.
00:38.984 –> 00:40.126
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.
00:40.146 –> 00:43.792
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:44.213 –> 00:50.484
[SPEAKER_02]: Me and the team get so much joy when we see you guys raving about us on social or enlist or blogs.
00:50.784 –> 00:56.033
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s only fair to repay that by giving a little shout out to the person who has kind enough to shout about us.
00:56.194 –> 00:57.055
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
00:57.035 –> 01:00.024
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Gemma Longman for sharing your feedback.
01:00.044 –> 01:02.010
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Gemma Longman, I’m talking to you.
01:02.070 –> 01:05.901
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing your feedback on our chat with James from Kirk.
01:05.921 –> 01:07.707
[SPEAKER_02]: So glad you love that episode.
01:07.807 –> 01:10.234
[SPEAKER_02]: And most importantly, thank you for listening.
01:10.484 –> 01:31.142
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re revisiting a past guest story, but instead of interviewing the founder of Seep again, we’ve got their new head of growth joining us, talking about how they’re kicking off 2026 with super successful marketing and growth activity, how he balances acquisition with retention.
01:31.122 –> 01:38.430
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll also be talking about how he is planning on capitalizing on the big influx of new customers.
01:38.470 –> 01:42.014
[SPEAKER_02]: They had last year when they appeared on Dragon’s Den.
01:42.594 –> 01:45.938
[SPEAKER_02]: Lots of interesting stuff alternative advertising strategies.
01:46.839 –> 01:50.803
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are focused on growth and marketing this year, this is a must listen.
01:50.823 –> 01:55.628
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure listen to the end of episode because you also don’t want to miss out on my guest’s top tips.
02:01.261 –> 02:09.309
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest, Ed Hamilton is the head of growth at CEP, a certified B-Corp selling eco-house cleaning tools.
02:09.790 –> 02:19.139
[SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2020, there are now on target for £10 million in sales this year, via their Shopify store, plus Amazon and wholesale, hello Ed.
02:19.880 –> 02:21.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, lovely to meet you, thanks for having me on.
02:22.362 –> 02:27.808
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool to have you here, how did you end up in the marvelous world that is Ecommerce?
02:28.480 –> 02:36.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I’ve always been in the advertising world, always loved marketing, media, I’ve got started in a media plan and buying agency.
02:36.672 –> 02:42.801
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite a big one actually part of the Omnicom group and worked on some, yeah, quite a big global, amazing brands.
02:43.102 –> 02:45.566
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it at the time, it felt very glamorous.
02:45.926 –> 02:48.870
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up loving watching mad men and things like that.
02:48.891 –> 02:50.573
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve always been a very,
02:50.553 –> 02:53.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, very, very part of the advertising industry and loved it really.
02:53.737 –> 03:06.392
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I took the plans to move to a deep sea brand, a much smaller start-up scale up brand, and sort of fell in love with the ability to be adjarl and to contribute day-to-day and be quite scrappy.
03:06.512 –> 03:10.737
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, loved getting to know how to grow a revenue of a brand, really.
03:11.358 –> 03:13.140
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I came across Seap and Laura.
03:13.520 –> 03:19.868
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I was immediately quite inspired by her story and what she’s built and the brand she’s built.
03:19.848 –> 03:29.702
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, a lot of people will say sponges and clean soils aren’t particularly gone resected to be in, but what’s really exciting about it is that we, everyone washes up.
03:30.163 –> 03:34.369
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, you can have the ability to touch everyone in the UK if we wanted to.
03:34.389 –> 03:38.194
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really feel quite excited about the opportunity that we’ve got in front of us.
03:38.731 –> 03:44.581
[SPEAKER_02]: It must have been quite the contrast going from the big madman agency world to a start-up.
03:45.041 –> 03:55.719
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I had my career path went from Barkley’s bank to high street retailer to ever decreasing size of business to now it’s me and a hand from a freelancers.
03:57.301 –> 04:02.550
[SPEAKER_02]: I found like, I love the dynamism and they’re getting your hands dirty and everything of the small business.
04:02.930 –> 04:05.835
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m guessing because you haven’t gone back to Madman world, you’re fairly similar.
04:06.473 –> 04:07.894
[SPEAKER_00]: I did, I really enjoyed it.
04:08.195 –> 04:36.480
[SPEAKER_00]: I liked the fact that you make your own luck and you can get stuck in and go and change or has it on a website and it’s live in five minutes and then suddenly you’re seeing people react and behave off the back of those things you’ve made in the website and it felt like a complete opposite end of the spectrum where you’d be planning and talking about particular campaign for three to six months with these big global multinational brands and I just quite loved and fell in love
04:36.460 –> 04:40.087
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can make your own luck and being controlled of a thing that quickly.
04:40.167 –> 04:48.643
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a big change, and, you know, culturally, a big change, you really have to roll your sleeves up and be willing to get stuck into all kinds of jobs.
04:48.763 –> 04:51.548
[SPEAKER_00]: But that suits my personality anyway.
04:51.568 –> 04:56.798
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do think it is good for some people and bad for others, perhaps.
04:58.229 –> 05:04.014
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things you find in your career what size and style of business you actually want to be at.
05:04.034 –> 05:06.857
[SPEAKER_02]: And life is so much better when you find the right one.
05:07.277 –> 05:08.979
[SPEAKER_02]: But we’re not here to talk about career paths.
05:09.239 –> 05:13.222
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re here to talk about sleep and what you’re up to at sleep at the moment.
05:13.303 –> 05:14.624
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the head of growth.
05:15.124 –> 05:19.688
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve been there for the time this podcast I was going to go to live about six months, I think.
05:19.909 –> 05:28.236
[SPEAKER_02]: And you are clearly doing pretty well because you were willing to put live on LinkedIn
05:28.216 –> 05:35.596
[SPEAKER_02]: Starting in that role six months ago, how did you go about setting yourself up for success?
05:35.616 –> 05:39.868
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess what I’m trying to ask is what are the key levers you wanted in place?
05:39.888 –> 05:44.200
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s head of growth to make sure you had that success in the short term.
05:44.770 –> 05:46.092
[SPEAKER_00]: Well firstly I’ve been very lucky.
05:46.252 –> 05:49.577
[SPEAKER_00]: I had joined the brand at the time when they were very much on the up.
05:49.697 –> 05:54.424
[SPEAKER_00]: We this time last year sort of fed March 2025.
05:54.524 –> 05:55.546
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on Dragon’s Den.
05:55.606 –> 06:03.437
[SPEAKER_00]: And since that point Laura and the brand have gone from strength to strength and become a bit more famous and got more.
06:03.417 –> 06:12.225
[SPEAKER_00]: More customers and therefore develop from there and I sort of think come September October time They’d gone through the the hump of Juggins down.
06:12.245 –> 06:29.762
[SPEAKER_00]: They’d sort of reap the rewards of most of the benefits of that and then it was back to Okay, let’s how do we how do we get going again and we tested a few things and when I came then we started to ramp up Addspend for the first time in a couple of months and and really see where their levels were and we found that
06:29.742 –> 06:47.565
[SPEAKER_00]: people resonated with the out to people resonated with Laura’s story and we just kept on optimizing from there and managed to be sort of on the lucky brands you can keep on spending and not necessarily see a drop off of the efficiency and we’ve ridden that way of now and you know you’re now in a place where how do you keep that momentum going and
06:47.545 –> 07:12.456
[SPEAKER_00]: we’re not probably here today to talk about the depth of the matter algorithm that is changing fast so we’re trying to stay ahead of that and fuel that engine as much as possible has been what I’ve been focused on for the past sort of four to six months and yeah so far so good but obviously they will come up point where things aren’t quite as easy so we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve and spot the opportunities for the brand is what I’m doing at home.
07:12.807 –> 07:28.892
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s meta your, your go to the bulk of your worry arena is, but it, and it’s a blessing in a curse right because when you have some winners and do sort of
07:28.872 –> 07:35.842
[SPEAKER_00]: go from strength to strength for matter, you can easily get lost in that bank revenue and that’s always going to be there forever like that.
07:35.862 –> 07:39.147
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, things move so fast, it’s not going to be the case.
07:39.227 –> 07:45.376
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re really trying to diversify spend to find new channels that can help us grow.
07:45.396 –> 07:51.164
[SPEAKER_00]: And also focus on retention because we’ve acquired so many customers since dragons then this time last year.
07:51.205 –> 07:54.289
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve now got a huge amount of bigger lifetime.
07:54.269 –> 07:56.012
[SPEAKER_00]: customers based and we ever had before.
07:56.072 –> 07:57.995
[SPEAKER_00]: So how can we get those people back?
07:58.075 –> 08:03.823
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we really focus on getting people to come to a second purchase far quicker than they ever did before?
08:03.863 –> 08:06.407
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things can actually help growth as well.
08:06.427 –> 08:15.180
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when we talk about growth, everyone typically focus on acquiring customers and actually growth comes from so many different forms and I think it’s an easy important to not forget that.
08:15.869 –> 08:20.974
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you mentioned that so many questions I could ask you off this edge.
08:20.994 –> 08:28.140
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, so the first one, though, is you mentioned that you’re using Laura’s story as a key part of your Facebook ads.
08:28.761 –> 08:35.046
[SPEAKER_02]: And we often hear, you know, use the founder story, use the founder story, but so often brands fail to do it or fail to make it monetize.
08:35.887 –> 08:37.468
[SPEAKER_02]: How have you approached that?
08:37.769 –> 08:45.876
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you leveraged off the dragon’s den, have you leveraged off the founder story?
08:45.856 –> 08:52.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think Laura is not someone who wants to be on camera, so it’s not something that necessarily comes natural.
08:52.992 –> 08:58.625
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s not here saying I want to tell my story and that’s how the brand can be famous, but people resonate with it.
08:58.885 –> 09:03.696
[SPEAKER_00]: People appreciate that she was in the cleaning aisle in Tesco.
09:03.676 –> 09:32.181
[SPEAKER_00]: and saw that you had eco spray, eco detergents, toilet rolls, but the actual cleaning essentials, the tools, accessories that you used to clean your home with, every single one of them hadn’t been sustainable, applied, and it was still full of plastic, and every sponge that you had was full of plastic, every cloth was full of plastic, and she felt that that needed to be changed, and people resonated that, because the research out there is developing all time.
09:32.161 –> 09:38.492
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s her story, but it’s also a story that clearly is out there to the master’s and people care about it.
09:38.512 –> 09:43.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s what we’ve sort of tapped into the fact that it’s her telling it that people can resonate is really worked.
09:43.602 –> 09:49.933
[SPEAKER_00]: And then frankly trying to showcase what is out there, like what you are using right now.
09:49.913 –> 10:04.391
[SPEAKER_00]: you shouldn’t be, you’re doing harm to yourself, you’re doing harm to the planet, and it’s not to sort of scare among the people that’s the opposite of what we want to do, that just trying to represent, you know, this is a problem, and we’re trying to, we’re here to change that, and hope that you can support the brand in doing so.
10:05.172 –> 10:11.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice, it was both kind of like the, the value’s mission of the business as well as, you know, getting the founder out in front of people.
10:11.986 –> 10:18.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it also, like so many brands, Captions who all let’s tell a founder story and they force it.
10:18.656 –> 10:31.075
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually what we’ve tried to do is really go with what fills natural, what people are resonating with, why customers bought us in the first place when you weren’t spending on matter and then tried to try to do it in a more organic moment.
10:31.544 –> 10:36.570
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned as well that you’re using Meta both for group.
10:36.590 –> 10:38.071
[SPEAKER_02]: I was because you’re going to fall into the trap.
10:38.092 –> 10:39.053
[SPEAKER_02]: You warned us about earlier.
10:39.073 –> 10:40.594
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like growth and retention.
10:40.654 –> 10:43.358
[SPEAKER_02]: No, about acquisition and retention.
10:44.559 –> 10:47.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that via the creative that you’re trying to make that distinction?
10:47.843 –> 10:49.705
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it literally you’ve got different campaigns?
10:49.725 –> 10:52.068
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re trying to do some targeting as much as you can.
10:52.108 –> 10:54.210
[SPEAKER_02]: These days with Meta on different audiences?
10:54.562 –> 11:08.389
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, most of us spend these about acquiring customers, but really, most of our customers come to buy our hero product, which is our sponge gara and everyone else doesn’t know what else we offer them.
11:08.509 –> 11:14.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s basically about product selection and putting in front of people the sponge gara because that’s what people come to see before.
11:14.862 –> 11:23.082
[SPEAKER_00]: but then targeting them with different products with range exploration in order for them to come back and make more changes in their home.
11:23.122 –> 11:29.597
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it starts with the spums and it turns into the the cluster they’re using and other accessories that might use around the home.
11:30.050 –> 11:37.899
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the fact you mentioned that because I find so many brands treat all products equally rather than realising.
11:38.099 –> 11:44.646
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s our acquisition product and this is our customer lifetime value product base, if that makes sense.
11:45.387 –> 11:55.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that something that I’m guessing, given what you’ve just told us, that’s always been obvious with C. Is it something that you are forever reiterating into the marketing activity and the growth activity?
11:56.493 –> 11:57.394
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’ll be honest.
11:57.694 –> 11:59.897
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn’t like it when I first came in.
11:59.977 –> 12:03.921
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sort of advising Laura to think, you know, we need to change this.
12:04.001 –> 12:12.690
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a devil that we’ve got one product that leads most of our acquisition and that’s a dangerous game to play and what I’ve come to learn is that’s fine.
12:13.111 –> 12:19.918
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have a hero skew that most people buy that what you’ve got to do a really good job of is the retention and
12:19.898 –> 12:40.624
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah, I’m sort of things you’ve got to tell people what else you do and I think it’s it’s about trying to understand making people fall in love with the brand and what the brand stands for and what we’re trying to do from a mission point of view and that will make someone come back and explore over products and trial and products but there’s you sort of don’t hide away from the fact that there is one thing that people are coming in for originally.
12:41.245 –> 12:43.211
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned the CRM there.
12:43.271 –> 12:45.677
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s stray away from ads if we can.
12:47.061 –> 12:51.875
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that an area where you’ve been doing a lot to increase that with those retention races?
12:52.015 –> 12:55.525
[SPEAKER_02]: Is CRM your biggest lever on the retention ray improvement front?
12:56.416 –> 13:16.247
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, but it’s our ambition this year really, how would say last year was a growth year from off the back of Dragons Den and it was very heavily new customer base, was where the revenue was coming from and that will be the case this year too, but we also want to make that pivot and start getting a larger proportion of people coming back for a second third time.
13:16.227 –> 13:27.162
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re doing quite a few initiatives there from launching subscriptions for the first time and trying to get people to explore more of the range and that is led by E-MalonCRM in the main.
13:27.202 –> 13:28.245
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s the hope anyway.
13:29.002 –> 13:41.341
[SPEAKER_02]: With that CRM work, and this is something I often mal myself, are you finding that the most important impact on getting those repeat purchases and upgrading people to the subscription packages?
13:41.502 –> 13:48.292
[SPEAKER_02]: Is what happens kind of immediately post purchases, those seven to 14 days after they purchase their first product?
13:48.793 –> 13:54.402
[SPEAKER_02]: Or are you finding there’s a lot of wealth in that long tale, because of that dragon’s then bump?
13:54.382 –> 14:00.570
[SPEAKER_02]: that came before you started or just in general, how do you wait those two pieces of CRM activity?
14:01.411 –> 14:09.420
[SPEAKER_00]: So there obviously is an initial opportunity to make someone really feel great about the purchase they’ve just made.
14:09.841 –> 14:19.933
[SPEAKER_00]: And we’re trying to do that by telling the story, getting people to believe in the mission and that will hopefully lead them to exploring alternative products
14:19.913 –> 14:35.627
[SPEAKER_00]: immediately and pretty quickly after that first purchase so that was one area but we actually have a very long lead time on our sort of from first to second purchase and that’s because the the sponges that we sell that’s been our acquisition driver have been a year supply of sponges.
14:35.607 –> 14:42.160
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is every D to C brand’s worst night, they’re on poker, but actually we use that to our advantage.
14:42.180 –> 14:45.126
[SPEAKER_00]: That means that there is an intention to repurchase again.
14:45.186 –> 14:46.008
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs out.
14:46.128 –> 14:49.013
[SPEAKER_00]: You know exactly when it runs out and you can plan around that.
14:49.474 –> 14:52.821
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s about a year now from when we were aired on Dragons Done.
14:52.841 –> 14:56.929
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a huge bulk of people who are ready to purchase again for a second time.
14:56.969 –> 14:57.430
[SPEAKER_00]: And
14:57.410 –> 15:08.145
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though it seems like a long time for a one year sort of between first and second purchase, as long as you build the business economic around that, you can plan and make it perfectly work together.
15:08.446 –> 15:15.200
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you get that solid and consistent, then you have a very good idea of how much product you need to buy.
15:15.220 –> 15:16.081
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
15:16.422 –> 15:27.805
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would argue that the longevity of the product fits rather nicely with the values of the business and manufacturing it to be our only last month would be detrimental in the longer term.
15:28.021 –> 15:28.682
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
15:28.762 –> 15:41.115
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think fundamentally people, again, you hear deed, sea brands, whatever sector it is that you need second purchased inside the first 90 days and you need to be doing XYZ on the LTV and all that sort of thing.
15:41.135 –> 15:52.127
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, just take a step back for a minute, what is right for your business and for your product and for your custom base and build the economics off of the back of that rather than forcing something.
15:52.167 –> 15:53.809
[SPEAKER_00]: I really feel strongly about that.
15:54.143 –> 15:59.458
[SPEAKER_02]: And I suppose there’s also the angle that gives you 12 months to cross-sell as well.
16:00.301 –> 16:07.461
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s quite a clear window where there’s only one message to give in the sales sense, which is here’s some other products that might help you.
16:07.542 –> 16:08.223
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly.
16:08.363 –> 16:13.789
[SPEAKER_00]: And what’s the beauty of the brand for us is that people are using it every single day.
16:14.390 –> 16:21.337
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, you have a touch point and a sort of thought going into someone’s brain that, oh, yes, this is the brand I use for my cleaning.
16:21.838 –> 16:25.662
[SPEAKER_00]: So how can we, how can we therefore play off that and use that to our advantage?
16:25.702 –> 16:28.045
[SPEAKER_00]: And we’re very lucky in that respect and hope for you.
16:28.065 –> 16:34.512
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why people are coming back because they’re thinking about as much more than, you know,
16:35.048 –> 16:47.140
[SPEAKER_02]: And let’s pivot back to the world of ads, because you mentioned about how matter is constantly changing and you never know when something’s going to fall off a cliff, be it the whole of matter or be it, a another kind of hero ad campaign.
16:48.081 –> 17:04.617
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I allowed to ask you, are you willing to share with the audience some of your kind of alternative backup plans to matter other things maybe you’re testing or you’re thinking of testing to make to give you that little bit of stability
17:05.407 –> 17:06.228
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.
17:06.328 –> 17:11.213
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, nothing is unique, particularly, and I imagine most brands are thinking about these things.
17:11.273 –> 17:24.767
[SPEAKER_00]: But Google is easy first step, like with diverseifying spend by looking at Google’s demand gem product, YouTube, like other areas to build reach and visibility and get eyeballs on the brand.
17:24.907 –> 17:27.630
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn’t have to always be in matter that you run video ads.
17:27.810 –> 17:29.912
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people forget that sometimes.
17:29.892 –> 17:36.745
[SPEAKER_00]: simply how can you get eyeballs on the band and reach and Google has an amazing, quite cheap alternative to do that.
17:37.326 –> 17:40.773
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn’t have to always be through search-based advertising.
17:41.314 –> 17:43.378
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s one way and then
17:43.510 –> 17:53.042
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a buzzword last few years, but influences and doing it in a way, which it’s not about generating sales necessarily from the influence of channel.
17:53.142 –> 18:04.856
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s again about building eyeballs on the brand, visibility, getting reach, getting people to organically talk about your products rather than, you know, paying extreme amounts to get someone to feature you.
18:04.876 –> 18:13.146
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re trying to speak to micro influences in the main and people that want to support your you as a brand
18:13.126 –> 18:17.233
[SPEAKER_00]: and getting those to spread the words really, that’s how we’re trying to do it.
18:17.754 –> 18:24.926
[SPEAKER_02]: So more long-term engagements with influencers than here’s 10 grand, do me one post and then we’ll never talk again to other stuff.
18:25.147 –> 18:31.458
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, like we as a small brand, every penny matters and we can’t afford to do that.
18:31.578 –> 18:37.328
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore, how can you do it in a way which, you know, the digital platforms are where
18:37.308 –> 18:39.854
[SPEAKER_00]: millions of people are consuming their major each day.
18:40.155 –> 18:54.692
[SPEAKER_00]: So being as visible as you can on there and having 10 people talk about you in a week instead of one big person on paper, it’s I think this sort of bomb an effect at that over time really builds up.
18:54.976 –> 19:06.932
[SPEAKER_02]: So Google go to, but not just Google keywords and Google shopping campaigns, but actually explore the massive amount of opportunities there are within that Google ads platform that you’re right.
19:06.952 –> 19:11.999
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so many people fail to actually go beyond PMAX these days.
19:12.780 –> 19:16.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, and it’s pretty ungrammerous.
19:16.484 –> 19:22.232
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people always just think it’s, you know, an nice tag on to a campaign will spend,
19:22.516 –> 19:42.304
[SPEAKER_00]: 5% of budget there and actually it can be quite powerful if you look at fish step back and invest in something over time and CD the effect because people are aren’t consuming their media in the way that we buy that media and everyone needs to remember that like people switched from Instagram to YouTube to whatever it might be within seconds on their phone.
19:42.524 –> 19:47.832
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore trying to build up different areas and different channels to get that reach is important.
19:48.537 –> 19:52.907
[SPEAKER_02]: And what’s your theory on in-house team or agencies?
19:52.947 –> 20:02.027
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you doing this with a team in the business to do everything, create everything, run everything, or are you picking the best of the best in agency land?
20:03.250 –> 20:07.660
[SPEAKER_00]: Having been agency side, I think I might be biased, but I believe that
20:08.112 –> 20:26.796
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, agencies are often demonised, but I think you get the benefit of really skilled talented people working on multiple brands at any given time and therefore learning, seeing how different brands are instructing what trends alike, what sort of correlation you can make is a really powerful thing.
20:26.776 –> 20:37.391
[SPEAKER_00]: having it in house, I definitely think we will do that one day, but right now it doesn’t feel like the right place to be when we’re still on sort of a growth trajectory trying to learn as much as we can in the one the way to do that.
20:37.411 –> 20:47.586
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think yeah, I think agencies are perfectly placed to sort of lead this new wave of adds buying in an algorithm-based world.
20:48.140 –> 21:03.018
[SPEAKER_02]: At least do another big attack change, AI search, GEO, EXO, whatever we may be calling it, and the whole people buying from directly on Gemini or chat TBT etc.
21:04.039 –> 21:15.733
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of your brain bandwidth are you giving to that at the moment or is it just there’s too much to do day to day that we’re just going to ignore that until it develops a bit more.
21:16.642 –> 21:23.208
[SPEAKER_00]: Being honest, I think it takes a lot of brain bandwidth in terms of how we’re going to find a solution for this.
21:24.229 –> 21:27.211
[SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of execution, we’re not quite about stage yet.
21:28.112 –> 21:29.293
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need to get here quickly.
21:29.313 –> 21:37.060
[SPEAKER_00]: We have quite a few conversations if we could about how we can sort of be disciplined with our time to learn and develop and train.
21:37.360 –> 21:42.705
[SPEAKER_00]: And let’s just engage with AI and a daily basis to understand what the capabilities are.
21:43.305 –> 21:46.328
[SPEAKER_00]: Small things like how can you generate
21:46.308 –> 21:52.958
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, 100 static ads per month via AI instead of having to make every single one manually.
21:53.399 –> 21:54.761
[SPEAKER_00]: That is something that is possible.
21:54.921 –> 22:08.241
[SPEAKER_00]: So let’s go and try and find a way to do that and likewise from a shopping point of view, making sure you’re really covering the basis of good quality content on site, doing sort of SEO basics really, really well.
22:08.482 –> 22:11.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s going to empower you to be featured in
22:11.266 –> 22:13.309
[SPEAKER_00]: in AI search platforms much more.
22:13.329 –> 22:16.173
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s our bread and butter right now.
22:16.213 –> 22:18.056
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re trying to do the basics really well.
22:18.176 –> 22:23.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Was forcing ourselves to spend a couple of hours a week on how can we find solutions for the future?
22:23.664 –> 22:27.290
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t have a better answer than that right now.
22:27.310 –> 22:35.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, but I think a lot of people will probably be overwhelmed in the same boat as me, but hopefully in the next few months I can try and crack it and maybe we can revisit that question.
22:38.485 –> 22:43.379
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce most at last is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
22:43.499 –> 22:53.929
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
22:56.221 –> 23:04.535
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level, I promise I’d know more questions about AI search in any of this.
23:05.016 –> 23:07.279
[SPEAKER_02]: And Ed, are you ready for the top tips?
23:07.900 –> 23:08.902
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to it.
23:08.942 –> 23:10.164
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.
23:10.184 –> 23:16.795
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast, I agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
23:17.281 –> 23:26.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s your new book, Recommended by a friend a couple of weeks ago called Growth Leavers and how to find them by Matt Lerner and it’s a new book.
23:26.437 –> 23:32.607
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a new book to me, not a new book in general, but yeah, it has a really good message that
23:32.587 –> 23:42.580
[SPEAKER_00]: 10% of initiatives drive 90% of business outcomes, yet people focus on so many small things day to day and get consumed by lots of things that don’t drive business outcomes.
23:42.600 –> 23:51.452
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really helps us sort of strip back the clutter, focus on your north star and understand how you can really deliver against that north star day in doubt.
23:51.472 –> 23:55.557
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’d recommend anyone who’s in sort of growth world to have a look at that.
23:55.925 –> 23:59.255
[SPEAKER_02]: nice, a bit of mindset as well as everything else.
23:59.395 –> 24:08.702
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s always so critical to a growth space, traffic top tip, which marketing method to either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
24:09.155 –> 24:28.024
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually talked a lot about this and I didn’t think we would, so I’m going to mention it again, I’m forward to me, but I think email as a channel, everyone obsesses over subscribers and how many how big your database is, then do a pretty poor job of engaging said database and generating traffic to site.
24:28.004 –> 24:35.513
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think as much as, you know, email has become this sort of known to be a spam channel, and I totally disagree with that.
24:35.533 –> 24:47.228
[SPEAKER_00]: I think brands, there are lots of brands doing it really well, and it can be a superpower when done in the right way, and drive really hot, warm, traffic to sign on a day to day basis.
24:47.288 –> 24:52.915
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think people just need to spend a bit more time and less
24:53.367 –> 24:55.250
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I totally agree with you.
24:55.290 –> 24:57.053
[SPEAKER_02]: There is so much potential by email.
24:57.073 –> 25:08.490
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a much less noisy channel than, you know, the talk about email is so much less noisy than the talk about meta-rads and therefore we all end up getting obsessed about our ads when we should be clearly as obsessed about our email.
25:08.510 –> 25:10.954
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s a great, a great traffic talk tip.
25:11.255 –> 25:17.845
[SPEAKER_00]: A brand I used to work for actually did completely turned off the redspend because it wasn’t working financially.
25:18.566 –> 25:22.251
[SPEAKER_00]: And we focused solely on retention by email and it actually worked really well.
25:22.351 –> 25:26.197
[SPEAKER_00]: It helped to sort of take away all the stresses that you have from paid.
25:26.798 –> 25:31.024
[SPEAKER_00]: And look at things that you can control and email absolutely is the channel for that.
25:31.044 –> 25:31.705
[SPEAKER_00]: So I agree with you.
25:32.126 –> 25:34.309
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, stress reduction strategy.
25:35.639 –> 25:40.307
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% stop the advertising and focus on the email.
25:40.347 –> 25:46.678
[SPEAKER_02]: Tool top tip then, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plugin, a phone app or just a way of working.
25:47.058 –> 25:51.606
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
25:52.278 –> 26:06.466
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggle with these questions because I don’t have, I feel like I use a very typical text that myself personally, but I’m speaking to sort of the D to C operators here, but I’ve called out no commerce, which is a post-purchase survey tool.
26:07.428 –> 26:08.851
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it.
26:09.092 –> 26:13.240
[SPEAKER_00]: And I literally look at it every single day because it allows you to get
26:13.220 –> 26:27.304
[SPEAKER_00]: thousands of responses per week on a couple of questions about how someone’s consuming the media where did you hear about us and that stuff really powerful is live data, how often did you get that sort of data from customers day in day out?
26:27.985 –> 26:36.460
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I would recommend if you don’t have a post-post survey to get one because they’re cheap and easy and it also is an amazing way to get daily powerful data.
26:36.811 –> 26:41.296
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a nice antidote to the nightmare that is attribution.
26:41.616 –> 26:49.585
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously it’s not perfect because the customers probably come through 20 different ways, but the thing which stuck in their head is the reason they purchased.
26:50.205 –> 26:55.131
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it’s like a 10x factor on whatever that channel is in terms of its potential impacts.
26:55.151 –> 26:56.913
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, love that.
26:56.933 –> 27:04.641
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I think if I had one, I would be a little bit obsessed with the results to first thing in the morning, check what people are saying.
27:04.621 –> 27:10.188
[SPEAKER_02]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
27:11.270 –> 27:18.980
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we, in the space we’re in, in the sustainability space, we can feel quite passionate about this and go on quite a lot of rants about it.
27:19.000 –> 27:27.792
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think looking at the entire journey from product conception to delivery is important and trying to do small bits really well each day matters.
27:28.193 –> 27:30.055
[SPEAKER_00]: So an example of that is,
27:30.035 –> 27:50.001
[SPEAKER_00]: we’ve stayed with Royal Mail for our distribution in the main for certain matter of years because, actually, the whole country is getting deliveries from Royal Mail which, therefore, we are making a small but important impact there by not using alternative career companies and small things like, I think people would obsess over carbon footprint and
27:49.981 –> 27:58.120
[SPEAKER_00]: If we did that as a brand, we would invest in plastic, which goes against our mission completely, because there are low carbon footprint ways to have plastic packaging.
27:58.681 –> 28:02.590
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it’s just one part of the sustainability process.
28:02.823 –> 28:09.090
[SPEAKER_00]: and we also invest in a great charity called on a mission, which is essentially like reforestation projects.
28:09.130 –> 28:20.003
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps to look at the procurement impact of your business and invest in people’s livelihoods and quality projects around the world that help to add carbon back into the world basically.
28:20.063 –> 28:29.775
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think not the best answer, but I think looking at the end to end process of your business and see how you can make small changes, I think they will add up.
28:30.211 –> 28:58.092
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think that’s about answer at all because I think that your point about using the most common career, you know, I live out in the sticks, like way out in the sticks and I often think maybe the sustainability solution to delivering to us is to have a hub and one van that comes round for all the careers because it’s like there are not enough people out where I live for it to be worth
28:58.072 –> 29:02.537
[SPEAKER_02]: every, whoever else fancy’s coming for out for a drive around the countryside.
29:02.938 –> 29:04.219
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems absolutely mad.
29:04.560 –> 29:05.761
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so, that’s a great place.
29:05.801 –> 29:07.143
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s a really good business idea.
29:09.085 –> 29:15.433
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, yeah, like, it would be cheaper for us to use in every or someone else than oil mail.
29:15.613 –> 29:22.682
[SPEAKER_00]: That is true, but it also has an impact and it would go against the values of our business if we were to make that decision.
29:22.722 –> 29:23.843
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it’s important.
29:24.042 –> 29:30.352
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s the customer service element of the Royal Mail deliveries because you rarely hear someone running about their Royal Mail Postman.
29:30.813 –> 29:31.253
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
29:31.273 –> 29:32.055
[SPEAKER_02]: Has to be said.
29:32.656 –> 29:33.177
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m Ed.
29:33.317 –> 29:34.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for being an awesome guest.
29:34.999 –> 29:39.807
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we say goodbye, could you please at the listeners know where they can get in contact with you and find see?
29:40.411 –> 29:53.427
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course, go to our website, theseepacumphony.com, nice and easy, and at theseep company on Instagram, and got some great cleaning hacks and all sorts of things that hopefully people will enjoy.
29:53.467 –> 29:58.673
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Ed Hamilton is my name, so yeah, thanks very much.
29:59.555 –> 30:00.556
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome to have you on the show.
30:00.576 –> 30:02.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Ed, for sharing so much insight with us.
30:02.979 –> 30:04.080
[SPEAKER_02]: We really appreciate it.
30:04.641 –> 30:05.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your time.
30:11.512 –> 30:12.314
[SPEAKER_02]: So there you have it.
30:12.434 –> 30:19.087
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s what head of growth and a fast, fast growing D to C brand here in the UK is focused on right now.
30:19.648 –> 30:30.330
[SPEAKER_02]: Taming the beasts that is the ever lasting beast, hopefully that is meta ads, but also taking advantage of Google really doubling down on CRM and
30:30.310 –> 30:37.378
[SPEAKER_02]: devoting plenty of brain space to the world of AI search, whilst getting those foundations right, really cool to get to talk to Ed there.
30:37.418 –> 30:42.864
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me know if you’d like us to get them on the podcast again in six 12 months time and see how that’s all evolving.
30:43.025 –> 30:44.486
[SPEAKER_02]: Please let me know if you want us to do that.
30:44.987 –> 30:52.515
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on the notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we’ve mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.
30:53.076 –> 31:00.064
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also go straight to the correct
31:00.044 –> 31:08.685
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to the website, why not add yourself to my email list so you’ll get my newsletter each week and updates about episodes and all other kinds of cool stuff we’re up to.
31:09.447 –> 31:15.943
[SPEAKER_02]: Now if you like this episode then make sure you check out episode 448 for more seep.
31:15.923 –> 31:23.513
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s when I got to chat with the founder Laura Harnett about how she took the business to 1 million pounds in the first 12 months.
31:24.054 –> 31:25.035
[SPEAKER_02]: Really cool episode.
31:25.096 –> 31:29.121
[SPEAKER_02]: Lots of the kind of foundational story stuff of Seap and growth stuff in there too.
31:29.161 –> 31:29.882
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s episode 448.
31:29.942 –> 31:42.319
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more on home where’s businesses, ECMP.info such home for those on the website, and ECMP.info for such
31:42.299 –> 31:43.941
[SPEAKER_02]: lots of for you to listen to there.
31:43.981 –> 31:48.808
[SPEAKER_02]: Now thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
31:48.828 –> 31:59.723
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new one every week so I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including progressing, progressing even along the path to net zero.
31:59.783 –> 32:05.071
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
32:05.571 –> 32:08.155
[SPEAKER_02]: Have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
32:11.290 –> 32:14.726
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
32:15.188 –> 32:20.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
33 min
March 02eCommerce MasterPlan | 584: What Would You Do if you were embarking on a replatform in 2026? – with James Gurd
James Gurd is The Digital Juggler, and host of the Inside Commerce Podcast. He has over 20 years’ experience helping B2C and B2B brands deliver eCommerce growth, primarily through tech stack optimisation. From agency and tech selection through to team training and project leadership.

In this WWYD episode, James dives deep into what it really takes to replatform successfully in 2026 — from building the right business case and aligning your leadership team, to navigating Shopify decisions, managing friction, and avoiding expensive mistakes.

