eCommerce Master Plan

eCommerce Master Plan

By Chloe ThomasBusinessEntrepreneurshipTechnologyMarketing
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eCommerce Master Plan episodes

  • eCommerce MasterPlan | 557: How to Get the Best Out of Your Website Agency with Sanya Ristic and Janis Thomas

    Sanya Ristic is the Director of Innovation and Client Relations at illuminise, the UK’s leading Certified Adobe Commerce & Magento Agency, ranked #1 on Clutch.co. Sanya and her team create and maintain high-performance Magento 2 eCommerce websites that boost sales and improve conversion for their clients across B2B, B2C, and D2C. 

     

    AND Sanya’s bought one of her clients along: yes, we’ve got the brilliant Janis Thomas from Look Fabulous Forever back on the show! 

     

    Tune in to discover what a truly collaborative, high-trust agency relationship looks like—and how it can transform your eCommerce success. 

     

    Hit PLAY to hear: 

    • How a web agency-client relationship turned into true partnership  
    • The one mindset shift that changed everything for Sanya’s agency 
    • Why your developers should be talking directly to you  
    • A real-world example of going from 10s to 2s page load time  
    • What makes advertorials a secret SEO weapon  
    • The emotional (yes, emotional!) side of eCommerce collaboration  

      • Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

      [03:40] “Finding Mr. Right Unexpectedly” 

      [08:15] Successful Website Outsourcing Experience 

      [09:49] Client-Agency Collaboration Dynamics 

      [13:52] Psychologically Safe Agency Relationship 

      [18:14] Break Down Communication Silos 

      [21:02] Podcast Insights: Navigating Business Relationships 

      [22:25] Listen to Sanya and Janis’ Top Tips!  

      [27:31] Find out more about illuminise https://www.illuminise.com/  

       

      Episode sponsored by illuminise. Watch Sanya’s Meet Magento talk on co-creation, experimentation, and co-creating future together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENFydeUcwQk . 

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      —

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      WEBVTT

      00:00.031 –> 00:06.977

      [SPEAKER_02]: while it does take an hour out of my month having a deep, because it is normally a deep conversation with Sanya about strategy.

      00:07.518 –> 00:08.719

      [SPEAKER_02]: It’s the highlight of my month.

      00:08.879 –> 00:15.525

      [SPEAKER_02]: I so look forward to speaking with her because she’s a real partner in our business and I would consider her a friend.

      00:18.643 –> 00:21.026

      [SPEAKER_03]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

      00:21.587 –> 00:25.652

      [SPEAKER_03]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

      00:26.193 –> 00:33.964

      [SPEAKER_03]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

      00:37.621 –> 00:38.962

      [SPEAKER_04]: Hello and welcome.

      00:39.002 –> 00:40.383

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s great to have you here.

      00:40.543 –> 00:44.785

      [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to two of our inspiring guests.

      00:45.326 –> 00:59.654

      [SPEAKER_04]: This is one of our masterclass episodes where we get an e-commerce expert or in this case a couple of e-commerce experts on the show to share the key things you need to know about one e-commerce subject and this time the topic is all about how to

      01:00.875 –> 01:03.277

      [SPEAKER_04]: have a great relationship with your web agency.

      01:03.517 –> 01:09.663

      [SPEAKER_04]: Of course, a lot of this also applies to your marketing agency, but we’re going to be diving into the web agency side of it all.

      01:10.184 –> 01:11.765

      [SPEAKER_04]: I’ve got two brilliant guests.

      01:11.805 –> 01:22.215

      [SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got Sanya who runs a website agency for Ecommerce and who has been on quite the journey taking her business to a super collaborative

      01:22.775 –> 01:26.016

      [SPEAKER_04]: process internally and with their clients.

      01:26.176 –> 01:30.897

      [SPEAKER_04]: And we’ve got one of her clients, Janice Thomas, who’s been on the podcast a couple of times already.

      01:30.917 –> 01:35.477

      [SPEAKER_04]: If you’re in the UK, you’ll have seen her speak somewhere, because she’s always out and about helping other businesses.

      01:35.817 –> 01:39.778

      [SPEAKER_04]: But she runs a very cool beauty brand in the UK called Look Fabulous Forever.

      01:40.538 –> 01:48.980

      [SPEAKER_04]: And she’ll be giving us the honest client experience of the type of relationship that Sania’s going to be taking us through.

      01:49.720 –> 02:07.680

      [SPEAKER_04]: So if you’re trying to work out how you can get more out of your relationship with your website agency, make it less stressful, make it more impactful, involve other members of your team in the relationship, have that more all encompassing impact, then this is definitely an episode for you.

      02:08.421 –> 02:12.424

      [SPEAKER_04]: Please listen to the end of the episode because you don’t want to miss the guest top tips.

      02:12.864 –> 02:23.211

      [SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got Stania taking on the booktop tip with a great one, a nice classic and a tooltop tip, something I’ve never heard of, and we’ll be Googling straight after I finish recording this.

      02:23.832 –> 02:26.894

      [SPEAKER_04]: And also some really cool insights on the carbon top tip.

      02:27.114 –> 02:33.118

      [SPEAKER_04]: And Janice has got a very up-to-date recommendation for the traffic top tip.

      02:33.158 –> 02:35.320

      [SPEAKER_04]: So listen to the whole thing, you won’t regret it.

      02:40.316 –> 02:42.237

      [SPEAKER_04]: And now to introduce our special guests.

      02:42.437 –> 02:47.478

      [SPEAKER_04]: Sanya Ristic is the director of innovation and client relations at two by one click.

      02:47.618 –> 02:54.040

      [SPEAKER_04]: The UK’s leading certified Adobe commerce and magento agency ranked number one on clutch.co.

      02:54.540 –> 03:06.143

      [SPEAKER_04]: Sanya and her team create a maintain high performance magento to e-commerce website that boost sales and improve conversions for their clients across B to B, B to C and D to C.

      03:07.003 –> 03:09.264

      [SPEAKER_04]: And San Jose bought one of her clients along.

      03:09.304 –> 03:14.145

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, we’ve got the brilliant Janice Thomas from look fabulous forever back on the show.

      03:14.945 –> 03:15.225

      [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

      03:15.285 –> 03:16.245

      [SPEAKER_04]: Hello, Sania.

      03:16.605 –> 03:17.045

      [SPEAKER_04]: Hi.

      03:17.726 –> 03:18.826

      [SPEAKER_04]: Lovely to have you here.

      03:18.866 –> 03:19.546

      [SPEAKER_04]: And hello, Janice.

      03:19.586 –> 03:20.306

      [SPEAKER_04]: Great to have you back.

      03:20.786 –> 03:21.727

      [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having me, Chloe.

      03:22.207 –> 03:22.767

      [SPEAKER_04]: OK.

      03:22.867 –> 03:25.608

      [SPEAKER_04]: So we’ve had Janice on the show a couple of times before.

      03:25.628 –> 03:26.688

      [SPEAKER_04]: So we know how she going to be.

      03:26.728 –> 03:26.948

      [SPEAKER_04]: Come us.

      03:26.968 –> 03:28.488

      [SPEAKER_04]: But how did you get into e-commerce?

      03:28.528 –> 03:31.209

      [SPEAKER_04]: What’s your crazy e-commerce journey story?

      03:31.609 –> 03:35.390

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it is a crazy, funny story, actually, through speedating.

      03:36.283 –> 03:39.969

      [SPEAKER_04]: Speed, business speed dating or normal speed dating.

      03:40.149 –> 03:42.232

      [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I was looking for Mr. Wright.

      03:42.592 –> 03:50.504

      [SPEAKER_01]: Like I came to the UK when I was thirty years old and after some time I decided to look after Mr. Wright and people told me that speed dating is a good way.

      03:51.405 –> 03:56.726

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I gone there and as it works, you speak to different men for three minutes and there was Lyndon.

      03:57.566 –> 04:05.508

      [SPEAKER_01]: My partner, life in business partner, and that was the most unusual conversation where I would say, I’m an engineer and he would say, I’m an engineer.

      04:05.568 –> 04:07.369

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, I’m a software engineer.

      04:07.489 –> 04:08.489

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’m software engineer.

      04:08.689 –> 04:09.689

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’m mobile phones.

      04:09.769 –> 04:10.710

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’ve done mobile phones.

      04:11.130 –> 04:11.830

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’ve done robots.

      04:11.910 –> 04:12.650

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’ve done robots.

      04:12.670 –> 04:13.510

      [SPEAKER_01]: This is how it was going.

      04:13.570 –> 04:15.511

      [SPEAKER_01]: The next thing, I have a sports car.

      04:15.611 –> 04:16.511

      [SPEAKER_01]: I have a sports car.

      04:16.571 –> 04:17.431

      [SPEAKER_01]: I have a mix five.

      04:17.511 –> 04:18.351

      [SPEAKER_01]: I have a mix five.

      04:18.691 –> 04:20.652

      [SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, is this guy for real?

      04:21.332 –> 04:23.293

      [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, this is how I’ll start it.

      04:24.474 –> 04:29.578

      [SPEAKER_04]: I can properly see you there going, is he just saying everything I’m saying?

      04:29.738 –> 04:33.240

      [SPEAKER_01]: But he was for real and what’s the crazy thing.

      04:33.280 –> 04:34.701

      [SPEAKER_01]: His surname is right.

      04:34.982 –> 04:36.683

      [SPEAKER_01]: So I found my Mr. Right.

      04:38.160 –> 04:39.862

      [SPEAKER_04]: And he was working in e-commerce.

      04:40.122 –> 04:44.586

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, soon after that, he was starting to set up e-commerce agency.

      04:44.806 –> 04:46.828

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, why don’t I join you?

      04:47.268 –> 04:54.234

      [SPEAKER_01]: And being an engineer myself and knowing how easy it was for me to have a good job in the UK, I was like, well, let’s fine.

      04:54.414 –> 04:55.055

      [SPEAKER_01]: I’m Serbian.

      04:55.275 –> 04:57.517

      [SPEAKER_01]: Let’s find some Serbian team members.

      04:57.757 –> 05:01.500

      [SPEAKER_01]: And long time now, seventeen years ago, we are still

      05:02.321 –> 05:07.488

      [SPEAKER_01]: established and enjoying and clients with us and happily married as well.

      05:07.768 –> 05:09.491

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it all went right.

      05:10.192 –> 05:11.473

      [SPEAKER_01]: It was all perfect.

      05:11.533 –> 05:16.079

      [SPEAKER_01]: He said yesterday, Lino said yesterday, you didn’t look for Mr. Perfect just from Mr. Wright, but

      05:17.922 –> 05:18.983

      [SPEAKER_04]: That’s a good line.

      05:19.003 –> 05:27.251

      [SPEAKER_04]: I think that’s definitely in the top ten strangest routes into e-commerce, almost unique routes into e-commerce that we’ve ever had.

      05:27.271 –> 05:30.894

      [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously you’ve been building this agency for nearly two decades now.

      05:30.974 –> 05:33.957

      [SPEAKER_04]: So what is it that makes your agency great?

      05:34.037 –> 05:38.722

      [SPEAKER_04]: How do you go about creating those really strong relationships with your clients?

      05:39.062 –> 05:53.005

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, over all these long time, seventeen years, we grown in different ways and in particular in the last eight years, I was very much focusing on inner development and through that through the relationships with people.

      05:53.305 –> 06:03.828

      [SPEAKER_01]: So what I would say in a very connecting deep way, we work with clients and solving complex problems, this is what makes us unique and what make Manjik as I like to say.

      06:04.189 –> 06:16.416

      [SPEAKER_04]: Is the way you do it now and the same as the way you’ve done it the whole time or has there been kind of like a development journey within the business to get to the point where you’re you’re now providing what makes a great agency relationship.

      06:17.016 –> 06:20.298

      [SPEAKER_04]: Is it always been the same or have you evolved as I guess is what I’m trying to ask.

      06:20.678 –> 06:26.303

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the reason I gone through this personal development was actually all the difficulties and struggles ahead in business.

      06:26.544 –> 06:38.535

      [SPEAKER_01]: I was actually years ago causing client conflicts because all the complexities I didn’t have capacities and understanding to deal with, so that got me on the personal journey to understand what’s going on.

      06:38.715 –> 06:43.940

      [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the source that struggle is a source now of all the greatness where we are.

      06:44.328 –> 06:52.911

      [SPEAKER_04]: So you went on the journey yourself and then that kind of helped you realize how you needed to change the agency and now several years on your in this brilliant space.

      06:53.111 –> 07:02.434

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that’s a beautiful question because the journey was very personal and it overspills like my personal transformation, then created the business transformation.

      07:02.494 –> 07:03.874

      [SPEAKER_01]: It was a parallel process.

      07:03.954 –> 07:05.115

      [SPEAKER_01]: Like as I was changing,

      07:05.755 –> 07:14.387

      [SPEAKER_01]: and bringing those changes in the business than it impacted team, it impacted relationships with clients and basically lots of things change over the last eight years.

      07:14.938 –> 07:15.378

      [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent.