If a replatform is on your horizon, this episode is packed with practical advice you won’t want to miss.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why replatforming without a business case is a costly mistake
The real question you must ask before choosing Shopify
How to map your data flows (and avoid tech stack chaos)
The hidden costs most teams miss in their TCO spreadsheet
How to get C-suite buy-in without triggering internal friction
The 15–20% rule that could save your launch timeline

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[06:09] Platform Limitations Driving Transition
[07:56] Shopify’s Market Strength Explained
[12:40] “Replatforming: Goals, ROI, Consensus”
[15:37] “Understanding Data Flows in Replatforming”
[17:42] AI Strategy vs Tactical Adoption
[22:11] “Effective Team Roles and Accountability”
[23:21] Listen to James’ Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/584
—
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 –> 00:09.884
[SPEAKER_01]: operation where does EECOM sit and the question I suggest people answer is not what does an EECOM platform have to do functiony but what is the role of an EECOM as platform in our systems architecture?
00:12.727 –> 00:15.711
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the EECOM Earth’s master plan podcast.
00:15.731 –> 00:19.716
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a help you solve your marketing problems and grow your EECOM Earth’s business.
00:20.257 –> 00:28.367
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the EECOM Earth’s sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
00:31.317 –> 00:33.839
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.
00:33.940 –> 00:37.843
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:38.684 –> 00:46.812
[SPEAKER_02]: Insanely, we have never had this guest on the show for a whole episode before, which is a disservice to you, to me and to him.
00:47.273 –> 00:48.854
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are correcting that today.
00:48.894 –> 00:57.983
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, he has been on the show a couple of times, sharing a bit of advice in some of our top tips episodes, but we’ve never had him on for a whole show.
00:57.963 –> 01:04.876
[SPEAKER_02]: So this episode is going to be all about the tech stack and re-platforming.
01:05.416 –> 01:17.338
[SPEAKER_02]: So what would you do episode and the what would you do question is if you were re-platforming in 2026 and we’ll be going through tech, we’ll be going through managing the bigger opinions above you.
01:17.318 –> 01:30.416
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll go through managing everybody else, we’ll go through change management, reducing friction, we’ll talk a bit about Shopify, lots of cool stuff coming up in this episode that’s really going to help you out with your text acts this year.
01:30.937 –> 01:37.386
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen to the end of the episodes you don’t miss out on my guest’s top tips and my own take on everything we discuss.
01:42.074 –> 01:44.096
[SPEAKER_02]: and now to introduce our special guest.
01:44.537 –> 01:49.743
[SPEAKER_02]: James Gerd is the digital jugular and host of the Inside Commerce podcast.
01:50.103 –> 01:55.750
[SPEAKER_02]: He has over 20 years experience helping B2C and B2B brands deliver Ecommerce growth.
01:56.150 –> 02:03.119
[SPEAKER_02]: Primarily through tech stack optimization from agency and tech selection through two team training and project leadership.
02:03.159 –> 02:03.920
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, James.
02:04.320 –> 02:06.022
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Chloe, a lovely chat to you again.
02:06.042 –> 02:06.883
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for joining me all.
02:06.863 –> 02:09.207
[SPEAKER_02]: always a pleasure to catch up with you, sir.
02:09.468 –> 02:10.810
[SPEAKER_02]: And very excited.
02:10.850 –> 02:15.679
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re getting you on the podcast for the first ever proper time today, which is long overdue.
02:15.899 –> 02:18.764
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I’m excited as well because you are the queen of podcasts in an e-com.
02:18.985 –> 02:20.187
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is awesome.
02:20.347 –> 02:23.553
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m happy to be on it and hope the listeners get something valuable for them.
02:23.573 –> 02:24.334
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I think they will.
02:24.435 –> 02:30.205
[SPEAKER_02]: As you and I both know,
02:30.185 –> 02:38.570
[SPEAKER_01]: I was at a panel last week for the AGC’s Shofa HC Swanky and one of my clients as a, and I worked with them last year, Liv’s Kitchen Republic platform.
02:38.590 –> 02:43.063
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to me, I don’t understand why anybody would willingly do this as a job repeatedly.
02:45.355 –> 02:49.384
[SPEAKER_02]: Back in the day, I also did vaguely similar to what you do now.
02:49.645 –> 02:53.795
[SPEAKER_02]: When life was a lot simpler, and I had to give it up because it was just too much.
02:53.815 –> 02:55.759
[SPEAKER_02]: So I take my hat off to you for being out for doing this.
02:56.742 –> 03:01.593
[SPEAKER_02]: But before we get into the nitty gritty of re-platforming, how did you end up in the world of e-commerce?
03:01.633 –> 03:03.718
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m not sure as a question I’ve ever actually asked you.
03:03.698 –> 03:07.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I’ll give you the short answer, not the war and peace, so people don’t fall to sleep.
03:07.728 –> 03:10.435
[SPEAKER_01]: But fun enough, I’ve had this conversation for a few people last week.
03:10.455 –> 03:15.667
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it is a, I got to a point where I didn’t enjoy being an employee in an agency.
03:15.708 –> 03:18.735
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked for an agency that delivered projects that ran digital marketing.
03:18.795 –> 03:21.201
[SPEAKER_01]: I headed up the account management of smart marketing.
03:21.282 –> 03:22.745
[SPEAKER_01]: didn’t actually enjoy.
03:22.765 –> 03:28.197
[SPEAKER_01]: I don’t think I was well suited to being a senior leader in an agency environment.
03:28.217 –> 03:36.214
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about recognizing what I like and don’t like and actually what I do like is being able to choose what I do and being in control of what I do versus having to deliver what something else needs me to.
03:36.836 –> 03:41.265
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that personality bit of me shy away from that pressure of the agency.
03:41.245 –> 03:52.235
[SPEAKER_01]: and I went solo and I kind of winged it to see whether it work and I was luckily I had a decent enough network that I build up through my days previously working with the consultancy crew.
03:52.936 –> 04:00.063
[SPEAKER_01]: And I picked up a few projects and I realized I really liked our life, the ability to choose what I do, work with really cool brands, and also be able to select what I don’t do.
04:00.243 –> 04:03.626
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that’s massively important as an independent consultant.
04:03.786 –> 04:10.172
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be very strict about the type of project I don’t want to work on whereas you work for an agency, you can’t be like that because it’s disruptive.
04:10.237 –> 04:22.418
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that bit of picking the right projects to work on, which I think the smaller the business is, and you and I both are very solo businesses, it becomes ever more critical, doesn’t it?
04:22.478 –> 04:30.912
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you are probably doing what we do in order to enjoy it and therefore, working on a difficult project that you don’t enjoy.
04:30.892 –> 04:33.339
[SPEAKER_02]: And difficult and enjoy a two very different factors.
04:33.540 –> 04:37.271
[SPEAKER_02]: I should say in that, you know, they’re all difficult, but they’re not difficult difficult.
04:37.311 –> 04:41.543
[SPEAKER_02]: And before I take us down that rabbit hole James, let me get us back to our actual topic.
04:42.569 –> 04:50.466
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re here to do a one of our what would you do episodes and your chosen what would you do is if you were embarking on a replat form in 2026.
04:51.167 –> 05:00.006
[SPEAKER_02]: So before we actually get into what to do if you were embarking on a replat form in 2026, should one be replat forming in 2026?
05:00.687 –> 05:02.311
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s ask you that question first.
05:02.471 –> 05:03.413
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it worth doing?
05:03.393 –> 05:03.794
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
05:03.814 –> 05:09.082
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like Mark for those of my advantages, like Mastermind to your chosen specialist subject is.
05:09.622 –> 05:11.345
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you want to pay our Chloe?
05:11.385 –> 05:12.867
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s one hell of a question to start with.
05:12.887 –> 05:13.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn’t it?
05:13.148 –> 05:13.708
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s see, Mark.
05:13.869 –> 05:20.999
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like a whole podcast series, but I guess what I mean is, what are the reasons why it’s good to repack form?
05:21.180 –> 05:23.844
[SPEAKER_02]: What should you be thinking about before you go?
05:23.864 –> 05:26.768
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to do an incredibly difficult project this year.
05:26.748 –> 05:30.632
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the most important thing is this is you have to have a reason to need to replact form.
05:30.732 –> 05:36.318
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don’t have a valid business reason and a business case then you’re doing it for no clear reason or for wrong intention.
05:36.358 –> 05:52.595
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are typical, there are common signposts when a business is on the wrong text stack and just to caveat that it doesn’t mean that your e-commerce platform is wrong, it could be that this text stack that it sits in and around is wrong and it’s constraining your operation, it’s impeding road maps and growth plans.
05:53.155 –> 05:55.017
[SPEAKER_01]: But the
05:54.997 –> 06:03.048
[SPEAKER_01]: So the cost is scaling too fast as you grow because the amount of support maintenance you need, the amount of technical fixes, amount of plug-ins, all that stuff.
06:03.088 –> 06:09.076
[SPEAKER_01]: And so actually it’s not just your uppacks, but more cap-packs is coming in and expected and it’s unsustainable.
06:09.817 –> 06:14.464
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be that you’re in a platform where your feature set is falling behind where marked leaders are.
06:14.804 –> 06:19.030
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ll talk about the likes of Shopify, for example, in this inevitably.
06:19.010 –> 06:35.652
[SPEAKER_01]: but there are certain platforms that are really pushing R&D ahead rapidly and they’re investing massively and therefore the feature gap is growing and their cost of then turning on those features through custom development or other third party tools and the licenses becomes prohibitive and then it is yet its process, it’s where
06:35.632 –> 06:54.259
[SPEAKER_01]: you cannot effectively execute the way your business needs to do processes, whether it’s around product data uploads and publishes or it’s around order management, with our creating a Frankenstein that is unsupportable or is painful or having to hack processes of the business users don’t want to follow because they’re a pain in the ass to manage and scale.
06:54.740 –> 07:01.690
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the norm of things where if any one of those is true, that then gives you like a credible reason
07:01.788 –> 07:08.358
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the simplicity of that, if it’s costing the business, the opportunity cost, the financial cost or the efficiency cost.
07:09.359 –> 07:10.861
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes it seem so straightforward.
07:11.082 –> 07:28.167
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyone listening, who’s thinking every platform who isn’t feeling the pain of cost, pours, please pours, but you mentioned Shopify there and we’ve definitely moved rightly or wrongly into a world where
07:28.147 –> 07:35.113
[SPEAKER_02]: Shopify first, like the first name put on the tender for a re-platform, and I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’s boards are turning around again.
07:35.173 –> 07:38.696
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to go to Shopify for whatever reason.
07:39.077 –> 07:43.100
[SPEAKER_02]: It almost feels like Shopify is the IBM, you know, aging ourselves here.
07:43.160 –> 07:50.027
[SPEAKER_02]: I suspect half listeners won’t know what this phrase comes from, but the whole nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, even if it didn’t work.
07:50.747 –> 07:52.148
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of feels like we’re in that space.
07:52.168 –> 07:56.112
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your take on the
07:56.092 –> 08:03.906
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what you have is there’s an underlying reason why Shopify is becoming a market leader, but it’s a market leader for a particular type of project right now.
08:04.407 –> 08:15.568
[SPEAKER_01]: DTC, commerce 100%, SME, E, commerce 100%, non-complex, custom business process flows, E, commerce 100%, that is basically 80% of the market.
08:15.548 –> 08:31.713
[SPEAKER_01]: B2B, it’s increasingly becoming good because they’ve rolled out greater functionalities into their B2B, sweet, better customization of front ends, better capabilities around a count management price in discounts, but it’s still not in their in complex B2B complex manufacturing, etc.
08:31.753 –> 08:37.101
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got pockets where it isn’t naturally geared towards it and therefore you could use it but you’d have to a lot of
08:37.081 –> 08:40.027
[SPEAKER_01]: custom-development or third parties are more middleware.
08:40.047 –> 08:50.729
[SPEAKER_01]: The reality is that because of that and because of how good they are marked and shop-fight are really smart at their marketing, additions as a work of art, they’ve invested massively in their business development, they speak to all retailers.
08:51.170 –> 08:58.465
[SPEAKER_01]: So you’ve got not only the reality of the product but you’ve got the distortion of actually how aggressive and how successful they are and they go to market strategy.
08:58.445 –> 09:05.019
[SPEAKER_01]: that changes narratives because they are in talking to more details and I was chatting to a few consultants over the last few months.
09:05.119 –> 09:15.441
[SPEAKER_01]: I see less projects for James, can you help me pick technology and more projects where we’ve chosen X, which is often Shopify, we need to help to know what to do and how to manage this project.
09:15.421 –> 09:21.229
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that there’s the market, but the important thing is that it’s not suitable to every business.
09:21.910 –> 09:24.794
[SPEAKER_01]: But also it could be really the right platform for you.
09:24.894 –> 09:29.060
[SPEAKER_01]: However, it can have a cost implication to your current customer, or that you haven’t thought through.
09:29.460 –> 09:41.597
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don’t think that through properly for making that selection decision, you could end up coming unstuck by having a cost line in the project that you’ve not budgeted for, that you’ll see if I might
09:41.577 –> 09:51.688
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it’s never right to say yes, but to have a hypothesis as we think Shopify is the right one and this is why let’s try and prove this now that is a totally acceptable approach.
09:51.905 –> 09:56.691
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you have someone who comes to you and goes, we’ve decided to go to Shopify, can you help us?
09:56.891 –> 10:01.136
[SPEAKER_02]: Is your first thing to challenge that decision or to double check that decision?
10:01.276 –> 10:04.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Double check, as a consultant, I can’t do draw if I don’t know why you’re making a decision.
10:05.021 –> 10:06.383
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’m not a good consultant.
10:06.403 –> 10:10.087
[SPEAKER_01]: If I come in and just blindly accept what you’ve done without understanding the context.
10:10.107 –> 10:12.951
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to know where stage you’re at, are you contract side?
10:13.191 –> 10:17.877
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it, it’s past the gatekeeper for approval, but it hasn’t gone to the board yet.
10:18.397 –> 10:21.321
[SPEAKER_01]: Has it been fully costed?
10:21.301 –> 10:26.669
[SPEAKER_01]: I often come in with people, we’re going to get shopfike in here and help us and I come in and there isn’t a proper TCO done.
10:26.749 –> 10:35.903
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody’s looked at a licensed fee and a ballpark development cost of an agency, but they haven’t validated that cost model and actually they’ve got cost missing or they’ve understated or they’ve overstated them.
10:36.344 –> 10:42.834
[SPEAKER_01]: See, I want to understand the context, not disruptively, but if I can understand that, I can help them avoid bad decisions or I can help them negotiate better.
10:42.874 –> 10:48.743
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if they say, well, we thought, but we’re not really sure,
10:48.723 –> 11:01.872
[SPEAKER_01]: Let’s put a proper decision process behind this and you don’t have to spend months agonising, you could do it quite quickly, but if you put that structure in up front then you would hope that people buy into a decision better and therefore people then know why they’re moving in a direction.
11:02.054 –> 11:10.804
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for anyone who’s wondering, TCO is total cost of ownership, so that’s a spreadsheet of the full forensic level costing, which you should be doing for any of these projects.
11:11.565 –> 11:18.793
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything else you are checking in with people before you commit an agreed to the project and so on and so forth, anything else?
11:19.154 –> 11:29.125
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess what I’m actually trying to ask James is if someone’s thinking of doing a replatform this year, what else do they need to make sure they’ve got in place before they sign any contracts or sign off any budgets?
11:29.257 –> 11:46.274
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always start with internal alignment, we know it’s basically these projects are not simple, they do involve stress, they involve disruptions to the business because they take a lot of resource, there are complexities there are known unknowns unknown unknowns and so you do get stress throughout these projects.
11:46.775 –> 11:54.943
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore if you don’t have complete alignment where you have proper C-suite or single-ish team buying and everyone’s bought into it, they’re all working together.
11:54.923 –> 12:04.870
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don’t and you create infriction where it’s not expected, you end up potentially losing support or you end up really annoying people and that is disruptive to the project.
12:04.910 –> 12:08.620
[SPEAKER_01]: So the number one thing is, it has a proper business case being created.
12:08.640 –> 12:10.806
[SPEAKER_01]: If so, is it robust?
12:10.786 –> 12:14.872
[SPEAKER_01]: if that is great but has it got signed off and do we have everyone at the same leadership on board?
12:14.932 –> 12:22.563
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just the e-commerce lead, the finance person, the ops person, all those critical decision makers whose teams you are going to rely on in the project.
12:22.603 –> 12:32.457
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s my absolute non-negotiable because if the answer is no then that’s got to be done before you start even contemplating delivering a project and going to the next stage.
12:32.690 –> 12:35.474
[SPEAKER_02]: You need their agreement at every single stage.
12:35.634 –> 12:35.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Not.
12:36.435 –> 12:38.638
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, by the way, we’re going live in two weeks time.
12:38.698 –> 12:40.861
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you set up our payment integrations?
12:40.881 –> 12:49.872
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s like that’s a class, and also the, oh, yes, so CFO, I know you weren’t consulted on that, and somebody just said, above me, and they’re, you know, we’re going to look at a platform.
12:50.153 –> 12:57.482
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve now decided on Shopify, but let me just give you a last surprise that your payments rates going up by one decimal point.
12:57.462 –> 12:58.003
[SPEAKER_01]: like what?
12:58.263 –> 13:14.914
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, wherever you take me on the journey and how if we reach the consensus about what the business case of this is, because sometimes there’s a misnomer that repack for me is a cost reduction exercise and this is not the right way to think about it is what you’re trying to achieve, what your goals, what your success criteria and what your outcomes.
13:14.894 –> 13:17.318
[SPEAKER_01]: And does that require investment to achieve that?
13:17.338 –> 13:19.942
[SPEAKER_01]: And is that investment justified because of an ROI?
13:20.002 –> 13:30.600
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that might be could be you don’t need three head counts that you thought you can have to have because you’ve got a better platform and tooling, but it actually you’ve had to spend an extra 200k capex in order to get there.
13:31.120 –> 13:38.252
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s all these discussions that have to be had first because if you don’t frame it right, you do not bring people into a consensus of opinion.
13:38.232 –> 13:40.415
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve got the goals aligned.
13:40.475 –> 13:42.658
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got the internal team aligned.
13:42.758 –> 13:45.261
[SPEAKER_02]: We haven’t yet talked about the tech stack.
13:46.303 –> 13:50.608
[SPEAKER_02]: So is there anything we need to look at from a tech stack front?
13:50.628 –> 13:51.970
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously, there is.
13:52.871 –> 13:54.513
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, roll with my question here.
13:54.533 –> 14:01.843
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything from a tech stack piece that it’s essential to check before you even go out trying to work out what platform you’re moving to?
14:01.823 –> 14:02.925
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that’s a good question.
14:02.985 –> 14:11.417
[SPEAKER_01]: So 100% my finalist strategic business case and the consensus and governance bit first, then it is operationally where does Econ sit?
14:11.437 –> 14:19.749
[SPEAKER_01]: And the question I suggest people answer is, not what does an Econ platform have to do functiony, but what is the role of an Econ must platforming in our systems architecture?
14:20.350 –> 14:23.815
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it just basically a payment gateway and a product catalog?
14:23.795 –> 14:31.068
[SPEAKER_01]: or is it everything and it’s got to have capability for like custom order management flows and actually we need it to have some to enable personalization.
14:31.409 –> 14:34.735
[SPEAKER_01]: You suddenly start to change the picture of what an e-complat form it is.
14:35.176 –> 14:38.421
[SPEAKER_01]: What it needs to deliver and then it’s about how it’s got to fit in.
14:38.461 –> 14:41.567
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are the other systems that it needs to play with?
14:41.547 –> 14:43.769
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there existing middlewares in place?
14:44.089 –> 15:05.469
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these questions have an impact, because some platforms have really good integrations with certain middlewares, or they’ve got proven data flow connectors with A-B and C-E-R-P, enterprise resource planning tool for those who have not heard of it before, versus another platform, which doesn’t have those connectors, and therefore you’re going to add costs and complexity and time into your project.
15:05.489 –> 15:11.554
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, fundamentally you’ve got to understand where
15:11.534 –> 15:17.282
[SPEAKER_02]: And presumably that’s the point as well where you start to understand if you’re going to have to change other things as well.
15:17.302 –> 15:20.827
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you know, because we often see businesses here, right, we’re going to upgrade to another platform.
15:20.847 –> 15:30.200
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we start growing and then we realize we need an ERP or we can’t use X as of copy and paste held together with sticky back plastic op system.
15:30.981 –> 15:35.247
[SPEAKER_02]: Like suddenly there’s a almost a domino effect of other upgrades that happen.
15:35.227 –> 15:37.710
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this the point in which you’d start outlining those as well?
15:37.890 –> 15:52.329
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is why it’s hard because no repart forms over the same and you sometimes have a project where there is another part of the business and it’s typically like an internal IT function where they are either upgraded or changing part of the ER piece.
15:52.349 –> 16:00.500
[SPEAKER_01]: So either the core ERP, whether it’s a net suite, a dynamic, so they built an inhale, I’ve got a climate in-house and they’re going to a third party specialist in business central.
16:01.141 –> 16:02.803
[SPEAKER_01]: But they’re using a specific
16:02.783 –> 16:17.679
[SPEAKER_01]: retail vertical version of that, which has its own set of dependencies, and or somebody’s changing the warehouse management systems, and they have a requirement with the warehouse management system pushes directly into e-commerce, a simple film and statuses rather than through the ERP.
16:17.699 –> 16:20.142
[SPEAKER_01]: And you’ve got, you have to tease out the data flows.
16:20.442 –> 16:26.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think for those who think crisis sounds way complicated is think about data flows and not tech.
16:26.148 –> 16:32.335
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you think about tech, it becomes, I don’t understand the ERP, what’s dynamics, what’s business centre, as I forget that,
16:32.315 –> 16:37.726
[SPEAKER_01]: How does data need to flow between systems to execute on your trading plans and your order management.
16:37.746 –> 16:42.996
[SPEAKER_01]: So how does an order need to get into a warehouse and how does e-commerce need data back from it?
16:43.337 –> 16:45.281
[SPEAKER_01]: How does a product get into your e-commerce?
16:45.301 –> 16:46.764
[SPEAKER_01]: How does a stock update get in?
16:46.824 –> 16:53.918
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s understand those data flows and understand the systems that are now in control and where they might be gaps or issues and how they’re changing.
16:53.898 –> 16:58.183
[SPEAKER_01]: or where there might be a new system being introduced, because then you can start say, okay, right.
16:58.243 –> 17:00.586
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’m looking at platform A for e-commerce.
17:01.167 –> 17:03.791
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that I’m using platform B for my EAP.
17:04.451 –> 17:07.135
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a proven case study to show that these are integrated?
17:07.195 –> 17:08.997
[SPEAKER_01]: What level of complex is this going to cause me?
17:09.498 –> 17:11.821
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the answer is, do you know what they don’t play well together?
17:12.542 –> 17:17.368
[SPEAKER_01]: That then makes you have to question internally, okay, so does this project need to be wider than it currently is?
17:17.628 –> 17:19.490
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we need to involve more people in the decision?
17:19.530 –> 17:21.593
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it’s got greater dependencies.
17:21.944 –> 17:24.449
[SPEAKER_02]: Presumably, I mean, I’m going to mention it AI.
17:24.490 –> 17:28.538
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m guessing that’s getting pulled in more and more and to replat forming projects.
17:28.578 –> 17:29.981
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we take advantage of AI?
17:30.001 –> 17:36.736
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we build an AI ready system as we know many AI projects are falling over due to data issues?
17:37.037 –> 17:39.803
[SPEAKER_02]: So is that something you’re building in at this stage as well?
17:39.883 –> 17:42.248
[SPEAKER_02]: What the AI potential an opportunity is?
17:42.228 –> 17:51.041
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is a bit of a blurry line at the moment because it presumes that a business has an AI strategy and I think it’s fair to say that many don’t.
17:51.061 –> 18:01.317
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of businesses are using AI tool in but they’re using it tactically so someone in the content team might be using AI to generate alt tags for images or some of the SEO side is doing it for SEO optimised content.
18:01.297 –> 18:04.000
[SPEAKER_01]: But is there an overall strategy about what the role of AI is?
18:04.260 –> 18:05.241
[SPEAKER_01]: How does it fit operation?
18:05.301 –> 18:10.747
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it meant to do from an automation and a process efficiency point of view from a data, managing point of view?
18:10.767 –> 18:13.290
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that’s what’s lacking that AI governance.
18:13.590 –> 18:29.667
[SPEAKER_01]: If I think if I then strip that back to what’s practical in replet form it, the number one thing is, what are the core processes that take up your team’s time where they’re having to do repetitive tasks, which are tedious, and you’d much rather those e-com execs, CRM execs have more time to do value-a-ed,
18:29.647 –> 18:34.874
[SPEAKER_01]: focus on revenue driving growth activities and also give them a more enjoyable job.
18:34.894 –> 18:42.663
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s where the focus should be is then you’ve got use cases to explore with tech companies say, we’ve got six scenarios.
18:43.084 –> 18:46.208
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to know how your AI tool will help us to do this better.
18:46.768 –> 18:53.697
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s a far better way I think of approaching it rather than just trying to think about it in a more
18:53.677 –> 18:56.649
[SPEAKER_02]: and changing tack completely from AI to human beings.
18:57.191 –> 19:01.830
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s fair to say once then you get up and running and the project is happening.
19:02.080 –> 19:07.765
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s as much about people as it is about tech in a larger business as well isn’t it bringing them along on the journey with you?
19:08.145 –> 19:08.966
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.
19:09.026 –> 19:30.045
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is an area that’s often overlooked and it’s overlooked not because of bad intentions but because when you get into a project and the project is frenetic and you’ve got tasks coming out of your ears and you’ve got fires to put out is you forget some of the core principles you build a project on and that’s why it’s critical to have a strong project lead and a project manager to keep the team focused on those and not lose track.
19:30.025 –> 19:47.443
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think building consensus for changes massive and it’s about communicating with people how they need to be because you’ve got all different levels Only you’ve got C-suite who don’t want to be bombarded with the mind you shared detail and be involved every call They want to know are we on track are we on budget is the product being delivered effectively are we here in our outcomes?
19:47.423 –> 19:50.566
[SPEAKER_01]: and we need to keep them engaged and updated on that basis.
19:51.307 –> 19:57.574
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you’ve got, see the mentioned, we’ll know what the impact of their team is, it is their particular teams needs being catered for and not forgotten.
19:58.314 –> 20:13.110
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you’ve got the, I guess what I’ll call the do is the subject matter experts who are involved, either consistently, so content people, generally, and product people for our or periodically, so maybe the buyers are inputting
20:13.090 –> 20:23.465
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s about making sure that you keep communicating and sharing back to their many things that’s relevant to them and you give them an opportunity to feedback ask questions.
20:23.485 –> 20:25.648
[SPEAKER_01]: So town halls are good ways of doing it.
20:25.868 –> 20:32.357
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone can join in if they want to run them every x weeks months and people can just join in ask questions.
20:32.898 –> 20:35.942
[SPEAKER_01]: Don’t as you get further into project more regular stand-ups.
20:35.922 –> 20:40.648
[SPEAKER_01]: where you get people on the core and you just get them to raise any questions in advance, so you can tackle them.
20:41.209 –> 20:46.035
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think communication is critical, it’s just not losing sight that people need to be told what’s happening.
20:46.255 –> 20:51.983
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve covered an awful lot there, James, on the what would you do if you were embarking on a re-platform in 2026?
20:52.183 –> 20:55.687
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything we’ve missed that the audience really need to know about?
20:55.727 –> 20:59.432
[SPEAKER_02]: Or any final thought you’ve got for those who are embarking on this this year?
20:59.412 –> 21:03.998
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a couple of things are being, is you’ve got to have contingency in a project.
21:04.279 –> 21:06.882
[SPEAKER_01]: Projects can run over budget and products can run over time.
21:07.403 –> 21:18.798
[SPEAKER_01]: If you’ve got such a tight timeframe that there’s no slippage at all and you’ve got no contingency in a budget, what happens if something comes up that’s pretty cliche, you can’t frame all money, it’s it to add more development resource to fix it.
21:19.139 –> 21:22.483
[SPEAKER_01]: So that either means you compromise your skateboard or you compromise your timeframe.
21:22.463 –> 21:25.890
[SPEAKER_01]: so build contingency time and money so that you have a buffer.
21:26.010 –> 21:40.076
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always say 15 to 20 percent on your capex for a contingency to cover unknown unknowns and always planning wants to sprint a buffer to pad out time when you get into like user acceptance tests and launch planning and sprints normally over two weeks.
21:40.397 –> 21:41.940
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s really important.
21:41.920 –> 21:45.847
[SPEAKER_01]: The next thing is to understand that friction is inevitable in a project.
21:46.168 –> 21:50.195
[SPEAKER_01]: And friction could be somebody being ill and not being able to complete a task.
21:50.476 –> 21:53.542
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be disagreement and that can be healthy or it can be unhealthy.
21:54.043 –> 21:57.830
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be people but in the head or it can be people thinking, we haven’t got this right.
21:57.850 –> 22:02.899
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to debate this until we actually certain this is the right outcome for this particular task.
22:02.879 –> 22:13.336
[SPEAKER_01]: but you’ve got to educate people on what project friction is and not to fear it and not to think it’s bad in it and to say that if somebody challenges what you’re requesting, don’t take it personally, it’s because we want to get the right outcomes.
22:13.837 –> 22:21.390
[SPEAKER_01]: But the people running the project team have got to make sure it’s done in a productive and a constructive way and ensure that people feel supported.
22:21.430 –> 22:23.373
[SPEAKER_01]: If they get something wrong, they’re not punished.
22:23.894 –> 22:24.415
[SPEAKER_01]: That
22:24.395 –> 22:28.981
[SPEAKER_01]: they get explained what the issue is, help them to get it right and help them to feel valuable part of the team.
22:29.601 –> 22:51.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And that all leads into my final point, which is another exciting acronym, Chloe, if you’re wonderful listeners, Ray C, which is a basically a mapping of the project role you need to deliver a project like a project manager, project lead, subject matter experts, sponsors, and it’s listed in all the core tasks and mapping whose response will
22:51.108 –> 22:54.934
[SPEAKER_01]: and making sure that people know what their role is and they know what they’re responsible for.
22:55.675 –> 23:19.309
[SPEAKER_00]: Those bits they sound dull but they’re fundamental because they then give you a reference point to come back to the project and go, always keeping our governance on track.
23:21.112 –> 23:26.521
[SPEAKER_02]: 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.
23:26.621 –> 23:28.144
[SPEAKER_02]: James, are you ready for the top tips?
23:28.504 –> 23:28.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Always.
23:29.286 –> 23:36.538
[SPEAKER_02]: The booktop tip then, 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?
23:36.518 –> 23:42.168
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’m nearly misread this and thought this is which book am I enjoying reading at the moment then I realise you said about business, I changed it.
23:42.588 –> 23:50.462
[SPEAKER_01]: So webs of influence by Natalie Nehai I’ve been a long time fan of hers for many, many years when I came across as part of the consulting network.
23:50.843 –> 23:56.873
[SPEAKER_01]: So she’s a specialist in the convergence of psychology, of consumer behavior and online, shopping, marketing, etc.
23:56.853 –> 24:02.741
[SPEAKER_01]: so the book is an amazing perspective into psychological principles and how you can use them to improve your site.
24:02.761 –> 24:08.147
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s not about manipulation, but improving your site to better target and deliver good user experience with customers.
24:09.089 –> 24:10.430
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, excellent recommendation.
24:10.991 –> 24:15.156
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’re always happy to have a fiction book, you know, for future reference, that’s fine too.
24:15.537 –> 24:21.204
[SPEAKER_02]: Traffic, top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
24:21.464 –> 24:25.830
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I have two or do I have to be completely?
24:26.013 –> 24:27.616
[SPEAKER_02]: you can have to.
24:27.676 –> 24:35.127
[SPEAKER_01]: So first one direct mail and I know that you’ve covered a lot of conversation and direct mail on your pod, but I’m going to put out a very specific thing, direct mail is how long’s piece of string.
24:35.548 –> 24:43.941
[SPEAKER_01]: So direct mail follow-ups to first online orders, sending somebody something nice and this works a bit better of more up market like premium brands.
24:43.961 –> 24:50.772
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve worked really nice and we can do a really targeted insert, just something a bit more personal, a bit more tangible, something you can hold onto.
24:51.273 –> 24:53.877
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that’s a really nice touch,
24:53.857 –> 24:54.860
[SPEAKER_02]: And you said you wanted to?
24:55.221 –> 24:55.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Reddit.
24:55.923 –> 25:03.484
[SPEAKER_01]: Not enough people use reddit as a source for getting, like, brand authority and expertise and and also really give them a C.O.
25:03.504 –> 25:03.985
[SPEAKER_01]: point of view.
25:04.167 –> 25:08.552
[SPEAKER_02]: or some of you are hearing more and more about Reddit when I need to look more deeply into, I think.
25:08.572 –> 25:18.483
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, the tool-tock 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 a more efficient day to day?
25:18.663 –> 25:23.188
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the hardest one because as you do with the R&E context, definitely there’s just so many.
25:23.228 –> 25:28.774
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m just pulling out one that I’ve used recently that has really helped me, so Google Sheets and Gemini.
25:28.754 –> 25:36.203
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’ve had to do a lot of data important and data cleanse in reform, as I was migrating blood data out of WordPress into Shopify.
25:36.744 –> 25:42.952
[SPEAKER_01]: And it’s just, you can’t get from one system to another, clean, it’s just full of old crap HTML, ASCII characters.
25:43.513 –> 25:51.783
[SPEAKER_01]: So I basically use Google Sheets and Gemini to clean up and set rules and basically, because it can run Python commands and you can get it pretty clean.
25:52.123 –> 25:57.310
[SPEAKER_01]: I have used Chatchee BT in the past, but with Gemini, you can direct and Google Sheets, it’s quite nice.
25:57.509 –> 25:59.673
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, nice geeky recommendation there.
25:59.693 –> 26:00.354
[SPEAKER_02]: We like that.
26:00.855 –> 26:02.719
[SPEAKER_02]: And then finally the carbon top tip.
26:02.779 –> 26:06.485
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
26:06.906 –> 26:10.272
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to be flipping and say stop trying to sell as much as possible.
26:10.513 –> 26:13.358
[SPEAKER_01]: So less practicality, but that’s a bit too flipping.
26:13.338 –> 26:16.583
[SPEAKER_02]: but maybe flippant, but also 100% spot on.
26:16.884 –> 26:18.005
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
26:18.025 –> 26:18.306
[SPEAKER_02]: It is.
26:18.546 –> 26:31.106
[SPEAKER_01]: The one I’m going to pull out is, because I saw a really good, it’s about packaging, and about the fact that you do not need really expensive, embossed packaging that’s not made from sustainable materials, and they can’t be recycled or fully recycled.
26:31.126 –> 26:40.982
[SPEAKER_01]: You don’t need it, and I’ve had this conversation for you, Premier Brands, and I saw a couple of bold ones of good few years back who decided that they went early, and it wasn’t just because of the environment, it was also to cut costs.
26:40.962 –> 26:58.667
[SPEAKER_01]: But they went and they tested just plain recyclable packaging and found that actually it had no negative impact at all on conversion rate and it therefore increased their margin because the cost for much lower and it was also enabled them to have a more sustainable angle.
26:58.765 –> 27:13.821
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that packaging is the most popular answer to this question and I think it is probably the best answer to this question for three reasons one it saves you cost two it’s good for the planet and three it’s the most noticeable thing to consumers.
27:13.801 –> 27:33.343
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s the thing they rant about the most about brands is you stupidly size boxes or overly large amounts of packaging or packaging you can’t recycle so it kind of wins on so many levels and of course, one of the worst things you can do is pay to transport lots of air around the world so small packaging is also good.
27:33.743 –> 27:39.690
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s a spot on point actually because I had one the other day or something for my daughter is massive box came and I thought.
27:39.670 –> 27:49.132
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if we ordered that, it was about 60% air with those inflated plastic sacks inside, which I know they are from recycled materials, but it’s technically unnecessary.
27:49.833 –> 27:52.379
[SPEAKER_01]: So they then have to get parts, which were dog hates.
27:52.800 –> 27:57.190
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they have to get in put in the recycling bin to be recycled for no reason.
27:57.406 –> 28:05.273
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do quite like the way that Amazon in particular now is frequently sending out boxes without any packaging at all.
28:05.934 –> 28:17.604
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so you order an electronic site and it just arrives with a sticker on it, which I know doesn’t work everywhere in the world, but in my very rural part of the UK, where trust me, nobody is gonna be stealing parcels off my doorstep.
28:17.664 –> 28:24.531
[SPEAKER_02]: She says, famous last words, but it’s like, why would you put that vacuum in another box when it’s in a perfectly good box already?
28:24.731 –> 28:26.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
28:25.992 –> 28:41.554
[SPEAKER_02]: But before we go even deeper into our own rants about packaging james, would you please let the listeners know where they can get in contact with you if they have questions or want your help in their re-platforms or other tech stack challenges this year?
28:41.534 –> 28:54.550
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I prefer carrier pigeon because that’s my era of E-pop from my IBM days as well, so LinkedIn, you can find me James Good on LinkedIn and also check out the inside commerce podcast.
28:54.710 –> 28:59.376
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s always a good way to find out about us, contact me and your well-consider up.
28:59.656 –> 29:04.322
[SPEAKER_01]: We run a bi-weekly newsletter for inside-com, which shares our views on the E-com world.
29:04.803 –> 29:08.487
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it is specific conversation, connect with me in LinkedIn and drop me a DM.
29:08.467 –> 29:16.500
[SPEAKER_02]: and definitely listen to James’ podcast and newsletter because it is must read and must consume to keep on top of what’s going on in tech, especially here at the UK.
29:16.920 –> 29:18.943
[SPEAKER_02]: James, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
29:19.584 –> 29:27.396
[SPEAKER_02]: I suspect you have saved many people days and weeks of agony with your advice in this one, so huge thanks for sharing it with us.
29:27.697 –> 29:32.905
[SPEAKER_01]: Most welcome, thank you for inviting me on always enjoy chatting to you, Chloe, and I hope everyone has enjoyed the episode.
29:38.150 –> 29:50.627
[SPEAKER_02]: always a treat to catch up with James and I really do believe if you pay attention to what he’s just taking you through you will have much, much more successful and less painful as well, re-platforming activity this year.
29:51.007 –> 30:00.580
[SPEAKER_02]: He took us through the people side of it, both above you and below you, the tech side and the whole change management thing, which I think these days is almost as big as the tech side of it all.
30:00.560 –> 30:09.036
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from the episode, including those top tips and links to what we mentioned, by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.
30:09.557 –> 30:16.130
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also use our direct episode short links to get there, that’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode.
30:16.811 –> 30:20.458
[SPEAKER_02]: And don’t forget to get yourself on our email list when you reach the site.
30:20.438 –> 30:31.131
[SPEAKER_02]: If you liked this episode, then make sure you check out Episode 367, where I’m chatting with Ashley Hubbard from Grants and Shoes about their replad-forming journey.
30:31.472 –> 30:43.527
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more of our WWE IDs, or what would you do episodes, then head to ECMP.info-w-w-y-d and you’ll find a page with all of them listed for you.
30:43.507 –> 30:47.775
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
30:47.795 –> 30:56.591
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
30:57.011 –> 31:02.321
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
31:02.662 –> 31:05.667
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
31:08.549 –> 31:11.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
31:12.401 –> 31:17.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
32 min
March 01 eCommerce MasterPlan | Want to be in a Keep Optimising Podcast episode?
A quick update from Chloe on what’s happening for episode 300 on our sister show Keep Optimising, AND how you can be involved.
Get involved >> https://keepopt.com/300
—
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
00:01.583 –> 00:08.070
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, remember our massive episode 500 celebrations for the e-commerce master plan podcast back in 2024?
00:08.991 –> 00:15.699
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we’re about to do it again, but this time for our sister show keep optimizing, which hits episode 300 in April.
00:15.779 –> 00:17.461
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the big 3000.
00:18.382 –> 00:25.009
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s lots of cool stuff planned, plus the chance for you to be a part of the celebrations, so I’ve got a couple of must-do’s for you.
00:24.989 –> 00:33.405
[SPEAKER_00]: First, you’re going to want to hear it all, so make sure you’re subscribed or following the keep optimising podcast, wherever you get your podcast, so you don’t miss out.
00:34.126 –> 00:45.748
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you’re in e-commerce, quite frankly, you should already be listening, because over on keep optimising, we put out new episodes on Wednesdays covering one e-commerce marketing channel from several different angles over five weeks.
00:45.728 –> 00:52.118
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we take a week off to give you time to implement and then we go deep into a another marketing channel and do it all again.
00:52.158 –> 01:02.775
[SPEAKER_00]: At the moment we’re getting deep into SEO and GO or AI search and then we’ll be hitting our big growth series with that episode 300 in the middle of it.
01:02.755 –> 01:04.677
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s your number one to do.
01:05.237 –> 01:08.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Get following and listening to the keypoptimizing podcast.
01:08.100 –> 01:13.245
[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is how you can become a part of our episode 300 celebrations.
01:13.846 –> 01:18.770
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I started planning the keypoptimizing podcast in 2019, yeah, that long ago.
01:18.810 –> 01:24.536
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s always been about helping our listeners to grow their e-commerce store with better and better marketing.
01:25.176 –> 01:27.599
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s only become more difficult as the years have gone by.
01:27.619 –> 01:32.003
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are focusing our episode 300 celebrations on
01:31.983 –> 01:48.982
[SPEAKER_00]: Ever more advice on helping people to grow the sales of their business will be doing a 5 episode mini series all about growth and in the middle of it We will release episode 300 stacked with top tips from lots of listeners and experts on how to grow an e-commerce business successfully.
01:49.522 –> 01:52.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to be the most useful and helpful episode.
01:52.185 –> 01:58.632
[SPEAKER_00]: We put out all year and ideally the most useful e-commerce marketing podcast episode anyone puts out this year
01:59.523 –> 02:02.158
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s going to be must listen and we’d love you to be involved.
02:03.488 –> 02:09.493
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I would love you to do is to get us your top tip.
02:10.454 –> 02:14.137
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’d love you to submit your top tip and you might be a part of the episode.
02:14.157 –> 02:19.261
[SPEAKER_00]: You’ll also get to be a part of the ebook because we’ll be releasing an ebook the same day, the episode drops.
02:19.982 –> 02:28.369
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s going to have 300 tips for e-commerce marketing field growth from hacks to strategy and the goal is for not one of those to have been generated by AI.
02:28.409 –> 02:33.293
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to feature 300 different people with their brilliant advice on how to grow an e-commerce store.
02:34.842 –> 02:38.808
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really want to feature advice from our listeners and from other experts in the industry.
02:39.049 –> 02:44.016
[SPEAKER_00]: You can submit your top tip for growth at keepopt.com forward slash 300.
02:44.397 –> 02:46.180
[SPEAKER_00]: It’ll only take a couple of minutes to do.
02:46.220 –> 02:53.651
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from those submissions, we’ll pick the best ones to get actually come and be on the podcast episode itself.
02:53.671 –> 02:54.773
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s your opportunity.
02:54.833 –> 03:00.462
[SPEAKER_00]: Submit your top tip for the ebook via our form at keepopt.com forward slash 300.
03:00.442 –> 03:07.053
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, that will make it into the e-book, and then a handful of people will be invited to be a part of the episode.
03:07.554 –> 03:18.451
[SPEAKER_00]: So, go on, submit your best device now, keepopt.com for Sash 300, that KWPOPT.com for Sash 3000, and please do become a part of it.
03:18.491 –> 03:21.977
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to feature you in the e-book and the episode.
4 min
February 23eCommerce MasterPlan | 583: From £3k to £80m: The Bootstrapped Must Have Ideas Growth Story with Amy Knight
Amy Knight is the Founder at Must Have Ideas, a UK based eCommerce brands that sells problem solving household products. Must Have Ideas is a bootstrapped business, started with just £3,000 in 2018 that are now on track for £80million in 2026 via their custom in-house website.