      07:15.419 –> 07:18.481

      [SPEAKER_04]: And you wanted to bring Janice on the podcast with us.

      07:18.541 –> 07:25.147

      [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, we know, Janice is a great person in the world of e-commerce and the UK, but what would you reason for being to bring Janice on to the show?

      07:25.447 –> 07:34.255

      [SPEAKER_01]: Loving being of a Janice and it’s not that we worked together for five years and look fabulous as is with us for the last ten years, but Janice is so inspirational.

      07:34.735 –> 07:38.738

      [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she inspired me and motivated me to show up more this year.

      07:38.758 –> 07:40.820

      [SPEAKER_01]: I was a speaker of meet Magento.

      07:40.860 –> 07:42.061

      [SPEAKER_01]: I would say thanks to Janice.

      07:43.423 –> 07:46.186

      [SPEAKER_01]: Naging me and of course the talk was very interesting.

      07:46.266 –> 07:48.248

      [SPEAKER_01]: It was about co-creation experimentation.

      07:48.308 –> 07:52.793

      [SPEAKER_01]: So as well this podcast Jan is told me about so I would not be here without Janice.

      07:53.214 –> 07:55.076

      [SPEAKER_04]: I think there’s lots of us you can pretty much say that.

      07:58.981 –> 08:03.044

      [SPEAKER_04]: And Janice, obviously, you’re one of Sanyas clients at Look Fabulous Forever.

      08:03.084 –> 08:12.413

      [SPEAKER_04]: You’re using two by one click to run your website and your beneficiaries, I suppose, of Sanya and her teams more in light and approached her on the agency.

      08:12.513 –> 08:15.376

      [SPEAKER_04]: How is it for you working in this way with a web agency?

      08:15.820 –> 08:33.065

      [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so when I joined look fabulous forever five years ago, this was the first time I’d ever had a complete outsource of the whole kind of website development front end back end, all of those things that I had previously worked in environments where we had predominantly had an in-house team.

      08:33.425 –> 08:37.247

      [SPEAKER_02]: And then we might bring in extra resource as a when it was needed.

      08:37.307 –> 08:44.809

      [SPEAKER_02]: So I was, I guess, a little bit skeptical about can an agency do as good a job as an in-house.

      08:45.149 –> 08:58.461

      [SPEAKER_02]: team can do and I think working with Sanya very quickly, I came to understand that because Sanya is really focused on being a true partner in the business.

      08:59.462 –> 09:09.351

      [SPEAKER_02]: She and her team have a deep understanding of not just the technical aspects of our site, but our business and what we’re trying to achieve and all of those things.

      09:09.391 –> 09:10.351

      [SPEAKER_02]: So I think

      09:11.112 –> 09:13.533

      [SPEAKER_02]: It’s the best of both worlds.

      09:13.633 –> 09:23.158

      [SPEAKER_02]: I have an incredibly skilled expert team working on my business, but I don’t have a full-time resource that our business doesn’t need.

      09:23.218 –> 09:26.179

      [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t have to manage developers, you know, kind of all of those things.

      09:26.239 –> 09:31.062

      [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think working with two-by-one click is the perfect solution for us.

      09:31.867 –> 09:35.969

      [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of the keywords you both use so far are things that a lot of people talk about.

      09:35.989 –> 09:37.790

      [SPEAKER_04]: We’re going to remove silos.

      09:38.130 –> 09:42.253

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s like having them within their existing team with as a values match.

      09:42.293 –> 09:46.175

      [SPEAKER_04]: We found the right people for the relationship, but it’s so much harder to actually

      09:47.335 –> 09:48.435

      [SPEAKER_04]: deliver on that.

      09:48.815 –> 10:06.980

      [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it’s like a back when I had an agency, I would became very aware of the fact that a lot of the agency relationships, marketing agency, website agencies, when they break down, it’s as likely to be the client’s fault as it is to be the agencies fault and often because the client picks the wrong agency in the first place.

      10:07.060 –> 10:09.120

      [SPEAKER_04]: I am getting my way to a question honest.

      10:09.780 –> 10:15.862

      [SPEAKER_04]: So within all of that, what I suppose are your your key benefits.

      10:16.682 –> 10:17.303

      [SPEAKER_04]: to doing this.

      10:17.323 –> 10:21.605

      [SPEAKER_04]: Let’s talk about what it looks like, because I think that’s probably the best way to help people find it.

      10:21.666 –> 10:25.808

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s to understand what it actually looks like in practice when things are working well.

      10:25.868 –> 10:29.591

      [SPEAKER_04]: So, Sally, you mentioned about co-creation and collaboration.

      10:30.552 –> 10:33.694

      [SPEAKER_04]: So often agency relationships are kind of it feels like war.

      10:33.914 –> 10:36.716

      [SPEAKER_04]: Clearly, that’s not what we’ve got to go on here.

      10:37.116 –> 10:42.520

      [SPEAKER_04]: What does co-creation and collaboration really look like when it’s not a buzzword when it’s something you’re doing in practice?

      10:42.940 –> 10:49.166

      [SPEAKER_01]: I love the question and actually any difficulty that exists is actually a opportunity for a co-creation.

      10:49.526 –> 11:08.183

      [SPEAKER_01]: I am overlooking all our operations and what’s happening in all the project and as well on the monthly strategy calls with clients we share quite a lot about the future plans and what’s going on and I often bring either things I noticed in our work or in our relationship and clients as well bring

      11:08.904 –> 11:10.346

      [SPEAKER_01]: Some things they would like to talk about.

      11:10.386 –> 11:14.291

      [SPEAKER_01]: So basically, often there is some complexity or unknown way forward.

      11:15.192 –> 11:22.742

      [SPEAKER_01]: And then as well, if it is a relational difficulty that sometimes happened because of misunderstanding, we just go there, we explore, we share.

      11:22.762 –> 11:27.028

      [SPEAKER_01]: And in that process, lots of new knowledge comes and new ideas for the way forward.

      11:27.328 –> 11:32.351

      [SPEAKER_04]: So you expand the conversations beyond just we want the checkout to work this way.

      11:33.191 –> 11:36.733

      [SPEAKER_04]: Into, I think you got a bit annoyed with us on that.

      11:37.193 –> 11:38.194

      [SPEAKER_04]: Why did you get annoyed?

      11:38.494 –> 11:40.015

      [SPEAKER_04]: You literally go there.

      11:40.395 –> 11:41.336

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.

      11:41.776 –> 11:48.840

      [SPEAKER_01]: To give another example, once inclined business, the management change and different people take a non-communication with us and

      11:49.480 –> 11:52.742

      [SPEAKER_01]: Everything changed overnight, basically, and it took us time to catch up.