In this episode, Amy shares how obsessive cash-flow control, customer-first thinking, and owning their tech stack helped Must Have Ideas scale at speed without outside funding. It’s a candid, practical conversation packed with lessons for eCommerce founders looking to grow sustainably, stay in control, and stand out in a crowded market.

Hit PLAY to hear:
How Must Have Ideas scaled from £3k to £80m without outside funding
The cash-flow discipline that made bootstrapping possible at scale
Why building an in-house tech stack unlocked faster growth and better decisions
How customer experience became a key acquisition and retention lever
The real reason they keep fulfilment, marketing, and CX in house
What finally made Amy decide it was time to expand beyond the UK

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:53] Building Trust Drives Customer Loyalty
[08:19] “Customized Software for eCommerce”
[12:40] Bootstrapping Success: Key Lessons
[13:30] “Focused Cash Flow Management”
[17:33] “Struggles with Space and Facilities”
[20:10] Listen to Amy’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/583
—
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
25 min
February 16eCommerce MasterPlan | 582: Driving Profits Through Customer Service with eDesk’s Gareth Cummings
Gareth Cummings is the CEO at eDesk, the AI powered customer support helpdesk for eCommerce. Used by eCommerce stores around the world, their client CarParts.com has just been named in USA Today’s list of America’s Best Customer Service 2026.
In this episode, Gareth explains how eCommerce brands can use customer service, AI, and automation to increase conversion rates, improve retention, and turn support teams into profit-driving growth engines.
Hit PLAY to hear:
How faster replies can lift conversion rates by 50–60%
Why 30–40% of customer service queries happen before checkout
The real reason 9–5 support is killing your evening and weekend sales
How AI can handle half your support tickets without hurting CX
Where customer service hides revenue leaks, return drivers, and product issues
How top eCommerce brands turn support teams into profit creators, not cost centers

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[03:25] “From Customer Service to CTO”
[07:08] Pre-Sales Engagement Trends Expand
[12:31] “AI, Automation, and Customer Focus”
[13:11] Customer Loyalty Flywheel Impact
[16:28] “Prioritizing Customer Experience Transformation”
[20:41] “Automating and Enhancing Customer Support”
[22:40] “Customer Service Empathy Practice”
[24:19] Listen to Gareth’s Top Tips!
[29:33] Episode sponsored by eDesk. To learn more, visit eDesk.com

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/582

Episode sponsored by eDesk. To learn more, visit eDesk.com
—
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 –> 00:11.128
[SPEAKER_02]: If you answer them quickly within minutes really, right, as opposed to errors, you can see the likelihood of a purchase off the back of that increases by like 50, 60% right, it really drives it up because again, I’m a home.
00:11.709 –> 00:13.091
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m a consumer interested in that product.
00:13.131 –> 00:15.315
[SPEAKER_02]: If I get my answer as quickly, back those two things.
00:15.836 –> 00:19.782
[SPEAKER_02]: It answers my question, but also builds on trust like this brand is responsive.
00:19.822 –> 00:21.004
[SPEAKER_02]: They engage quickly, right?
00:21.084 –> 00:26.512
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a psychological trust as well that you’re building right in terms of being responsive and giving accurate answers, right?
00:26.532 –> 00:27.574
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s important as well.
00:29.933 –> 00:32.958
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:32.978 –> 00:37.044
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:37.585 –> 00:45.698
[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.
00:48.614 –> 00:49.856
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.
00:49.876 –> 00:50.818
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.
00:50.898 –> 00:54.865
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:54.986 –> 01:05.104
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of our master class episodes where we get an e-commerce expert on to the show to share the key things you need to know in one e-commerce subject.
01:05.084 –> 01:19.683
[SPEAKER_01]: And the subject for this one is customer service, not just how to deliver better customer service, although, of course, we get into that, but also how to turn your ops customer service activity into more of a profit center.
01:19.783 –> 01:20.545
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
01:20.525 –> 01:32.245
[SPEAKER_01]: sharing data between departments by helping your customer service team give higher quality responses to consumers by helping customers pre-purchase post-purchase and so on and so forth.
01:32.265 –> 01:34.149
[SPEAKER_01]: Really fascinating stuff we’re getting into here.
01:34.189 –> 01:36.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of little nuggity bits as well as some big thoughts.
01:36.994 –> 01:42.904
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you listen to the end of the episode so you don’t miss out on my guest’s top tips and my own take on this episode.
01:48.267 –> 01:50.329
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest.
01:50.349 –> 01:53.393
[SPEAKER_01]: Garath Cummings is the CEO at E-desk.
01:53.413 –> 01:59.860
[SPEAKER_01]: The AI powered customer support help desk for E-commerce, used by E-commerce stores around the world.
02:00.240 –> 02:07.909
[SPEAKER_01]: Their client carparts.com has just been named in USA Today’s list of America’s best customer service 2026.
02:09.290 –> 02:10.091
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Garath.
02:10.592 –> 02:12.834
[SPEAKER_02]: Chloe, thanks for having me on.
02:12.854 –> 02:17.059
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to be chatting to you today in Rayney, Dublin.
02:17.292 –> 02:19.375
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and coming to you from Rainy Cornwall, as well.
02:19.395 –> 02:21.799
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe we’re both suffering from the same storm.
02:21.980 –> 02:25.766
[SPEAKER_01]: But we spent far too long in the pre-court talking about the weather.
02:25.786 –> 02:27.489
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s let’s spare everybody.
02:27.529 –> 02:30.173
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody that otherwise I’ll go off on one of our storms.
02:30.754 –> 02:36.483
[SPEAKER_01]: And very cool, getting your client up into the America’s best customer service list.
02:36.523 –> 02:39.368
[SPEAKER_01]: That must be a nice way to start the year.
02:39.348 –> 02:40.229
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, amazing.
02:40.349 –> 02:44.514
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, the car parts, the calm have been a customer for us for quite a long time.
02:44.574 –> 02:50.440
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, probably five, six years, great business based on the West Coast of the US, selling car parts.
02:50.601 –> 02:59.491
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, but you, huge business public units have been ran quite a while and yeah, be using us for customer support and have a significant team in terms of what they do.
03:00.071 –> 03:07.920
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s always brilliant to see a customer using our platform, get recognized for what they’re doing in customer service.
03:07.900 –> 03:12.649
[SPEAKER_02]: ourselves and you’d ask such big believes in customers at the heart of your business, that’s how it should be.
03:13.371 –> 03:14.312
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, pretty cool.
03:14.353 –> 03:19.222
[SPEAKER_02]: My start to the year and great to see some of our customers getting some of the recognition in which they well deserve.
03:19.883 –> 03:22.028
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s go back a bit from this year.
03:22.068 –> 03:25.875
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you end up in the world of e-commerce and customer service?
03:26.007 –> 03:26.748
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
03:26.788 –> 03:31.335
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I guess, you know, my career, I’ve always worked in, I guess, tech startups.
03:31.395 –> 03:33.759
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s kind of what I’ve found myself landing in.
03:34.039 –> 03:38.866
[SPEAKER_02]: But it way back when I, you know, started off working in call centers, you know, when you’re first kind of starting out your career.
03:39.367 –> 03:50.423
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so I had a taste to customer service right at the beginning, and then kind of went off on my tech journey and worked in different tech startups, be it in banking and telecommunication and people and stuff like that.
03:51.265 –> 03:55.491
[SPEAKER_02]: But always had that
03:55.471 –> 04:08.409
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I met Ray Nolan, who’s the founder of our business, eight years ago actually did stay a little bit more, he was had lots of success and different business, which is hostile world and Skyscan earned, you know, be quite well known in the Irish and UK markets.
04:08.769 –> 04:15.799
[SPEAKER_02]: But he had been running this company and wanted me to come on board a CPL to run the products and technical part.
04:16.280 –> 04:20.145
[SPEAKER_02]: Madam for a coffee was actually Steven’s day or boxing day as you would call it.
04:20.125 –> 04:35.989
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so madam, in that morning, we kind of hit it off, and yeah, I joined the company, so that was my, by star, so my journey and in within E-desk and E-commerce, and since then I progress, so looked after product I’m tech, but then moved up into the sea overall, running on the old business.
04:36.029 –> 04:39.855
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that’s, that’s how we end the aquarium today in terms of what I’m doing.
04:40.375 –> 04:42.277
[SPEAKER_01]: What an awesome journey to have gone on.
04:43.258 –> 04:52.648
[SPEAKER_01]: Given, you know, you’ve had those years of experience in the customer service base, deep in what the customer needs in the CTO role, and obviously still doing that now in the CTO role.
04:52.928 –> 05:01.057
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you seen what brands are looking for in their customer service needs in their customer service tech change in that time?
05:01.797 –> 05:06.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it evolving what they actually want in order to deliver the customer experience they want to?
05:06.751 –> 05:07.232
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
05:07.272 –> 05:16.604
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the biggest change which is consistent in e-commerce I think is just a multitude of channels where communications happening upon, and also where they’re selling upon, right?
05:16.684 –> 05:25.015
[SPEAKER_02]: So gosh even maybe six, seven years ago, you might have had brands who only sold on on the website, for example, and that was that was where they only sold, right?
05:25.075 –> 05:28.540
[SPEAKER_02]: But typically brands we see these days could be selling on the website.
05:28.520 –> 05:33.389
[SPEAKER_02]: to talk shop, you know, they might have a presence on the likes of the Instagram or or or meta or X.
05:34.091 –> 05:40.243
[SPEAKER_02]: They also might be setting some stock on marketplaces, which is Amazon or Walmart or what are European marketplaces.
05:40.343 –> 05:45.533
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the biggest change on its consistent is just the acceleration of where
05:45.513 –> 05:48.458
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s both selling, but we’re also communication is happening, right?
05:48.498 –> 05:52.085
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s no longer a one single channel or maybe two channels.
05:52.145 –> 05:53.307
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a breath of channels.
05:53.608 –> 05:55.551
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s all in terms of the channels are coming in.
05:55.571 –> 06:07.032
[SPEAKER_02]: It could be in terms of the email, but also the likes of chat, entry, kind of social messaging, these days of WhatsApp or SMS, such a broad range of places where people can communicate.
06:07.012 –> 06:13.102
[SPEAKER_02]: Our sales is consumers expect the same level of responsiveness and engagement across all those different locations.
06:13.122 –> 06:17.148
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that has just exploded and continues every year.
06:17.188 –> 06:19.612
[SPEAKER_02]: It just continues to grow and grow and grow and grow.
06:19.632 –> 06:26.843
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s that’s you know what I see in terms of our customers are brands what they have to deal with and that’s that’s something that continues to accelerate.
06:27.295 –> 06:52.273
[SPEAKER_01]: And presumably as it’s as the conversation as directed by the customer is expanding out from we have a form on the website, you know, go away but we have a form on the website and if you go to that form then you can speak to it kind of like we’re as the business we’re very in control and we’re really only going to talk to you if you’ve got a dispatch problem or a payment problem, you know, it’s very kind of technical staff.
06:52.473 –> 07:07.815
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it as we as it expands on to these more, not more salesy platforms, more interactive platforms like TikTok WhatsApp or the marketplace and all the rest of it is it becoming more of a pre-sale channel than a post sale channel.
07:08.476 –> 07:09.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
07:09.457 –> 07:10.178
[SPEAKER_02]: I think.
07:10.681 –> 07:13.186
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, if you went back a few years, it was probably more transactional.
07:13.266 –> 07:17.012
[SPEAKER_02]: As you say, you would have to deform in your website, you know, kind of post-ail.
07:17.654 –> 07:19.016
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit the form, get an answer back, right?
07:19.036 –> 07:22.142
[SPEAKER_02]: It was this kind of around purity around the post transaction.
07:22.522 –> 07:30.257
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we’re seeing more and more is that pre-says engagement in the fact for some brands, up to 30 to 40% off to actual queries coming in are pre-says queries.
07:30.277 –> 07:32.200
[SPEAKER_02]: So people are asking about,
07:32.180 –> 07:43.390
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, sizes or when it will be delivered or just different, especially, you know, around higher intent purchases, you know, so, so value purchases, right, people are going to ask more questions.
07:43.410 –> 07:45.712
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re going to engage more and more before they buy something.
07:46.072 –> 07:49.855
[SPEAKER_02]: So we see that more and more in terms of the message volume that’s coming in.
07:50.075 –> 07:53.018
[SPEAKER_02]: And that following can again, it can progress multiple different channels, right?
07:53.078 –> 08:01.225
[SPEAKER_02]: As you say, you know, social channels, you know, chat, you know, those social channels very much are engaging
08:01.205 –> 08:14.326
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s where you have people doing research, but also you have those impulse bodies, you know, we’re all the same, you’re, you know, you’re on your couch, on the in-eating order weekends, and you’re kind of browsing your phone, and you see someone on Instagram, or TikTok, whatever you’re, well, that’s kind of interesting, and it’s that impulse boy.
08:15.087 –> 08:21.137
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s where, you know, you’ve been there as a brand to engage with that impulse boy, is really, really important because
08:21.117 –> 08:28.287
[SPEAKER_02]: in that moment where I’m thinking of a person in your product and if you can’t respond to me in that moment, you might use that window.
08:28.307 –> 08:48.154
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see that again, time is time with what our stats, that if you don’t engage quickly in those pre-sales queries, especially outside of those, obviously if you’re in a business space in the UK and you’re people working one of the Friday, 95, you know, your shepherds window is don’t align with those times, and that’s why you need to be able to engage with your
08:48.134 –> 08:56.493
[SPEAKER_02]: which your potential customers turn those evenings will be cans as well because they’re core hours where people are purchasing or, you know, thinking they’re purchasing.
08:56.513 –> 08:59.359
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you have to be insured that they’re kind of in those places as well.
08:59.795 –> 09:14.255
[SPEAKER_01]: I always find it, you know, my career starts stuff in the world of mail order where you could, you know, to a certain extent get away with the nine to five phone lines because most people back at that point in time would place the orders on a Monday morning when they got to work by phone.
09:14.656 –> 09:23.608
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, if you’ve got ads running 24-7 on Facebook or TikTok or wherever it might be, to have shut your call center.
09:23.588 –> 09:24.692
[SPEAKER_01]: at 5 p.m.
09:24.953 –> 09:35.067
[SPEAKER_01]: When we know there’s a spike in orders that happens around the eight nine o’clock mark, it’s kind of, you know, immediately giving cash away because of a logistics manpower,
09:35.249 –> 09:41.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly just like, again, you’ve got to think of your consumers who might be on different time zones as well, right?
09:41.476 –> 09:43.738
[SPEAKER_02]: You were coming to your website or to your page, right?
09:43.758 –> 09:45.880
[SPEAKER_02]: And might necessarily be in the same time zone that you’re in as well, right?
09:45.900 –> 09:49.384
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have that at play as well, because you’re selling globally, generally, right?
09:49.765 –> 09:53.809
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, if you think about kind of shooting that shop window, it’s kind of like your shop windows.
09:54.450 –> 09:58.714
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s like having your shop open 24 by seven, but only staffed during certain periods of time, right?
09:58.754 –> 10:01.097
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of think of that as like, yeah, it doesn’t make sense.
10:01.157 –> 10:04.260
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, we see it from our day to time and time again.
10:04.240 –> 10:07.868
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you’ve kind of got a short win, no towns or those pre-sats questions.
10:07.948 –> 10:18.350
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you answer them quickly within, you know, within minutes ready, right, as opposed to errors, you can see the conversion that the likelihood of a purchase after the back of that increases by like 50, 50 percent, right?
10:18.370 –> 10:21.456
[SPEAKER_02]: It really drives it up because, again, I’m a home.
10:21.436 –> 10:31.491
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m a consumer interested in that product if I get my answer as quickly, because in fact, those two things, it answers my question, but it also builds on trust like this brand is responsive they engage quickly, right?
10:31.511 –> 10:38.061
[SPEAKER_02]: So so it’s it’s a psychological trust as well that you’re building right in terms of being responsive and giving accurate answers, right?
10:38.081 –> 10:38.862
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s important as well.
10:39.242 –> 10:45.672
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, that really drives up the likelihood of of myself purchasing off you and and also can help.
10:45.905 –> 10:52.235
[SPEAKER_02]: in terms of, you know, if I do have questions around delivery or our sizes and stuff like that, but get them answered first, right?
10:52.535 –> 10:55.460
[SPEAKER_02]: But also kind of decreases the likelihood that I’m going to return on a product, right?
10:55.480 –> 11:00.528
[SPEAKER_02]: It helps, you know, we think of conversion, but it also helps in terms of post-sad, right?
11:00.548 –> 11:11.084
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I’ve got someone else questions answered upfront, and I know, so kind of it plays two key roles in terms of helping in terms of overall kind of customer buying cycle, which is really, really important.
11:11.124 –> 11:13.768
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, those are evenings, those weekends,
11:13.748 –> 11:23.318
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re really important in terms of brands and being there and being engaged, which are customers, you know, and we all expect, you know, for all, we’re also tied to our phones these days.
11:23.659 –> 11:24.520
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not just Gen Z, right?
11:24.540 –> 11:25.020
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s everyone.
11:25.060 –> 11:27.042
[SPEAKER_02]: But so we all expect, right?
11:27.062 –> 11:33.650
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re not in phones, we expect that kind of response to this, we expect that to happen, because that’s how we’re all getting more and more aware, right?
11:33.770 –> 11:36.933
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s important that, yeah, he was a brand engaged in that way as well.
11:37.814 –> 11:43.300
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you think with all these these changes, we’re saying that
11:43.448 –> 11:58.420
[SPEAKER_01]: in customer service as not just an ops cost line I suppose but more as a profit creator for the business is that a switch you’re seeing maybe just the more enlightened brands making at the moment but do you think that that’s a switch that’s happening in the industry?
11:58.653 –> 12:02.561
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I’m hearing it more and more like, I just think back to this year of the difference.
12:03.423 –> 12:12.283
[SPEAKER_02]: Confidence of the action, you know, you go to different e-commerce events and, you know, you’re listening to brands speak and, you know, in terms of what they’re saying and what’s important to them.
12:12.944 –> 12:17.995
[SPEAKER_02]: And you’re hearing the time time again in terms of customers and conversations.
12:17.975 –> 12:24.650
[SPEAKER_02]: on the human element and representing their brand and being consistent and stuff like community, right, and all these things.
12:24.911 –> 12:28.038
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s all centered around the customer, right?
12:28.278 –> 12:33.570
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it’s, it’s this kind of, you know, parallel world, right, of ZBF, AI and the, and that.
12:33.550 –> 12:41.600
[SPEAKER_02]: the race in terms of automation, and that plays a very important role in, you know, in terms of our product itself, that plays a very significant role and I can play a hand in your business.
12:41.660 –> 12:45.945
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is the piece around the customer and how you treat the customer and how you engage with customer.
12:45.965 –> 12:48.928
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s still at the core of of any business.
12:49.189 –> 12:56.858
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m here more and more in terms of brands like it’s, you know, it’s harder than ever to acquire customers like it’s it’s more costly, it’s more competition.
12:56.838 –> 13:05.060
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, margins of being squeezed, your tariffs, you know, it’s never at all moment in the e-commerce as I always felt like it was always these different things going on.
13:05.160 –> 13:08.008
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the customers that you have, right?
13:08.389 –> 13:11.197
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s important that you draw a repeat business off the end.
13:11.217 –> 13:13.142
[SPEAKER_02]: I think of that kind of flywheel where
13:13.122 –> 13:19.073
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, you acquire customer, you know, you give them good service, they leave a positive review, which drives more revenues.
13:19.314 –> 13:20.256
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s liable effect.
13:20.676 –> 13:25.826
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, you have, you know, what we think of you’ve always peep business selling online or reviews online, which is a massive part of it.
13:26.367 –> 13:29.393
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can, in the case, the offline impact as well, right?
13:29.413 –> 13:35.805
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you all know what if we have a negative experience, we tell our family, we tell our friends, we tell our coworkers, we tell our neighbors,
13:36.173 –> 13:37.594
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you tell everyone, right?
13:37.634 –> 13:39.676
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so there’s that impact as well, which you can’t negate.
13:39.797 –> 13:41.618
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so I think more more.
13:41.658 –> 13:43.620
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s, you know, I’m hearing more.
13:43.660 –> 13:44.041
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m even left.
13:44.081 –> 13:47.844
[SPEAKER_02]: I was asked the NRF there in New York just there at the beginning of January.
13:48.745 –> 13:53.230
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it was coming up from all the brands from all the people in terms of that.
13:53.690 –> 14:02.238
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s coming more and more important because if you can grow that ballty, if you can drive that repeat business, that gives just a better flyable effect, right?
14:02.258 –> 14:04.020
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I think it’s becoming
14:04.000 –> 14:08.408
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I, you know, if you come back to the joins of e-commerce Amazon, right?
14:08.448 –> 14:16.983
[SPEAKER_02]: There wouldn’t have a core issue principles from the very start and still to just stay as, you know, the customer obsession is putting the customer at the heart of what they do in every decision.
14:17.624 –> 14:20.429
[SPEAKER_02]: And I often think, you know, that’s, that’s Amazon, the giant, right?
14:20.449 –> 14:21.851
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s, and they still have that today.
14:21.931 –> 14:29.164
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s an important lesson for any kind of e-commerce brown or set or held there, that’s really important that you put the customer at the heart of your business.
14:29.752 –> 14:45.547
[SPEAKER_01]: So those that you’re seeing successfully put the customer at the heart of it and successfully, I guess reintegrate, revive their customer service team and their customer service systems to provide that better level of support, that better mindset for support.
14:45.807 –> 14:48.470
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you seeing them going about doing it?
14:48.650 –> 14:50.192
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a text acting?
14:50.352 –> 14:51.853
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a leadership thing?
14:51.873 –> 14:53.795
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a budget thing?
14:53.835 –> 14:59.100
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it that makes the shift from?
14:59.772 –> 15:00.777
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, good question.
15:00.817 –> 15:06.829
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the first thing, it does need to come from leadership or from, you know, you believe not because
15:07.163 –> 15:13.351
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that has to be driven trail to business then in terms of how you operate and how you think about the customer and how you operate around that.
15:13.391 –> 15:18.177
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s very important because ultimately that’s where it’s driven from the business.
15:18.197 –> 15:25.386
[SPEAKER_02]: And from there, then you can start to look at stuff like the platforms and the processes and the procedures that you’re in place to ensure that you’re doing the right things.
15:25.987 –> 15:32.175
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I spoke a bit of a human which is still very important, but probably that’s where stuff like AI and platforms can play a real role because
15:32.425 –> 15:50.430
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, within our own platform, what we need to ask, you can use AI’s automation, you know, up to kind of 50, 60% you know, it to think of e-commerce queries that come in, there’s a lot of repetitive queries that come in and be it where’s my order or, you know, even returns or, you know, one in invoice, even the comes to pre-sales.
15:50.951 –> 15:57.640
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a lot of common questions there that, you know, people want to know in terms of your delivery patterns about sizes, but you have stuff in stock.
15:57.620 –> 16:04.696
[SPEAKER_02]: So, where you can use stuff like, you know, AI would need us because you can use it to connect with your product feeds, you can connect with your product catalog.
16:05.337 –> 16:11.110
[SPEAKER_02]: So, your AI is able to answer those questions in real time, in any language, you know, 24, 7.
16:11.712 –> 16:16.843
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are a pair of queries can be automated and they give it a very good response, they give it an accurate answer.
16:16.823 –> 16:41.430
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, consumers are happy to engage because they’re getting the answers to want and then that allows your humans within the customer part of the business to focus more on high value conversations are more complex issues so they have the time that right to handle a VIP customer, for example, I make sure they’re getting, you know, if they have an issue they get the attention they need it gets sort of quickly they get that care that’s needed so they can deal with more complex issues.
16:41.410 –> 16:45.675
[SPEAKER_02]: they can, you know, deal with escalations, they can deal with the high value customers.
16:46.215 –> 16:55.085
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, again, that’s just needs a better experience because if I’m a new customer engaging, I’m some pre-search questions, I get the answers quickly, accurately, in my native language.
16:55.546 –> 17:07.519
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, as a researcher of business, if I have some complex issues, I get to deal with a rare human who engages me, who has the time to respond and, you know, the time to treat me as, as, as it should be for you as a customer.
17:07.499 –> 17:08.941
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s key.
17:09.021 –> 17:14.811
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, start with leadership in terms of going, yeah, this is kind of, this is an area for us to transform.
17:14.991 –> 17:27.410
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m quite often, it’s an on-top area because, you know, it’s, again, obviously for understandable reasons, it’s just often so much focus on how we’re going to acquire new customers, like what marketing campaigns are we running?
17:28.432 –> 17:33.540
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d spend, you know, it’s all, there’s a lot of focus on a business in that area and rightly so, but,
17:33.520 –> 17:38.127
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a real untapped area here in terms of revenue, and we’ve seen it with our own customer race time and time again.
17:38.488 –> 17:44.578
[SPEAKER_02]: When they put focus on this area, they can increase conversion on the pre-sales, they get happier customers, they get more reviews.
17:45.519 –> 17:52.550
[SPEAKER_02]: It just creates that fly with effect, and they can see over time at, hey, a repeat business is going on, which is a really key metric, right?
17:52.570 –> 17:57.418
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of that, we’re getting repeat customers, our RTV value of our customers is driving up.
17:57.398 –> 18:04.650
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, there’s always a lot of focus in e-commerce businesses on, you know, on the marketing side, growth, conversion.
18:05.130 –> 18:07.594
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a real long tap area and we see this time and time again.
18:07.654 –> 18:12.222
[SPEAKER_02]: So, when you start to put a bit of focus in this area, some ways easy wins, right?
18:12.282 –> 18:15.347
[SPEAKER_02]: That can really add to that growth flywheel.
18:15.667 –> 18:17.550
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can do it in
18:17.530 –> 18:19.294
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, an economical way as well, right?
18:19.334 –> 18:24.265
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not a case that that you have to maybe somewhat of marking a range that’s put a lot of spin or budget.
18:24.706 –> 18:30.700
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s things you can do smartly, which will drive, drive up your growth and drive up your profitability as well, I was going to drive it up a few business.
18:31.421 –> 18:36.653
[SPEAKER_01]: It strikes me as one of the immediate things to do would be to set the AI.
18:37.628 –> 18:37.928
[SPEAKER_01]: up.
18:38.129 –> 18:39.691
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, set the AI loose.
18:39.711 –> 18:41.274
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m not quite sure that’s the right phrase to use.
18:41.594 –> 18:49.266
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, you set the AI up to deal with those, you know, what’s usually the bulk of the inquiries that are coming in, which is where is my parcel?
18:49.326 –> 18:50.588
[SPEAKER_01]: When’s my parcel going to arrive?
18:50.668 –> 18:51.249
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I return?
18:51.269 –> 19:05.712
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all that kind of like simple stuff that’s fully data driven, take the pressure off your team, run it 247 if you don’t actually have team running 247 and maybe 50% of those 8 p.m. calls we were talking about earlier will get picked up nice and quickly.
19:05.692 –> 19:22.570
[SPEAKER_01]: But then presumably the next thing is to start training and supporting your customer service team at that point is that the next thing to do, if we want to and we’ve got the leadership buy and we’ve got this decision, we’re going to be improving this area of the business, would that be your next step after implementing the AI?
19:22.803 –> 19:52.540
[SPEAKER_02]: absolutely uninvesting and then because you kind of take off pressure off right in terms of so so then then it’s okay now we’re going to get our customer facing team focusing on the things we want to focus on on so that’s you know we can upskill them we can invest in training they can also you know invest in terms of making sure that the automation is working as a should be so that that is running as well and then again in terms of where they can add value to the distance right so where can they come in an help in terms of with the growth narrative also you
19:52.520 –> 19:57.747
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a really untapped area in terms of listens to the feedback that’s coming from your customers, right?
19:57.847 –> 20:00.170
[SPEAKER_02]: Like true to customer service team, right?
20:00.250 –> 20:01.572
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, again, all these things, right?
20:01.612 –> 20:13.046
[SPEAKER_02]: But like quite often we found, and again, you know, you can use products like E-rested to unpick some of this information, but you might have a high selling product, but actually that’s driving a lot of negative reviews in a high level of returns.
20:13.307 –> 20:16.671
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you use supplies sometimes like this and don’t aren’t aware of this, actually.
20:16.938 –> 20:20.428
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was on your top line that you’re coming on.
20:20.448 –> 20:22.273
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is a great setting ski or product item.
20:22.293 –> 20:23.155
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s going really well.
20:23.577 –> 20:27.828
[SPEAKER_02]: When you kind of look on your liver, you’re like, oh, actually, this is not performing as it was.
20:27.849 –> 20:29.433
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s actually hurting, this is a business, right?
20:29.834 –> 20:31.960
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s, you know, by
20:31.940 –> 20:51.417
[SPEAKER_02]: given your time to your customer service team to be able to give that feedback back to the business or identify those issues and you know that’s the feedback group within the business as well that’s not always there that’s not always coming back so you discover these these things or these national problems in the business and that allows you to improve things all the time so rather than
20:51.397 –> 20:57.984
[SPEAKER_02]: the support team just, you know, frankly trying to deal with the crews are coming in, go automate that piece, you automate the 24-7 piece.
20:58.424 –> 21:01.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, that raises your buyer customer service immediately, right?
21:01.287 –> 21:06.813
[SPEAKER_02]: All of a sudden, you’re offering 24-7 support, multi-lingual as well, right by using AI, right, can answer now.
21:07.093 –> 21:12.559
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, again, then all of a sudden, you’re starting to tap into that knowledge that the customer service team has, right?
21:12.579 –> 21:15.362
[SPEAKER_02]: That they know about your customers, that your products,
21:15.342 –> 21:26.010
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, different things that happen in the business, that’s a really, you know, on tap area that you can delve into and you can stare at a kind of learn more about your business and then yeah, feed that back in and see what improvements you can make, you know.
21:26.598 –> 21:30.464
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s quite the mindset shift almost across the whole business.
21:30.564 –> 21:44.005
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I mentioned to you before that back when I worked brand-side, we were on the same floor of the building with not actually a door between us buying merchandise and I was in marketing and the customer service team.
21:44.646 –> 21:48.452
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were kind of through a tiny bit of corridor around the corner.
21:48.472 –> 21:50.175
[SPEAKER_01]: And we never went down there.
21:50.155 –> 22:09.919
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was kind of ridiculous who never went down to see to get any feedback from them to this and into calls or anything, but at the same time, they were prided themselves on finding work around for the problems we caused them rather than going Chloe, there’s a problem with this code that you’ve set up.
22:10.519 –> 22:11.340
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you fix it?
22:11.400 –> 22:12.762
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we’ll find a work around.
22:12.782 –> 22:19.470
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it’s like this, this problem solving pride was actually, you know,
22:19.450 –> 22:26.440
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they just get very good at dealing with the customers who’ve got this problem item, but not feeding it back to the buying and merchandising team who are probably buying more of it.
22:27.101 –> 22:31.648
[SPEAKER_01]: And it all who might be able to fix the fact that the buttons fall off or whatever it might be.
22:31.708 –> 22:35.473
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it’s a whole kind of culture thing in some ways.
22:35.553 –> 22:40.260
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, you make these steps and it’s all going to improve, but you’ve also got to tackle the people in the culture.
22:40.409 –> 23:05.623
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely, like, a big believer in this ourselves, but like even around business, but like, you know, one week a year, you actually assist no matter what kind of position you’re in, sit and eat work in customer service because you just be surprised about what you hear, what your customer’s feedback to you, you just push it in there in terms of what, what that team is actually dealing with day to day, you know, because, you know, if you’re working on support, you’re an excellent problem solver, you’re, that’s in your DNA, right?
23:05.603 –> 23:11.994
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s what, you know, you can default to, but yeah, so in terms of even just having that piece connected to your business.
23:12.074 –> 23:15.821
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they’re interacting with your customers every single day, right?
23:15.881 –> 23:19.246
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, come and back to what Core belief if the customers are at the heart of your business, right?
23:19.587 –> 23:21.029
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re hearing that every single day.
23:21.110 –> 23:22.532
[SPEAKER_02]: So they’re, you know,
23:22.512 –> 23:27.658
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially in the area where you can get such grey feedback, it back into the business of what’s working and what’s not working.
23:28.138 –> 23:33.304
[SPEAKER_02]: And then again, just sometimes there is really simple things that can be fixed in the business, right?
23:33.344 –> 23:36.508
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just that the rest of the business is not aware that they’re going on, right?
23:36.548 –> 23:40.453
[SPEAKER_02]: So as you say, it could be a very simple thing that’s, hey, yeah, we can get, you know, that’s it.
23:40.513 –> 23:41.834
[SPEAKER_02]: Does the defect in that predictor product?
23:41.854 –> 23:43.616
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s actually we can get that solved, right?
23:43.816 –> 23:47.581
[SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe we’re having a problem with a particular carrier who’s doing very recently.
23:47.601 –> 23:51.405
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, sort of things that are actually operation can be fixed quite easily.
23:51.385 –> 23:53.468
[SPEAKER_02]: But it’s just making sure that they’re connected to the business.
23:53.488 –> 24:17.764
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that’s, you know, if you want to put your customer at the heart of business, then you should be put in, yeah, your customer’s port at the heart of the business as well.
24:20.005 –> 24:25.753
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking up businesses to the next level.
24:25.813 –> 24:27.495
[SPEAKER_01]: Garth are you ready for the top tips?
24:28.036 –> 24:28.516
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m ready.
24:28.576 –> 24:28.837
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
24:29.317 –> 24:29.758
[SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.
24:29.938 –> 24:31.360
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.
24:31.460 –> 24:38.790
[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?
24:39.226 –> 24:44.816
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this one’s a bit of a classic, but I still read from time to time, so it’s held when friends and influence people by their Carnegie.
24:44.976 –> 24:48.622
[SPEAKER_02]: I read it many, many years ago for the first time, but I’ve read it multiple times.
24:48.702 –> 24:49.564
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it holds true.
24:49.624 –> 24:52.729
[SPEAKER_02]: Anani type of business, right in terms of how you, you know, holds me.
24:53.410 –> 24:54.552
[SPEAKER_02]: Businesses are still the people, right?
24:54.572 –> 24:56.736
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s how you deal with people and how you react certain things.
24:56.836 –> 25:00.863
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that would be, that would be my book recommendation if you’re going to take a Friday off.
25:01.214 –> 25:08.665
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I reckon if you were going to do a family tree of business books, they would all eventually leave back to Delco need you.
25:08.685 –> 25:12.271
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s like, you know, you can kind of read it and go, oh yeah, that’s a bit of that one.
25:12.471 –> 25:13.232
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s a bit of that one.
25:13.252 –> 25:14.094
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yes.
25:14.434 –> 25:15.997
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s kind of the original, yes.
25:16.477 –> 25:18.861
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the original and possibly the best.
25:19.442 –> 25:26.833
[SPEAKER_01]: So, great, great, terrific top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
25:27.337 –> 25:49.227
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think just clarity in terms of we are, like, say the same thing consistently, you know, to clear audience, just be consistent, like we all can get up and get caught up in tactics and, you know, different things we can we can try and do and they have a place, right, don’t don’t can be wrong.
25:49.358 –> 25:52.544
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, just how they reach out to their audience, so like that.
25:52.624 –> 25:58.795
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just ensuring that you have carry in that, you know, what you’re trying to say, that’s important as well, sometimes that can be very make.
25:58.815 –> 25:59.015
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
26:00.117 –> 26:00.438
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:00.458 –> 26:04.585
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s easier said in some months, but like trying to sit down and understand, actually, what do we want to say?
26:04.685 –> 26:05.667
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we want to represent?
26:05.947 –> 26:07.690
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, take some time to really nail that.
26:08.051 –> 26:10.375
[SPEAKER_02]: And then make sure you’re consistently saying that across.
26:10.535 –> 26:12.058
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s, that’s important.
26:12.443 –> 26:31.515
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so important for the customer and for the success of your business, but also so important for getting AI to talk about you correctly and be found, I mean, because the the LLMs and the AI they are taking the sum of all the parts they can find about you and if they find stuff that doesn’t matter what you want it to say.
26:31.698 –> 26:32.499
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s not going to go well.
26:32.920 –> 26:33.641
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and they don’t care.
26:33.681 –> 26:35.183
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re just going to serve for subtle, right?
26:35.403 –> 26:39.749
[SPEAKER_02]: So someone’s searching and chatting to be or whatever, they’ll tune in and then they’re going, so yeah.
26:39.769 –> 26:45.837
[SPEAKER_02]: So that kind of, like, kind of, as we call it, customer engagement or, you know, across different shops, you need to be consistent, right?
26:45.877 –> 26:50.604
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you’re saying different things in different places, these days it’s going to, it’s going to serve for, and it’s yeah.
26:50.944 –> 26:52.746
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s a thing, absolutely.
26:53.327 –> 26:56.111
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all this would be typing in, what, what does AI know?
26:56.231 –> 26:57.092
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what?
26:57.112 –> 27:00.557
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn’t, we haven’t done that for 20 years.
27:00.689 –> 27:01.892
[SPEAKER_02]: Rack, yes.
27:01.912 –> 27:03.877
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s yeah, consistency is good.
27:04.739 –> 27:14.665
[SPEAKER_01]: The talk tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone up 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?
27:15.016 –> 27:18.740
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m going to talk the way you’re working, actually, because you adopt a system called EOS.
27:18.861 –> 27:28.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Does a book called Traction, which kind of people interest and get the book, but essentially, EOS is an operating system for businesses, which are 250 people or less.
27:28.392 –> 27:38.204
[SPEAKER_02]: So entrepreneur or type businesses, we’re looking for clear ownership, better execution, fewer meetings, EOS is essentially is an operating system that you can adopt.
27:38.244 –> 27:39.285
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s very structured.
27:39.305 –> 27:40.146
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s
27:40.126 –> 27:50.485
[SPEAKER_02]: has a riddle in the cadence, but we’ve adopted it here for a successfully, but I also think it works for, you know, it will work across, you know, smarter business that are running at pace in one execute.
27:51.005 –> 27:53.530
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of gives it a good framework and a good methodology.
27:53.550 –> 28:01.965
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it does a book called Traction, if anybody’s interested or you put a new tube, you get a two minute overview, but yeah, it’s well, well, we’re to look if you’re interesting, that clip was thing.
28:02.452 –> 28:13.052
[SPEAKER_01]: nice, always like a way of working, instead of necessarily a tactile and this tip, the carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
28:13.842 –> 28:14.423
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
28:14.443 –> 28:19.008
[SPEAKER_02]: I think returns are the main of most brands or e-commerce sellers online.
28:19.108 –> 28:27.058
[SPEAKER_02]: So a big area to kind of focus on is you can reduce on necessary returns, because that obviously has an octane pack from a carbon point of view, but also to your business.
28:27.459 –> 28:30.462
[SPEAKER_02]: And I come back to what we spoke with the start in terms of presales.
28:30.543 –> 28:37.932
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can ask those queries upfront before someone purchases, again, we see for our data that we actually reduces the number of returns you would get.
28:38.292 –> 28:42.297
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, if you can focus enough as, you know, to fold the impact for your business in terms of
28:42.277 –> 28:47.563
[SPEAKER_02]: can have a good carbon impact, but also helps your business in terms of what everything that goes with that.
28:47.603 –> 28:50.346
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, two for one there in terms of that here, I guess.
28:51.007 –> 28:55.892
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the remarkable idea of selling the customer the right product in the first place.
28:57.895 –> 29:09.027
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned, I know, but I think, you know, if you can if you can help and folk, and again, you know, by engaging little better there and on help, that has a good positive knock and impact the app as a big impact from a carbon point of view as well.
29:09.243 –> 29:19.796
[SPEAKER_01]: huge impact in delivery, complexity, team time, and of course what happens to the product at the end because that’s probably one of the biggest carbon issues at all.
29:19.816 –> 29:22.520
[SPEAKER_01]: So a top recommendation there, guys.
29:22.860 –> 29:33.934
[SPEAKER_01]: Now before we say goodbye, please please please let the audience know where they can find you and E-desk if they want to get in touch and find out how you could help them turn their customer
29:34.032 –> 29:36.335
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, if you just head on over to edes.com.
29:36.776 –> 29:38.339
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a nice, easy URL to remember.
29:38.379 –> 29:39.200
[SPEAKER_02]: So you get everything there.
29:39.260 –> 29:40.482
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get in touch with her.
29:41.203 –> 29:45.229
[SPEAKER_02]: Say as folk or book a demo or have a look at our site and see what we do and kind of browse around.
29:45.269 –> 29:46.351
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve been interactive to demo there.
29:46.371 –> 29:47.352
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can have a look at the product.
29:47.372 –> 29:55.905
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, edes.com for more information and yeah, happy to help anybody out in terms of who wants to kind of draw even more profitably true to her customer operations.
29:56.341 –> 30:15.549
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, Gareth, and thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about such a, what I think should be a topic high on every e-commerce business is to do list at the moment is improve that customer service experience, take advantage of the AI, and then essentially generate greater customer lifetime value and more profits.
30:15.870 –> 30:17.813
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, why wouldn’t that be at the top of people’s list?
30:17.833 –> 30:24.863
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, what exactly is it though, yeah.
30:30.547 –> 30:35.676
[SPEAKER_01]: fascinating to chat to gareth there about all things customer service and what the potential is.
30:36.157 –> 30:53.348
[SPEAKER_01]: What I love is that there’s really clear steps to improving things in order to improve sales, both acquisition and retention, to build that trust with the customer, but there’s also a huge opportunity from changing the culture in the business and bringing everybody together to work towards this and get that information of flowing that.
30:53.328 –> 30:58.756
[SPEAKER_01]: hugely valuable information flowing around around the place and thoroughly enjoyed that chat with Gotham.
30:58.776 –> 31:00.839
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m sure you’ve got lots of ideas out of it too.
31:01.239 –> 31:08.410
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get your hands on our notes from the episode including those top tips and links to what we’ve mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.
31:08.430 –> 31:23.031
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our direct episode short links just put ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the
31:23.011 –> 31:35.851
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you like this episode, then why not check out Episode 551, where I’m chatting with Paul Hancock’s from Mega B to B business parts town about how they’re using AI in customer service.
31:35.931 –> 31:39.176
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s kind of an interesting one that will build Paul, what we’ve covered in this one.
31:39.676 –> 31:44.544
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
31:44.944 –> 31:51.955
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners
31:51.935 –> 31:54.679
[SPEAKER_01]: including progressing along the path to net zero.
31:54.800 –> 32:01.250
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
32:01.430 –> 32:17.115
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep up to rising.
33 min
February 09eCommerce MasterPlan | 581: What Would You Do If You Wanted to Grow Physical Store Sales in 2026? – with Melissa Moore
Melissa Moore is “The Retail Advisor”, and the host of The Retail Tea Break Podcast. She’s an expert in all things retail with over 25 years working with national brands, and she’s been a Rethink Retail Top Retail Expert for the last 3 years AND Named in Retail Technology Innovation Hub’s Top 100 Retail Technology Influencers List for 2025.

In this What Would You Do episode, Melissa shares practical strategies to grow physical store sales in 2026, combining real-world retail experience with fresh insights from NRF in New York.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why physical retail needs to become a destination, not just a transaction
The “old-school” personalization tactic most retailers are forgetting (and how to bring it back)
The biggest in-store sales mistake brands make after opening a beautiful store
How store teams can double as your most powerful content creators
Simple ways to remove friction that’s silently killing in-store conversions
What NRF 2026 revealed about AI, community, and the future of retail

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[03:16] “Journey Through Retail Careers”
[07:53] “Humanizing Retail Through Data”
[12:10] “Stores as Content Studios”
[15:53] “Redefining Retail Store Roles”
[18:25] “Community-Centric Retail Trends”
[19:46] Listen to Melissa’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/581
—
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
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:07.520
[SPEAKER_00]: I would start by really thinking about our stores as destinations, not just to place that transactions take place in.
00:07.580 –> 00:12.607
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to be able to buy these customers into an experience.
00:12.627 –> 00:18.154
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how can we create a little bit of magic that drives people to come to me?
00:18.174 –> 00:22.699
[SPEAKER_00]: In my store and not just click a button on their phone or on their desktop.
00:22.760 –> 00:24.722
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so
00:27.335 –> 00:30.383
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:30.403 –> 00:34.474
[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:35.015 –> 00:43.116
[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.
00:45.239 –> 00:47.703
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.
00:47.783 –> 00:51.470
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:52.051 –> 00:55.517
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re doing one of our, what would you do, episode?
00:55.537 –> 00:57.700
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it’s WWYD time.
00:58.602 –> 01:01.146
[SPEAKER_02]: And in this episode, we’re not talking e-commerce at all.
01:01.307 –> 01:06.235
[SPEAKER_02]: We are talking physical, retail, actual, retail stores.
01:06.215 –> 01:10.085
[SPEAKER_02]: How can you make your physical retail store successful this year?
01:10.145 –> 01:15.759
[SPEAKER_02]: I know a lot of you listening have both the physical and the online retail side of things.
01:15.900 –> 01:17.985
[SPEAKER_02]: So this one is for those of you selling physically.
01:18.947 –> 01:21.955
[SPEAKER_02]: We have the brilliant Melissa Moore joining us.
01:22.276 –> 01:23.599
[SPEAKER_02]: She is.
01:23.579 –> 01:26.483
[SPEAKER_02]: Super, super good at all this retail stuff.
01:26.563 –> 01:34.795
[SPEAKER_02]: As you will hear when we get to my proper intro in a few minutes, she’s got all the the plot it’s going and serious amounts of experience.
01:34.815 –> 01:44.148
[SPEAKER_02]: She’s also fresh back from NRF, which is the biggest retail conference of the year, which just happened at the beginning of mid-January in New York.
01:44.208 –> 01:51.038
[SPEAKER_02]: So she’ll be sharing some of her insights from that and some of her insights from going around some of the top stores in New York as well.
01:51.018 –> 01:56.337
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen right to the end so you don’t miss out on her top tips and my own take on this episode.
02:02.223 –> 02:04.306
[SPEAKER_02]: and now to introduce our special guest.
02:04.446 –> 02:09.172
[SPEAKER_02]: Melissa Moore is the retail advisor and the host of the retail tea break podcast.
02:09.532 –> 02:29.277
[SPEAKER_02]: She’s an expert in all things retail with over 25 years working with national brands and she’s been a rethink retail top retail expert for the last three years and named in retail technology innovation hubs top 100 retail technology influences list for
02:29.257 –> 02:31.541
[SPEAKER_02]: Chloe, I sound epic this morning.
02:31.621 –> 02:33.083
[SPEAKER_00]: That is incredible.
02:33.103 –> 02:33.985
[SPEAKER_02]: Go me in 2026.
02:34.426 –> 02:43.220
[SPEAKER_02]: I go you indeed and I’m just impressed I made it through the whole of that without stumbling over the large, large repetition of the word retail.
02:43.561 –> 02:47.147
[SPEAKER_02]: If anyone wasn’t any doubt about what you specialise in, we definitely don’t.
02:47.407 –> 02:48.229
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s retail.
02:48.589 –> 02:51.654
[SPEAKER_02]: So Melissa, how did you get into the world of retail?
02:51.674 –> 02:52.716
[SPEAKER_02]: What brought you here?
02:52.915 –> 02:55.298
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know why I have some really vivid memories Chloe?
02:55.338 –> 03:06.391
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, I suppose as a young, as a young girl, a shopper in Laura, actually, I’m sure lots of your listeners will know the brand really well from when they were across the UK as well as on our high streets.
03:06.891 –> 03:16.122
[SPEAKER_00]: So I vividly remember being kind of brought in and just in awe of how beautiful the stores, how great the people were, and that was really that first kind of initial baptism.
03:16.102 –> 03:17.184
[SPEAKER_00]: into retail.
03:17.244 –> 03:21.851
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, fast forward, then my first retail job was in Laura Ashley.
03:21.951 –> 03:36.372
[SPEAKER_00]: So, really kind of coming full circle there and it was, it’s gorgeous to have been able to serve the customer, understand the customer, get into kind of product and range and stock rooms and all that nice stuff and really, really get my hands dirty.
03:36.537 –> 03:47.201
[SPEAKER_02]: It is, I mean, I think people think from the outside, even people running e-commerce stores think retail is easy, but there are so many different leaves and different things you have to get right on there.
03:47.983 –> 03:56.301
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s unbelievable, and I mean, I was really lucky at that age to, again, first job, but being given so many different tasks to do in so many areas of retail.
03:56.281 –> 03:58.404
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was back with the time where E.C.
03:58.484 –> 04:00.047
[SPEAKER_00]: What else was that back in the day?
04:00.347 –> 04:03.812
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there were little League Lings of it, but nothing of course was happening back then.
04:03.873 –> 04:05.856
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was all those physical jobs.
04:05.956 –> 04:12.205
[SPEAKER_00]: So you were getting kind of those touch points of what was going on in marketing or recount or what was going on with range planning.
04:12.225 –> 04:15.370
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, it was kind of building that kind of…
04:15.350 –> 04:23.688
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose fascination with the industry, and then from there obviously then, you know, did agree, did a masters, but kept being drawn back into retail.
04:24.229 –> 04:32.447
[SPEAKER_00]: So really worked my way up, then from I suppose that shop floor that initial job with Laura Ashley all the way up, then into management and running stores and areas and all of that.
04:32.427 –> 04:35.392
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, at the end of the day, it was a people-first job for me.
04:35.432 –> 04:40.942
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very much about having an gorgeous product, really good ranges, obviously, really good supply of them.
04:41.303 –> 04:52.883
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, you start to layer up, then this whole idea of e-commerce and social media as I kind of really start to come to a fore of knowing that I adore this industry, and I’m incredibly passionate about it.
04:53.673 –> 04:54.194
[SPEAKER_02]: love it.
04:54.314 –> 04:56.436
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s stop looking back.
04:56.456 –> 04:57.978
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s start we’re looking forwards.
04:59.240 –> 05:06.789
[SPEAKER_02]: Your what would you do if is what would you do if you wanted to increase your physical stores sales in 2026?
05:06.909 –> 05:12.376
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the recipe for physical world sales growth?
05:13.157 –> 05:13.938
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m just leaving like that.
05:14.419 –> 05:15.360
[SPEAKER_02]: Give us the answer.
05:15.340 –> 05:31.903
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, if only, if only I had a duel, but I look a couple of ideas and I suppose I take this from my time talking to retailers as I do now visiting retail stores I’m just back from New York and NRF’s big shows in National Retail Federation 41,000 people through the doors of that Chloe.
05:31.923 –> 05:33.045
[SPEAKER_00]: It was bananas.
05:33.025 –> 05:42.098
[SPEAKER_00]: So I kind of take for more of these different aspects, and I suppose my first big answer to your question, what would you do if you wanted to increase your physical store sales in 2026?
05:42.699 –> 05:57.199
[SPEAKER_00]: I would start by really thinking about our stores as destinations, not just to place that transactions take place in, but you know they need to be more than that, they need to be able to buy these customers into an experience.
05:57.219 –> 05:57.700
[SPEAKER_00]: You know,
05:57.680 –> 05:59.963
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to give people a reason to visit.
05:59.983 –> 06:04.550
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m talking to you today, and it is buckling down outside like it’s torrential.
06:04.610 –> 06:05.211
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s nasty.
06:05.251 –> 06:06.353
[SPEAKER_00]: Winters crappy anyway.
06:06.433 –> 06:13.483
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ryan Earth would someone want to you know, leave the comfort of their home and their slippers and physically come and find you.
06:13.583 –> 06:24.058
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, can we create moments and stores, whether it’s a product launch, whether it’s a workshop, a demo, a styling session, you know, how can we recreate a little bit of magic?
06:24.038 –> 06:28.749
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s not just for big flagship sort of department stores, that could be for your corner shop.
06:29.210 –> 06:34.041
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we create a little bit of magic that drives people to come to me?
06:34.082 –> 06:38.592
[SPEAKER_00]: In my store and not just click a button on their phone or on their desktop.
06:38.672 –> 06:40.697
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so important it really, really is.
06:40.964 –> 06:52.154
[SPEAKER_02]: And is it as much about creating those one-off events like the product launches or the VIP trial and sessions or whatever, as well as creating like an evergreen option as well?
06:52.555 –> 06:54.036
[SPEAKER_02]: So is it both parts?
06:54.536 –> 06:55.397
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of think it is.
06:55.537 –> 07:09.570
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, this goes back to, and I was really thinking about this earlier, your corner shop back in the day would have had the notice board where you would have been able to kind of, whether you wanted to advertise jobs or you wanted to find even a cleaner or a pet sitter.
07:09.550 –> 07:24.370
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s the reason to go, so not only were you buying your milk or your bread, but there was a reason almost to interact with community and then when you amplify that out now, as I said, I was just in New York and a sore-like pet coat, like a phenomenal flagship store.
07:24.811 –> 07:28.015
[SPEAKER_00]: This actually heart of the community, like it’s a community hub.
07:27.995 –> 07:48.940
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s got maps of places you can go and walk your dog in the parks of all those different places around where the store was, where your pets are welcome, it’s got a grooming parlor, obviously it’s got product to sell, it’s got really knowledgeable sales colleagues, but there’s so much more than just the transaction of buying and selling, you know, in and out.
07:48.920 –> 07:51.024
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a place that felt so comfortable.
07:51.084 –> 08:04.971
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m a dog owner and yes, my dog wasn’t with me in Europe, but oh my goodness, I can just imagine how relaxed and easy it would be loads of information there loads of people to chat to like it’s a much bigger experience than just buying a boring pint of milk.
08:05.542 –> 08:15.257
[SPEAKER_02]: But it’s interesting as it like the destinations can be the destination creation can be both super exciting glamorous or it could be a notice board with a map on it.
08:16.338 –> 08:18.081
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s that full remit.
08:18.462 –> 08:22.588
[SPEAKER_02]: So how what else can we do once we’ve got our destination element right?
08:22.568 –> 08:28.236
[SPEAKER_00]: The next one, and I really don’t want to annoy people with this, but I think again, it’s thinking old school with this.
08:28.316 –> 08:43.256
[SPEAKER_00]: So using data and look, we all know there is so much of it available out there now in a retail, but using data to feel more human, not more corporate and techy and all that kind of, I have to say nasty stuff, which again, I’ll probably get me into trouble.
08:43.616 –> 08:52.288
[SPEAKER_00]: But really, when I think about 2026 for our stores, we should be recognizing loyal customers,
08:52.268 –> 08:57.335
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go back 30, 40 years, again, you walked into your corner shop.
08:57.836 –> 08:59.137
[SPEAKER_00]: Shopkeeper knew you Chloe.
08:59.177 –> 09:01.821
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew, you know, maybe the paper you were going to buy.
09:01.841 –> 09:07.348
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew maybe what your favourite drink was that you might buy on a Friday after school, whatever it might be.
09:07.408 –> 09:12.235
[SPEAKER_00]: But they knew you and the same if we went to a boutique, maybe we were buying a dress.
09:12.215 –> 09:14.980
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, maybe you had a favourite kind of brand.
09:15.561 –> 09:17.806
[SPEAKER_00]: They really knew us inside out and back to front.
09:17.846 –> 09:24.378
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just think in these days, this day and age, we’ve all this incredible tech, you know, and it’s right across retail right now.
09:24.799 –> 09:30.029
[SPEAKER_00]: Why aren’t we using it properly to really high-per-personize those transactions?
09:30.069 –> 09:34.898
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to really let Chloe know when a new dress does come in from a new brand, or
09:34.878 –> 09:57.240
[SPEAKER_00]: here’s offers on your favorite beverage or whatever that might be, but we should be thinking with that mindset of 30, 40 years ago, but really utilizing every tool we have at our disposal now to just bring it to a place where I do feel like I’m having a proper interaction with the brand again, not transactional, not corporate because it’s really boring.
09:57.862 –> 10:05.692
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s mad, especially for those who are doing, you know, who’ve got the bricks and the clicks, the, you know, the quite sophisticated clicks activity going on.
10:05.712 –> 10:15.325
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s all this information you have on the customers that you could share with your store staff and have it ping up when they’re coming in for whatever reason they’re going past the checkout.
10:15.345 –> 10:16.566
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it’s not happening.
10:16.707 –> 10:25.438
[SPEAKER_02]: And it seems such a simple and straightforward, you know, a men’s to make when you’ve, when you’re
10:25.418 –> 10:29.645
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, now I’m going to whip you through these because I know we’ve got six of these to get go through.
10:29.745 –> 10:32.269
[SPEAKER_02]: So what’s the next thing?
10:32.369 –> 10:34.212
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve done, we’ve created our destination.
10:34.272 –> 10:37.537
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re sharing that data so we can create those more human connections.
10:37.597 –> 10:38.518
[SPEAKER_02]: What else can we be doing?
10:38.959 –> 10:40.601
[SPEAKER_00]: So the next one is the biggie for me.
10:40.762 –> 10:43.686
[SPEAKER_00]: I obviously work in retail education and I work as a retail trainer.
10:43.726 –> 10:45.008
[SPEAKER_00]: So it would be remiss me.
10:45.429 –> 10:46.470
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to talk about training.
10:46.571 –> 10:50.076
[SPEAKER_00]: Training is so important nowadays, especially in our physical stores.
10:50.056 –> 10:54.481
[SPEAKER_00]: It is simple things like building confidence, it’s about building communication skills.
10:54.521 –> 11:01.048
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is like retail 101, but I think they’re layering on top of that, it’s sales training.
11:01.408 –> 11:06.474
[SPEAKER_00]: So not big pushy and harsh, gentle, emotional, you know, having empathy.
11:06.935 –> 11:19.168
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s all these kind of quiet selling skills was actually seem to have gone out the window over the last 10 years in retail, but I think it’s really important, you know, whether it’s demonstrating products, talking about them, telling an origin story.
11:19.148 –> 11:23.733
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s so many retailers out there, especially if they’re in the come space that then open stores.
11:24.314 –> 11:28.880
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be able to, you know, I said at the beginning, in Ticep people in, but let’s talk to them.
11:28.960 –> 11:31.383
[SPEAKER_00]: So training really helps and support here.
11:31.403 –> 11:33.886
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s the big one I’m seeing over the last couple of years.
11:33.926 –> 11:38.551
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m being enticed into kind of retailers and brands to help them support them.
11:38.571 –> 11:41.615
[SPEAKER_00]: They build beautiful stores, but it’s not quite working.
11:41.635 –> 11:44.278
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it’s the training aspect that’s missing.
11:44.596 –> 11:47.641
[SPEAKER_02]: and it’s so not a once and dad element the training is it.
11:47.662 –> 11:51.789
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s like I’m sure many companies are great when they open a store, you know.
11:52.069 –> 12:02.368
[SPEAKER_02]: Well we’ve got a whole new team, well to tell about the company and tell them about the products, but as soon as somebody new comes on board, none of that happens, so it really is that kind of evergreen ongoing training activities, isn’t it?
12:02.602 –> 12:08.647
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to be, and I really saw a change in that last year, lots of big brands were coming to me.
12:08.787 –> 12:13.371
[SPEAKER_00]: For that exact reason and going, okay, this store has been open a couple years now, can we revisit?
12:13.792 –> 12:21.699
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they’re already booking it in like they’re making that commitment to their people saying, we’ll do this to refresher, and it can be a real fun, interactive refresher.
12:22.079 –> 12:32.608
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of Esher’s only take an hour, but again, we keep in key messages, key values front of mind, and of course our customer’s seeing it, and it’s coming through the
12:32.588 –> 12:34.672
[SPEAKER_02]: We love a win-win, what’s next?
12:35.473 –> 12:38.298
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is going to be a little bit controversial, but I’m going to say it.
12:38.879 –> 12:41.704
[SPEAKER_00]: Making every store a content studio.
12:42.105 –> 12:47.975
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, don’t come at me for this, but I think for me it is about that social engagement.
12:48.275 –> 12:50.479
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s also the behind-the-scenes stuff, like…
12:50.459 –> 12:59.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Customers are nosey, I certainly am, so seeing a little bit more about what’s going on in physical stores with your team and again this is really important.
12:59.700 –> 13:06.055
[SPEAKER_00]: We hear Grace Andrews an awful lot talk about in polo-e-e kind of content creation and brand experiences.
13:06.035 –> 13:13.466
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I think it brings an emotional connection and it’s a really lovely way of a brand or a retailer showing exactly who they are.
13:13.827 –> 13:19.836
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether it’s product launches, whether it’s TikTok lives, it’s just bringing that connection from your physical store.
13:20.357 –> 13:27.908
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, into the palm of someone’s hand if it’s their mobile phone they’re using, but it’s just a really nice way to kind of continue building that engagement.
13:28.462 –> 13:32.230
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think for anyone who’s thinking we couldn’t possibly let our store team do that.
13:32.610 –> 13:35.676
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s refer back to Melissa’s previous point about training.
13:35.696 –> 13:46.538
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’ve trained them, and they understand the business and the business values, then your halfway towards them being able to become a content studio, because they already know the foundational stuff, don’t they?
13:46.973 –> 13:51.618
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that’s so true, but also they’re the people that talk to your customers every day.
13:51.638 –> 13:53.781
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t care that the chat box does.
13:53.801 –> 13:56.644
[SPEAKER_00]: These are real people that meet the needs of your customers every day.
13:56.684 –> 14:02.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knows your customer or how they utilize your product better than the people in your physical stores.
14:02.591 –> 14:06.555
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we need to trust them and use them and awful lot more.
14:06.856 –> 14:14.044
[SPEAKER_00]: But also isn’t it gorgeous that me as a customer sitting at home is seeing a TikTok creation or even a video recorded on your website.
14:14.024 –> 14:30.801
[SPEAKER_00]: that’s come from someone you know and recognize like again there’s a really nice emotional correction there and we know that on this country day to say you know if we build that emotional connection we tend to stay long you know loyal for longer and again there’s money to be made there what’s our number five
14:31.135 –> 14:33.520
[SPEAKER_00]: Number five, removing friction.
14:33.781 –> 14:36.025
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that sounds really, really boring, Chloe.
14:36.106 –> 14:41.657
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it does, but look, whether it’s paying, whether it’s returned, whether it’s even navigation.
14:41.697 –> 14:49.754
[SPEAKER_00]: How many times have you been stuck in a queue or you’re going to have to return or they’re making you jump through hoops for returns?
14:49.815 –> 14:50.055
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
14:50.035 –> 14:56.202
[SPEAKER_00]: again I think we need to have a little bit of respect for our customer and we need to take away those barriers or that friction.
14:56.843 –> 15:03.711
[SPEAKER_00]: Like in this day and age with all the incredible tech that we have, like we don’t make people queue when we’re online, why aren’t we doing it in store?
15:04.071 –> 15:07.375
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are we making them queue in one single file for one till operator?
15:07.936 –> 15:13.141
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in Svora in New York, I’m banging this drum for New York at the moment apologies but it’s so fresh in my mind.
15:13.602 –> 15:17.106
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a queue Saturday morning in Svora and
15:17.086 –> 15:22.855
[SPEAKER_00]: The queue was pretty long, but really savvy, well-trained staff of course, sudden pulling some of us out.
15:22.895 –> 15:27.202
[SPEAKER_00]: If we were paying by hard, they literally took us side, didn’t have to go to the till point.
15:27.542 –> 15:35.955
[SPEAKER_00]: They took this magic little gizmo out of their back pocket and hey, Presto, you know, they ran it through there and then they eye could tap away and I was gone.
15:35.935 –> 15:37.558
[SPEAKER_00]: like it was just seamless.
15:37.638 –> 15:48.035
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s plenty of tech out there that really does help us return goods, pay for staff, look for a bigger size, a different colour, whatever it might be, we should be using this.
15:48.195 –> 15:57.370
[SPEAKER_00]: As you said really, in every aspect of the business now, we’ve got to remove the friction, you know, shopping and a physical store should be easy in 2026 and it’s still not.
15:57.940 –> 16:12.813
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a removing friction is I don’t think you can ever say that too many times in any scenario where you’re trying to sell to people because it’s it’s just a not it’s a nightmare for getting conversions where there’s real world electronic or contracts absolutely nightmare.
16:13.294 –> 16:15.379
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, our sixth and final one.
16:15.920 –> 16:16.962
[SPEAKER_02]: Melissa, what is it?
16:17.178 –> 16:25.350
[SPEAKER_00]: This almost starts to bring different aspects of retail together because my sticks kind of idea is about giving each store a clear job.
16:25.370 –> 16:34.503
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously in the days and age now of Ecommerce and a lot of stores being used almost as warehouses which discuss me I have to say I don’t want to see boxes on the floor.
16:34.683 –> 16:37.347
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t want to see a store just piled high for that crap.
16:37.327 –> 16:48.000
[SPEAKER_00]: So, do we need to have specific stores as fulfilment hubs, maybe some then more like your flagships as experienced centres or gorgeous kind of wow moments?
16:48.521 –> 16:52.406
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we need to have stores that are for like repair services?
16:52.526 –> 16:55.509
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, are we bringing that circularity into play?
16:56.010 –> 17:02.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there then different stores because of maybe their location that are community or event spaces,
17:02.538 –> 17:08.111
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and then if you’ve got some that could even be like that whole tribe before your buys and maybe we’ve got more fitting rooms.
17:08.151 –> 17:09.875
[SPEAKER_00]: So what are we want?
17:10.056 –> 17:14.025
[SPEAKER_00]: Because realistically, I think gone of the days where your retail store can be all things to all people.
17:14.366 –> 17:19.939
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we’ve gone for smaller formats, remember, with a lot of retail stores over the last few years, because it suits the needs of the customer.
17:19.919 –> 17:21.561
[SPEAKER_00]: So what are we trying to do?
17:21.761 –> 17:26.707
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of being everything, can we really start to hone in on what we’re amazing at?
17:27.108 –> 17:29.110
[SPEAKER_00]: And then shout about that.
17:29.150 –> 17:33.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think this is really where staff then understand what’s needed of them.
17:33.475 –> 17:36.899
[SPEAKER_00]: The customer really gets the kind of the messaging.
17:37.300 –> 17:39.502
[SPEAKER_00]: And I almost think the retailer’s happier as well.
17:39.522 –> 17:41.725
[SPEAKER_00]: But they’ve got to make that decision to start with.
17:42.262 –> 17:44.164
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can’t just let it evolve, can you?
17:44.224 –> 17:46.367
[SPEAKER_02]: It needs to be defined.
17:46.447 –> 17:48.669
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what we want, this is where we need to go.
17:48.709 –> 17:52.834
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that’s our six for increasing physical store sales in 2026.
17:52.954 –> 18:00.923
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you’ve mentioned NRF and New York a couple of times, and I feel it would be very remiss of me to ask what we or take away is from the event.
18:00.963 –> 18:03.205
[SPEAKER_02]: What were the big trends you could see coming?
18:03.266 –> 18:05.468
[SPEAKER_02]: What were the big things you took from that this year?
18:05.667 –> 18:09.492
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we haven’t spoken about it at all.
18:09.633 –> 18:10.133
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow it off.
18:11.015 –> 18:12.296
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was everywhere.
18:12.316 –> 18:15.701
[SPEAKER_00]: A genetic AI was being shouted from the rooftops.
18:16.482 –> 18:17.103
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course it was.
18:17.524 –> 18:24.153
[SPEAKER_00]: But actually, I think what frustrated me and pair in mind 41,000 people, Expo Hall was enormous.
18:24.554 –> 18:27.198
[SPEAKER_00]: I obviously didn’t get to see everything or hear every session.
18:27.779 –> 18:34.408
[SPEAKER_00]: I genuinely felt that we haven’t moved on much more from last year’s show, which I know is going to annoy a lot of people again.
18:34.388 –> 18:48.609
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I’m calling it as I saw it at the time, that yes, agentecai was the kind of the new buzz phrase last year, and it was fascinating to see it across all aspects of retail, whether it was checkout, whether it was search, whether it was payment, all of that stuff.
18:48.969 –> 18:51.553
[SPEAKER_00]: But this year, I kind of just felt it was more of the same.
18:51.533 –> 18:59.645
[SPEAKER_00]: So it will be really nice to see this being embedded in our retail stores now, see what’s really working for retailists, seeing all the really good use cases.
19:00.046 –> 19:03.090
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was the one thing, because again, we have everyone has to mention AI.
19:03.410 –> 19:08.979
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the really good message coming out of the whole show for me was this community aspect.
19:09.079 –> 19:18.773
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether that’s Ben Francis from Jim Shark, talking about how amazing obviously he’s built as phenomenal community, whether that’s online or in person.
19:18.753 –> 19:36.347
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone seems to be talking about this community, so it’s great that our values have almost gone back to that simplistic aspect of retail, bringing people on board, whether it’s our teams, our colleagues, whether it’s the customer, but also we’re really trying now to build a long-term value-based kind of shopper.
19:36.928 –> 19:38.972
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose influence.
19:38.952 –> 19:42.996
[SPEAKER_00]: that we want, we don’t want to want to done anymore because I think for too long it’s been transactional.
19:43.016 –> 19:51.205
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’m loving this idea that retails gone back on a little old school and this is where we want to drive our businesses and our brands forward.
19:51.506 –> 19:57.212
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, past 2026 is building this kind of legacy community idea when it comes to retail.
19:59.835 –> 20:04.820
[SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
20:04.840 –> 20:06.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
20:12.601 –> 20:14.885
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top tips round.
20:17.549 –> 20:22.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
20:22.938 –> 20:24.761
[SPEAKER_02]: So Melissa, are you ready for the top tips?
20:25.402 –> 20:26.104
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s do it!
20:26.624 –> 20:28.147
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.
20:28.167 –> 20:35.419
[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?
20:35.602 –> 20:42.419
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, because I talk a lot, there was definitely not going to be just one, and having come back from New York with two books in my suitcase.
20:42.439 –> 20:43.702
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m going to give them both a shout out.
20:44.063 –> 20:46.630
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is AI for retail success.
20:47.071 –> 20:50.860
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the second book from Linda Johans James and Sharon Ghee.
20:51.282 –> 20:52.665
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the shop of versions.
20:52.645 –> 21:08.344
[SPEAKER_00]: So with this one’s talking all about how shoppers can use AI to shop smarter, save money and time, and that’s on the back of their initial book, AI for retail success, which was for the retailer, brilliant books, really easy to read, and I mean that a good way, really practical too.
21:08.404 –> 21:09.145
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s number one.
21:09.746 –> 21:15.733
[SPEAKER_00]: This second book I came back from New York with is the material life by Lisa Amlani,
21:15.713 –> 21:26.011
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I’m mindful neither of these are e-commerce, or marketers, books, but again, it really gives a good deep dive into different aspects and processes of retail.
21:26.031 –> 21:31.921
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a great book from Lisa there, second one from her, and then last kind of 18 months, and the first one was a great read to you.
21:31.941 –> 21:35.106
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that’s two books from me for your Friday reading.
21:35.086 –> 21:35.827
[SPEAKER_02]: Love it.
21:36.327 –> 21:41.694
[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic topped it, which marketing method do either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
21:42.414 –> 21:52.666
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you can tell I’m not a marketing here, but actually one thing that I’m I swear by right now, showing up and showing up in person, nothing for me, whether it’s a retailer brand.
21:52.686 –> 22:04.620
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’re if you work for retailer and you’re showing up and stage around event, certainly for me, going to things, talking to people, making that emotional
22:04.600 –> 22:07.049
[SPEAKER_00]: people you meet, but also you see it back in store.
22:07.109 –> 22:14.475
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I’m telling my retailers to get the staff to show up and be empathetic and listen, I need to do it too.
22:14.945 –> 22:21.555
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually, just to back you up on that one completely, I had a we had an interview a couple of few weeks back.
22:21.695 –> 22:22.796
[SPEAKER_02]: I will mention it every one at the end.
22:22.816 –> 22:35.755
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ll look up the number and let you all know about it when we get to the end with Hillary who runs a fashion boutique in the North of England and one of her marketing strategies is going and doing talks at all the local WIs.
22:35.735 –> 22:36.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Love it.
22:36.476 –> 22:43.184
[SPEAKER_02]: Get out there, meet the people, get them to build, start building that emotional collection so it totally can work in retail as well.
22:43.264 –> 22:44.206
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love that.
22:44.566 –> 22:46.428
[SPEAKER_02]: That definitely counts as a traffic top tip.
22:47.129 –> 22:57.422
[SPEAKER_02]: The tall top 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 and more efficient from day to day?
22:57.402 –> 23:06.218
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, it’s January and I am genuinely feeling very refreshed and very sparky about 236 because this is not a cool tool at all, Chloe.
23:06.238 –> 23:07.159
[SPEAKER_00]: So forgive me for this one.
23:07.740 –> 23:08.502
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s sleep.
23:09.143 –> 23:18.820
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everybody listening knows how chaotic and crazy and amazing this industry can be, but oh my goodness, it can be completely overwhelming.
23:18.800 –> 23:22.609
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, that’s like my secret tip that I am trying to almost.
23:23.130 –> 23:34.716
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m saying it out loud, I feel, because I want to keep telling myself and reminding myself, but it is sweet, because I think that’s the foundation of everything we do, whether it’s in this industry or beyond, and I’m planning it’s really helping.
23:37.008 –> 23:50.226
[SPEAKER_02]: I sleep can never be mentioned enough as a good thing to do, and I think so often when you’re running new businesses or in the thick of a peak season or something, then sleep can end up on the back burner.
23:50.306 –> 23:56.935
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you’re at NRF, the amount of stuff that goes on, I suspect there is actually 24-hour days stuff going on, should you want to do it?
23:57.055 –> 23:59.438
[SPEAKER_02]: So, totally love the sleep.
23:59.418 –> 24:09.876
[SPEAKER_00]: part of me wants to admit that those 18, 19 hour days nearly killed me and having four hours sleep was horrific, but I think that’s why I appreciate sleep even more, having come back and having recovered.
24:10.377 –> 24:20.734
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I do, I think, for business generally and again, I run my own business technically, like, without, I’m useless or apologies to anyone out there who meets me in the day where I’ve had four hours sleep because I am, I’m not used to anyone.
24:21.085 –> 24:23.589
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, I’m the same sleep pass to come first.
24:23.789 –> 24:24.791
[SPEAKER_02]: Good quality sleep.
24:25.231 –> 24:26.874
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, the carbon top tip.
24:26.974 –> 24:31.341
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce or retail store?
24:32.002 –> 24:33.584
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, this is a really interesting one.
24:33.604 –> 24:40.575
[SPEAKER_00]: So from a shoppers perspective, I genuinely applaud those tiny, tiny packages that are now appearing.
24:40.875 –> 24:43.920
[SPEAKER_00]: God are the days of the big boxes or even the big brand of boxes.
24:43.900 –> 24:58.421
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not care as a shopper what something arrives to my house or my office in, so I love the fact that we’re getting much saviour about less packaging, that we’re getting saviour about not branding the hilt out of everything.
24:58.721 –> 25:00.945
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t think the outside of the box really matters to me.
25:01.065 –> 25:04.069
[SPEAKER_00]: Once there’s something inside that reminds me where I’ve got it from or whatever,
25:04.049 –> 25:05.230
[SPEAKER_00]: But that’s what I love.
25:05.311 –> 25:14.442
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those retailers and e-commerce brands that are being really clever now with tiny tiny little packages or a reusing boxes that they’ve got from something else, bring it on.
25:14.502 –> 25:25.315
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see more of that in 2026 because I think that’s a really small way of kind of I suppose reducing wastage and it’s something for me as a shopper, I genuinely love to see.
25:25.531 –> 25:28.115
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one of the best ways you can go about doing it too.
25:28.135 –> 25:28.757
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I love that.
25:28.897 –> 25:29.598
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Melissa.
25:29.678 –> 25:35.308
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, before we say goodbye for those who are going, I need to speak to Melissa about my retail business.
25:35.889 –> 25:39.275
[SPEAKER_02]: Where can they find you and your business on the web and social media?
25:39.816 –> 25:44.704
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I suppose the easiest way, as most of us are there right now, it’s Melissa Moore on LinkedIn.
25:44.684 –> 25:46.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Do please feel free to DM me there.
25:47.428 –> 25:50.111
[SPEAKER_00]: The website, this is quite ironic, Chloe, and you’re probably going to come with this.
25:50.371 –> 25:52.874
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s currently having a rebound, which is really exciting.
25:53.555 –> 25:57.440
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s slightly back up and running, so that’s the retail advisor.ie.
25:57.861 –> 26:01.606
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I’m based in the West of Ireland at the moment, so hence the.ie.
26:02.026 –> 26:10.557
[SPEAKER_00]: You can of course listen to the retail tea break podcast, which I’d upload, if you’re doing, across all all podcast platforms, much like yourself, Chloe.
26:10.537 –> 26:16.424
[SPEAKER_00]: And, of course, then you can find me on Instagram under the Retail Advisor or the Retail T-Brip podcast.
26:16.444 –> 26:17.746
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you’ll find me anywhere.
26:18.046 –> 26:19.308
[SPEAKER_00]: Anywhere at all.
26:19.328 –> 26:19.788
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
26:19.808 –> 26:27.778
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what it’s going to take to make a retail business super successful in 2026 and your takeaways from NRF.
26:27.818 –> 26:29.160
[SPEAKER_02]: So, thank you so much for being on the show.
26:29.821 –> 26:30.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me, Goi.
26:36.794 –> 26:47.305
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, then there’s your retail road map sorted for this year, great to get Melissa’s thoughts on NRF as well kind of hot off the press.
26:47.345 –> 27:01.080
[SPEAKER_02]: We recorded this just at the end of January, so any about a week and a half after NRF, so very hot off the press thoughts there from her and those six key points that she ran through for growing your
27:01.060 –> 27:04.245
[SPEAKER_02]: retail store, your physical retail store sales in 2026.
27:04.625 –> 27:07.229
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, turning your store into a destination.
27:07.329 –> 27:09.913
[SPEAKER_02]: How can you create a reason for customers to come in?
27:10.754 –> 27:18.765
[SPEAKER_02]: Secondly, use data to create a more human interaction experience, third training and including the all-important
27:18.745 –> 27:36.180
[SPEAKER_02]: actually teaching your team how to sell sounds remarkable really isn’t really important to do that for content studios can your store become a content studio number five remove friction will forever be a top priority in the world of retail and online retail.
27:36.160 –> 27:39.385
[SPEAKER_02]: And number six, give each store a clear job.
27:39.545 –> 27:42.970
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the role of that store in your larger business plans?
27:43.130 –> 27:49.039
[SPEAKER_02]: And as well as around through those various obvious options, you’ve got going on there at the moment with how retails currently evolving.
27:49.480 –> 27:56.770
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on the notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to e-commercemasterplanned.com.
27:57.311 –> 28:05.543
[SPEAKER_02]: You can use our direct episode short link that’s ECMP.Info4 was actually the number of this episode, and that will take you straight to the correct page on the site.
28:05.523 –> 28:07.165
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you get to the website, go on.
28:07.446 –> 28:08.607
[SPEAKER_02]: Put yourself on our email list.
28:08.627 –> 28:09.388
[SPEAKER_02]: You won’t regret it.
28:10.149 –> 28:18.361
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mentioned that I would, I mentioned in one of the top tips about an episode that we recorded that I thought really built on Melissa’s point.
28:18.881 –> 28:27.573
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s episode 574, which is all about how one fashion boutique manages their retail and online stores and my guess for that is Hilary Lodge.
28:27.934 –> 28:34.483
[SPEAKER_02]: And she shares a lot of great insights and advice in that one and it really does build on what
28:34.463 –> 28:42.271
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also find all our what would you do, episodes at ECMP.info forward slash WWYD.
28:43.052 –> 28:49.958
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for tuning into this one and into every episode that you do of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
28:50.018 –> 28:59.728
[SPEAKER_02]: We bring you a new into every week because we want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
28:59.708 –> 29:05.795
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
29:06.135 –> 29:21.193
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week, and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
30 min
February 02eCommerce MasterPlan | 580: How to Grow Sales in 2026
In this special episode of the eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast, Chloe Thomas shares a panel discussion from a live webinar focused on one big question: what’s really going to move the needle for eCommerce brands in 2026?
Chloe is joined by three expert voices from very different corners of eCommerce – growth, consumer behaviour, and AI – to unpack what’s working, what’s not, and where brands should be focusing their time, energy, and budgets this year.
From TikTok growth and AI-powered customer experience to brand trust, tech stacks, and surviving economic pressure, this is a practical, wide-ranging conversation designed to help you grow smarter in 2026.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why TikTok is still the fastest growth lever for eCommerce (even without TikTok Shop)
How brands are using AI to unlock 5–10% more revenue — without replacing their team
The #1 mistake brands are making by chasing trends (and how it’s killing long-term growth)
Where to start with AI if you want real results, not expensive experiments
How economic pressure is changing how customers buy — and what that means for your strategy
What to stop doing in 2026 to free up time, budget, and headspace for growth