      11:52.842 –> 11:58.525

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I noticed in that process, something was going off in relationship and email communication.

      11:59.045 –> 12:08.429

      [SPEAKER_01]: So what I’ve done, I invited everyone to the call, the client, the our team, myself, and I was called in conversation, where I would go directly into, oh, I’m noticing something is not okay.

      12:08.749 –> 12:09.990

      [SPEAKER_01]: Are you a little angry with us?

      12:10.830 –> 12:16.233

      [SPEAKER_01]: And then that opened the beautiful connecting share, we just found the better way forward.

      12:16.772 –> 12:30.215

      [SPEAKER_04]: Again, it’s one of these things we’re like, well, obviously that’ll work, but the bravery to do it, especially in a scenario where, you know, when things change at a client, it’s a nerve-racking time as an agency owner, you know, are we gonna keep the business or we’re not?

      12:30.275 –> 12:34.476

      [SPEAKER_04]: So, I commend the bravery for going there and clearly it’s paying off, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?

      12:34.496 –> 12:43.038

      [SPEAKER_04]: There’s a real mix of the practicality of committing to regular calls and regular conversation, but also the mindset

      12:43.738 –> 12:48.780

      [SPEAKER_04]: to be thinking collaboratively and to not, you know, because lots of people, they’re getting angry with us.

      12:48.860 –> 12:49.981

      [SPEAKER_04]: We’ve got a good angry with them.

      12:50.001 –> 12:58.725

      [SPEAKER_04]: So I think a lot of agencies put into place the nuts and bolts of it, or clients put into place the nuts and bolts of it, but that mindset bits more difficult.

      12:58.805 –> 13:01.306

      [SPEAKER_04]: How have you managed to shift that mindset, Sania?

      13:01.646 –> 13:11.776

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, honestly, Chloe years ago, ten years ago, even in that place, when if something was off, we would hiding behind it or not just like trying to get through different ways.

      13:12.256 –> 13:17.421

      [SPEAKER_01]: But thanks to the work I’ve done, and especially last three, four years, quite a lot of relational work.

      13:18.062 –> 13:40.745

      [SPEAKER_01]: that opened my heart and I’m now able to connect with clients differently and sometimes the mean Jan is can say that if Jan is sometimes shared the difficulty their time team had I would cry on the call because I would feel the pain as you know we want to do an amazing job and if something is not okay we are the first one to know so we can change something so talk me long time and it is possible

      13:42.006 –> 13:44.408

      [SPEAKER_04]: Janice, you’re on the receiving event end of this.

      13:44.628 –> 13:52.035

      [SPEAKER_04]: What’s it like from a client’s perspective to work in this way rather than other agency ways?

      13:52.655 –> 13:58.721

      [SPEAKER_02]: It is definitely the most psychologically safe agency relationship I’ve ever worked in.

      13:59.181 –> 14:06.247

      [SPEAKER_02]: That not only do I know that if there is an issue, Samuel wanted to hear about it, but

      14:08.109 –> 14:14.611

      [SPEAKER_02]: It makes me mindful of things where I’ve got frustrated and why have I got frustrated.

      14:14.631 –> 14:22.094

      [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that Samuel will want to have that conversation with me about how did I feel?

      14:22.554 –> 14:23.574

      [SPEAKER_02]: Why did this happen?

      14:23.855 –> 14:24.695

      [SPEAKER_02]: What can we do?

      14:25.575 –> 14:47.273

      [SPEAKER_02]: to improve that this isn’t just, you know, all let’s talk, I genuinely feel all that Sanya wants to hear my side of the story, what’s going on and not just what’s happening from a technical perspective, are we pleased with the work, but are we pleased with the process of how the work went and what can we do to improve it?

      14:47.953 –> 14:49.054

      [SPEAKER_02]: in the future.

      14:49.555 –> 15:08.109

      [SPEAKER_02]: And I think one of the things that I particularly value, he’s saying you know me really well and she knows her team really well and often her perspective will be really useful because you’ll be like, yeah, you’re looking at like this and then even is looking the same problem like this and this is why you’re not communicating.

      15:09.022 –> 15:10.044

      [SPEAKER_04]: And it’s so easy.

      15:10.084 –> 15:16.455

      [SPEAKER_04]: I remember back when I was agency, we used to do a project manager few site builds with someone building the site and the client.

      15:16.495 –> 15:18.739

      [SPEAKER_04]: And I swear half my day was translation.

      15:19.533 –> 15:24.657

      [SPEAKER_04]: from, you know, like, that’s what they’re saying, and that’s what you’re hearing, but that’s not, that doesn’t match up.

      15:25.217 –> 15:32.702

      [SPEAKER_04]: And Sam, it strikes me that as you’re building this relationship with the clients, there’s an awful lot of trust being built up.

      15:33.263 –> 15:38.887

      [SPEAKER_04]: So it must make it a lot easier to push the boundaries

      15:39.627 –> 15:43.911

      [SPEAKER_04]: of what would normally happen in a web agency client scenario.

      15:44.632 –> 15:48.775

      [SPEAKER_04]: By which I’m assuming you can bring more outlandish ideas to the table.

      15:49.336 –> 15:52.719

      [SPEAKER_04]: Help the client push themselves further than you would normally be able to.

      15:52.779 –> 15:54.340

      [SPEAKER_04]: I guess I’m talking about experimentation.

      15:54.721 –> 16:00.586

      [SPEAKER_04]: Do you find this enables greater leaps forward more experimentation more openness to trying new things?

      16:00.926 –> 16:03.487

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I would say I don’t feel a boundary.

      16:03.528 –> 16:13.253

      [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned boundary, but for me it’s a very open, flowing, generative conversation where both the client or us bring different ideas and from that we decide what to do together.

      16:13.873 –> 16:21.998

      [SPEAKER_01]: So as you now mentioned this, we had this call, Jan, is about moving the look fabulous to our speedy platform because the speed was a critical matter.

      16:22.598 –> 16:26.501

      [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, that was quite a big job and it was just one conversation.

      16:26.541 –> 16:27.422

      [SPEAKER_01]: This is what we’ve done.

      16:27.782 –> 16:29.103

      [SPEAKER_01]: Please take a look at this project.

      16:29.123 –> 16:36.929

      [SPEAKER_01]: These are the results and we’ll as well in the process improve and renew the project and upgrade and we’ll do all these things at the same time.

      16:36.949 –> 16:42.753

      [SPEAKER_01]: And in just one call, I think Janice, you almost said yes to hundreds of hours of work.