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[04:51] “Future Advice for Brands”
[06:35] “Buying Decisions: Risk and Behavior”
[11:55] AI: Essential for Business Efficiency
[17:44] “Action-Driven Brands Drive Growth”
[27:32] Amazon’s Evolution & AI Branding
[30:09] Essential eCommerce Tools and Strategy
[39:12] AI for High-Quality SEO Content
[42:44] “Target Right Customers, Build Trust”
[46:29] Maximize ROI with AI Tools
[47:39] “Focus on Customers, Not Chaos”

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/580
—
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 –> 00:22.714
[SPEAKER_03]: The only way to know what you should do for your business is going to come from deep knowledge of who your customers are, deep knowledge of the customer journey you take them on, and the data already within your business to show you what is working, what is not working and what you can cut to their channel more time and resources into what is working, and then building out from there.
00:25.040 –> 00:27.567
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:28.108 –> 00:32.179
[SPEAKER_02]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:32.720 –> 00:40.821
[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.
00:43.855 –> 00:44.917
[SPEAKER_04]: Hello and welcome.
00:44.937 –> 00:46.018
[SPEAKER_04]: It’s great to have you here.
00:46.098 –> 00:49.944
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring episodes.
00:50.465 –> 00:56.093
[SPEAKER_04]: This year we are not bringing you one of our top tips from lots of experts for the year ahead episodes.
00:56.594 –> 00:59.939
[SPEAKER_04]: There’s just too many reasons that aren’t that interesting to explain.
00:59.979 –> 01:02.123
[SPEAKER_04]: So we’re going to ignore why we’re not doing that.
01:02.143 –> 01:08.412
[SPEAKER_04]: But I couldn’t leave you without an episode all about how to be successful in 2026.
01:08.392 –> 01:09.653
[SPEAKER_04]: So here it is.
01:10.354 –> 01:18.020
[SPEAKER_04]: For our e-commerce tech brand, I got to host this webinar panel discussion all about what it’s going to take to succeed in 2026.
01:18.180 –> 01:22.404
[SPEAKER_04]: I’m joined by three experts each with a very different take on it all.
01:22.424 –> 01:30.571
[SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got Ashud Dooby from Alhina AI, bringing insights into all things customer experience, customer services, AI and more.
01:30.991 –> 01:37.977
[SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got Sean Conway Wood from 181st Street
01:37.957 –> 01:44.814
[SPEAKER_04]: And we’ve got Ian Sells who works with hundreds of D to C brands who are super focused on growth, growth, and more growth.
01:45.415 –> 01:55.560
[SPEAKER_04]: We had a fascinating time discussing the big stories and answering the live audiences’ questions, so I know you’re going to get a ton out of this, especially if you are into.
01:55.540 –> 01:58.883
[SPEAKER_04]: TikTok, efficiency, what else we talk about?
01:58.903 –> 02:02.888
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked a lot about AI and AI tools and practical uses of AI.
02:02.928 –> 02:10.575
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked a lot about understanding the customer and helping them to buy and dealing with all the challenges we’re facing.
02:10.635 –> 02:16.181
[SPEAKER_04]: And there’s loads of great stuff in here basically, three awesome guests, great questions from the audience, what more can you ask for?
02:16.922 –> 02:19.945
[SPEAKER_04]: So we’re going to kick off with the guests introducing themselves.
02:25.527 –> 02:27.370
[SPEAKER_04]: So Ashley, welcome, great to have you here.
02:27.430 –> 02:30.615
[SPEAKER_04]: Please let the audience know a little bit more about you and what you guys are up to.
02:30.635 –> 02:36.144
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, my name is Ashley Dubey and I’m the co-founder and see you at Alhina AI.
02:36.905 –> 02:40.911
[SPEAKER_01]: And Alhina is an agentic commerce platform for brand selling online.
02:41.392 –> 02:42.714
[SPEAKER_01]: We are very excited to be here.
02:42.754 –> 02:46.039
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Chloe, for having me and the Alhina team.
02:46.720 –> 02:49.224
[SPEAKER_01]: And excited to share what we are seeing on the ground.
02:49.785 –> 02:53.070
[SPEAKER_04]: And I believe you spent last week at NRF.
02:53.287 –> 03:07.246
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in NRF, yes, and the team at NRF, I’m happy to talk more about it, but it was a Gindick CX all the way, and a hybrid dive more into details of that, most of the vendors are still early.
03:08.267 –> 03:16.258
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so faster, I imagine it was faster than AC walking around and saying where everyone was up to, but we may or we may not get into that, let’s see where the questions take us and where the audience takes us.
03:16.779 –> 03:21.285
[SPEAKER_04]: Sean, great to have you here, please let everyone know a bit more about you and where you’re
03:21.603 –> 03:22.384
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Chloe.
03:22.544 –> 03:23.145
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, everybody.
03:23.325 –> 03:27.490
[SPEAKER_03]: My name is Sean Conwaywood, and the senior managing partner at 181st Street.
03:27.931 –> 03:31.375
[SPEAKER_03]: We are a behavioral growth consultancy.
03:31.716 –> 03:35.801
[SPEAKER_03]: So we’re a bit of a hybrid between a business consultancy and a marketing agency.
03:35.841 –> 03:44.972
[SPEAKER_03]: And my specialism is growing the commercial side of brands through really deep understanding of human behavior and consumer psychology.
03:45.073 –> 03:47.015
[SPEAKER_03]: So behavioral science.
03:47.035 –> 03:48.657
[SPEAKER_03]: Marvellous and Ian.
03:49.447 –> 04:07.295
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, y’all my name’s Ian Cells, I’m actually usually from San Diego, but currently in Japan right now, where it’s one o’clock in the morning, but yeah, I founded a company called Million Dollar Sellers MDS, and it is a global network of over 700 plus multimillion dollar e-commerce brand owners.
04:08.097 –> 04:13.345
[SPEAKER_00]: We host local meetups and get together as a masterminds all around the world through massive events.
04:13.325 –> 04:27.942
[SPEAKER_00]: been around for about almost 10 years now and then also joined brands is my other company where we bring together brands and help them work with influencers, affiliates and creators, on large scales with companies like Mary Ruth Organics and Bloom Nutrition and some of the other big companies like that.
04:28.630 –> 04:29.091
[SPEAKER_04]: Awesome.
04:29.111 –> 04:32.275
[SPEAKER_04]: So everyone, I did tell you we had a brilliant panel for you today.
04:32.355 –> 04:35.259
[SPEAKER_04]: So I see we’ve already got one cracking question that’s coming in.
04:35.279 –> 04:41.988
[SPEAKER_04]: So thank you for that, Ivan and I will make sure I asked that question definitely later on because it’s it’s one, it’s one panel.
04:42.028 –> 04:48.276
[SPEAKER_04]: You may want to mull on this one a little bit before we get to it, but we’re going to start as we always so.
04:48.256 –> 04:50.639
[SPEAKER_04]: So get more questions in, that’s what I want to tell you all.
04:50.979 –> 04:54.984
[SPEAKER_04]: So what we like to do, or how I like to do.
04:55.004 –> 05:07.580
[SPEAKER_04]: So I like to start off by posing some kind of complete the sentences or standard statements of mine for the panel to rip apart or complete in the case of this complete sentence.
05:07.600 –> 05:09.302
[SPEAKER_04]: So this one is one.
05:09.468 –> 05:14.917
[SPEAKER_04]: Which I just thought would be such a cool way for us to start off this and help us work out where we’re going to go with this.
05:15.558 –> 05:32.404
[SPEAKER_04]: So the advice I’ve been giving most brands and merchants to help them be successful in 2026 is and Ian can I pick on you to be the first answer of this because I think you’ve your life is talking to brands about this kind of stuff so you seem like a good place to start.
05:32.688 –> 05:39.355
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, actually, well, the advice that we have really is that, you know, you should focus on the channels that are really coming up as fast as possible.
05:39.395 –> 05:40.596
[SPEAKER_00]: So that would be TikTok right now.
05:40.657 –> 05:49.066
[SPEAKER_00]: So TikTok is helping brands scale tremendously fast, faster than we’ve ever seen before through any other channel and organically, as well as pay that.
05:49.146 –> 05:55.372
[SPEAKER_00]: So TikTok is a game changer when it comes to distribution of your message, distribution of your products.
05:56.053 –> 06:01.699
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, it inflates all the other channels that you’re doing business on.
06:02.135 –> 06:05.158
[SPEAKER_04]: It does seem to deliver on every front.
06:05.318 –> 06:08.681
[SPEAKER_04]: There’s the marketplace element, the influence of element, the creator element.
06:08.701 –> 06:09.962
[SPEAKER_04]: You’ve got the affiliate element.
06:10.002 –> 06:15.267
[SPEAKER_04]: You’ve got, you know, the organic and brand awareness and almost thought leadership side of it.
06:15.287 –> 06:19.631
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you recommend deploying every element that TikTok gives you?
06:21.193 –> 06:23.755
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, mostly focused on products, right?
06:23.835 –> 06:24.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And affiliates.
06:24.636 –> 06:31.382
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, trying to push sales through TikTok, which translates to sales on TikTok and sales on other channels.
06:32.189 –> 06:34.311
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m sure on what would you want to be to this one?
06:35.092 –> 06:44.401
[SPEAKER_03]: So unsurprisingly mine’s going to be from a behavioral lens and the advice that I give most often is around preconceptions and our assumptions of how we buy.
06:44.421 –> 06:51.587
[SPEAKER_03]: We all like to think that when we’re making buying decisions, when we’re engaging with advertising and brands and social content that we are these.
06:52.048 –> 07:00.576
[SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful, higher beings with cognitive reason and you know that we’re especially in the advertising industry that we’re absorbing all of that great creativity.
07:00.556 –> 07:03.360
[SPEAKER_03]: and actually it’s our reptile survival brain.
07:03.700 –> 07:14.334
[SPEAKER_03]: We buy because we are reducing risk, we are ticking certain needs within us, and that may be things like social status and acceptability within the herd.
07:14.955 –> 07:19.982
[SPEAKER_03]: It may be obviously if you look at my eyes hierarchy of needs, we buy food because we need to eat.
07:19.962 –> 07:31.607
[SPEAKER_03]: then there is a layer about which brands we choose to do that from but actually that choice is all about that risk reduction, it’s all about meeting those needs and so much of it it’s done subconsciously.
07:31.667 –> 07:37.600
[SPEAKER_03]: So we just have to let go of that desire to think that our audience really wants to
07:37.580 –> 07:42.326
[SPEAKER_03]: all of our creativity and everything else they do, but they’re reacting to it in a different way.
07:42.386 –> 07:46.232
[SPEAKER_03]: They’re not there with their really kind of rational critical brain switched on.
07:46.572 –> 07:52.120
[SPEAKER_03]: They’re in what’s called system one, 90% of the time, which is the very first, very intuitive.
07:52.200 –> 07:52.961
[SPEAKER_03]: This feels right.
07:53.021 –> 07:54.122
[SPEAKER_03]: This doesn’t feel right.
07:54.543 –> 07:57.207
[SPEAKER_03]: Subconscious, emotional reactions to things.
07:57.587 –> 08:00.371
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually that’s where you want them to be because it’s much quicker.
08:00.751 –> 08:06.439
[SPEAKER_03]: If system two comes online, which is the judge mental brain, and the brain that does the reasoning,
08:06.419 –> 08:11.715
[SPEAKER_03]: nine times out of ten, they’re going to talk themselves out of purchasing anything, let alone from your brand.
08:11.855 –> 08:16.429
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, that’s the bit that I end up repeating all the time.
08:16.544 –> 08:18.327
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the answers so fun.
08:18.527 –> 08:22.533
[SPEAKER_04]: I’m going to go to question from the audience then actually I will be asking you this one as well.
08:22.573 –> 08:28.883
[SPEAKER_04]: But I love that kind of like, he’s giving us that that super practical what channels to use, et cetera, that we need to be doing.
08:29.023 –> 08:37.116
[SPEAKER_04]: And then Sean’s kind of going, but you need to remember how the consumer’s thing, which of course to cut through all the noise on all the platforms is just so critical at the moment.
08:37.136 –> 08:38.938
[SPEAKER_04]: So very cool.
08:39.259 –> 08:42.083
[SPEAKER_04]: But we had a question that Ian, I’ve got to ask you this.
08:42.163 –> 08:43.986
[SPEAKER_04]: This is we were just talking about TikTok.
08:43.966 –> 08:46.152
[SPEAKER_04]: Let’s do this one from Gillian.
08:46.674 –> 08:52.511
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you still recommend TikTok investment if TikTok shop is not available in your country?
08:53.835 –> 08:58.228
[SPEAKER_04]: So is TikTok organic worth it if you can’t do the marketplace and the affiliates?
08:58.529 –> 09:04.619
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you can drive traffic to your, you know, Shopify store, things like that, you can definitely utilize TikTok.
09:04.659 –> 09:17.599
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not as good of a growth lever and it’s not as high volume as you get, right, it’s not just a channel where you’re going to have one posting that the brands are really successful and take thought for one’s posted a lot, right, and working with tons of creators all at one time.
09:17.679 –> 09:18.040
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
09:18.020 –> 09:23.487
[SPEAKER_00]: You can’t just dip your toe in, I would say, on TikTok, but you can run ad just like on meta, right?
09:23.527 –> 09:32.939
[SPEAKER_00]: So get a nice video that you want to use for showing emotion and why people should buy and how it solves your problems, right, and how it’s transformative, right?
09:32.959 –> 09:37.885
[SPEAKER_00]: And then use as an ad, driving traffic, or, you know, views to your website.
09:38.455 –> 09:43.185
[SPEAKER_04]: nice, Jillian, hopefully that I don’t know why that wouldn’t answer your questions, so that was next and answer.
09:43.646 –> 09:45.651
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope that’s answered your questions.
09:45.731 –> 09:49.800
[SPEAKER_04]: So I said, Ashley, we would bring you back to this one here.
09:50.101 –> 09:52.286
[SPEAKER_04]: So Ashley, what’s your take on this?
09:52.326 –> 09:55.232
[SPEAKER_04]: What’s the advice you’re giving to brands and merchants for this year?
09:55.499 –> 10:16.680
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so obviously brands come to us for everything AI and my advice is related with AI and I advise them to think about AI from three different perspective one is you can use AI on defense meaning using AI to improve efficiencies cut costs.
10:16.660 –> 10:27.259
[SPEAKER_01]: So it could be maybe you are using a lot of hours in updating your product page descriptions and you can use AI to automate some of it.
10:27.680 –> 10:29.703
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can drive a lot of efficiency.
10:29.723 –> 10:30.445
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s one.
10:30.465 –> 10:37.077
[SPEAKER_01]: The second is using AI for offense, meaning driving top line, driving revenue.
10:37.878 –> 10:41.284
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are two components to using AI to drive a revenue.
10:41.264 –> 10:49.156
[SPEAKER_01]: One is discoverability, which is all the ways AU, how do you appear in chatchipity, Gemini, Proplexity.
10:49.677 –> 10:54.645
[SPEAKER_01]: And the second is once the users are on your brand own properties, it can be your app or website.
10:55.486 –> 10:57.349
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you converting them?
10:57.329 –> 10:59.292
[SPEAKER_01]: are you leveraging AI to convert them?
10:59.372 –> 11:08.106
[SPEAKER_01]: And we we obviously play in both of them have different strong results for brands like Unilever, Victoria Pekcom, which is a database plan and others.
11:08.487 –> 11:15.037
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so that’s the most common advice is you need to start playing with the AI and not be on the sidelines.
11:15.117 –> 11:17.762
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are on the sidelines, you’re missing out big time.
11:18.403 –> 11:23.691
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you didn’t find the perfect vendor, it makes sense to go ahead and start
11:23.671 –> 11:32.280
[SPEAKER_01]: deploying even like in a crawl walk around approach because the learnings from that will help you later, but you cannot be on the sidelines.
11:32.834 –> 11:35.298
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the way you split it into offensive and defensive.
11:35.338 –> 11:37.482
[SPEAKER_04]: I don’t know if I’ve heard anyone talking about it in that way.
11:37.582 –> 11:44.593
[SPEAKER_04]: And it’s just, is that big kind of slap around the face that most of us need of, it’s not just AI, it’s why you’re using it.
11:44.613 –> 11:45.595
[SPEAKER_04]: The problem is you’re trying to solve it.
11:45.695 –> 11:46.677
[SPEAKER_04]: So I, I love that.
11:46.717 –> 11:53.568
[SPEAKER_04]: I’m Ian Sean, anything you’d, as we’re talking AI, anything you’d add in the AI, and I see you’ve just immediately omitted.
11:53.648 –> 11:54.690
[SPEAKER_04]: So what’s your take?
11:55.092 –> 12:15.565
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, I fully agree, you know, you need to be employing AI throughout your business to save money to become more efficient and also take advantage of, you know, what it can do for your business as far as like growth and new product research and understanding your customer and even ads and, you know, designs and videos that you can make with AI as well.
12:15.545 –> 12:16.888
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely, I’m a big proponent.
12:16.928 –> 12:21.817
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that any, you know, futuristic CEO, a brand, right?
12:22.178 –> 12:32.338
[SPEAKER_00]: A futuristic, but in today’s world has to actually have somewhat other team that actually is focused and also almost a developer that can actually run automations and set things up for the business.
12:32.318 –> 12:50.057
[SPEAKER_00]: to be more efficient, because it is a time-consuming thing, so I see a lot of brand owners trying to do this themselves, and I always say, hey, you know, you can find a developer that you can bring on to your company to take all these automations and run these AI tools that can save you tons of money and grow you faster.
12:50.459 –> 13:07.603
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what, one of the most surprising things I’ve found when it comes to AI is the the more top tier, more premium and brand is, the more open they’re to trying an AI, compared to the brands that are new and upcoming or maybe in the small to medium.
13:08.063 –> 13:12.349
[SPEAKER_01]: And that can be perplexing because AI is supposed to, you know,
13:12.329 –> 13:27.081
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, risk, there is, they’re supposed to be certain risks with AI and the premium brands have a lot to lose if they go wrong, but in my experience, they are way more forward than some of the brands that are in medium and small deer.
13:27.652 –> 13:50.908
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m seeing that a lot we do a lot of work in luxury fashion and actually it’s the heritage brands, it’s the real kind of established legacy brands, the established luxury houses that are bringing it to the front of their business as well, you know, using AI models in their shoots and I know there’s a lot of fear and there’s a lot of worry and there’s a lot of talk about job displacement, that’s always going to happen when there’s new technology.
13:50.888 –> 13:54.753
[SPEAKER_03]: my perspective on it is that it’s here, it’s going to stay.
13:54.773 –> 14:00.039
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s going to be part of everything we do in our businesses and our lives in some way, shape or form.
14:00.460 –> 14:10.772
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to get over the fear and the resistance of it and actually we’re starting to migrate out of because these heritage brands from an e-compspected, these heritage brands are the ones that are really leading the way.
14:10.832 –> 14:15.478
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you said, we’re starting to get to the point where we’re moving out of early adoption.
14:15.458 –> 14:40.943
[SPEAKER_03]: This becoming mainstream now and actually this for me this is the year that if you don’t really follow that advice that you’ve both just shared and really kind of go right how does this fit with our business where do we want it involved where don’t we want it involved and what’s that going to look like this is actually going to be the year I feel that there’s going to be that you know that gap widening that’s then not going to close it’s not necessarily where you and early adopter it’s now are you keeping up.
14:41.260 –> 14:44.267
[SPEAKER_04]: So let’s dive into this AI bit.
14:44.287 –> 14:46.473
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we were going to end up talking about it sooner or later.
14:47.435 –> 14:49.681
[SPEAKER_04]: So let’s dive into it for a few minutes.
14:50.322 –> 14:58.763
[SPEAKER_04]: The thing, I find it fascinating that the heritage brands are in there because you would have thought they’d be the last ones to adopt it.
14:58.743 –> 15:04.714
[SPEAKER_04]: But where does, I mean, is it, do we start on the defensive, do we start on the offensive?
15:04.995 –> 15:12.168
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it about finding a good piece of tech that we can integrate to do things?
15:12.388 –> 15:17.297
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it about just going straight to chat GPT and allowing the team to use that?
15:17.337 –> 15:18.760
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do we,
15:18.740 –> 15:19.863
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do we start?
15:19.963 –> 15:23.051
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do we go to next?
15:23.111 –> 15:30.450
[SPEAKER_04]: If we’ve been dabbling, but we now want to really see some results, happy for any of you to jump in on this, because I expect you’ve all got opinions.
15:30.671 –> 15:33.458
[SPEAKER_04]: So whoever speaks for us can go further to the answer.
15:33.657 –> 15:37.645
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe I’ll go first as a practitioner of AI.
15:38.506 –> 15:41.152
[SPEAKER_01]: I love for Yann and I’m starting to chime in.
15:41.973 –> 15:46.602
[SPEAKER_01]: From a brand perspective, the lowest hanging fruit right now is customer support.
15:47.123 –> 15:50.049
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, in CX, you can deploy an AI.
15:50.249 –> 15:52.273
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s very mainstream.
15:52.253 –> 15:55.839
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you’re not there, that’s the first place to start.
15:56.019 –> 15:57.762
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s almost risk free, I would say.
15:57.782 –> 16:12.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you deploy any sort of AI tool, there are certain things that come with it, meaning how to train an AI, how to prompt an AI, how to control the AI, how to make it speak like your brand.
16:12.568 –> 16:15.713
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there are certain things that you learn, regardless of,
16:15.693 –> 16:18.335
[SPEAKER_01]: how in what huge cases you’re going to use it.
16:18.676 –> 16:20.637
[SPEAKER_01]: So start there, if you’re not.
16:21.118 –> 16:24.441
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can start expanding from there, the adjacent huge cases.
16:24.481 –> 16:26.703
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, can you use AI just shopping assistant?
16:26.723 –> 16:30.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you use AI as a product, FQ generator?
16:30.186 –> 16:38.774
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on the merchant site as well, the brand efficiency site, can you use AI to generate more assets as saying for ads?
16:38.794 –> 16:45.700
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then the huge cases will start expanding from there organically, and you will start having fun.
16:45.680 –> 16:51.095
[SPEAKER_01]: or maybe on the CX side because that’s the more predominant and has been almost mainstream.
16:51.777 –> 16:58.616
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so Ian, as she’s going for start with customer experience because you’ll learn, it will, it’s pretty low risk and then you can expand out from that.
16:58.636 –> 17:01.444
[SPEAKER_04]: Where would you advise someone to go to next?
17:01.880 –> 17:03.962
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I always go to growth, right?
17:04.042 –> 17:06.065
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I’m talking to brands, they always want to.
17:06.245 –> 17:07.907
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I sell more products, right?
17:07.947 –> 17:17.538
[SPEAKER_00]: So figuring out how to use the AI to help them build new products to scale their ads up to come up with new ideas, quicker, and cheaper, right?
17:17.658 –> 17:20.662
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s really where AI is coming into play.
17:21.022 –> 17:24.546
[SPEAKER_00]: My platform helps you connect with real people that can deliver real,
17:24.526 –> 17:33.885
[SPEAKER_00]: results and make purchases and influence other people and AI can also be used for developing videos and things the assets they can use as a business owner.
17:33.925 –> 17:39.717
[SPEAKER_00]: So the reason why you’re seeing legacy brands moving quicker is because
17:39.697 –> 17:43.902
[SPEAKER_00]: they have people and there’s businesses that can actually take on that role right away, right?
17:44.603 –> 17:52.252
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the brands that you see up and coming really fast and the ones that, you know, why are these brands moving so quickly and growing so fast is because they take action, right?
17:52.372 –> 17:56.838
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a big difference between brands who, you know, want to grow and should I sell here?
17:56.858 –> 18:00.742
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I do this with that and then ones that, you know, just they go, right?
18:00.762 –> 18:05.468
[SPEAKER_00]: And they they put effort and time into a different market or marketplace and so
18:05.448 –> 18:13.682
[SPEAKER_00]: ones that I see are doing this, they’re hiring people to run that particular division and scale it up in the growth sector, right?
18:13.763 –> 18:22.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely customer service, you know, all of the tools they’re already using already have AI agents built into them, so they’re not really having to go, you know, create their own apps, right?
18:22.137 –> 18:28.789
[SPEAKER_00]: You can just top and tap into, you know, intercom or, you know, from those other apps that people use with Shopify, right?
18:29.410 –> 18:40.084
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would take customer services really in easy one, but then it comes into product scaling, product element, I’m actually in a customer avatar, deeply and analyzing tons of data.
18:41.286 –> 18:47.133
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice, I want to ask you so many questions about creative and advertising, but we’ll see what the audience wants a little later on.
18:47.694 –> 18:54.683
[SPEAKER_04]: Sean, Ian, there was talking about, you know, getting to deeply understand the customer, is that where you would suggest people going next with AI?
18:54.864 –> 18:58.168
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is there another angle you would recommend for this year?
18:58.148 –> 19:03.042
[SPEAKER_03]: And surprisingly, yes, that’s the one obsessed with the psychology.
19:03.423 –> 19:10.362
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say, you know, as a Grace consultancy, we are across so many different ways of deploying AI across all different industries.
19:11.124 –> 19:13.390
[SPEAKER_03]: I have worked in tech for years before I…
19:13.370 –> 19:13.911
[SPEAKER_03]: did this.
19:14.633 –> 19:16.737
[SPEAKER_03]: So I am an earlier doctor of things.
19:16.757 –> 19:18.160
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m like, get it, give it a go.
19:18.180 –> 19:27.560
[SPEAKER_03]: Where we’ve had a lot of success in our own business and with clients, the most successful clients that I’m seeing are the ones that are very logistics focused about it.
19:27.580 –> 19:33.212
[SPEAKER_03]: It isn’t, like you said, isn’t just dabble the chat GPT here and there and just dip our toe in over here, dip it in over here.
19:33.312 –> 19:33.893
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s
19:33.873 –> 19:52.438
[SPEAKER_03]: right we’re going to take this as a project we’re going to implement it on customer service first or on this first or on this first we’re going to get that right and then we’re going to deploy elsewhere and then you do learn the skills that may are transferable but it is when you’re giving dedicated resource to it and you’re being really focused from a consumer point of view.
19:52.418 –> 19:59.391
[SPEAKER_03]: There’s a lot of fear with brands, especially around it being deployed creatively in Adaset, in content creation.
19:59.411 –> 20:12.857
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, on LinkedIn, there’s the great M-Dash, which hunt, which pains me a bit as someone who loves writing, because it is a little, and you know, the rhetoric, they are all literary devices, but
20:12.837 –> 20:15.582
[SPEAKER_03]: there is kind of negativity around AI tells and things.
20:16.083 –> 20:26.421
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the key bits that I’m advising a lot on when brands are wanting to create models and replace models with AI and things is around the concept of the young canny.
20:26.882 –> 20:33.073
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is actually a real kind of deep-seated survival instinct within us and it’s one of the things that look
20:33.053 –> 20:36.978
[SPEAKER_03]: a little bit too perfect or a little bit, you know, it looks human, but it’s not quite.
20:36.998 –> 20:43.906
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s why we find realistic dolls really creepy, like unbelievable, unbelievably creepy, because it triggers the uncanny.
20:44.266 –> 20:54.859
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually, Freud wrote a lot about it, and then in tech, there’s the cart and robotics, there’s the concept of uncanny valley, which is for anyone who has seen the film The Stefford-Wides,
20:54.839 –> 20:58.468
[SPEAKER_03]: There’s a big twist at the end of that and not to ruin it for anyone.
20:58.508 –> 21:04.563
[SPEAKER_03]: It has been out for absolutely donkeys years, but it turns out that all these really perfect 1950s house lights are robots.
21:04.583 –> 21:12.983
[SPEAKER_03]: That works as a kind of horror movie thriller because it’s triggering the uncanny all the way through and it’s really unsettling us.
21:12.963 –> 21:32.406
[SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things if you’re deploying it creatively and you’re starting to do that is to start to understand some of the psychology of why we find these things creepy and not just you know the really obvious things like when some it’s generated a image and the person’s got three hands or three arms or something and it’s clearly got.
21:32.386 –> 21:44.147
[SPEAKER_03]: But when it is an almost two-polished and two-perfect image, you know, we’re striving for that in our creative output, but actually that can have the opposite effect and that can trigger that backlash.
21:44.547 –> 21:56.368
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you look at the customer data on it and things like the Coca-Cola Radvert, where this year for Christmas, they recreated the famous advert with AI, they did it last year, actually the data that customers couldn’t tell and didn’t care.
21:56.348 –> 22:14.796
[SPEAKER_03]: So as long as you don’t trigger that and comey, their level of care around it and the level of backlash that brands are scared of is actually so much less than the fear of that love that and just to add a ridiculous anecdote before we go into the next question there’s an event I’ve
22:14.776 –> 22:32.008
[SPEAKER_04]: done or about to do or may have done in the past because I’m naming no names who’ve done some really weird AI things with people’s headshots that if you know the people it I saw mine and I just laughed out loud it’s like that is not me it’s weirdly like me, but it’s not me and they’re currently I think they’re now changing them all.
22:31.988 –> 22:40.598
[SPEAKER_04]: because they’ve had bad reactions from people because it’s like, you know, you hiring me for the Brown Recognition and if you change my face, it’s no longer me.
22:41.038 –> 22:52.611
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, before I tangent completely off on that one, I’m Alexandra and Sophie, I see all questions, they’re really good, we will come back to them because I want to go back to the slide deck and ask another big old question.
22:52.671 –> 22:56.055
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of the inverse of the one I started with of our panel.
22:56.035 –> 23:04.747
[SPEAKER_04]: which is I think I personally believe people in business are bad at killing off things that don’t work that they need to stop doing.
23:04.787 –> 23:11.917
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you’re going to focus on growth and you’re going to focus on success, you have to create the mind space, the space for the team, the space for the budget to do it.
23:12.057 –> 23:21.030
[SPEAKER_04]: So if there’s one thing a branch should stop doing this year, what would
23:21.483 –> 23:22.004
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m not sure.
23:22.184 –> 23:26.671
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this one’s always tough, you know, what should somebody stop doing in their business.
23:27.032 –> 23:28.274
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s it’s always tough.
23:28.294 –> 23:44.098
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, looking at where your your skills are best used right what your best time to spend on how to get your highest ROI and if you look at your business in that way and then you can kind of like analyze, okay, well, if I just do social media content.
23:44.078 –> 23:45.420
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not really making me any money.
23:45.721 –> 23:48.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it, it’s great, but it takes a lot of time.
23:48.265 –> 23:52.191
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe I should be putting my skills and time into something else that’s higher ROI.
23:52.211 –> 23:54.355
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would say, look at your business from that standpoint.
23:54.816 –> 23:57.340
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do I see the most bang for my buck and my time?
23:57.680 –> 23:59.944
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, put more energy into that.
24:00.498 –> 24:01.600
[SPEAKER_04]: the perfect answer.
24:01.941 –> 24:04.065
[SPEAKER_04]: As she’s shown, can either view do better.
24:04.085 –> 24:07.011
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of pressure.
24:07.492 –> 24:08.294
[SPEAKER_03]: I’ll give it a go.
24:09.576 –> 24:15.949
[SPEAKER_03]: So mine would be around killing off what makes your brand distinct, your brand assets.
24:15.969 –> 24:18.895
[SPEAKER_03]: We saw some really big high-profile examples of that.
24:18.875 –> 24:29.595
[SPEAKER_03]: attempted and then reversed last year with Cracker Barrel very famously and obviously Joe Lingo played into it by killing off duo and then bringing him back and creating a whole load buzz.
24:30.236 –> 24:36.107
[SPEAKER_03]: But what I have seen a lot on kind of not on that level of brand but kind of mid-tier brands
24:36.087 –> 24:54.612
[SPEAKER_03]: is because TikTok has become so popular and you can be so successful, very quickly like Ian said, there’s been a real kind of swing to let’s chase trends, let’s jump on the trending sound, let’s do the latest thing, the dance or whatever it is, the meme.
24:55.373 –> 25:03.985
[SPEAKER_03]: And in doing that, very small, very reactive teams are forgetting to bring in the thing that makes their brand
25:03.965 –> 25:33.550
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually the way that we buy is all based on if you look at all of the data and how we make buying decisions about 80% of it is the brand that we are most familiar with in that category at the time that we are ready to buy so it is about hammering home the things that make your brand distinctive and if you are jumping on trending audio you need to know that that audio is the distinctive brand asset within that piece the thing that people are going to remember is the trend it’s the audio is the dance it’s the meme.
25:33.530 –> 25:37.417
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do you bring your brand into that into that piece of content?
25:37.617 –> 25:49.199
[SPEAKER_03]: It’s really important to jump on those trends and do that to get the reach, but actually if that reach is going to do anything for you commercially, your brand has to be really present and that isn’t just about sticking your logo on it.
25:49.519 –> 25:55.470
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually the people that do that best from a branding perspective are currently Markson Spencer.
25:55.450 –> 25:57.272
[SPEAKER_03]: I absolutely love Marx’s sense of circus.
25:57.292 –> 26:04.239
[SPEAKER_03]: I’m completely their target demographic, but the way that they bring Percy Pig and Colin the Catapila into every single trend.
26:04.679 –> 26:12.487
[SPEAKER_03]: Now obviously it is so much easier to do that when you are mascot-led, and that’s why duo Lingo is the success story that it is on social media.
26:12.787 –> 26:24.259
[SPEAKER_03]: But there are ways to do it if you don’t have a mascot, and it’s just about thinking how to bring your brand to the forefront of every single asset that you create so that you’re
26:24.712 –> 26:53.368
[SPEAKER_01]: nice and just declare for everyone the takeaway from that is not to create a mascot okay not create a mascot please don’t go and do that as a resource which I’m just saying I’m actually your your take on this anything a branch is stopped doing in 2020 yeah I’ll build up on what song was saying which is essentially the brands and stop delegating their brand identity to the platforms they are on and that tendency is gonna go get stronger
26:53.416 –> 27:00.972
[SPEAKER_01]: with the introduction of shopping agents in chatchipity or Google, with all the platforms you tend to just get lost in the crowd.
27:01.754 –> 27:13.399
[SPEAKER_01]: And you need to think of, okay, these will act as a discovery layer, but how do I own my relationship with the customers, my loyal customers, and how do I retain them so that they become repeat purchases?
27:13.379 –> 27:22.492