      16:42.913 –> 16:44.455

      [SPEAKER_01]: It was just like conversation.

      16:44.995 –> 16:45.695

      [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, wow.

      16:46.616 –> 16:59.072

      [SPEAKER_04]: But because you know the client well enough to be able to bring the right things to the table, because you know their business, that bit better than if you’re just going, well, we’ve got this project to do in this project today.

      16:59.212 –> 17:04.099

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the key is trust that you mentioned because we have a different clients, a different

      17:04.399 –> 17:08.703

      [SPEAKER_01]: stage of growth and be shared these ideas where we feel it’s useful.

      17:09.103 –> 17:11.825

      [SPEAKER_01]: So different clients will be suggested different things.

      17:12.066 –> 17:20.372

      [SPEAKER_01]: And as Janice said, we know the businesses and we know other businesses and we have industry insights and we can really holistically look after clients.

      17:21.113 –> 17:25.534

      [SPEAKER_01]: plus another thing Chloe you mentioned, our developers, we don’t have managers.

      17:26.054 –> 17:38.658

      [SPEAKER_01]: We have self-organizing teams and our clients work with developers directly, which means they know people who are doing the work and they know me and I’m often holding relationship in the space and helping the technical decisions.

      17:38.718 –> 17:40.999

      [SPEAKER_01]: So we are all co-creating together.

      17:41.039 –> 17:42.079

      [SPEAKER_01]: There is no silo.

      17:42.479 –> 17:45.180

      [SPEAKER_04]: So there’s no a project manager as such.

      17:45.922 –> 17:46.983

      [SPEAKER_01]: No, not as such.

      17:47.103 –> 17:52.708

      [SPEAKER_01]: We have people who are, of course, looking after incoming work, but team is agreeing together and working together.

      17:52.908 –> 17:56.631

      [SPEAKER_01]: Often with clients, we would say, oh, can you please come on a call?

      17:56.711 –> 17:57.732

      [SPEAKER_01]: This is too complex.

      17:57.772 –> 17:58.873

      [SPEAKER_01]: Can they just explore?

      17:59.213 –> 18:02.496

      [SPEAKER_01]: So there is this exploration, experimentation.

      18:02.556 –> 18:04.718

      [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you’re not quite sure in the way forward.

      18:04.738 –> 18:09.762

      [SPEAKER_01]: So we would install something, take a little step, see what we’ve got and move from there.

      18:10.123 –> 18:11.023

      [SPEAKER_01]: So it’s a quite

      18:11.704 –> 18:27.581

      [SPEAKER_04]: careful and quite a fluid it must be such a fluid experience which makes me think right we talked about the needs to remove silos between partners between the agency and between the client but it also strikes me that this isn’t possible if you kind of

      18:28.202 –> 18:37.608

      [SPEAKER_04]: breach the wall of the agency and then there’s a load of silos, but you breach the wall of the client and then there’s a load of silos, which I suppose fits into the values and the mindset piece.

      18:38.409 –> 18:43.071

      [SPEAKER_04]: If there’s a client you’re going, everything has to come through me and you can’t talk to anybody else.

      18:43.772 –> 18:47.014

      [SPEAKER_04]: Or as an agency you’re going, you can only have a relationship with a project manager.

      18:47.434 –> 18:50.496

      [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody else is allowed in the Zoom call or whatever it might be.

      18:51.037 –> 18:54.138

      [SPEAKER_04]: At that point, this just isn’t going to work, is that you have to have that

      18:55.099 –> 18:57.321

      [SPEAKER_04]: that open relationship mindset.

      18:57.902 –> 19:11.554

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because it’s quite a lot of wisdom in the space and only when they bring together different people often on these goals or as well third party providers and in the conversation is actually where there is a juice and where new knowledge

      19:12.214 –> 19:14.375

      [SPEAKER_01]: happens and then we decide on the way forward.

      19:14.875 –> 19:24.438

      [SPEAKER_01]: I think in the past from knowing how we used to work, we would miss client requirements because they would receive something and we would do the job and client is like, this is not what I meant.

      19:24.658 –> 19:30.280

      [SPEAKER_01]: So over years, we need to put in different ways of reflecting, checking, asking, going on the call.

      19:30.740 –> 19:33.561

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you, this is about simplification.

      19:33.821 –> 19:36.742

      [SPEAKER_01]: We want to do the simplest, quickest, most efficient job.

      19:36.782 –> 19:37.742

      [SPEAKER_01]: The client will be happy.

      19:38.542 –> 19:43.711

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is quite our guys, like they’re proud of the excellent rook they do.

      19:43.771 –> 19:44.752

      [SPEAKER_01]: They want to do a good job.

      19:44.792 –> 19:46.315

      [SPEAKER_01]: We care a lot as an agency.

      19:46.670 –> 19:53.453

      [SPEAKER_04]: Whenever I think of this kind of web-do business, and I’m a believer, very much so, but you kind of think, oh, that’s gonna take more time.

      19:53.893 –> 19:58.095

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s gonna be more complicated for us as a business to manage a relationship like that.

      19:58.135 –> 20:03.458

      [SPEAKER_04]: Is that how you find it, Janice, or does this overall make your web relationship easier?

      20:03.838 –> 20:07.280

      [SPEAKER_02]: It definitely makes my life easier, as San was touched on.

      20:07.580 –> 20:13.023

      [SPEAKER_02]: If I brief something in, and I’ve said, I want to do it like this,

      20:14.043 –> 20:25.331

      [SPEAKER_02]: then I know that the developers will push back, if they say, actually, we know you’ve asked for this, but if you did it this way, it would cost you half the money.

      20:25.851 –> 20:34.958

      [SPEAKER_02]: And there are not many agencies that would take that approach, but they’d be like, look, that’s what she’s asked for, you know, it’s more billable hours, so we’re just going to do it that way.

      20:35.418 –> 20:44.422

      [SPEAKER_02]: So while it does take an hour out of my month having a deep, because it is normally a deep conversation with Sanyu about strategy, it’s the highlight of my month.

      20:44.582 –> 20:51.305

      [SPEAKER_02]: I so look forward to speaking with her because she’s a real partner in our business and I would consider her a friend.

      20:51.725 –> 20:52.625

      [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you, Janice.

      20:53.426 –> 21:00.549

      [SPEAKER_04]: I love that, because I don’t, I suspect most people listening are going, you’re meeting with your web agency as the highlight of your month.

      21:02.131 –> 21:10.479

      [SPEAKER_04]: you know, just go, I need some of that and I find it, it’s so into because often when we’re doing these podcast episodes, we dive into specific topic.