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s the question the brands need to think about and there’s a very strong tendency because if let’s say it’s, you know, of course, AI, because that’s where I do.
27:22.853 –> 27:27.280
[SPEAKER_01]: If jagivity starts recommending your products along with three other brands, how do you appear?
27:27.380 –> 27:28.902
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you control a brand?
27:28.922 –> 27:32.227
[SPEAKER_01]: Is a key question that brand needs to ponder over an answer.
27:32.347 –> 27:33.008
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
27:33.443 –> 27:42.054
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I would, if I can, I would add to that for those of us that are relative dinosaurs from the dawn of internet times and remember this.
27:42.455 –> 28:01.560
[SPEAKER_03]: If you remember when Amazon first started, it was a discount platform and actually brands didn’t want to be on it because they didn’t want to be discounting a lot of agencies existed purely to help businesses set up and get their catalogs onto Amazon and they actually really struggled to sell their services because Amazon was seen as a discount platform.
28:01.540 –> 28:13.777
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, then, the big transformation and the giant of e-comm that it is now, but that is the real challenge of that is how do you own your brand, how do you avoid any negative associations with the platforms that you’re on?
28:14.178 –> 28:27.396
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually, with the kind of dawning of shopping within chatGPT and code and all of these different Gemini and all of these different platforms, we can learn a lot of lessons from that time and the journey that brands
28:27.376 –> 28:45.705
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, some brands will have been through that and will now be going through it with AI some point of being around that long, but you can go and read case studies of these things from the agencies that took brands on the journey and, you know, go and be really matter about it, go and ask AI, you know, about what happened in those times, and how that transition was managed.
28:45.685 –> 28:47.910
[SPEAKER_04]: And what’s your perspective on that?
28:47.970 –> 28:58.013
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, you said that TikTok is the big play for this year, but presumably you and your community members are also tackling the GEO AI search issues as well.
28:58.314 –> 29:00.218
[SPEAKER_04]: So what’s your advice around that at the moment?
29:00.552 –> 29:19.101
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it goes back to what CM was saying as well as like just the multiple touch points right you need to show to that customer multiple times for them to be right when they’re ready to buy there and buy something as familiar and so that’s how you show up is through these organic content and where your customers actually are if you’re if you’re selling products and your customers aren’t on take to talk to you probably should be doing take up right.
29:19.081 –> 29:22.026
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can figure out, you know, maybe it’s Pinterest, maybe it’s something else, right?
29:22.066 –> 29:30.299
[SPEAKER_00]: So you gotta go where they are, maybe it’s Facebook groups, you know, so I’ve seen plenty companies actually grow by sharing or participating in Facebook groups.
29:30.379 –> 29:31.281
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s incredible.
29:31.802 –> 29:39.574
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, getting that touch point going forward and, you know, how are you going to use when AI recommends a product over another one?
29:39.855 –> 29:41.237
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s using crowdsourced data.
29:41.558 –> 29:42.920
[SPEAKER_00]: So how many people are talking about it?
29:43.280 –> 29:44.763
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people on Reddit are talking about?
29:44.803 –> 29:46.185
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people on SEO?
29:46.165 –> 29:48.989
[SPEAKER_00]: and Google and all the social media problems that they’re listening to, right?
29:49.029 –> 29:57.262
[SPEAKER_00]: So the data is coming in from everywhere, and so if you’re not having people talk about your brand recommending it, it even reviews to be all of things, then you’re going to fall behind for sure.
29:57.782 –> 30:07.056
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I think what it now brands that want to be relevant are trying to take his advantage of his much air time and space is possible on the platform.
30:07.397 –> 30:09.540
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s exposing them the fastest, which is TikTok.
30:10.060 –> 30:25.858
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think to be in in the world of obviously to be building AI tools for economists that there is a great place to be and but I think the other great place to be is if you’re in PR or you’re in content creation or high quality social media or community management.
30:25.838 –> 30:30.444
[SPEAKER_04]: because that’s so crucial now for getting surfaced by the AI.
30:30.484 –> 30:33.969
[SPEAKER_04]: But I want us, I promised at least three people we’re going to get to their questions.
30:34.230 –> 30:35.992
[SPEAKER_04]: And I’m seeing the clock ticking by.
30:36.493 –> 30:39.697
[SPEAKER_04]: So let’s start tackling some of the audiences questions.
30:39.837 –> 30:42.742
[SPEAKER_04]: First off, from Ivan, who got his question in super duper early.
30:42.802 –> 30:43.583
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Ivan.
30:44.464 –> 30:45.145
[SPEAKER_04]: It’s a big one.
30:45.365 –> 30:47.829
[SPEAKER_04]: And you don’t all have to answer this if you don’t want to.
30:47.969 –> 30:55.339
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you had to cut 50% of your current e-commerce stack
30:55.758 –> 30:56.559
[SPEAKER_04]: and why?
30:56.579 –> 30:59.865
[SPEAKER_04]: Who fancies diving in on this?
31:01.027 –> 31:02.310
[SPEAKER_04]: Or shall I pick on someone?
31:03.712 –> 31:04.834
[SPEAKER_04]: Ian, can I come to you again?
31:04.874 –> 31:08.060
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you give such a good answer on the what to stop doing?
31:08.120 –> 31:10.324
[SPEAKER_04]: Can I pick on you on this one?
31:10.658 –> 31:11.099
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:11.739 –> 31:16.925
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is also one where I usually, you know, these are tools, right?
31:16.965 –> 31:25.075
[SPEAKER_00]: They should be making you more efficient and helping you to understand your data better, or, you know, talk to more customers faster, or save money on employees.
31:25.115 –> 31:30.541
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, cutting your stack is not really the idea unless you’re just in cutting mode.
31:30.561 –> 31:39.231
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is, you got to find new AIs and new tools and systems that can help you expand your
31:39.397 –> 31:43.102
[SPEAKER_00]: place of being in scarcity or in growth mode, right?
31:43.122 –> 31:43.482
[SPEAKER_00]: Bundents.
31:43.642 –> 31:47.367
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would say, don’t look to cut things.
31:47.427 –> 31:53.114
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you’re not, if you sign up for a server, I like to review my software every quarter, everything that’s a recurring charge.
31:53.174 –> 31:56.438
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just like, how we looked at it in the last quarter, if not, and we cut it.
31:57.019 –> 31:58.801
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you’re like, oh, wouldn’t that back?
31:58.881 –> 31:59.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Kick cool, we just add it back.
31:59.902 –> 32:02.085
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s great to save money.
32:02.385 –> 32:06.130
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you’re going to exit your business as well, then it really makes sense to cut costs.
32:06.717 –> 32:15.056
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it is a, well, if we’re not using it, we should stop paying for it rather than a, I know, email marketing’s dead, killing your email marketing deck.
32:15.176 –> 32:17.923
[SPEAKER_04]: I say that because it’s utterly ridiculous and it’s just in everyone.
32:18.304 –> 32:19.587
[SPEAKER_04]: Do not, do not quote me on that.
32:20.048 –> 32:22.453
[SPEAKER_04]: But I feel like like that’s it.
32:22.473 –> 32:24.979
[SPEAKER_04]: Ash is shan, anything either of you, you wanna ask you?
32:25.195 –> 32:39.249
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ll just give her an example of a customer and exactly to what AN said, it’s less about cutting costs, more about thinking holistically like what I can bring together seamlessly so it feels integrated.
32:39.289 –> 32:45.135
[SPEAKER_01]: So famous skincare brand that we work where now they had like different things.
32:45.155 –> 32:48.378
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, they had a quiz to take, understand your skin.
32:48.878 –> 32:52.502
[SPEAKER_01]: They had a different tool for routine
32:52.482 –> 33:01.800
[SPEAKER_01]: And what the day day is, and of course, they are like product FAQs, they consolidate all of three with with Anhina as a like a single AI solution.
33:01.820 –> 33:12.060
[SPEAKER_01]: So they still had those entry points like build a routine, do you have a question, click here to get an answer, maybe they’ll show questions as well, skin analysis tool as well.
33:12.040 –> 33:14.443
[SPEAKER_01]: as a click on the skin analysis to it opens the AI.
33:14.763 –> 33:20.109
[SPEAKER_01]: But all the three, they land into the AI, which is an integrated solution.
33:20.570 –> 33:23.834
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were able to consolidate those tools that way.
33:24.174 –> 33:32.924
[SPEAKER_01]: So now with AI, you can take a look at what different parts of my tool stack are desperate, like separate.
33:32.944 –> 33:39.111
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can bring them together seamlessly so that if they flow, they feel more integrated and polished.
33:39.563 –> 33:47.350
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that’s a really valuable exercise, like have we got any tools we’re not using, have we got three tools that are doing the job that one better to tool could do.
33:47.570 –> 33:53.356
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the only other bit I would add to what you’ve both said there is aligning your text back to your funnel.
33:53.616 –> 33:57.460
[SPEAKER_03]: This is just something that not enough brands do from my perspective.
33:57.500 –> 34:06.448
[SPEAKER_03]: So what is your customer journey all the way through, including the nurture for the repeat customer and element and the keeping them in the brand world?
34:06.428 –> 34:11.874
[SPEAKER_03]: And then just looking at what tech have we got at each stage of that and what is it doing for us and is it performing?
34:11.914 –> 34:17.439
[SPEAKER_03]: I think too often when we go into cost cutting mode and like, okay, we’ve got so much software here.
34:17.800 –> 34:18.941
[SPEAKER_03]: What can we cut?
34:18.961 –> 34:30.333
[SPEAKER_03]: You go really straight into pounds and pennies or dollars ROI and go, okay, you know, we’re not getting a return on investment for that, but actually performance marketing and brand marketing and not separate anymore.
34:30.353 –> 34:33.616
[SPEAKER_03]: We just talked about customers need to be talking about you.
34:33.636 –> 34:35.558
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to be recognizable.
34:35.538 –> 34:38.382
[SPEAKER_03]: Brand is a huge part of what drives performance.
34:38.402 –> 34:41.307
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have to do that work of just going, how is this serving us?
34:41.387 –> 34:43.951
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a top of funnel thing where it’s about brand awareness?
34:44.371 –> 34:46.635
[SPEAKER_03]: And then is it the most efficient tool for achieving that?
34:47.015 –> 34:53.445
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a conversion tool at the bottom that we would be expecting to be generating four pounds for every pound we spend on it?
34:53.505 –> 34:54.586
[SPEAKER_03]: And then is it doing that?
34:54.687 –> 35:01.056
[SPEAKER_03]: But just being really careful about what metrics you’re making those decisions based on and it’s not purely being about cost.
35:01.627 –> 35:02.569
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, right.
35:02.609 –> 35:06.035
[SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got three more at the moment questions to get through.
35:06.055 –> 35:15.631
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is there maybe time for me to ask another question as well because I’m going to ask my panel to give super quick answers and we probably won’t go to everyone for answers on all of these.
35:16.793 –> 35:19.618
[SPEAKER_04]: But we are going to try and fit them all in so panel.
35:19.598 –> 35:24.666
[SPEAKER_04]: short answers and you don’t have to answer every question because I want to make sure we get these answers for the audience.
35:24.686 –> 35:33.579
[SPEAKER_04]: So first off, any real case studies or examples of AI tools that have actually delivered results clearly, Alexander has been having a bit of a nightmare with bad tools.
35:34.200 –> 35:38.306
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, our Hina AI is amazing so you should go and check that one out.
35:38.867 –> 35:47.580
[SPEAKER_04]: But are there any other tools, anyone’s willing to name check or advice on making sure your AI tools work?
35:47.560 –> 35:53.620
[SPEAKER_04]: on this, because obviously we are in the land of garbage in garbage out, so it may be set up that’s the issue.
35:53.640 –> 35:58.617
[SPEAKER_04]: I think you were the first to nod, so do you want to tackle this one for us?
35:58.900 –> 36:02.663
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, tools are only as good as the person using them, right?
36:02.744 –> 36:11.211
[SPEAKER_00]: So the only operator, of course, for me, I love a tool called Whisper AI, which allows me to basically talk to my phone.
36:11.412 –> 36:18.398
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can basically type, I think it’s like 180 words a minute now, just with my voice and it’s like dead on.
36:18.438 –> 36:20.500
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I can respond to emails.
36:20.560 –> 36:21.621
[SPEAKER_00]: I can send messages.
36:21.821 –> 36:22.882
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m really type anymore.
36:22.902 –> 36:23.943
[SPEAKER_00]: I just dictate to my phone.
36:23.963 –> 36:28.047
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s been like way better than Apple intelligence or Siri or anything like that.
36:28.027 –> 36:34.475
[SPEAKER_00]: Check out Whisper if you want it basically saved yourself like basically five extra abilities to type.
36:34.495 –> 36:35.640
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s amazing.
36:36.093 –> 36:38.335
[SPEAKER_04]: I’ve had very good things about that one, too.
36:38.415 –> 36:42.839
[SPEAKER_04]: And you can get it to work on your computer, as well, if you’re a load computer, like me.
36:43.500 –> 36:46.883
[SPEAKER_00]: Other than, I don’t even type, I barely type anymore.
36:46.923 –> 36:49.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m not going to have a cardboard tunnel because of this for sure.
36:49.685 –> 36:50.826
[SPEAKER_00]: So I highly recommend it.
36:51.527 –> 36:53.729
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s just like a tool that I think is great, right?
36:54.129 –> 36:55.851
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m going to use chatGPT every day.
36:55.891 –> 36:57.592
[SPEAKER_00]: I use perplexity.
36:57.692 –> 36:59.294
[SPEAKER_00]: I use, you know, grock.
36:59.374 –> 37:06.100
[SPEAKER_00]: I use all of them, right, for different purposes, Claude, if we’re making coding stuff.
37:06.080 –> 37:06.500
[SPEAKER_00]: thing.
37:06.821 –> 37:12.427
[SPEAKER_00]: AI is way better than it was two months ago, and a month ago, right?
37:12.487 –> 37:18.715
[SPEAKER_00]: So like whatever you thought, it’s not the case anymore, and it’s moving super quick, so you got to take a advantage of it.
37:19.336 –> 37:23.480
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like to upload, you know, a lot of data to it, and then ask questions.
37:23.600 –> 37:30.889
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s really where you kind of get like economies of scale and you can understand stuff or understand your, you know, your call logs with your customer service people, or
37:30.869 –> 37:35.817
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you’re sales history and where people are buying from or all your customer data.
37:35.837 –> 37:45.574
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can really start to learn really quickly versus what you just have to do in the past, which was, you know, make a spreadsheet, do a pivot table, like, you know, sort of the data, do all the things.
37:45.674 –> 37:46.595
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s doing it all for you.
37:47.016 –> 37:51.744
[SPEAKER_00]: And then of course, like, Ayahs can bring an outside data and do research for you on autonomous.
37:51.804 –> 37:53.046
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s pretty amazing.
37:53.363 –> 37:54.564
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I’m going to move us on.
37:54.624 –> 37:59.891
[SPEAKER_04]: I’m going to give Alex Andros my two answers to this and then we’re going to move on to the next question.
37:59.931 –> 38:01.372
[SPEAKER_04]: So we put the next question up there.
38:01.392 –> 38:09.302
[SPEAKER_04]: So you guys can read it whilst I tell Alex Andros my extra couple of these advice, one would be there’s so much specialist e-commerce tech now.
38:09.422 –> 38:14.628
[SPEAKER_04]: I would look for something that is specialist e-commerce because it’s going to have already been built to do some of what you want.
38:14.688 –> 38:20.775
[SPEAKER_04]: And I’d also look at your existing tool set and see what AI they’ve put in place that you can tap into it.
38:20.815 –> 38:22.577
[SPEAKER_04]: Somebody else mentioned earlier on.
38:22.557 –> 38:24.880
[SPEAKER_04]: because that’s quite a safe way to go into it.
38:24.920 –> 38:27.623
[SPEAKER_04]: But, and follow all that great advice that you can just give us.
38:27.643 –> 38:33.009
[SPEAKER_04]: So, Sophie Tovie is asking us another very, everyone’s in typing mode.
38:33.049 –> 38:34.691
[SPEAKER_04]: You already using Whisper.
38:35.031 –> 38:37.274
[SPEAKER_04]: Very, very, very worthy questions we’re getting today.
38:37.835 –> 38:41.619
[SPEAKER_04]: So, she’s had a nightmare with the Google organic traffic.
38:42.580 –> 38:44.783
[SPEAKER_04]: On a specific day, that’s suggesting it’s a Google rollout.
38:44.803 –> 38:51.130
[SPEAKER_04]: We suggest it’s something to do with too much AI content
38:51.110 –> 38:54.195
[SPEAKER_04]: massive challenge for all of us.
38:54.495 –> 38:57.520
[SPEAKER_04]: How much AI do you or don’t you use for the content on your website?
38:58.281 –> 39:11.262
[SPEAKER_04]: I know we don’t have any specific SEO specialists in here in amongst our audience today, but any tips for software for future content creation and fixing content on the site.
39:11.984 –> 39:13.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can come in.
39:13.666 –> 39:17.191
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to lead SEO for LinkedIn before Alhina.
39:17.231 –> 39:24.340
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Sophie, the advice here is, the AI content per se is not the problem.
39:24.380 –> 39:26.202
[SPEAKER_01]: The low quality content is the problem.
39:26.663 –> 39:35.895
[SPEAKER_01]: So what the tendency with the AI has been is to create lots of content, scale the content in terms of quantity without looking at the quality.
39:36.415 –> 39:37.857
[SPEAKER_01]: And that,
39:37.837 –> 39:39.299
[SPEAKER_01]: can harm you.
39:39.840 –> 39:44.387
[SPEAKER_01]: And it takes a really long time once Google penalizes you to come out of that hole.
39:44.948 –> 39:49.935
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s far more work to come out of that hole than to not go in that hole.
39:49.955 –> 39:55.423
[SPEAKER_01]: So my advice would be use AI to create high quality content that people find the
39:55.403 –> 39:58.726
[SPEAKER_01]: and go back to the core metrics, which what’s the dual tag?
39:58.926 –> 39:59.987
[SPEAKER_01]: How much time they’re spending?
40:00.528 –> 40:05.312
[SPEAKER_01]: Once they see your content in AO or search results, are they clicking on it?
40:05.352 –> 40:15.181
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the two or three key metrics that matter for SEO and as long as and they’re same apply for AO as well, especially when it comes to the Google universe.
40:15.541 –> 40:25.410
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that will be my advice is a focus on quantity, quality, not on quantity, and you can use AI, like Google wants you to use AI
40:25.390 –> 40:33.159
[SPEAKER_04]: I don’t think any of us are gonna beat Ash’s knowledge in this space, so I think we’ll move on to the next one.
40:33.299 –> 40:40.267
[SPEAKER_04]: And so for the other thing I would say to that is the good news is we are not in the days of Penguin and Panda, I say aging myself.
40:40.568 –> 40:44.653
[SPEAKER_04]: So there is plenty of advice out there of how to recover from this situation.
40:44.673 –> 40:55.245
[SPEAKER_04]: You’re not gonna be, I mean,
40:55.225 –> 40:57.008
[SPEAKER_04]: from Robin Bell.
40:57.909 –> 41:08.784
[SPEAKER_04]: Whilst you’re all reading that quickly, there’s a bit of Sean, thank you for the recommendation to Alexander and the chat, do go and have a read of that.
41:08.985 –> 41:16.255
[SPEAKER_04]: Robin has another marvelously long question, thank you, which is basically
41:16.353 –> 41:22.660
[SPEAKER_04]: With all that’s going on in the e-commerce space at the moment, what is going to be the number one key drive of e-commerce success in 202627?
41:22.680 –> 41:29.827
[SPEAKER_04]: A slight repetition of my very first question, where you know, what advice are you sharing with people?
41:29.947 –> 41:32.530
[SPEAKER_04]: But Ian, are we still all about the TikTok?
41:32.550 –> 41:35.353
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this still the key drive of e-commerce success in 202627?
41:36.214 –> 41:41.179
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is there a kind of a strategy behind the scenes and a approach that you’d also like to mention?
41:41.952 –> 41:44.438
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s going to keep the attention for quite a while.
41:44.739 –> 41:48.007
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s where the youth is, right, and what they’re looking at and watching.
41:48.048 –> 41:50.033
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and now it’s not being banned.
41:50.093 –> 41:50.895
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s being controlled.
41:50.915 –> 41:56.650
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, between that Instagram, they’re just their forces to be reckoned with as far as attention goes.
41:56.790 –> 41:57.632
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where you want to be.
41:58.658 –> 42:05.910
[SPEAKER_04]: simple as that, um, Sean, any alterations from you on early anything deeper you want to go to with this one?
42:06.671 –> 42:09.756
[SPEAKER_03]: I would pick on the challenging economic environment.
42:10.017 –> 42:15.486
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, let’s not go into too much detail because we don’t want to throw myself out, but no, we don’t.
42:15.466 –> 42:21.153
[SPEAKER_03]: We all have eyes and the news and social media feeds and we can also see what’s going on in the world and how it’s affecting us.
42:21.714 –> 42:28.483
[SPEAKER_03]: And we can see and feel how it’s affecting us spending and we are seeing disposable incomes become so much tighter.
42:28.543 –> 42:30.706
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is affecting people’s purchasing behavior.
42:30.846 –> 42:35.652
[SPEAKER_03]: So there’s always talk about demographics are dead and, you know,
42:35.632 –> 42:42.903
[SPEAKER_03]: Psychographics is where it’s at, you need both, and actually a demographic targeting tells you who has the disposable income that they could spend on you.
42:42.943 –> 42:44.706
[SPEAKER_03]: That should always be your first step.
42:45.086 –> 42:48.211
[SPEAKER_03]: Don’t be trying to target customers that just cannot afford you.
42:48.231 –> 42:50.214
[SPEAKER_03]: You’re not going to make them want to afford you.
42:50.274 –> 43:04.896
[SPEAKER_03]: And then for those ones that can afford you, but it’s going to be quite challenging to win the most of our because of what’s going on economically and they are more considered about
43:04.876 –> 43:14.829
[SPEAKER_03]: where you’re willing to spend and how quickly you’re willing to make a decision and so obviously if your money is tight you’re going to spend less money on impulse purchases.
43:15.330 –> 43:32.993
[SPEAKER_03]: So the real way to cut through, it is about being on the right platforms, it is about doing the right things for the algorithm to get attention and to cut through but it is also about lifetime value and it is about once you warm that customer, your cost of acquisition is going to be more expensive so once
43:32.973 –> 43:39.242
[SPEAKER_03]: keeping that relationship with them like we said earlier and the way that you’re going to do that is through building brand trust.
43:39.262 –> 43:58.390
[SPEAKER_03]: There’s been so many shiny, lovely, very expensive PDF reports commissioned by the marketing industry as we love to do at this time of year and everyone devours them and then comes to LinkedIn and goes, brand is back, brand is back, brand never went away, brand is about signifying trust and reducing risk and
43:58.370 –> 44:14.134
[SPEAKER_03]: What I would say is my kind of nugget to take away from this little random rambul that I’ve gone on here is just be in that mindset of not how do we convince them to spend you’re never going to convince them you’re never going to change their behavior you need to
44:14.114 –> 44:22.402
[SPEAKER_03]: fit in with the existing behavior and fit in with the economic conditions around them, actually how can we de-risk this purchase for them?
44:22.482 –> 44:30.890
[SPEAKER_03]: If you focus it from that, what are their barriers assume that it’s a no, and that you have to win them over with a yes by de-wisking it?
44:31.211 –> 44:35.855
[SPEAKER_03]: So what are all the possible reasons that our customer could say no to this purchase?
44:36.275 –> 44:43.142
[SPEAKER_03]: And then how do we address those at every stage of the relationship and at post purchase to keep
44:43.510 –> 44:46.234
[SPEAKER_04]: There we say you’ve got to be a better marketer again.
44:46.375 –> 44:47.877
[SPEAKER_04]: I think I say that every single year.
44:48.177 –> 45:06.987
[SPEAKER_04]: But I do find it fascinating how the impact of AI, both in AI search, in how we’re using chatGBT and the garbage and garbage outside of things, in how it’s changing how the ad platforms are working, how it’s changing, how content is delivered on platforms like TikTok.
45:06.967 –> 45:16.338
[SPEAKER_04]: is actually making brand more important and the understanding of the customer and how the customer talks and all of this so much more important and I could waffle on about that with no stats about me up on for hours.
45:16.739 –> 45:19.542
[SPEAKER_04]: Ashley, do you have an answer to Robbins?
45:19.763 –> 45:20.584
[SPEAKER_04]: Very long question.
45:21.645 –> 45:26.170
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s hard to beat what’s on in Ian just already and so I’ll keep quite.
45:26.991 –> 45:28.333
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, cool.
45:28.634 –> 45:32.401
[SPEAKER_04]: the timing going on in my head, thanks you massively for that.
45:32.501 –> 45:36.748
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so that is it for questions from the audience.
45:36.789 –> 45:39.073
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you all for the questions you have said through.
45:39.093 –> 45:40.134
[SPEAKER_04]: We really appreciate it.
45:40.655 –> 45:44.382
[SPEAKER_04]: I have my final question to the panel, which,
45:44.632 –> 45:59.301
[SPEAKER_04]: is as always a very big question where undoubtedly at least one of you will bring up something we haven’t yet talked about and throw me a total curve but what would be your key takeaway for someone who has watched this, he was looking to have a really successful 2026.
46:00.744 –> 46:05.593
[SPEAKER_04]: You can repeat something you’ve talked about already, we can go into something, you can share something we haven’t
46:05.573 –> 46:10.141
[SPEAKER_04]: talked about so they have to go and do a little googling or chat GPTing after this to find out the answers.
46:10.422 –> 46:14.790
[SPEAKER_04]: But what would be your key takeaway for everyone from this?
46:14.890 –> 46:16.153
[SPEAKER_04]: What’s your key?
46:16.333 –> 46:19.459
[SPEAKER_04]: How what’s really going to move the needle in 2026?
46:20.180 –> 46:23.185
[SPEAKER_04]: Well come in, we’ll come to you first, then Sean, then Asha.
46:23.206 –> 46:28.235
[SPEAKER_04]: You’ve got about one max two minutes each to answer if that’s possible.
46:28.255 –> 46:28.375
[SPEAKER_04]: Ian.
46:29.215 –> 46:45.418
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, to sum it up for me, it’s just take advantage of the things that are, you know, then produce the highest ROI for your business and, you know, analyze from that standpoint, take advantage of tools that are going to save you time and money and help you create, you know, new levers that you can use in your business.
46:45.398 –> 46:53.548
[SPEAKER_00]: brands in MDS are taking a band of AI all over the place from, you know, how they can put it in their business to create new products.
46:53.568 –> 47:05.523
[SPEAKER_00]: So, others in the customer to, you know, scaling up their operations and enjoying brands we use it internally as well to analyze customer data and help you find the right, you know, creators and influencers for your business.
47:05.603 –> 47:08.807
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, for me, enjoying brands also a tool.
47:08.787 –> 47:18.558
[SPEAKER_00]: that brands need to use as part of their text act to talk to creators and influence the affiliates within seconds versus DMing them and doing all the things that you should do.
47:18.578 –> 47:24.564
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s why we built that tools to save time and money and create that frictionless environment for that.
47:24.624 –> 47:31.572
[SPEAKER_00]: So that said, yeah, I think you just gotta take take advantage of stuff and focus on what is going to work and actually take action.
47:32.260 –> 47:34.924
[SPEAKER_04]: efficiency, efficiency, and action.
47:35.285 –> 47:35.886
[SPEAKER_04]: I like it in.
47:36.146 –> 47:36.927
[SPEAKER_04]: I would like it a lot.
47:37.128 –> 47:39.191
[SPEAKER_04]: Michelle, you’re taken.
47:39.211 –> 47:39.552
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks.
47:39.572 –> 47:39.732
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.
47:39.752 –> 47:41.334
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to mute because I had a rogue cat.
47:41.455 –> 47:43.097
[SPEAKER_03]: So hopefully she hasn’t caused too much care.
47:44.499 –> 47:51.771
[SPEAKER_03]: So there are hundreds of thousands of things that you could do that could potentially
47:51.751 –> 47:53.153
[SPEAKER_03]: and it’s really overwhelming.
47:53.594 –> 47:57.400
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you look at the news, and as we’ve just discussed, that’s really overwhelming too.
47:57.901 –> 48:16.730
[SPEAKER_03]: The only way to know what you should do for your business is gonna come from deep knowledge of who your customers are, deep knowledge of the customer journey you take them on, and the data already within your business to show you what is working, what is not working, and what you can cut to then channel more time and resources into what is working.
48:16.770 –> 48:20.155
[SPEAKER_03]: And then building out from there,
48:20.135 –> 48:27.175
[SPEAKER_03]: and the number one bit of advice that was given to me in the early days that was invaluable that I try to give to everybody.
48:27.235 –> 48:35.157
[SPEAKER_03]: Whenever I have a chance is everything you see on social media and LinkedIn and the internet is somebody’s shockfront.
48:35.137 –> 48:38.603
[SPEAKER_03]: it’s really highly polished, it’s beautiful, it’s not real life.
48:38.744 –> 48:45.957
[SPEAKER_03]: Real life is the stalker bird in the back that is really messy and boxes are stacked up and nobody really knows where anything is.
48:46.197 –> 48:57.077
[SPEAKER_03]: So it’s really valuable to be on social media and to be consuming but you should always be creating more than you consume and you should really really try to protect
48:57.057 –> 49:02.526
[SPEAKER_03]: your own bubble in terms of your mental health, your comparison, and your strategy.
49:02.927 –> 49:11.661
[SPEAKER_03]: Set that strategy, set that plan based on the data within your business, and what you know to be true about your customers, and let that be the absolute guiding start.
49:11.681 –> 49:22.980
[SPEAKER_03]: And from there, you can try things, you can jump on trends, you can try any platforms, you can do all of that, but you can do it with a plan so that you don’t end up burning loads of time, loads of resources, and burning yourself out.
49:22.960 –> 49:35.139
[SPEAKER_04]: So easy to get distracted by all the bright shiny objects, but if you’ve got that guiding star, as you said, then you are, you can stay on track and when you go inevitably off track, you can bring yourself back to the guiding star as well.
49:35.640 –> 49:40.007
[SPEAKER_04]: And actually last but definitely not least, what’s your final thought for the audience, please.
49:40.426 –> 50:05.202
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I think it comes to someone asked me like what’s your, what’s the hardest thing if you had a magic one that you could change and my answer to that question was if I could make people believe in the power of like how capable AI actually is it’s it’s unbelievable if you get it right and so for example if I tell you that all the brands are living maybe 5% or 10% of revenue on the table.
50:05.182 –> 50:11.591
[SPEAKER_01]: only if they started using a shopping agent on their brand-owned properties apps and websites, they’ll increase the revenue by that much.
50:12.052 –> 50:13.714
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s just sounds unbelievable.
50:14.355 –> 50:15.536
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got to try it.
50:15.597 –> 50:23.848
[SPEAKER_01]: We recently published the case study with Victoria Beckham, we had the drove over 10% revenue and 20% average auto value using shopping agents.
50:23.828 –> 50:30.702
[SPEAKER_01]: And that you can use it in like AI is moving way faster and you can use it in any function.
50:30.762 –> 50:36.294
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, my engineering team produces three times more work than they used to two years ago.
50:36.875 –> 50:44.571
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is because we use AI agents heavily, same for my marketing team, same for my
50:44.551 –> 50:45.773
[SPEAKER_01]: and it’s not AI Slap.
50:45.793 –> 50:48.999
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s again going back to some of the questions about quality versus quantity.
50:49.280 –> 50:54.750
[SPEAKER_01]: So you still have to focus on quality, but the capabilities of the AI, it can really help you scale.
50:55.110 –> 51:02.003
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there is one thing that’s going to move the needle in 2022, it’s going to be how you’ll leverage AI in all functions of your work.
51:02.540 –> 51:09.530
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice, love, it’s about scaling, it’s not about replacing the job, it’s about doing more in the job, I suppose, isn’t it?
51:09.751 –> 51:10.712
[SPEAKER_04]: Love those answers.
51:11.233 –> 51:15.039
[SPEAKER_04]: Huge thank you to our panel Ian, Ashie and Sean.
51:15.339 –> 51:27.197
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been awesome having you involved in this.
51:32.037 –> 51:37.042
[SPEAKER_04]: See, I told you, it was an amazing session so much stuff swirling around in my head after that.
51:37.082 –> 51:47.791
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love some of the themes that came out of it around efficiency and making better decisions about how if you’re using AI right, it will scale and enable your team to do more.
51:48.292 –> 51:52.936
[SPEAKER_04]: It’s not so much about we can get rid of that role because we’ve replaced it with AI.
51:53.056 –> 52:02.044
[SPEAKER_04]: It’s about enabling your team and giving them the tools to do a better job for you and a more impressive job for you.
52:02.024 –> 52:10.046
[SPEAKER_04]: both Sean and Ashie are seeing that it’s the luxury heritage brands which are adopting this more quickly especially on the front end.
52:10.126 –> 52:12.132
[SPEAKER_04]: So as we fascinated to see how that evolves this year.
52:12.312 –> 52:17.687
[SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully that’s clearly given you some really clear insights on what you should be doing this year.
52:17.667 –> 52:22.576
[SPEAKER_04]: You get your hands on our notes from the episode by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
52:22.596 –> 52:33.297
[SPEAKER_04]: You can also use our direct episode short links just put ECMP.info4- the number of this episode into the URL bar and you will be redirected straight to the right episode page.
52:33.277 –> 52:34.759
[SPEAKER_04]: When you get to the website, go on.
52:35.300 –> 52:36.181
[SPEAKER_04]: Join our email list.
52:36.702 –> 52:58.896
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, if you like this episode, then another one which is spot on with top things you need to know about in 2026 is episode 570-8578, where we have the brilliant miracle sharing her brand-side view on how to tackle the opportunity and challenge
52:58.876 –> 53:12.637
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much for tuning in to this and every episode that you do of the E-commerce Master Plan podcast, we bring you all these interviews because we want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along that path to net zero.
53:12.697 –> 53:18.386
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you know someone they show can help, please tell them to listen to the E-commerce Master Plan podcast.
53:18.786 –> 53:23.854
[SPEAKER_04]: They have an excellent week and an excellent year and don’t forget to keep optimising.
53:27.074 –> 53:30.484
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
53:30.945 –> 53:36.240
[SPEAKER_02]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
54 min
January 26eCommerce MasterPlan | 579: From Chaos to Clarity: Building Tracking that Actually Works with Carwow’s Roman Petrochenkov
Roman Petrochenkov is the Head of Growth & Media Analytics at Carwow, so yes we’re going to be getting DEEP into tracking, attribution and all that juicy stuff. Carwow has grown from a review site, to be a one-stop shop for changing your car – offering customers the ability to a buy a new or used car, or sell their existing vehicle. Founded in 2013 they now operate in the UK, Germany and Spain. In 2024 they grew 50% with nearly £3 billion worth of cars bought on the site, and £1.8 billion of cars listed for sale through the Sell My Car service.