      21:10.519 –> 21:13.401

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s kind of like we end with a bit of a, so how can you fix it?

      21:13.441 –> 21:14.783

      [SPEAKER_04]: How can you do this in your business?

      21:14.823 –> 21:15.884

      [SPEAKER_04]: How can you embrace this?

      21:15.924 –> 21:18.566

      [SPEAKER_04]: But of course, it takes two to party, doesn’t it?

      21:18.606 –> 21:22.530

      [SPEAKER_04]: So it’s not like as a brand you can change an agency.

      21:23.860 –> 21:26.322

      [SPEAKER_04]: and or as an agency, you can change the client.

      21:26.802 –> 21:35.387

      [SPEAKER_04]: So if someone does realize they’re in the wrong space, is there any hope in helping their agency see the light, sanny, or do they need to think about moving on?

      21:35.767 –> 21:38.669

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I depends on what I find as well in my life.

      21:38.709 –> 21:44.553

      [SPEAKER_01]: He’s like, if we work with someone and things are not moving forward, there is a difficulty that is discomfort and

      21:45.073 –> 21:47.954

      [SPEAKER_01]: You know, often we have some gut feeling that something is not right.

      21:48.375 –> 21:51.196

      [SPEAKER_01]: I would invite audience to follow that gut feeling.

      21:51.236 –> 21:57.059

      [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if something is not right, we need to bring it with the other party and see, can be more one from there.

      21:57.439 –> 22:04.822

      [SPEAKER_01]: And if they’re repeating attempts to change something and improve something and nothing is happening, then I think the rest is waste of time and waste of energy.

      22:05.243 –> 22:06.223

      [SPEAKER_01]: So it’s time to move.

      22:08.204 –> 22:12.966

      [SPEAKER_03]: E-commerce master plan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.

      22:13.146 –> 22:14.387

      [SPEAKER_03]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

      22:21.083 –> 22:23.264

      [SPEAKER_03]: It’s time for the top tips round.

      22:25.185 –> 22:30.448

      [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

      22:30.848 –> 22:32.789

      [SPEAKER_04]: Ladies, are you ready for the top tips?

      22:33.670 –> 22:35.471

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, nervous.

      22:35.531 –> 22:36.611

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it’s all around there.

      22:36.671 –> 22:37.192

      [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, go.

      22:37.552 –> 22:40.654

      [SPEAKER_04]: Sandy, we’re going to start with you because I know you’ve got a great book top tip for us.

      22:40.714 –> 22:41.814

      [SPEAKER_04]: Say the book top tip.

      22:42.234 –> 22:48.758

      [SPEAKER_04]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

      22:49.237 –> 23:01.268

      [SPEAKER_01]: It is atomic habits by James Clear and it as well it goes well with this topic because it’s how you can do little experiments to introduce a change and it’s applicable in business and in life in general.

      23:01.849 –> 23:05.713

      [SPEAKER_04]: So a good way to get started with this mindset shift if someone wants to do that.

      23:06.233 –> 23:11.078

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, very cool atomic habits everybody then a class can we call it a classic yet.

      23:11.530 –> 23:13.531

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think we can’t wait.

      23:13.611 –> 23:14.872

      [SPEAKER_04]: I think it’s been out for a few years.

      23:15.212 –> 23:16.833

      [SPEAKER_04]: Janice, you get the traffic topped it.

      23:17.013 –> 23:21.196

      [SPEAKER_04]: So which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press?

      23:21.296 –> 23:21.976

      [SPEAKER_04]: It deserves.

      23:22.376 –> 23:28.660

      [SPEAKER_02]: Well, recently we’ve been experimenting a lot with avatarial, which is working really well for us, particularly digital avatarial.

      23:29.180 –> 23:31.822

      [SPEAKER_02]: And I think with the way that

      23:32.782 –> 23:36.085

      [SPEAKER_02]: SEO and AI as changing.

      23:36.366 –> 23:45.134

      [SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got these really credible sources talking about your brand, which is really helping teach LLMs about your brand helps from SEO perspective.

      23:45.194 –> 23:52.702

      [SPEAKER_02]: So as well as the advertorial itself, I think in the environment we’re trading in it’s got big long-term benefits as well.

      23:53.162 –> 23:58.347

      [SPEAKER_04]: And by digital advertorial, are we talking about people writing blogs about you?

      23:58.367 –> 24:00.709

      [SPEAKER_04]: Was it that simplistic or is it something else?

      24:01.110 –> 24:11.199

      [SPEAKER_02]: If normally publishes, so it might be the mail online or the Guardian website or so all the things that you would target from a digital PR perspective.

      24:11.860 –> 24:22.443

      [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of those publishers are willing to partner on avatar or where you’re specifying what it is that you want to say, what pages you want to link to, all of those things.

      24:22.483 –> 24:23.984

      [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s the best of both worlds.

      24:24.024 –> 24:33.707

      [SPEAKER_02]: You get your advertising stuff, but you’ve also got that kind of credibility of advertorial and link building and domain authority in all of those things.

      24:34.254 –> 24:35.114

      [SPEAKER_04]: Very nice.

      24:35.434 –> 24:35.875

      [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent.

      24:35.955 –> 24:36.675

      [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Sanja.

      24:37.075 –> 24:38.155

      [SPEAKER_04]: Tool-top tip is yours.

      24:38.256 –> 24:50.000

      [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe a collaboration tool, especially via plug-in, a phone app or just a way of working, is there a little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day and I am fascinated to find out what your answer to this one will be.

      24:50.528 –> 24:53.750

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, of course, it’s related to co-creative conversations.

      24:54.110 –> 25:04.737

      [SPEAKER_01]: And in particular, I like to follow a TREU framework, which is a place going through a complex challenges when we bring different voices and different things in the room.

      25:04.797 –> 25:09.139

      [SPEAKER_01]: And we co-create, cause sense, co-field, and make a step forward together.

      25:09.559 –> 25:11.961

      [SPEAKER_04]: So theory you, is that what it’s called?

      25:12.181 –> 25:13.782

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it’s a change.

      25:14.242 –> 25:15.623

      [SPEAKER_04]: A change management framework.

      25:15.803 –> 25:18.565

      [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that brings in a lot of emotional elements.

      25:19.091 –> 25:26.858

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because that’s actually the key because at the bottom of the theory you is actually where the breakthrough happens when we touch this hard place.

      25:26.898 –> 25:28.279

      [SPEAKER_01]: So we don’t know what to do.

      25:28.299 –> 25:31.201

      [SPEAKER_01]: This is the place of magic when the shift happens.