Roman shares how top analytics teams work behind the scenes — and the smarter, faster ways to use data to fuel eCommerce growth.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why perfect attribution is a myth — and what to do instead
How analytics teams should work inside an eCommerce business
The #1 misunderstanding most marketers have about data
When small brands should upgrade from GA4 to more advanced analytics
What you must know about cookie consent & compliance in 2025
Real-world AI tricks Roman uses to speed up analysis & tracking

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:15] Tech, Marketing, and Finance Expertise
[09:08] Understanding Data and User Journeys
[10:09] Adapting to Business Evolution
[15:39] “Advanced Attribution for Small eCommerce”
[18:46] eCommerce Attribution and Management
[20:25] “Attribution Challenges and Incrementality”
[23:30] Streamlining Landing Page Feedback
[26:48] Collaborative Challenges in Team Dynamics
[28:01] Listen to Roman’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/579
—
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.
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:10.628
[SPEAKER_02]: In 2025, with all stuff happening with the AI, with the latest legislations, but in general, the speed at which companies move nowadays is nowhere close to what it used to be.
00:11.128 –> 00:15.315
[SPEAKER_02]: So it means that some of the processes change faster that we can change the reporting for that.
00:15.876 –> 00:26.933
[SPEAKER_02]: That means somebody might have, and usually a lot of cases, myself, have to be in a meeting that is not related to me yet, but in two months from now, I was going to break something and I need to be aware of that way in advance.
00:29.545 –> 00:32.673
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:32.693 –> 00:37.185
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:37.205 –> 00:45.327
[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.
00:48.293 –> 00:50.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, and welcome, it’s great to have you here.
00:50.516 –> 00:54.441
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:55.042 –> 01:00.288
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I love to give a little shout out to the listeners who are kind enough to take the time to post a review of the show.
01:00.308 –> 01:02.631
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’ve got one of those to do in this episode.
01:03.312 –> 01:12.464
[SPEAKER_00]: Huge, thank you to Babs MT from the US for your five star rating on Apple podcast.
01:12.484 –> 01:13.525
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
01:13.505 –> 01:22.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Babs empty rights, great host, blushing, a great podcast, and says, you know what makes for a great podcast host, intellectual curiosity.
01:23.098 –> 01:34.154
[SPEAKER_00]: Chloe has it in spades and shows up in the depth and breadth of topics covered and guests invited, where the inspirational or practical and inspirational e-commerce master plan always offers a lot of knowledge.
01:34.554 –> 01:35.455
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely listen.
01:36.016 –> 01:36.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Babs.
01:36.978 –> 01:40.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Blushing slightly over here, but thank you very much for that lovely review.
01:40.943 –> 01:49.971
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like one of these shout outs at the start of an episode, go to ECMP.info for such a review to find out how to leave one.
01:50.752 –> 01:51.012
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
01:51.092 –> 01:52.554
[SPEAKER_00]: What are we got coming up in this episode?
01:52.634 –> 02:01.922
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we are not going to be talking very much about the e-commerce store that’s on, which is cat car wow.
02:02.323 –> 02:10.410
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we’re going to be talking about brand side analytics and tracking.
02:10.390 –> 02:15.376
[SPEAKER_00]: in the world of tracking analytics, cookies, data, all that kind of good stuff.
02:15.897 –> 02:38.625
[SPEAKER_00]: And he’s going to be talking about how we, how he at CarWow manages his team, how they make the decisions on what to do, how they work with the rest of the company, some cool tool tips, AI tips, lots of practical advice, lots of sane advice to help you make the right decisions with how deep you go on all these things, because I know you’re all wrestling with it at the moment.
02:38.605 –> 02:47.081
[SPEAKER_00]: So if data analytics and tracking has you all buffuzzled, prepare to get some great tips, tools, and advice to help you manage it all without pulling all your hair out.
02:47.863 –> 02:54.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Huge thanks as well to Raven for getting in touch to offer to talk about this crucial topic because he’s ace as you’re about to find out.
02:55.077 –> 02:59.365
[SPEAKER_00]: And make sure you listen right to the end because um, his top tips are super hot too.
03:04.998 –> 03:07.001
[SPEAKER_00]: and now to introduce our special guest.
03:07.461 –> 03:16.494
[SPEAKER_00]: Roman Petra-Chankov is the lead marketing analyst at CarWow, so yes, we’re going to be getting deep into tracking attribution and all that GCGC stuff.
03:17.075 –> 03:28.170
[SPEAKER_00]: CarWow has grown from a review site to be a one-stop shop for changing your car, offering customers the ability to buy a new or used car or to sell their existing vehicle.
03:28.150 –> 03:32.516
[SPEAKER_00]: Founded in 2013, they now operate in the UK, Germany and Spain.
03:33.017 –> 03:45.133
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2024, they grew 50% with nearly £3 billion worth of car’s bought on the site, and £1.8 billion of cars listed for sale through the Selmei car service.
03:45.474 –> 03:46.395
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Roman!
03:46.949 –> 03:48.894
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, thank you very much for having me here.
03:49.155 –> 03:52.243
[SPEAKER_02]: So nice to be not just a listener, but also a participated.
03:52.363 –> 03:52.945
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant.
03:53.366 –> 03:57.035
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant to have you here and to talk about such a juicy topic.
03:57.095 –> 04:01.988
[SPEAKER_00]: First off, how did you end up in this world of e-commerce and attribution and all these good things?
04:02.542 –> 04:05.125
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a lot of people by accident, I would probably say.
04:05.145 –> 04:10.932
[SPEAKER_02]: I have been a computer science student and I just have ended up in the marketing agency.
04:10.972 –> 04:25.630
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent about five years on my early Korean agencies doing everything from PTC, Facebook ads, a little bit of email, serial optimization, talking to clients, and then a very, very wild time as a lot of agencies are.
04:25.610 –> 04:37.865
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after about five years on the agency side, I decided that I want to move to the client side, where you have a little bit more time to figure things out, and to build a bit more long-term sustainable solutions.
04:38.566 –> 04:47.497
[SPEAKER_02]: And essentially, throughout all this time, I have been doing most of the performance in e-commerce and lead gen, which are very, very close and not good a lot.
04:47.517 –> 04:53.644
[SPEAKER_02]: A huge part of it has been Google Ads, or Google related solutions, like analytics, tag manager, you name it.
04:53.744 –> 04:55.026
[SPEAKER_02]: I have tried most of them.
04:55.310 –> 05:14.905
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent and have you found the now you’re specialising in the tracking attribution data side of it all have you found that early grounding in understanding how all the other channels work has made things easier for you because you get the affiliate principles the Google ads principles the meta ads principles and so on and so forth.
05:15.340 –> 05:24.898
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m in that unique position because at the same time I understand how back-end works, tech works, tracking works, how JavaScript is actually getting executed.
05:25.299 –> 05:30.970
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can go to marketing team and talk marketing language and then go and go to finance team and talk finance language.
05:30.950 –> 05:38.423
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes life so much easier to understand, but it does it mean to do something, but it also was going to show in the end of it.
05:39.004 –> 05:44.053
[SPEAKER_02]: Besides that, when you go into all the new tech that comes up, it’s Fisherman comes to Kuki.
05:44.073 –> 05:46.157
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ll favor it consent changes.
05:46.137 –> 05:51.843
[SPEAKER_02]: It helps a lot to understand how it impacts the exact setup and the data flow.
05:52.403 –> 05:55.206
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it definitely makes my life so much easier.
05:55.266 –> 06:02.754
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, it’s just as far as I say, that I haven’t done my own campaign in Facebook for like many, many years.
06:03.114 –> 06:04.936
[SPEAKER_02]: And the tech is changing.
06:05.016 –> 06:08.179
[SPEAKER_02]: But I always feel like, oh, it used to be like that.
06:08.640 –> 06:09.621
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s no longer like that.
06:09.781 –> 06:13.264
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have to remind myself that there are people that know it’s so much better.
06:13.445 –> 06:14.946
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need to learn from them as well.
06:15.365 –> 06:21.954
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what you mean, having run an ad agency for 10 years, I would not trust myself in a Google Ads account or a Facebook Ads account anymore.
06:22.195 –> 06:24.077
[SPEAKER_00]: I know enough to be really dangerous.
06:25.099 –> 06:26.581
[SPEAKER_00]: So don’t let me near it, anybody.
06:26.661 –> 06:27.843
[SPEAKER_00]: Don’t do it.
06:27.863 –> 06:39.880
[SPEAKER_00]: So clearly, Rayman, you’re working for a very large company with a huge amount of data across different sites, different selling methods, and huge volumes of traffic coming through as well.
06:39.980 –> 06:44.747
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I know because you’ve already told me
06:44.727 –> 06:47.470
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you go about managing it?
06:48.191 –> 06:49.312
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
06:49.333 –> 06:57.162
[SPEAKER_00]: I suspect I’ll audience a more familiar with managing an ad campaign, a managing an email campaign, where you know what you’ve got to deliver, you know what you’ve got to do.
06:57.202 –> 07:05.672
[SPEAKER_00]: So how on the analytics and the data side of it, do you work out where to focus you in your team’s effort and how to deliver for the business?
07:06.445 –> 07:31.322
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a very good question and you know, inside we have a phrase saying that if the prioritization doesn’t hurt, you know, prioritizing well and I think that describes really well how we just like what we try to do the thing that I try to do a lot is different people in my team have a different background and it’s very important to have enough time to fix the technical back backlog and things that you have to be prepared for.
07:31.302 –> 07:43.945
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a good example of that, we’re all thinking that G clearly is going to be disappearing at some time, so you have to put it all a research upfront and you find the person who can do all that work before it all happens.
07:44.466 –> 07:51.859
[SPEAKER_02]: But that person isn’t not very likely to be the person who’s going to be very good at the BI and talking to millions stakeholders.
07:51.839 –> 08:14.067
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it’s never easy, finding the right person, finding the right team, I try to be always in the process, understanding how things are done, and some things are doing myself, but because my background allows me to, for example, it just so happens that I mostly do all GTM changes myself, instead of delegating to somebody, because GTM is such a rare skill when you talk about analytics.
08:14.047 –> 08:24.921
[SPEAKER_02]: Usually a lot of companies big enough will have like a tracking person for example We decided to go a little bit different route because we don’t do a lot of changes, but That’s essentially how we divide work internally.
08:24.941 –> 08:25.382
[SPEAKER_00]: Got you.
08:25.402 –> 08:31.009
[SPEAKER_00]: And for everyone listing GTM Google Tag Manager just in case you’re wondering And BI, I’m guessing is business intelligence?
08:31.549 –> 08:33.412
[SPEAKER_02]: A dashboarding, you can think about it this way.
08:33.592 –> 08:36.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s one of those utterly meaningless phrases, isn’t it?
08:37.357 –> 08:38.558
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like business intelligence.
08:38.639 –> 08:39.059
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
08:39.319 –> 08:39.880
[SPEAKER_00]: Dashboards?
08:40.020 –> 08:40.901
[SPEAKER_00]: Dashboards people?
08:41.222 –> 08:42.163
[SPEAKER_02]: Dashboards here.
08:42.548 –> 08:53.241
[SPEAKER_00]: So your team, you know, the lumping together of analytics and data science, data engineering, Google Tag Manager or tracking, all this stuff, stuff together.
08:53.261 –> 08:56.766
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you, where do you spend most of your time, actually?
08:56.946 –> 09:00.570
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it on the maintenance and they’re getting ready for new legislation?
09:00.590 –> 09:07.459
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it keeping the sea sweet, happy with their dashboards or is it something else that that occupies you most of the time day to day?
09:08.198 –> 09:29.295
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a huge part of it is education internally in the best sense of that, talking to people and helping them to understand the data is a huge part of my job, because as you said, like we have a lot of different data points coming in.
09:29.275 –> 09:33.523
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a quiet, quick journey from the user perspective, especially if you know what you want.
09:33.984 –> 09:41.878
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to sell your car, you need to take pictures of that, you need to take the service history, you need to understand the condition and the scratches.
09:42.319 –> 09:47.368
[SPEAKER_02]: The journey for those two users is a very different and the time it takes for those users is also different.
09:47.348 –> 10:09.154
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you try to put those numbers together and say, well, there’s a person buying car lead and there’s a person selling a car lead, those are not same intent leads and you need to go through different, but in the GC it’s going to look like two columns just one by one and you need to go through different teams and departments to explain, hey, we work with them differently, we need to invest them differently.
10:09.134 –> 10:12.478
[SPEAKER_02]: A huge part of it is understanding also how the business changes.
10:13.078 –> 10:24.190
[SPEAKER_02]: I think in 2025 with all stuff happening with the I, with the latest legislations, but in general the speed at which companies move nowadays is nowhere close to what it used to be.
10:24.691 –> 10:28.896
[SPEAKER_02]: So it means that some of the processes change faster that we can change the reporting for that.
10:29.436 –> 10:37.605
[SPEAKER_02]: That means somebody might even, usually a lot of cases myself have to be an emitting that is not related to me yet, but in two months from now it’s going to break something.
10:37.585 –> 10:40.848
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need to be aware of that way when advanced.
10:41.509 –> 10:48.737
[SPEAKER_02]: But I try to, like about 50% of my time is probably going to actually doing delivering, like coding or reviewing something.
10:49.537 –> 10:52.380
[SPEAKER_02]: And the team composition also constantly changing.
10:52.520 –> 11:04.673
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, last year, we have been having a date engineers a part of the team, because we were basically Google vehicle ads, which is the PMAX for vehicle ads or a feed-based,
11:04.653 –> 11:08.018
[SPEAKER_02]: advertising that’s specifically for cars and the UK has been launched.
11:08.598 –> 11:11.602
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of other e-commerce advertisers will have been very familiar with the product.
11:11.663 –> 11:16.229
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a Google Merchant Center, it’s just for like over the decade, hasn’t been available for cars.
11:16.950 –> 11:23.679
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had a special person temporarily in the team, just to make sure we have the feed right, we sent it in the right way.
11:23.999 –> 11:28.065
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, for example, completely changed my workflow because I have to be in it.
11:28.626 –> 11:34.153
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the person is going to, at some point, move forward and somebody internal
11:34.133 –> 11:36.197
[SPEAKER_02]: and basically everything around it.
11:36.858 –> 11:39.222
[SPEAKER_00]: There must be huge opportunity as well.
11:39.463 –> 11:44.912
[SPEAKER_00]: You don’t suddenly being able to use P-Max and Google shopping.
11:44.972 –> 11:46.876
[SPEAKER_00]: You don’t want to drop the ball on that one, do you?
11:46.896 –> 11:49.380
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s like huge focus for the year.
11:49.420 –> 11:53.728
[SPEAKER_00]: And you’ve mentioned quite a few of the Google tools.
11:53.708 –> 11:56.094
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you, to manage all of this?
11:56.354 –> 12:02.830
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you focused on good deployment of GTM, good deployment of GA4, and the Google suite?
12:02.870 –> 12:08.865
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you using additional analytics and tracking tools to manage all that side of things?
12:09.183 –> 12:11.727
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, internally, we don’t use Google Analytics much.
12:12.008 –> 12:15.073
[SPEAKER_02]: We use Amplitude to track most of the events.
12:15.193 –> 12:17.457
[SPEAKER_02]: It just so happened that we use Amplitude.
12:17.477 –> 12:20.582
[SPEAKER_02]: They have benefits, ups and downs for both of those products.
12:20.602 –> 12:28.035
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Amplitude is really good when it comes to understanding how the product works and how product journeys is essentially have been
12:28.015 –> 12:31.541
[SPEAKER_02]: product, focus tool that has evolved into supporting a lot of marketing.
12:31.922 –> 12:36.309
[SPEAKER_02]: But what it means for us is most of our analytics is not happening in unspecific tool.
12:36.349 –> 12:45.805
[SPEAKER_02]: We put it in snowflake, which is a database system, and we do a lot of heavy database calculation, sequeling around to get data surfaced.
12:45.785 –> 12:57.297
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, the good example of that, when you sell your car, the time it takes to sell the car and for a car be actually collected and data to actually come to us is more than one or two days obviously.
12:57.878 –> 13:03.764
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to sell your car tomorrow, you probably want to wait for a new car to be delivered to you before the car is picked up.
13:04.305 –> 13:15.657
[SPEAKER_02]: That creates delays and Google Analytics only allows for example for seven days of delay if it’s past seven days you can’t upload anything.
13:15.637 –> 13:18.222
[SPEAKER_02]: not Google tools for a lot of different cases.
13:18.438 –> 13:26.188
[SPEAKER_00]: So for you, because of the size and the complexity of the business, it’s, let’s gather the raw data in your snowflake database.
13:26.729 –> 13:35.881
[SPEAKER_00]: So then you can pull it into additional data manipulation platforms, as you need to read it and use it for different services.
13:35.981 –> 13:39.185
[SPEAKER_00]: But you’re not going to trust anything else with the raw data.
13:39.205 –> 13:48.377
[SPEAKER_00]: You won’t control of that raw data, centrally, so then whatever the business needs, you have the ability to go and then analyze it.
13:48.610 –> 13:49.331
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I’m sent.
13:49.592 –> 13:59.368
[SPEAKER_02]: You can even simplify it sometimes, I say, they’re always going to be tools that do 99% of the things, but they’re not going to do exactly the thing that you need the most for the cases like this.
14:00.129 –> 14:06.079
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would have seen a lot of our audience don’t need that level of complexity.
14:06.953 –> 14:10.578
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, let’s expand this out before I ask you this question.
14:12.180 –> 14:26.700
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a huge amount that all e-commerce businesses are trying to get to grips with at the moment, around tracking integration, making your ads work better, complying with new legal stuff coming down the lines about cookies and God knows whatever else.
14:26.680 –> 14:30.887
[SPEAKER_00]: And there’s a lot of new tech around that promises the world.
14:31.708 –> 14:37.877
[SPEAKER_00]: And how would you advise them to go about working out what they need or what they need to care about?
14:37.937 –> 14:44.568
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it will be very easy to kind of get lost in the attribution tracking data box at the moment.
14:44.688 –> 14:49.996
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you’re running a tiny e-commerce business and get completely overwhelmed with it, also how do you filter all of that?
14:50.036 –> 14:52.099
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you make sure you’re making the right decisions?
14:52.480 –> 14:53.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Bit massive questions, sorry.
14:54.052 –> 15:05.846
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a massive question and I’m going to start very very boring and I’m going to say regardless of where you’re in the journey, you need to go and read what’s the actual requirements for having a consent banner and quickest what you can and cannot do.
15:05.866 –> 15:07.428
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very very important.
15:07.528 –> 15:13.115
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s different across the UK and you and I have been on this journey myself for the course of the last two years.
15:13.215 –> 15:15.898
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve learned a lot of things that I didn’t expect.
15:16.279 –> 15:20.464
[SPEAKER_02]: How GDPR is completely unrelated, for example, how the quickest work in the UK.
15:20.444 –> 15:24.576
[SPEAKER_02]: and a lot of people need to definitely put some time and effort into understanding it.
15:24.796 –> 15:25.719
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t need to go deep.
15:25.959 –> 15:35.466
[SPEAKER_02]: We have an amazing Gemini, Chudgipiti, all of this amazing tools will help you to learn it, but it’s going to be very, very educated for most of the people.
15:35.446 –> 15:39.734
[SPEAKER_02]: I think where it comes to picking the right choice, it comes to the size of the business.
15:40.175 –> 15:55.923
[SPEAKER_02]: If you small e-commerce shop that mostly drives around the BBC ads, lead gen ads, or it comes to a few people in the team in the company, and you have a relative, a small budget, you’re not going to get any benefits from doing a advanced attribution.
15:56.023 –> 15:56.705
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just not good.
15:56.725 –> 15:59.209
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t have enough data to do that.
15:59.189 –> 16:23.779
[SPEAKER_02]: When you have brand marketing, and you have brand, as an allocated spend in your budget, and you start thinking about a lot of people having a returning transaction, when you come to the things like LTV, which life got lifetime customer value, and the cost of acquisition, our favorite kind of LTV, that’s where you start asking question, what is a new customer, and what is the returning customer, and who I shouldn’t
16:23.759 –> 16:24.760
[SPEAKER_02]: actually activate.
16:25.101 –> 16:30.448
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where it becomes way more profitable to invest in the tooling and understanding it.
16:30.488 –> 16:34.032
[SPEAKER_02]: Exact tooling will probably come down to exact e-commerce shop.
16:34.072 –> 16:46.588
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very hard for me to say Google Analytics for example provides a ton of insights, but in a lot of cases like this, if your tracking is just not quite right, it’s going to come with amazing but wrong insights.
16:47.029 –> 16:49.412
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s probably a very dangerous
16:49.780 –> 16:55.229
[SPEAKER_00]: So number one, make sure we’ve got our consent banners working properly for the audiences.
16:55.610 –> 17:05.406
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re targeting which basically go and speak to Gemini or chat GPT to get started and then make sure you’ve got the right cookie banner set up correctly.
17:05.586 –> 17:09.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fairly straightforward but we do have to get into it with that be fair to say?
17:09.980 –> 17:11.622
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very first, very straightforward.
17:11.642 –> 17:13.245
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’re a big brand, let’s let’s put it there.
17:13.265 –> 17:14.907
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ll take heavily good advice.
17:15.448 –> 17:20.075
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’re a small brand, there are plenty of solutions out of the box that will help you to do it right.
17:20.676 –> 17:20.776
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
17:20.796 –> 17:30.250
[SPEAKER_00]: And then second thing we need to make sure we’re getting right is that we’re feeding the right conversion data and tracking back into our app platforms.
17:30.938 –> 17:32.823
[SPEAKER_02]: and a huge board.
17:33.044 –> 17:45.741
[SPEAKER_00]: And would you recommend getting third party software into do that or is that something you start of just by using what you’ve already got access to with the ad platforms technology or do we need to find something to bolt on to make that easier?
17:46.430 –> 17:52.980
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m a person who thinks if you have a chance to solve the problem straight forward, you should take that chance and try that.
17:53.781 –> 17:55.403
[SPEAKER_02]: But I’m a lazy person.
17:55.523 –> 17:58.828
[SPEAKER_02]: I really love lazy solutions that don’t break over time.
17:58.868 –> 18:03.595
[SPEAKER_02]: But the lot of companies cannot solve the problem by that.
18:03.575 –> 18:12.726
[SPEAKER_02]: Like one of the previous guests, for example, on the podcast show that they have 10, 15, 20 different platforms when they advertise and not all of them integratable together.
18:12.766 –> 18:14.669
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very hard then goal.
18:14.709 –> 18:17.753
[SPEAKER_02]: They say, well, lyrics and only have Google ads cost and being cost are there.
18:18.233 –> 18:20.416
[SPEAKER_02]: That is just not going to solve the problem.
18:20.456 –> 18:23.280
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where you need to look into a better solution.
18:23.340 –> 18:26.984
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s going to solve at least cost allocation, basic attribution for you.
18:27.525 –> 18:33.312
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s what’s coming out of this for me is that it’s all about
18:33.612 –> 18:36.137
[SPEAKER_00]: What are your objectives, what’s the cost, what’s the risks?
18:36.899 –> 18:46.137
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so what are you actually trying to improve and how much could that cost you, how much potential benefit is there and then find the solution that’s cost effective to get you there?
18:46.758 –> 18:51.344
[SPEAKER_02]: Every platform we get takes some time to manage that platform internally.
18:51.604 –> 18:52.986
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the same with SQLs, right?
18:53.066 –> 18:59.274
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have 20, 30, 50 SQLs, you probably can manage them in G-shades in Excel, whatever is a preference, right?
18:59.875 –> 19:10.929
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have 500, 600, 5000, you will need to have a solution that will help you to automatically manage them, track them, and the same comes to attribution.
19:11.389 –> 19:16.596
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s really, in the context of V-commerce, I think,
19:16.576 –> 19:24.168
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of sales coming through Amazon, eBay and a lot of companies that doesn’t actually, don’t they don’t really give you much insights?
19:24.228 –> 19:25.350
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s happening inside of it?
19:26.011 –> 19:29.676
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you will have to adjust for significantly more complex solutions.
19:30.237 –> 19:43.157
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you are in that lucky situation when you have quite a lot of traffic coming to your website and you can track that traffic, having at least some basic attribution that you understand that is not last click is going to be really, really good.
19:43.137 –> 19:47.523
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, you can have a beta-driven attribution to Google Analytics provides.
19:47.583 –> 19:50.107
[SPEAKER_02]: So Google Ads provides, you just need to understand what they do.
19:50.147 –> 19:56.495
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, a good example there is that Google Ads attribution does not equal to analytics attribution.
19:56.515 –> 19:57.276
[SPEAKER_02]: They do different things.
19:57.957 –> 20:04.526
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people get lost in there, and a lot of things and details there that are very, very important to understand.
20:04.566 –> 20:10.815
[SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, it doesn’t mean that one of them is bad, they do different things.
20:11.251 –> 20:25.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think it’s ever possible to get to a perfect attribution, or is it about understanding what each model is telling you, and either the business or you individually deciding which one you’re most comfortable with?
20:25.882 –> 20:29.367
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish there was a way to have a perfect attribution.
20:30.128 –> 20:33.614
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn’t exist and it hurts me to say and acknowledge that.
20:34.375 –> 20:46.253
[SPEAKER_02]: We have this, which is a very common way of looking at the triangle, which is not really it’s applicable to every business, but it’s more applicable to the businesses that have way more things that they can measure directly.
20:46.233 –> 20:55.807
[SPEAKER_02]: which is an attribution in your day-to-day foundation or thing that feeds into Google, feeds into Facebook and everything else and tell you roughly how much you need to spend.
20:56.348 –> 21:05.561
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you have incremental testing, it’s essentially when you try to measure a specific channel and understand how the channel incrementally impact your revenue.
21:05.621 –> 21:12.932
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, you take one region that is enabled, one region is disabled and they’re being
21:12.912 –> 21:16.617
[SPEAKER_02]: If you haven’t tried that, the Facebook provides a solution for that.
21:17.137 –> 21:18.139
[SPEAKER_02]: Things called Bred Lift.
21:18.840 –> 21:22.564
[SPEAKER_02]: Google lets provide the solution for that YouTube as well and etc etc etc.
21:23.145 –> 21:26.409
[SPEAKER_02]: And that allows you to have a general understanding how different channels do.
21:26.449 –> 21:32.977
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have a huge mountain peak, which is a marketing mix modeling.
21:33.398 –> 21:35.781
[SPEAKER_02]: When you plug in all of this incremental statistics,
21:35.761 –> 21:43.889
[SPEAKER_02]: and it goes into last 3, 4, 5 years of your spend and tries to understand how different channels impact your spend.
21:43.929 –> 21:45.711
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a basically a correlation model.
21:46.252 –> 21:49.916
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not very good to understand how the campaign has been doing or keyword.
21:49.956 –> 21:51.197
[SPEAKER_02]: It just cannot do that.
21:51.617 –> 21:59.946
[SPEAKER_02]: But it can give your calibration on saying like Facebook actually is a 30% more than you usually would think it is based on the data for the last 3, 4 years.
21:59.926 –> 22:11.810
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s how in a deal world it should look like, but in reality how many companies can actually build a system and test it and invest, it’s an expensive thing to have and it’s an expensive thing to invest in.
22:12.652 –> 22:16.399
[SPEAKER_02]: So depending on the size it will basically depends on your outcome.
22:16.767 –> 22:21.880
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, if you’re running it once a year, the ad platforms change things all the times.
22:21.920 –> 22:23.484
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a little question.
22:23.524 –> 22:27.374
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s not go into here about the validity of it in the first place.
22:27.394 –> 22:29.920
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it can be hugely, hugely useful in the right places.
22:29.980 –> 22:33.088
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Roman, you’ve mentioned AI.
22:33.068 –> 22:48.597
[SPEAKER_00]: You’ve also mentioned that you love a lazy solution, so any, any cool lazy solutions, any cool ways of utilizing AI in the area in which you work that it would be called to share with the audience, any tips.
22:49.066 –> 22:54.016
[SPEAKER_02]: They’re very close to what I’m working on, but they’re also very close to e-commerce.
22:54.537 –> 22:57.444
[SPEAKER_02]: So there has been two cases recently.
22:57.564 –> 23:04.358
[SPEAKER_02]: One of these Google ad scripts, we even as a big company as we are, we still do use Google ad scripts, they’re great for a lot of small things.
23:04.338 –> 23:07.241
[SPEAKER_02]: And I cannot write it natively.
23:07.261 –> 23:09.102
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I don’t know JavaScript at that level.
23:09.603 –> 23:18.170
[SPEAKER_02]: What I did is I was Gemini to create me all the documentation about it, put it in a file, and then I uploaded a file to Chaggipeteen, said, that is what you can use.
23:18.631 –> 23:22.975
[SPEAKER_02]: And it completely solved all the problem of it using in existing functions.
23:23.555 –> 23:26.478
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I have a system that writes really good Google ad scripts.
23:26.958 –> 23:29.901
[SPEAKER_02]: But I also can get it instructions, how to do things.
23:30.502 –> 23:34.345
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I thought, look, what if I do the same with a CRR
23:34.325 –> 23:41.986
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Gemini deep thinking to research the internet, that provide me all the advice is how to make a good landing page.
23:42.668 –> 23:50.089
[SPEAKER_02]: Put that in the paper and then come to JPT and say, by the way, I’m changing the brands that actually doesn’t matter which one you use.
23:50.069 –> 24:18.878
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you please analyze this page against this instruction provided in this structure thing and then provide it with a prioritization point for the project manager so I can make my pitch inside the company without writing it and then finalize it with a lovely message to my let’s say colleague Fred that I will try to pitch this idea in the first place and then you have this amazing system that comes up with a top five greatest things you should test on your landing page without you investing much time it’s good enough to get the ball rolling
24:18.858 –> 24:28.953
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s never good enough to create something absolutely amazing, linear in grade, but it saved so much time and effort into just getting, okay, is that learning page actually good or not?
24:29.594 –> 24:30.155
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
24:30.636 –> 24:44.497
[SPEAKER_00]: Would does it only work if you use one AI LLM tool to do the research, and then a separate one to be the active day-to-day helper?
24:44.517 –> 24:45.979
[SPEAKER_00]: Or could you do it all on the one?
24:46.415 –> 24:47.557
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do it all in the one.
24:47.857 –> 24:51.702
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it comes down to talking restrictions and how much time you have.
24:52.363 –> 24:56.048
[SPEAKER_02]: I would assume that majority of people listening are not very technical.
24:56.088 –> 25:04.499
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, going through things called Gemini CLI, which is amazing to just scraping the data and that you can ask to it again and again in this free.
25:04.980 –> 25:09.947
[SPEAKER_02]: But it takes by some time to set up and tropic, what’s their AI do you remember?
25:10.367 –> 25:12.570
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, I’m…
25:13.031 –> 25:13.131
[UNKNOWN]: Cool.
25:13.533 –> 25:15.538
[SPEAKER_02]: The law allows you to do it from the browser.
25:15.658 –> 25:16.480
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s amazing.
25:16.660 –> 25:17.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I love Cloud.
25:17.863 –> 25:19.387
[SPEAKER_02]: I was doing renovation recently.
25:19.407 –> 25:21.753
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, can you go and research UK laws and everything?
25:21.793 –> 25:24.519
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they should do aware of when them doing renovation.
25:24.559 –> 25:25.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they’re doing it for the first time.
25:25.782 –> 25:27.546
[SPEAKER_02]: It does exactly the same thing.
25:27.647 –> 25:30.293
[SPEAKER_02]: It just has a small limit.
25:30.273 –> 25:38.305
[SPEAKER_02]: The only reason why I was using in the challenge of GPT is that at the time there is thing called custom GPT so you can upload the commands and share it internally in the company.
25:38.866 –> 25:45.977
[SPEAKER_02]: Gemina has gems but you can’t share it with other people, at least you couldn’t at the point when I was doing that, same with untrumpic.
25:46.297 –> 25:50.003
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s essentially just me using
25:50.303 –> 25:52.446
[SPEAKER_00]: Got you, so then you can share it with the rest of your team.
25:52.787 –> 25:58.155
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can also do the Google scripts and they can also review landing pages without having to rebuild the whole thing.
25:58.756 –> 25:59.176
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
25:59.217 –> 26:01.220
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it evolved so fast.
26:01.260 –> 26:02.201
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to keep changing.
26:02.361 –> 26:09.793
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned that about advising on landing pages, et cetera, I would imagine.
26:09.813 –> 26:18.606
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s very easy for people to assume that an analytics data team are purely reactive
26:18.586 –> 26:23.914
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, people send you work request and you do the work request or you notice something’s broken and you fix it.
26:24.454 –> 26:32.927
[SPEAKER_00]: But it sounds like you’re quite proactive as well in terms of analyzing data, making suggestions to teams and so on and so forth.
26:32.967 –> 26:34.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a big part of what you’re doing as well?
26:34.809 –> 26:39.556
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned earlier about educating the rest of the company on this.
26:39.576 –> 26:47.648
[SPEAKER_00]: So is there a big amount of liaison and advice flowing in both directions between you and other teams in the business?
26:48.151 –> 26:54.482
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we have a lot of heated discussions, and sometimes we shout at each other but we still love that interactions.
26:55.143 –> 26:59.811
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s all with the limits, but what I mean by that is we try to challenge.
27:00.072 –> 27:04.500
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a lot of experience to bring to the table, but there’s a lot I need to learn and understand.
27:04.540 –> 27:06.463
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, when it comes to…
27:06.443 –> 27:14.411
[SPEAKER_02]: some lending phase optimization, I know some basic things that’s going to be good to very good for Google ads and how to connect things together.
27:14.731 –> 27:17.814
[SPEAKER_02]: But then the product owner would know so much that about the user journey.
27:18.075 –> 27:26.863
[SPEAKER_02]: And then product analysts who can bring you something like a cohort analysis, or you actually people who are hitting that page are mostly returning users rather than being new users.
27:27.284 –> 27:33.430
[SPEAKER_02]: So having right people at the table is very important,
27:33.410 –> 27:59.569
[SPEAKER_01]: not having 25 stake holders in a page trying to define what’s the best headline, which happens quite a lot in a company nowadays.
28:01.810 –> 28:07.019
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I love this section because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
28:07.419 –> 28:09.242
[SPEAKER_00]: Roman, are you ready for the top tips?
28:09.863 –> 28:11.366
[SPEAKER_02]: As far as I can be ready.
28:12.928 –> 28:13.389
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.
28:13.529 –> 28:14.812
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the book top tip.
28:15.212 –> 28:22.384
[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?
28:22.769 –> 28:24.211
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve read it quite some time ago.
28:24.251 –> 28:26.994
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s called decoded the size behind why we buy.
28:27.014 –> 28:37.948
[SPEAKER_02]: I find it’s very easy to read because I have a lot of basically very simple examples to explain to people why people pick this price versus that price, which is very good for a commerce to know.
28:38.789 –> 28:45.157
[SPEAKER_02]: But it also way easier than to read the thing fast and slow, which is very hard to get through.
28:45.197 –> 28:47.139
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would probably start there.
28:47.179 –> 28:51.004
[SPEAKER_02]: If you haven’t read the thing fast and slow, read decoded,
28:51.473 –> 28:54.776
[SPEAKER_00]: I often wonder about Thinkfast and slow in the paper back edition.
28:54.896 –> 28:58.479
[SPEAKER_00]: If someone at Penguin went, how can we make this even harder to read?
28:58.620 –> 29:00.561
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s make it a teeny, tiny font.
29:01.883 –> 29:02.203
[SPEAKER_00]: It sucks.
29:02.223 –> 29:10.190
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you pick it up and just go, oh, Daniel Kanderman, I would love to read this, but I just can’t, it’s gonna be something else today.
29:10.490 –> 29:11.832
[SPEAKER_00]: So love that recommendation.
29:12.552 –> 29:19.759
[SPEAKER_00]: The traffic top tap, tip even, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
29:20.043 –> 29:22.286
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it’s influenced the marketing done right.
29:22.666 –> 29:29.835
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of companies go for influence from marketing and they either do go big or try a little bit, just tiny little bit.
29:30.336 –> 29:42.270
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have seen the multiple companies who just picked the right influencers and the right time with the right offer, having it very done very nicely and it comes on a basically lead-gen, lead-gen.
29:42.250 –> 29:47.759
[SPEAKER_02]: or the driving business very well, but making it right is difficult.
29:48.280 –> 29:49.882
[SPEAKER_02]: The same thing happens with Google Ads.
29:50.083 –> 29:55.011
[SPEAKER_02]: We just get used to the idea that we need to make everything they’re perfect to everybody knows how to use it.
29:55.351 –> 29:57.054
[SPEAKER_02]: But you come to a new platform.
29:57.074 –> 29:59.378
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re like, it just just click a couple of things.
29:59.959 –> 30:04.145
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s where content marketing on first marketing get really misunderstood.
30:04.346 –> 30:08.933
[SPEAKER_02]: You also need to have a very thorough discussion and don’t
30:09.267 –> 30:16.241
[SPEAKER_00]: It is such a clever science, even though it doesn’t appear like a science in the way that Google Ads does.
30:16.441 –> 30:17.704
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally agree with you.
30:18.245 –> 30:18.906
[SPEAKER_00]: Tooltop tip.
30:19.027 –> 30:28.305
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone app or just a way of working, is the record little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient day to day.
30:28.589 –> 30:32.794
[SPEAKER_02]: It has been one tool that I’ve been using for the last two years, which has been high touch.
30:33.415 –> 30:41.344
[SPEAKER_02]: High touch is essentially a platform that allows it to take data from your data warehouse, which is a set of Google Amazon, Facebook, anywhere else you want.
30:42.045 –> 30:49.534
[SPEAKER_02]: And that platform has literally transformed what we do internally in the data side in Carauh.
30:49.514 –> 31:02.907
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the greatest things we have been one of the first month to implement a user data matching in Google Ads, just because HiTage allowed us to have a latest API connection and everything very, very quickly.
31:03.428 –> 31:06.651
[SPEAKER_02]: They have amazing customer support and I just love working with it.
31:07.112 –> 31:17.682
[SPEAKER_02]: Just one thing to mention that is for more like an advanced shops and the users, if you have
31:18.134 –> 31:19.017
[SPEAKER_00]: very cool.
31:19.218 –> 31:27.267
[SPEAKER_00]: So is it a feed management platform or is it more of a strip back to the bones you can make it do what you actually want to happen?
31:27.331 –> 31:34.419
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the second, but I’m also need to be fair that they have launched recently CDP, which is a customer data platform.
31:34.439 –> 31:42.929
[SPEAKER_02]: We can go and say, create new audience of people who have made an order over the last two weeks and send it to Facebook, DV360, to Google Ads and everything.
31:42.949 –> 31:46.734
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just going to do it all by itself very quickly.
31:46.894 –> 31:50.878
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s going to show you all the statistics, what you’re missing, what emails are wrong.
31:51.399 –> 31:55.684
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just such a click and drag kind of experience that works so well.
31:56.137 –> 31:56.719
[SPEAKER_00]: nice.
31:56.740 –> 31:57.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that recommendation.
31:57.844 –> 31:59.772
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, finally the carbon top tip.
31:59.853 –> 32:03.970
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
32:04.203 –> 32:17.996
[SPEAKER_02]: The hard one for me, but I would probably be very boring and say, learning how to work remotely efficiently, because what you see in a lot of companies nowadays is that everybody goes remote, so you have 12 meetings a day, and then like, every multi-work doesn’t work.
32:18.937 –> 32:21.119
[SPEAKER_02]: It does, you need to find the right balance.
32:21.139 –> 32:32.370
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m a personal love, and it’s some time and office, sometimes remote, but do you hire people remotely, just need to know how to work with that, and how to set up correct targets and work with it efficiently.
32:32.873 –> 32:35.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, totally get what you’re coming from.
32:35.035 –> 32:40.621
[SPEAKER_00]: I have say my heart sunk during the pandemic when there were all these stories of people putting spyware.
32:40.961 –> 32:47.708
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, everyone’s now working from home, so suddenly there was a boom in spyware to track if your team were actually working or not.
32:47.728 –> 32:52.152
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like, if you can’t trust them to do their job, why did you hire them in the first place?
32:52.533 –> 32:57.818
[SPEAKER_00]: Although it says a lot more about the owner than it does about the staff, I think.
32:57.798 –> 33:03.298
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, before I go off on one about that, Roman love that tip, thank you and thank you so much for coming on the show.
33:03.338 –> 33:08.095
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we say goodbye, could you let people know we’re thinking in contact with you and Karl, please?
33:08.193 –> 33:20.999
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you very much for having me here, connect to me on link it in, which is going to be Roman PetroChankov, or you can also go to caro.co.uk and try to find a new car or sell your existing car.
33:21.379 –> 33:28.193
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll also exist in Germany and Spain, so if you form those countries also, caro.de in caro.es.
33:28.763 –> 33:30.627
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, Roman, thank you again for coming on.
33:30.667 –> 33:36.018
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been very cool hearing a brand-side perspective on all these challenges we’re doing.
33:36.058 –> 33:40.767
[SPEAKER_00]: And you make it seem a lot less stressful than it does a lot of the time.
33:40.827 –> 33:42.852
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you so much, Roman, really appreciate it.
33:43.353 –> 33:44.595
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much for having me.
33:50.296 –> 34:10.431
[SPEAKER_00]: What brilliant pragmatic practical advice and loads of cool little tool type tips in there as well really cool to chat to Raymond he’s just suggested he should come back on every year and give us a little what’s going on in the world of analytics data etc update I think it’s a cracking idea if you think so to getting content with me on LinkedIn and let me know what you think.
34:10.411 –> 34:19.140
[SPEAKER_00]: So lots in there to unpack around how to go about making sane decisions about sorting out your data.
34:19.741 –> 34:27.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Loved the tips around consent banners and the tracking side of things and the be pragmatic about it all.
34:27.669 –> 34:36.098
[SPEAKER_00]: Get that balance between what you have to do and what the risks are and then make it work for your business and don’t get too stressed out about it.
34:36.078 –> 34:43.754
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
34:44.295 –> 34:57.782
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also use a direct episode short link that’s ECMP.info forward slash episode number and once you get to the website go on add yourself to my email list so you don’t miss any of the other things I share to help you improve your business.
34:57.762 –> 35:13.620
[SPEAKER_00]: If you liked this episode, then make sure you check out Episode 570, where Jamie Hill is one of our WWYD guests, that’s one of our what would you do guests and she’s getting into how you can massively improve operational efficiency.
35:14.521 –> 35:24.512
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to hear more episodes with massive retailers, then head to the website ECMP.info forward slash big to get your hands on all those episodes.
35:24.948 –> 35:29.012
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
35:29.453 –> 35:39.943
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring you a new interview every week to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to carbon neutral.
35:40.904 –> 35:46.290
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know someone this show can help please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
35:46.750 –> 35:49.453
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
35:52.505 –> 35:55.981
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
35:56.383 –> 36:01.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
37 min
January 19eCommerce MasterPlan | 578: What Would You Do About AI Search in eCommerce? – with Miracle Inameti-Archibong
Miracle Inameti-Archibong is an online marketer who’s been deep in SEO since 2010. Now working at a very large UK retailer, after stints in other verticals and agency side.

In this WWYD episode, Miracle tackles one of the biggest questions facing eCommerce right now: what would you do as AI search reshapes visibility, traffic, and growth? She shares a clear, practical view on where brands should focus, what still works, and how to move forward with confidence.

Hit PLAY to hear:
Why good SEO still wins in an AI-search world
What GEO really means for eCommerce (and what you can ignore)
How AI search is changing clicks, traffic, and conversion rates
Where eCommerce brands should focus in 2026 to drive growth
Why brand trust matters more than keywords than ever before
WWYD: the smartest move if leadership is pushing for “AI everything”

Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[05:59] GEO-Focused Retail Search Strategy
[08:58] “Focus on Brand, Not Algorithms”
[11:08] “Focus Content Where Value Exists”
[14:48] Cohesive Content Strategy Focus
[18:48] “Trust and Quality Over Quantity”
[22:50] Preparing for Agentic AI Integration
[23:57] SEO, Accessibility, and AI Efficiency
[29:04] “eCommerce Success Through Clicks”
[30:49] Listen to Miracle’s Top Tips!

Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/578
—
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
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:02.694
[SPEAKER_00]: Good SEO is good GEO.
00:02.974 –> 00:05.257
[SPEAKER_00]: The core principles are still exactly the same.
00:05.317 –> 00:18.733
[SPEAKER_00]: If your brand is on Reddit and if your consumers are on Reddit and you focus on that, then you will just naturally, if you do good work and you have good brand authority, you will just naturally be a chat GPT top contender.
00:19.174 –> 00:27.844
[SPEAKER_00]: All of these large language models are data consumers
00:30.068 –> 00:32.572
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
00:33.194 –> 00:37.181
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
00:37.702 –> 00:45.816
[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.
00:48.513 –> 00:49.655
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.
00:49.675 –> 00:50.776
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.
00:50.836 –> 00:54.401
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
00:54.581 –> 00:58.126
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re tackling another WWID.
00:58.346 –> 01:00.429
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it’s a what would you do episode.
01:00.930 –> 01:07.298
[SPEAKER_02]: This time, we are drilling deep into one marketing challenge that I expect all of you are thinking about right now.
01:07.278 –> 01:07.719
[SPEAKER_02]: A.I.
01:07.739 –> 01:10.405
[SPEAKER_02]: Search slash GEO, call it what you will.
01:11.306 –> 01:14.513
[SPEAKER_02]: We call it geo, but it’s a big question mark at the moment.
01:14.533 –> 01:15.495
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you need to do?
01:15.535 –> 01:16.517
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you need to care about?
01:16.557 –> 01:17.539
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you track it?
01:18.161 –> 01:19.022
[SPEAKER_02]: Quack sort of results?
01:19.042 –> 01:23.051
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you expect what you do with your team to make it to deliver on it?
01:23.572 –> 01:24.875
[SPEAKER_02]: All this kind of stuff.
01:25.095 –> 01:27.480
[SPEAKER_02]: We are going to be discussing with
01:27.460 –> 01:38.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Today’s brilliant guest, she has a scary level of knowledge about the world of SEO, digital marketing, customer experience and so on and so forth.
01:38.796 –> 01:56.100
[SPEAKER_02]: She’s currently working for a very large UK retailer and she has taken some time out to help explain how she is tackling this challenge in the coming year and letting you know what you need to do, what you don’t need to do and various other bits and pieces.
01:56.080 –> 02:02.134
[SPEAKER_02]: I promise you by the end of this, she will feel more at ease with the GEO idea.
02:02.555 –> 02:07.727
[SPEAKER_02]: So do enjoy this episode and make sure you listen right to the end because she’s got some great top tips as well.
02:13.073 –> 02:21.127
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest, Miracle in a Metty Archabong is an online marketer who’s been deep in SEO since 2010.
02:21.367 –> 02:27.718
[SPEAKER_02]: Now working at a very large UK retailer after stints in other verticals and agency side.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Mira.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Chloe.
02:29.742 –> 02:30.823
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome to have you on the show to cover a topic that I know a lot of our audience are
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[SPEAKER_02]: struggling with.
02:39.635 –> 02:44.387
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s say, confused, getting pressure from above, all this kind of good stuff at the moment.
02:44.407 –> 02:47.715
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s really great to have you with your vast experience on to help us with it.
02:47.735 –> 02:51.525
[SPEAKER_02]: But first of all, my intro was unfairly short.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I feel with all your experience.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So how did you get into this world of e-commerce and SEO?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it’s very, it’s a very, I don’t know, it was a straight road, very zigzaggy way into it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I came to the UK in 2007, and I came to do like a digital marketing course.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And at that time, I was very interested in video-readed channels.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I’m going to learn how to do all these things for the web.
03:15.140 –> 03:33.148
[SPEAKER_00]: as we call it then and then you know I did an internship and I got into the page of marketing and digital marketing and then someone said oh there’s this other side where you can then get things into the organic site like we didn’t really call it SEO then it was just
03:33.128 –> 03:56.520
[SPEAKER_00]: you know web optimization and then that’s just how I got into it and then somehow you know the market started to grow you had this thing on your CV that everyone was getting to know about and wanted to do so and that’s how I just started on that part and I thought it really interesting because I have a kind of forensic brain where I like to don’t I get bored if and that’s why
03:56.568 –> 03:58.930
[SPEAKER_00]: No offense to the BPCP experts in the room.
03:59.190 –> 04:04.014
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was like, oh, I’ve said, add done rinse repeat isn’t it 16 characters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Google is no more you spend more help and information to give you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I like the whole forensic side of SEO, where you’re like trying to understand what’s happening.
04:12.782 –> 04:13.703
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re testing things.
04:13.803 –> 04:16.025
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody quiet knows this watch for me.
04:16.085 –> 04:16.865
[SPEAKER_00]: This didn’t work.
04:16.925 –> 04:18.567
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, Google’s tank.
04:18.587 –> 04:19.427
[SPEAKER_00]: This whole method.
04:19.628 –> 04:23.531
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, it’s so I think I like the highs and the lows of the industry.
04:23.691 –> 04:25.933
[SPEAKER_00]: A big too much for my own good.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But I think you have to, you know, to be a successful SEO person, especially as you work in bigger companies and with larger teams.
04:36.389 –> 04:43.239
[SPEAKER_02]: That first for knowledge and trying to, you know, reverse engineer things is, and testing is just so essential.
04:43.659 –> 04:51.972
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’m guessing then that you have loved the addition of the world of geo to the world, you know, geo.
04:51.952 –> 04:57.420
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I search, pull it what we will to the world of SEO because it gives you a whole other thing to get for us.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, it’s so exciting.
04:59.523 –> 05:02.487
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so exciting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s making SEO great again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so exciting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If I can use, I think it’s a great opportunity for search because
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we’ll get to a whole conversation about strategy and what people should do or what people should not do, but it’s making, you know, where SEO is always that they’re on song hero of where we don’t quite understand your tactics and how x-wise it equals to money.
05:29.870 –> 05:41.066
[SPEAKER_00]: because of how big AI is in general, not just like large language models, everyone’s now paying attention, and overall it’s a really great thing for the industry.
05:41.467 –> 05:49.078
[SPEAKER_00]: But then again, it’s yet another thing that we can, we have to discover ourselves, we have to investigate, we have to understand, and that’s it.
05:49.319 –> 05:51.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Any new form of learning is always looks like it.
05:52.145 –> 06:02.628
[SPEAKER_02]: isn’t it just but then hopefully in this episode we’re going to fast track everybody’s learning a bit and give them a bit more reassurance about what is quite a discombobulating topic I think for many at the moment.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s where to where to start with how do we how do we deal with all of this?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think
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[SPEAKER_02]: First off, where are we trying to get seen?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
06:14.249 –> 06:23.060
[SPEAKER_02]: Because sometimes it’s about being seen in chatGBT, A and other agents, answers, and discussions.
06:23.080 –> 06:27.605
[SPEAKER_02]: So people discover you via that and then you get, you know, links through to the website.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Other times it’s product microendation engines.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then other times it’s trying to get to that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: bit at the top of Google, the AI snippet piece.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So how do you, how are you, or how would you advise a retailer to be focusing on where it is they’re trying to appear with all this opportunity of Geo because I mean like when it comes to search engines we’ve been
06:51.190 –> 06:52.953
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve been treated quite nicely.
06:52.973 –> 06:55.717
[SPEAKER_02]: I will stop and let you answer in a second, I promise.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But we’ve been, it’s been quite easy here in the West, because Google’s 80% of the market.
07:00.605 –> 07:02.689
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve just had one thing to worry about.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The goal is to be high up on Google.
07:04.992 –> 07:14.067
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, part of the GEO goal is to be high up on Google, or it might be to be ranking well on chatGBT, or it might be you to be doing well on co-pilot.
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[SPEAKER_02]: There’s all these,
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[SPEAKER_02]: different.
07:15.911 –> 07:16.753
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s no winner yet.
07:16.773 –> 07:18.177
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s no one place we want to be.
07:18.217 –> 07:20.925
[SPEAKER_02]: So where would you where are you advising retailers to focus?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Where would you focus?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing to say is that good SEO is good geo.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that’s the most important thing that everyone needs to take away from this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Godesio is good Gio.
07:34.512 –> 07:36.776
[SPEAKER_00]: The core principles are still exactly the same.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where everyone should be starting from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s still, I think the key thing is, all of these large language models are data consumers.
07:47.688 –> 07:52.192
[SPEAKER_00]: And in order to be able to get data, you still need technical SEO.
07:52.292 –> 07:56.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that way, where your site has to be accessible, they need to be able to crawl it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They need to be able to download the data.
07:58.097 –> 07:58.978
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to be able to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you still need to be fast.
08:00.359 –> 08:03.822
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are still all principles of technical SEO.
08:03.842 –> 08:09.748
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to structure your page in the way that they can access this data, understand it because they can’t read English, isn’t it?
08:09.768 –> 08:12.330
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re converting things to numbers, understanding structures.
08:12.670 –> 08:15.973
[SPEAKER_00]: So using schema, so all of the core principles of
08:15.953 –> 08:20.860
[SPEAKER_00]: General SEO still exists like they’re looking for good content.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They’re looking for trustworthy content and that’s where we’re now You see a lot of people are not talking about brand and people tend to brand because imagine like the amount of content that’s in the world now It’s like I think when Google was sued They last of so many lawsuits.
08:39.028 –> 08:43.294
[SPEAKER_00]: They said they had over 400 billion websites in their index
08:43.274 –> 08:53.768
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for all of these large language models, the key is, how do we understand these data, how do we even pass in, how do we then suffice the most trustworthy data?
08:54.148 –> 09:02.599
[SPEAKER_00]: Because right now, they’re acting as answer engines, we’re at, before they could indicate the responsibility and be like, well, this recommendation is from the guidance.
09:02.579 –> 09:10.510
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s, you know, this recommendation is from this, but now they’re pulling the guidance recommendation x-waysers recommendation, and then mixing it up and giving you their own answers.
09:10.970 –> 09:14.995
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they want to be right every time, and that’s now brand-dissented.
09:15.015 –> 09:21.484
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where brands will win, because they’re like, okay, we trust this brand, we will rely on that information.
09:21.544 –> 09:23.727
[SPEAKER_00]: So the core principles
09:23.707 –> 09:29.715
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, of SEO still wealthy, like Google just had their recent search central subject.
09:29.755 –> 09:30.696
[SPEAKER_00]: They said that again.
09:30.716 –> 09:34.461
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it depends on where you stand and like trusting Google or not trusting Google.
09:34.501 –> 09:43.252
[SPEAKER_00]: But for me, looking at it from a common sense level, you know, standing behind all the noise, the core principle still exists.
09:43.272 –> 09:46.997
[SPEAKER_00]: Like GemNye gets most of his information from
09:47.382 –> 09:47.823
[SPEAKER_00]: the web.
09:48.263 –> 09:52.710
[SPEAKER_00]: Like most of these websites, most of this large language models get most of the information from the web.
09:52.830 –> 09:57.397
[SPEAKER_00]: It just depends on what training data they’re using on what their focus is on.
09:57.818 –> 10:05.590
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Gemly focuses on like the web, which I mean Google has the largest index or why wouldn’t it use that ready of available information.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Chat GPT focuses on the heavily rely on like social media ready.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So again, when you’re thinking of where should I focus?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would say,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than doing what we did in the past and making that whole mistake in the when the digital era came and people stopped focusing on brand and also at chasing search engines, focus on your brand, focus on where your audience is, and then let the large language model.
10:32.118 –> 10:50.110
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of re-engineer themselves so in the way that if your brand is on Reddit and if your consumers are on Reddit and you focus on that then you will just naturally if you if you do good work and you have good brand authority you will just naturally be a chat GPT top contender
10:50.090 –> 10:59.960
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you were always a Google your audience go to search and do that and then you you have great rankings there then you will just naturally be featured in Gemni.
11:00.441 –> 11:04.725
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s where you know saying good SEO is good geo.
11:05.506 –> 11:14.275
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I wouldn’t stop there and be like there’s nothing else to do because there is definitely something else to do and that’s now like looking at
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[SPEAKER_00]: how you then restructure your strategy.
11:18.259 –> 11:20.882
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where I’m kind of focusing on.
11:21.422 –> 11:35.337
[SPEAKER_00]: So where as before, you know, brands will go after, or business is more go after, every generic keyword, you know, on the surface of the yet, anything that is almost like a, a TED step from their audience to cover all grounds.
11:36.318 –> 11:40.262
[SPEAKER_00]: Don’t strategies, don’t, you’re just the waste of your time, isn’t it?
11:40.850 –> 11:49.905
[SPEAKER_00]: information queries, more and more and more being pulled, being answered directly by your AI overviews and all of these airlines and things like that.
11:50.505 –> 11:58.318
[SPEAKER_00]: So you’re not going to get, you know, if you’re not the right authority for that, that query or that content,
11:58.872 –> 12:00.414
[SPEAKER_00]: why you wasting your time.
12:00.474 –> 12:02.497
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s where to put your efforts isn’t it?
12:02.517 –> 12:12.630
[SPEAKER_00]: You now have to be hyper focused on putting your efforts or what will give you results because a lot of people are are reporting this and we’re seeing this as well.
12:12.810 –> 12:17.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Where you have loads of impressions for different content.
12:17.236 –> 12:18.417
[SPEAKER_00]: But no clicks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So why would I want to focus my time?
12:21.180 –> 12:28.816
[SPEAKER_00]: And then feeding the data log with loads of content that offers me no value.
12:28.836 –> 12:32.624
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’re doing stuff, make sure stuff they’ll offer you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m not saying you can’t do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: content anymore, but make sure that it’s content that is offering additional value to your user, not just for the sake of general visibility, because how many people like you see with the LLMs, they’re putting like a link symbol, how many people actually click on the
12:50.746 –> 12:54.071
[SPEAKER_00]: Like once I have my information, why would I want to do this at it?
12:55.052 –> 12:57.355
[SPEAKER_00]: The greatest example I use is baking a cake.
12:57.856 –> 13:00.900
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually I have like, I’m like, I’m going to bake the cake on Saturday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have, you know, a top of butter which is 250g and I’m like, oh, this is the cake I’m going to make.
13:05.827 –> 13:09.953
[SPEAKER_00]: I come downstairs, my sons used to have to make cookies, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to make a cake.
13:11.515 –> 13:21.085
[SPEAKER_00]: I just go to, you know, whatever LLM and say, hey, I now have 50g of butter, give me a recipe, blah, blah, blah, blah, that, you know, and it gives me that recipe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I’m not going to click to see who provided the alternative recipe.
13:25.730 –> 13:28.093
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m just going to take that content and go away with it.
13:28.113 –> 13:32.818
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s like, you just really have to be high before costing your strategy.
13:32.798 –> 13:48.806
[SPEAKER_00]: in creating things like, before you would see, you know, the brand or the product team we usually come to the SEO team and be like, oh, we have this new product and there’s like this feature, that feature and the SEO team will be like, well, nobody’s searching for that, that’s a brand thing we don’t care about it.
13:49.448 –> 13:51.972
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that’s changed now because
13:51.952 –> 14:03.066
[SPEAKER_00]: so many long-tail queries, so many the way user searches are evolving, now you should be jumping on all of those niche details and everything, and flesh and those are because that’s what you’re user wants to know.
14:03.146 –> 14:18.685
[SPEAKER_00]: So that in the way that you approach your content creation and your strategy creation, all of that’s changed, rather that, but again, you don’t do all of this but to the
14:18.901 –> 14:29.985
[SPEAKER_02]: It is such a look at, I have about 20 follow-up questions for you on that one, but I’m going to break it down a little bit and do a bit of summary and then I will give you another question.
14:30.025 –> 14:36.278
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I’m taking if you’re answering, we don’t need to get over worried about where we’re trying to appear.
14:36.379 –> 14:38.884
[SPEAKER_02]: If we’re following the technical
14:38.864 –> 14:49.518
[SPEAKER_02]: requirements that we would do for SEO around schema, around page, readability and all this kind of stuff, then we’re going to be delivering the right things to the right engines and it will happen.
14:49.558 –> 14:58.910
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s not like we have one team working on Google SEO and one team working on Gemini and one team working on chatty BT and one team working on Copilot is all the same activity.
14:59.351 –> 15:04.618
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve just got to make sure we’ve actually done it, which I think is where a lot of people are having
15:04.598 –> 15:14.141
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the rest of it, the building trust and the content strategy, that side of things has changed quite massively.
15:14.161 –> 15:18.712
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of it now, I love the way you sum it up as a brand focus.
15:19.434 –> 15:21.619
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not about creating a big old list of keywords.
15:21.659 –> 15:22.962
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s about going,
15:22.942 –> 15:24.184
[SPEAKER_02]: Where are we strong?
15:24.284 –> 15:25.846
[SPEAKER_02]: Where should we be talking about?
15:25.866 –> 15:27.568
[SPEAKER_02]: Where should we be creating content about?
15:27.608 –> 15:30.291
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do our customers want to hear us creating content?
15:30.311 –> 15:31.813
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, your example of Reddit.
15:32.253 –> 15:35.157
[SPEAKER_02]: If anyone’s is picked up and go, oh, we need to go and get big on Reddit.
15:35.657 –> 15:38.261
[SPEAKER_02]: If your customers weren’t already, I mean, go and double check.
15:38.361 –> 15:40.744
[SPEAKER_02]: Is anyone already talking about you and your topic over there?
15:40.844 –> 15:41.945
[SPEAKER_02]: If they’re not, don’t do it.
15:42.065 –> 15:49.354
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not going to work because you need that you need that validity and that kind of almost ecosystem of content.
15:49.334 –> 15:53.898
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, you’re one lone voice in the wind, which is not going to get picked up.
15:54.159 –> 16:08.112
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as we go into 2026 and beyond, we’re going to more and more be talking about the cohesive content system of an entity and how well that all matches up together.
16:08.532 –> 16:09.833
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that what you’re saying?
16:09.974 –> 16:13.557
[SPEAKER_02]: The brand, we got outlier random stuff.
16:13.597 –> 16:18.902
[SPEAKER_02]: We shouldn’t be talking
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s that week.
16:20.626 –> 16:26.138
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we’ve always said this for a long time and never done it isn’t it like no services are silo.
16:27.020 –> 16:38.865
[SPEAKER_00]: Like no services are silo, you can’t and now even more, but people that had always treated like digital as the silo brand of the silo peer as a silo and all of these things work together.
16:38.845 –> 16:55.842
[SPEAKER_00]: a key thing about PR, you know, and why it’s, you would hear so many people in the SEO industry saying it’s making a resurgence because at some point it got like a really bad rap because of all the, the Google penalties is that, you know, with the way that LLMs.
16:55.822 –> 17:02.868
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of interpret language is that, you know, they’ve been turning into numbers and numbers then look at frequency and all of these things.
17:02.908 –> 17:07.632
[SPEAKER_00]: So reputation and consistency really matters for LLMs.
17:08.113 –> 17:18.041
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re trying to be known for something, that replication to build up the frequency and to know that this is the next best thing, you know, because when you say like, no crane of a spilled milk.
17:18.061 –> 17:25.828
[SPEAKER_00]: So they know, for example, if you’re a confner of the cells, you know, unique
17:25.808 –> 17:38.163
[SPEAKER_00]: doesn’t that doesn’t make sense from just say they want to see each like in ten places saying unique close for ecosystems unique and then they know once they mentioned that brand what does these do they know exactly unique?
17:38.183 –> 17:40.349
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten, close for ecosystems.
17:40.389 –> 17:41.151
[SPEAKER_00]: So
17:41.131 –> 17:47.662
[SPEAKER_00]: that’s where all of this so your PR agency or your PR can’t just go ahead and keep doing something else.
17:47.742 –> 17:52.571
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know that we’re trying to be recognized as the brand for ecosystems, you see what I mean?
17:52.611 –> 17:59.022
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s that everyone needs to be singing the same song with the same heap, you know, so that
17:59.002 –> 18:21.313
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, when the seller learns when they get the data, when they map it out, when they understand the frequency, that reputation is there, that consistency is there, that reinforcement of languages there and so that the models and under data sets understand that this is exactly what you’re trying to say and this is who you are and what they should be teaching you for.
18:21.867 –> 18:35.021
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, in the e-commerce space, we’re already seeing almost a revival of SEO core principles because everyone seems to care more about AI than they do about SEO despite the traffic in a qualities of those two things at the moment.
18:35.542 –> 18:38.465
[SPEAKER_02]: But is at least getting people to do what they should have done all along?
18:39.266 –> 18:45.893
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the other thing we’re going to be seeing is almost a revival of not link building.
18:46.574 –> 18:51.840
[SPEAKER_02]: But I guess I mean, high quality link building, offsite content.
18:51.820 –> 19:09.643
[SPEAKER_02]: in terms of higher quality social media activity, higher quality PR activity to get that repetition of our core message in more places in order to feed a clear review to the LLMs of what our business is but also to build that trust and that authority.
19:10.064 –> 19:12.647
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that something you see being a part of this?
19:12.779 –> 19:19.974
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so it’s not really about links anymore, more about citations, is getting those citations in everywhere.
19:20.094 –> 19:25.084
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love what you said about like higher quality social media is doing less.
19:25.823 –> 19:45.857
[SPEAKER_00]: doing you know you do less but you do the less really well because before it was all about what quantity is mass and mass and mass and mass and so much information overload that you know which is kind of really mean to it and nobody understood you know what do we who do I trust is like top list of laptops
19:45.837 –> 19:47.019
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this paid?
19:47.039 –> 19:49.263
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this, you know, it’s a affiliate site.
19:49.303 –> 19:50.185
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I doing?
19:50.205 –> 19:51.808
[SPEAKER_00]: And then people run to socials.
19:52.328 –> 19:55.214
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there’s all of the influence of culture.
19:55.554 –> 19:59.301
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s, everyone’s just looking for where is the source that I can trust.
19:59.341 –> 20:07.896
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s why you see LLM’s, like, tattoo, PT, Lening, Torsept, more Torsept because they’re like, Oh, maybe the social lag, Goridins are the ones to trust in.
20:07.876 –> 20:20.755
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s all of these things where, and that’s where, you know, you have systems like fraud, that’s more research-based, everyone’s like, what’s the key thing that I can trust now, and that’s going to be really interesting.
20:21.393 –> 20:31.084
[SPEAKER_02]: So for someone listening, who is that head of e-commerce head of marketing, who’s trying to work out what, where they should be focusing in 2026.
20:31.104 –> 20:35.209
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there’s a couple of key things we should cover off.
20:35.710 –> 20:42.377
[SPEAKER_02]: So relatively quick answers to these, I think, but if they’re really complicated ones, feel to feel free to go long.
20:43.819 –> 20:45.561
[SPEAKER_02]: Team wise,
20:45.541 –> 20:50.129
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we need to separate, you know, create a new team for Geo?
20:50.249 –> 20:52.172
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we do it with the existing SEO team?
20:52.193 –> 20:53.395
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it about refocusing?
20:53.435 –> 20:55.618
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it about paying attention to some new services?
20:55.659 –> 21:00.006
[SPEAKER_02]: What should the team, any team changes we should be doing to do with this?
21:00.593 –> 21:06.546
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn’t create my, my recommendation, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t create a separate team full for geo.
21:06.826 –> 21:15.565
[SPEAKER_00]: I will have the team looking at and getting educated in the core principles, optimization, that kind of stuff, I wouldn’t create a new team.
21:15.899 –> 21:27.803
[SPEAKER_00]: I will create a technical team that is looking at LLMs for different ways, how we can improve efficiency, how we can build tiny tools and gems and all of those kind of things.
21:28.565 –> 21:34.397
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s where I will create a separate team, but for GL, I will let the SEO team.
21:34.715 –> 21:36.697
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, grow that album.
21:36.717 –> 21:37.077
[SPEAKER_02]: Got you.
21:37.298 –> 21:46.447
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mentioned, you know, that with traffic wise, the reports we’re seeing so far, because obviously, e-commerce brands we want traffic, it’s about driving those sales.
21:47.448 –> 22:00.081
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the amount of traffic that’s coming from AI in its various forms is still pretty low in the grand scheme of things compared to the volume of
22:00.061 –> 22:06.227
[SPEAKER_02]: change, would you be making how much more budget would you be putting in place to do all of this?
22:06.427 –> 22:11.311
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if it was equal to SEO right now, it would be like, whoa, double the budget.
22:11.572 –> 22:12.853
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to double down on this.
22:12.973 –> 22:14.955
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, you know, this is our big one for 2026.
22:15.075 –> 22:17.317
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s getting a lot of noise.
22:17.357 –> 22:19.319
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think people are thinking they need to do loads about it.
22:19.339 –> 22:28.127
[SPEAKER_02]: But how, how big a focus shift is this causing in terms of actually looking at the amount of traffic it’s driving to websites at the moment?
22:28.107 –> 22:30.072
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s an interesting question.
22:30.092 –> 22:36.207
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you have to keep on top of trends and you have to be where large retailers struggle.
22:36.287 –> 22:37.530
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been an early adaptor.
22:38.152 –> 22:43.264
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say for Re-commerce brands, what’s it imagine now is we can see that all of these, um,
22:43.565 –> 23:04.999
[SPEAKER_00]: large language models, all of them are looking at how they can monetize this thing and Google recently launched in the US, they launched their agentic AI4 holiday shopping and what they’ve done is that they’ve they’ve used their Google feeds in much in center and because that’s the biggest place they like it’s quick and easy they know
23:04.979 –> 23:08.082
[SPEAKER_00]: the data, the feeds are already said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
23:08.102 –> 23:12.866
[SPEAKER_00]: But that will be something I would say that, you know, you need to start discussing with your engineering team.
23:13.266 –> 23:15.228
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s more like a technical solution.
23:15.268 –> 23:24.417
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to start preparing for a Gentic AI because, you know, the free models can’t work for very long, data is so expensive and they have to monetize this.
23:24.477 –> 23:30.962
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where with the role of a Gentic AI, you know, I knew, um, chat Jupiter was talking about a payment model.
23:31.083 –> 23:34.986
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that’s something that you meet your engineers need to be focused
23:34.966 –> 23:55.050
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we build, you know, text only HTML one that they can quickly crawl and index all do we expose our APIs these are not these are more like these are very security Conscious decisions that you know need the deaf team that knows and engineers and know what they’re doing with API calls and all of that so that’s
23:55.030 –> 24:01.002
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, that’s a key place to focus, you know, a lot of extra budget on doing those research.
24:01.082 –> 24:09.359
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, if that world, you know, when that world comes not if you’re prepared, you’re ready, you have a solution for people to use a Gentic AI on your side.
24:09.379 –> 24:14.389
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was looking at one of the demos of a Gentic AI and, um,
24:14.369 –> 24:19.156
[SPEAKER_00]: The AI was actually access in the side like a human being, well, I don’t know what I was expecting.
24:19.176 –> 24:22.522
[SPEAKER_00]: I was expecting it to be fast and quick, but no, it was a quick thing.
24:22.542 –> 24:25.326
[SPEAKER_00]: All the links he was getting stuck like a human being will.
24:25.346 –> 24:31.956
[SPEAKER_00]: So are the USR team can also focus on accessibility, you know, crawling the side like, you know.
24:31.936 –> 24:39.488
[SPEAKER_00]: and someone’s accessibility needs will be used in screen readers making sure that they can access all the links or the jumps in all of those things.
24:39.568 –> 24:45.298
[SPEAKER_00]: But give your SEO to I’m sure the most SEO teams are underfunded even for normal SEO.
24:45.378 –> 24:50.046
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, renew that focus and give them the budget to do normal SEO well.
24:50.526 –> 24:51.548
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
24:51.528 –> 25:04.862
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, invest in AI for efficiency, how can we use AI to automate a lot of tasks, make things efficient for the team, and then speak to your engineers about the development work in exposing to its agenda key.
25:05.467 –> 25:12.941
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of kind of prep work and foundation laying and content activity across the technical and the trust stuff this year.
25:13.502 –> 25:24.724
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we will all keep an eye on what’s happening with those traffic levels as we go through the year, which brings us on to the other key question I want to ask, which is metrics and monitoring.
25:24.704 –> 25:32.907
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there, you know, we all know what we should be tracking an SEO in geo, are there key key stats people are tracking right now to see if it’s working or not?
25:32.927 –> 25:35.695
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I’m guessing ranking reports throughout the window.
25:37.700 –> 25:39.726
[SPEAKER_02]: But what are you looking at?
25:39.706 –> 25:41.670
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m so undecided about on this.
25:41.750 –> 25:42.312
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know.
25:42.372 –> 25:48.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I thought I had swung to one way and then I read a bunch of things and I’m swung to another way.
25:48.305 –> 25:55.420
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, you know, we all have key stakeholders that we need to report to without.
25:55.400 –> 26:00.826
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ll probably act in loads of questions about, you know, visibility and all of that.
26:00.846 –> 26:03.028
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a lot of prom tracking tools.
26:03.309 –> 26:07.673
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve, you know, my team and I, we’ve, you know, tested, I’ve tested some of them.
26:07.693 –> 26:09.355
[SPEAKER_00]: I really like profound.
26:09.375 –> 26:10.477
[SPEAKER_00]: I like Pekey, I.
26:10.877 –> 26:15.422
[SPEAKER_00]: However, there is some diffusion in the industry about prom tracking.
26:15.542 –> 26:20.968
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s to say, it’s the similar things with round tracking, since there’s a lot of personalization on AI.
26:20.948 –> 26:28.236
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the queries are very, very long-tailed, you know, that how many times is someone going to type that again.
26:28.716 –> 26:40.329
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, any AI model, the more you search it blends, what you want, and so it increasingly narrows this so much potential for buyers, but that’s another ethics topic to create for another day.
26:40.349 –> 26:44.053
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s increasingly narrows, so with all of those things,
26:44.033 –> 27:13.602
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there is some, you know, there is some division around from tracking, so, and but people, you know, some people in the street believe that you should focus more on topic, you know, topic tracking, not not tracking per se, but that cluster understanding where you sit in the topic cluster, how much visibility you have in topic clusters.
27:13.582 –> 27:26.780
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a correlation and it’s wishy-washy and that’s where, you know, I see a good reputation for not just being trackable or being a dark heart or something like you, you want to metric that people can easily understand.
27:26.800 –> 27:31.046
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say if you can do both, if you have the money to do both, do both.
27:31.687 –> 27:42.542
[SPEAKER_00]: If you probably have one to do one, then topic clusters will be where the market’s currently leaning,
27:42.978 –> 27:48.187
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, indeed, it sounds like an undefined space at the moment.
27:48.267 –> 27:49.609
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ll keep an eye out on that one.
27:49.629 –> 28:00.767
[SPEAKER_02]: And then a big question before we head towards the top tips, which is if more answers are being surfaced in AI, of one sort or another,
28:00.747 –> 28:07.556
[SPEAKER_02]: Should we be expecting site traffic to drop, but conversion rate to increase?
28:08.077 –> 28:10.360
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, your example of the cake recipe.
28:10.940 –> 28:16.427
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve not gone to the original originator of that recipe or the three originated of that recipes.
28:17.008 –> 28:20.933
[SPEAKER_02]: Websites, you’ve got the answer there and then, but you weren’t going to buy anything anyway.
28:21.454 –> 28:24.578
[SPEAKER_02]: So for an e-commerce brand, potentially that’s a good thing.
28:24.558 –> 28:28.965
[SPEAKER_02]: But should we expect to see over time a lowering of traffic volume?
28:29.626 –> 28:34.873
[SPEAKER_02]: But potentially also an increase in conversion rate, she says.
28:35.615 –> 28:39.741
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I answer that question, I just also want to mention another tool story.
28:39.841 –> 28:45.189
[SPEAKER_00]: I did mention the tool for pond cracking and I did mention the one foot and topic clusters, which is YK.
28:45.650 –> 28:48.314
[SPEAKER_00]: So check out those tools if you’re comparison.
28:48.694 –> 28:49.896
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re comparing, sorry.
28:50.217 –> 28:52.540
[SPEAKER_00]: Now back to the question you asked.
28:52.520 –> 28:58.027
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean we will see we we have seen already massive massive drop in clicks.
28:58.588 –> 29:20.957
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve seen an increase in impressions which is like what I typically what I’ve done which is I’ve looked at the thing I’ve gone away I haven’t clicked on anything we’ve seen that across the board and that would just that would just continue to grow you know the more AI search grows the more we’ll see you know the ex-continent of trend downwards and I think in terms of e-commerce you have to
29:21.072 –> 29:28.264
[SPEAKER_00]: that’s always a win and that’s where it becomes even more important to focus on the less fluffy stuff if it’s not important to your brand.
29:28.284 –> 29:38.982
[SPEAKER_00]: If it’s not educating your customers, if it’s not influencing them to make a buying decision, if it’s not, you know, I mean, but we will still sense that C adverts in LLM’s anyway.
29:39.062 –> 29:40.144
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
29:40.124 –> 29:52.079
[SPEAKER_00]: There is that and, you know, increasingly people will be asking questions or if people are not clicking on this links, how do we make, you know, brands more prominent in the organic space of this LLM.
29:52.099 –> 30:06.317
[SPEAKER_00]: So I won’t be surprised if they start to do something like Google, did with Fabicons and logos and stuff to say, or you can optimize for us because we drive brand awareness in some kind of way, you know, say, but with a gigantic AI,
30:06.297 –> 30:16.408
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, that I don’t know how that will be measured, but if, you know, the agent is calling your side, making a decision on vinyl and you’ll be have, then surely that’s, that’s a click.
30:16.428 –> 30:25.218
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it’ll be interesting to see when they fully roll out the commerce aspect of it, but yes, if you, you know, it’s a win for you, isn’t it?
30:25.238 –> 30:29.082
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a win for you, if only a commerce, if people have to turn to buy.
30:29.062 –> 30:38.933
[SPEAKER_00]: The sites that would really struggle are all of, you know, as we already see our feelings, sites are struggling, information and insights where your data can quickly be augmented and there’s no action to take.
30:39.634 –> 30:44.279
[SPEAKER_00]: Those, I mean, recipe sites are really, really struggling and over and part of the problem.
30:44.319 –> 30:51.607
[SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
30:51.767 –> 30:53.449
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
30:59.588 –> 31:01.891
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top tips round.
31:04.534 –> 31:09.780
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me an all listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
31:09.860 –> 31:11.382
[SPEAKER_02]: Merit are you ready for the top tips?
31:11.682 –> 31:11.983
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
31:12.704 –> 31:13.925
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.
31:13.945 –> 31:18.671
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone is listening to this podcast, I agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make the business better.
31:18.731 –> 31:20.533
[SPEAKER_02]: Which book would you recommend?
31:20.699 –> 31:35.867
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is a, I don’t know if this is a business book, but say, but this is my favorite book when I became like a senior leader, because I left around and I saw like the so many people who are coctorate and I was like, oh, am I going to make it in this environment?
31:35.887 –> 31:38.151
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a space for people like me?
31:38.131 –> 31:52.312
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I read Adam Grants, give and take and I really love it because it proves that you don’t have to be quadrote, generosity is actually a competitive advantage and that’s, you know, that’s, that’s why I love that book if you, yeah.
31:52.332 –> 31:57.760
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’re like nearing you think, do I need to be, you know, quadrote or can I?
31:58.634 –> 32:01.838
[SPEAKER_02]: that definitely counts as a great book recommendation.
32:01.858 –> 32:05.523
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can see it on one of my bookshelves, very close by me.
32:05.584 –> 32:13.695
[SPEAKER_02]: So I will second that recommendation, traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others, or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?
32:14.676 –> 32:18.241
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think everything’s being talked to that.
32:18.261 –> 32:23.608
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if anything doesn’t really get the press.
32:23.628 –> 32:24.690
[SPEAKER_00]: That it deserves.
32:24.710 –> 32:27.173
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wouldn’t say there is, say,
32:27.153 –> 32:39.068
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, back to basics of brand and community building, that being a helpful, a help for business above trying to sell is making a massive, massive resurgence.
32:39.129 –> 32:42.393
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say, you know, try and build a community future.
32:42.453 –> 32:47.439
[SPEAKER_00]: Proveal your brand against all of these trends by making people come to you.
32:47.499 –> 32:54.088
[SPEAKER_00]: So if there is a way you can build a community and engage community that you’re helping do that.
32:54.777 –> 33:01.693
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that one, and yeah, it’s such a hard thing to do, but definitely super, a super power for the coming years.
33:02.134 –> 33:12.499
[SPEAKER_02]: A tall top tip, then maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plugin, 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.
33:12.952 –> 33:19.838
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I would poke and I don’t know loads of people use chat to PT instead and I don’t really for many of what but ecosystem is.
33:19.899 –> 33:35.613
[SPEAKER_00]: But within Gem Nye there is a great ecosystem where you can act like your emails, your calendar, you know, YouTube, like anything in the Google ecosystem and be like, at this can you give me a summary, can you summarize my emails the other day I did a fun thing well.
33:35.633 –> 33:42.840
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like summarized my personal emails tell me how many emails are from school, how
33:42.820 –> 33:46.486
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I need to ignore, and do I need to do anything with this, who needs us there?
33:46.766 –> 33:52.135
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, add this to my calendar, so that’s really good for being like a personal assistant.
33:53.016 –> 33:53.377
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
33:53.397 –> 33:55.360
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, people don’t talk about Gemini enough.
33:55.740 –> 33:57.864
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t believe as a Google fan.
33:58.925 –> 33:59.627
[SPEAKER_02]: So, love that one.
34:00.127 –> 34:05.476
[SPEAKER_02]: Carbon top tip, finally, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
34:06.578 –> 34:09.402
[SPEAKER_00]: I switch everything off from the sucker.
34:09.382 –> 34:14.226
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that’s probably not, I mean there must be regulations and things like you can’t switch off.
34:14.246 –> 34:19.271
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think once people shot something down and it’s not running, they just never switch it off from the socket.
34:19.291 –> 34:22.694
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, no switch it off because that’s still electricity.
34:23.074 –> 34:26.877
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the light on the microwave, the say zero zero is consuming electricity.
34:26.917 –> 34:29.279
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s not a thing that needs regulation.
34:29.299 –> 34:30.801
[SPEAKER_00]: You can just switch that off.
34:30.921 –> 34:39.388
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there needs to be a habit of anything that is not regulatory equipment being switched off from the socket.
34:39.368 –> 34:48.566
[SPEAKER_02]: I totally get where you’re coming from with this one, and for, you know, computer health, to have a well-performing computer, you need to turn it off every now and then, people.
34:50.650 –> 34:51.631
[SPEAKER_02]: Leave it all the time.
34:51.712 –> 34:52.233
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
34:52.253 –> 34:54.036
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when we were working in New York, it’s like,
34:54.860 –> 35:04.271
[SPEAKER_00]: just switch up the light and log the office, but everyone’s going to be still plugged, like you can see the light and the money to like, this is like consuming a necessary electricity overnight.
35:05.333 –> 35:05.693
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways.
35:05.713 –> 35:08.436
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love I love that tip.
35:08.456 –> 35:16.806
[SPEAKER_02]: So easy for like you say no regulation, nothing required just easy to do it, but as you said, make sure it’s something you’re allowed to turn on.
35:17.047 –> 35:19.990
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re definitely allowed to turn on.
35:19.970 –> 35:26.640
[SPEAKER_02]: Mirra, before we say goodbye, how can the listeners get in contact if they want to get in contact with you?
35:26.700 –> 35:32.329
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I’m on LinkedIn this day, that’s where I hang out on LinkedIn so you can find me there.
35:32.489 –> 35:37.617
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have a website I offer mentoring, one to one mentoring for new managers.
35:37.797 –> 35:40.381
[SPEAKER_00]: I love, you know, I love being impactful.
35:40.401 –> 35:45.589
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a level four counselling certificate from the British Association of counselling.
35:45.569 –> 35:47.351
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have, I have some experience.
35:47.371 –> 35:51.836
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I do love working with new managers, building confidence and things like that.
35:52.716 –> 35:53.097
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
35:53.117 –> 35:56.801
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, look, everyone, you can find out and get in contact with Mary, if I had linked in.
35:56.981 –> 35:59.704
[SPEAKER_02]: If you interested in any of that, I’ll go question about what we’ve been chatting about.
36:00.144 –> 36:02.266
[SPEAKER_02]: Mary, thank you so much being on the show.
36:02.286 –> 36:10.215
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope we have reloaded the blood pressure of many senior e-commerce team members when it comes to the world of geo with this episode.
36:10.235 –> 36:10.936
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m sure we have.
36:10.956 –> 36:13.298
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you so much for being up for doing it.
36:13.565 –> 36:15.709
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you for having me, your hand and lovely time.
36:22.000 –> 36:32.299
[SPEAKER_02]: Loads of clarity that from Mira on how to handle the GO AI search thing in the coming year and it’s
36:33.545 –> 36:46.159
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess it is about setting those foundations so making sure you’ve got all your technical SEO in place and then starting the process of building those trust citations, consolidating the brand view across everything.
36:46.700 –> 36:53.808
[SPEAKER_02]: But we say building the foundations, but you never know when the traffic volumes are going to go up and what the AI companies are going to do next.
36:54.309 –> 37:01.577
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we’ve recorded this in December and you never know, it might be a half of date by the time you guys hear it in January, because things are evolving so fast.
37:01.557 –> 37:09.205
[SPEAKER_02]: The good thing I think is that so much of this is just building on good SEO because as Mirror said, the principles remain the same.
37:09.285 –> 37:10.906
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s trying to give someone the right answer.
37:11.387 –> 37:13.148
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s all the AI is trying to do.
37:13.208 –> 37:16.011
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s all that Google’s been trying to do for the last few decades.
37:16.472 –> 37:20.916
[SPEAKER_02]: So it may kind of make sense that it fits with the whole SEO story as well.
37:21.497 –> 37:27.322
[SPEAKER_02]: And some great recommendations for tools to test out and tracking to test out and various other bits and pieces in there.
37:27.362 –> 37:30.045
[SPEAKER_02]: So huge thanks to Mirror for being up for doing this for us.
37:30.025 –> 37:37.917
[SPEAKER_02]: you can get your hands on the notes from this episode, including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
37:37.937 –> 37:40.540
[SPEAKER_02]: You can use our direct episode short link to get there as well.
37:41.221 –> 37:45.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode.
37:45.628 –> 37:51.797
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to the website, please do add yourself to our email news letter because we’ve got some really exciting stuff going on on there at the moment.
37:51.777 –> 37:58.645
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you liked this episode, then you can catch up with our other what would you do episodes.
37:59.426 –> 38:12.963
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find them all at ECMP.info-4s-w-w-y-d. And we are, I think this is our fourth, and we’ve been getting some really cool senior brand-side people on to tackle big questions for you.
38:13.023 –> 38:17.548
[SPEAKER_02]: So, do you go and have a listen to the others because they will really help you with your planning for 2026?
38:17.528 –> 38:21.696
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
38:21.716 –> 38:32.396
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including becoming more sustainable.
38:32.756 –> 38:38.086
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
38:38.146 –> 38:38.908
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week.
38:39.328 –> 38:41.292
[SPEAKER_02]: Don’t forget to keep optimizing.
38:44.174 –> 38:48.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
38:48.046 –> 38:53.323
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.
39 min

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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.

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