      25:31.521 –> 25:32.963

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can speak about this for ages.

      25:35.084 –> 25:36.245

      [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe another podcast.

      25:37.755 –> 25:42.118

      [SPEAKER_04]: Very cool, that’s one for us, certainly one for me to go and Google, because not one I’ve come across before.

      25:42.438 –> 25:49.623

      [SPEAKER_04]: So theory you, everybody, and signifyly carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

      25:49.972 –> 25:55.376

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we are crazy, fanatics about improvements, removing bottlenecks, improving speed.

      25:55.816 –> 26:03.161

      [SPEAKER_01]: So we would do anything to highlight problems, solve them before the happens and improve speed of the website.

      26:03.181 –> 26:08.305

      [SPEAKER_01]: And I think Janice with improving speed of look fabulous, I think we achieved some amazing results.

      26:08.717 –> 26:14.903

      [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I believe we went from something like ten seconds average page load time to about two seconds.

      26:14.963 –> 26:17.005

      [SPEAKER_02]: So it was a massive move.

      26:17.065 –> 26:20.529

      [SPEAKER_02]: So yes, from a carbon perspective, that makes a massive difference.

      26:21.022 –> 26:28.310

      [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and what an eighty percent reduction in energy, because literally time is speed is money and energy when it comes to carbon.

      26:28.350 –> 26:31.493

      [SPEAKER_04]: And so now you mentioned about moving bottlenecks and blockages.

      26:31.553 –> 26:40.022

      [SPEAKER_04]: Is that purely from a code perspective or is that from a team and a structure and a decision making as well as simply speeding up the site?

      26:40.102 –> 26:42.425

      [SPEAKER_04]: She says simply speeding up the site like that was ever simple.

      26:42.605 –> 26:53.434

      [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there is of course technical side removing bottlenecks in that way, but I would say like difficult relationships are as well a bottleneck, and I think it’s a bigger bottleneck difficult relationship than technical problem.

      26:53.854 –> 26:58.959

      [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it goes everywhere, as I said before, it’s holistically removing any possible bottleneck.

      26:59.399 –> 27:03.263

      [SPEAKER_04]: the elimination of waste, the alternative name for the world of sustainability.

      27:03.323 –> 27:03.684

      [SPEAKER_04]: I love it.

      27:03.824 –> 27:04.304

      [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

      27:04.605 –> 27:09.650

      [SPEAKER_04]: Before we say goodbye, I know the listeners would love to know how they can get in contact with both of you and find out more about your business.

      27:09.710 –> 27:13.094

      [SPEAKER_04]: I’ll come to you first Janice, where can they get in contact with you if they want to?

      27:13.675 –> 27:17.739

      [SPEAKER_02]: You can find me on LinkedIn and we are look fabulous for our.com.

      27:18.139 –> 27:20.121

      [SPEAKER_02]: I love the website built by two by one.

      27:20.760 –> 27:21.340

      [SPEAKER_04]: Perfect.

      27:22.021 –> 27:30.705

      [SPEAKER_04]: Sanya, let us know a little bit more about what you guys do day-to-day at two-by-one click and then how people can get in contact with you if they want to continue this discussion.

      27:31.265 –> 27:40.229

      [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we are solely focused on specialising in Magento and Adobe Comments and since recently I am very much in a leadership role and as well

      27:41.069 –> 27:45.913

      [SPEAKER_01]: meet Magenta speaker, so I will be my Tony and still check me on the LinkedIn profile.

      27:45.953 –> 27:57.543

      [SPEAKER_01]: I have some very interesting posts down the line about this book here, and as well my YouTube video from Meet Magenta, which was exactly on this topic, co-creation, experimentation, and co-creating future together.

      27:58.053 –> 28:02.814

      [SPEAKER_04]: very cool and we’ll make sure links to all of that are in the show notes for all of you.

      28:02.834 –> 28:09.555

      [SPEAKER_04]: For those of you watching on the web version, we’ll just put up how you can chat with Sanya further on the video as well.

      28:10.155 –> 28:16.956

      [SPEAKER_04]: And I would highly recommend going and checking out the meat magenta UK videos because it’s very cool that they just chuck it all up on YouTube.

      28:17.516 –> 28:20.617

      [SPEAKER_04]: More conferences should do that for those who can’t make it in person.

      28:20.697 –> 28:23.937

      [SPEAKER_04]: So thank you so much Sanya and Janice with being on the show.

      28:23.977 –> 28:26.718

      [SPEAKER_04]: It’s been a pleasure chatting with you both and I hope

      28:27.358 –> 28:38.885

      [SPEAKER_04]: I hope you’ve inspired more brands to build better agency relationships as we go into peak and big changes quite possibly in twenty to twenty six.

      28:38.905 –> 28:41.046

      [SPEAKER_04]: So thank you so much for being here to chat about it.

      28:41.126 –> 28:42.487

      [SPEAKER_04]: I really appreciate it.

      28:42.647 –> 28:43.208

      [SPEAKER_04]: So thank you.

      28:43.608 –> 28:44.628

      [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having us.

      28:44.849 –> 28:45.209

      [SPEAKER_00]: Glory.

      28:45.289 –> 28:46.870

      [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you Janice for joining me today.

      28:52.425 –> 28:56.909

      [SPEAKER_04]: what a great topic to get into and to get to see both sides of it.

      28:57.029 –> 29:19.147

      [SPEAKER_04]: How that process that Sanyan her team have been through to create a business that’s able to have those open, honest, co-supportive conversations with their clients and also get the insights from Janice on how it’s happened for their business and how, I mean, you know, she said she came from a

      29:19.667 –> 29:23.091

      [SPEAKER_04]: previous businesses where she’d always had some element of the web team in house.

      29:23.351 –> 29:32.942

      [SPEAKER_04]: So a big shift is suddenly having it all outsourced, but to be able to say that the highlight of her month is her catch up with her web dev team.

      29:34.162 –> 29:52.236

      [SPEAKER_04]: Madness, just for many of you are going, I don’t believe it, but it is the case for the two of them and for how they’ve built that relationship together driven by what the agency wants and the way the agency wants to work with their clients to create those long term impactful relationships.

      29:52.897 –> 29:55.419

      [SPEAKER_04]: Of course, as we said during the call, if you’re not

      29:56.189 –> 29:59.770

      [SPEAKER_04]: of the same mindset of the same values, it’s going to be very, very hard to build that.

      29:59.850 –> 30:05.411

      [SPEAKER_04]: And it’s not something you can really fix as a client, unless your agency’s already pushing for it and you’ve been resisting.

      30:05.831 –> 30:11.233

      [SPEAKER_04]: So I hope this doesn’t cause too many of you pain in moving to another agency.

      30:11.733 –> 30:18.994

      [SPEAKER_04]: But I really hope it has both inspired some of you to realize that the grass is greener elsewhere and that there is opportunity with this.

      30:19.014 –> 30:25.816

      [SPEAKER_04]: If you’re going down that route, make sure you do the due diligence on finding the right type of agency that fits for you.

      30:26.496 –> 30:30.898

      [SPEAKER_04]: And if there’s any agencies listing who are going, oh, wow, we want to go down that route.

      30:31.038 –> 30:34.179

      [SPEAKER_04]: I suspect San you would be happy to chat to you guys about it too.

      30:34.199 –> 30:44.103

      [SPEAKER_04]: Now you can get your hands on our notes from the episode, including those top tips, the links to the YouTube, video and other bits and pieces by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.

      30:44.483 –> 30:49.225

      [SPEAKER_04]: You could also use our direct to episode short links, just put ECMP or info forward slash

      30:49.705 –> 30:54.747

      [SPEAKER_04]: The number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page of the website.

      30:55.208 –> 31:02.731

      [SPEAKER_04]: When you get to the site, you could also add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things I share to help you improve your business.

      31:03.191 –> 31:07.853

      [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode that you do of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

      31:08.254 –> 31:10.855

      [SPEAKER_04]: I bring you a new interview every single week.

      31:11.295 –> 31:19.758

      [SPEAKER_04]: because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners just like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.

      31:20.218 –> 31:25.359

      [SPEAKER_04]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

      31:25.699 –> 31:28.440

      [SPEAKER_04]: And you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

      31:28.460 –> 31:34.822

      [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

      31:35.302 –> 31:40.104

      [SPEAKER_03]: Find out more at e-commerce masterplan.com slash podcast.

      32 min
    • eCommerce MasterPlan | 556: The MASAMI Story: Bootstrapping a Premium Haircare Brand Through Collaboration

      Lynn Power is the co-founder and CEO at MASAMI a premium haircare brand. Founded in 2019 they now sell via their Shopify store and wholesale via Faire. Currently sales have reached just under $1million. Lynn’s also the founder of the Power Beauty Collab which she launched  in 2022 as a way for indie brands to help each other grow. 

       

      In this episode, Lynn shares the smart, scrappy strategies that helped her grow MASAMI—and how other indie eCommerce brands can do the same. 

       

      Hit PLAY to hear: 

       

      • How Lynn built MASAMI into a nearly $1M brand—without big budgets  
      • The clever “pop-in” strategy that’s changing how indie brands do retail  
      • Why cash flow—not competition—is what kills most eCommerce brands  
      • The power of brand values (and how to use yours to drive growth)  
      • What most founders get wrong about launching new products  
      • Lynn’s secret sauce for retail sell-through success  

        •  

        Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

        [03:48] Hair Hydration Breakthrough Partnership 

        [09:35] Conscious Beauty Collective Origins 

        [13:30] Temporary Retail Partnerships Strategy 

        [16:54] Multi-Location Strategy Stabilizes Business 

        [18:21] “Brand Values and Smart Collaborations” 

        [21:21] Listen to Lynn’s Top Tips! 

         Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/556

        .

        .

        This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

        Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

        —

        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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        Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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        WEBVTT

        00:00.231 –> 00:02.732

        [SPEAKER_02]: Cash flow is the number one reason businesses die.

        00:03.032 –> 00:16.595

        [SPEAKER_02]: When you actually start to launch your product, you have stuff out there, just double your budget because whatever you think you’re going to need, it’s always way more because there’s stuff that you just don’t anticipate.

        00:16.655 –> 00:27.277

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have to figure that out whether it’s getting alone or you’re anticipating your needs and kind of stockpiling, but that’s a big mistake I see a lot of founders make.

        00:30.152 –> 00:32.536

        [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

        00:33.097 –> 00:37.163

        [SPEAKER_00]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

        00:37.684 –> 00:45.476

        [SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

        00:48.806 –> 00:51.169

        [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome it’s great to have you here.

        00:51.249 –> 00:55.094

        [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

        00:55.675 –> 01:04.747

        [SPEAKER_01]: Now regular listeners will know that I love to give a shout out to people who are kind enough to shout about us somewhere on social or getting contact.

        01:05.868 –> 01:10.010

        [SPEAKER_01]: So, huge thanks at the beginning of this episode to Adam Pearce, yes.

        01:10.330 –> 01:13.231

        [SPEAKER_01]: Those of you in the UK, that Adam Pearce.

        01:13.271 –> 01:17.832

        [SPEAKER_01]: For putting a very cool comment on Spotify about one of our recent episodes.

        01:17.872 –> 01:23.214

        [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it was episode five hundred and thirty-one another beauty episode with Jamie from Cookie.

        01:24.214 –> 01:26.575

        [SPEAKER_01]: So, Adam, thank you for listening.

        01:26.635 –> 01:30.837

        [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for saying amazing podcast in your comments as well.

        01:31.977 –> 01:32.277

        [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

        01:32.577 –> 01:33.498

        [SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing in this episode?

        01:33.518 –> 01:34.659

        [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we’re talking beauty.

        01:35.119 –> 01:36.120

        [SPEAKER_01]: We’re talking hair care.

        01:36.600 –> 01:39.141

        [SPEAKER_01]: We have a lovely person joining us.

        01:39.301 –> 01:42.283

        [SPEAKER_01]: He’s going to be sharing her thoughts on marketing.

        01:42.303 –> 01:44.044

        [SPEAKER_01]: We’re mainly talking marketing in this one.

        01:44.485 –> 01:50.068

        [SPEAKER_01]: Fabulous sustainability too, but she’ll be giving us her bootstrapped marketing tips.

        01:50.648 –> 01:54.711

        [SPEAKER_01]: She’ll also be taking us through a very cool strategy.

        01:54.811 –> 02:00.114

        [SPEAKER_01]: She’s using collaborating with other brands to create pop-ins rather than pop-ups.

        02:00.594 –> 02:20.485

        [SPEAKER_01]: I’ll let her explain it, but it’s a very cool strategy that I think many of you could benefit from and make sure listen to the end because her traffic top tip about Pinterest and Facebook ads and something else is very, very intriguing and is going to get you thinking.

        02:20.985 –> 02:22.086

        [SPEAKER_01]: So make sure listen to the end.

        02:28.082 –> 02:35.686

        [SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest, Lynn Power is the co-founder and CEO at Massamy, a premium hair care brand.

        02:36.066 –> 02:41.729

        [SPEAKER_01]: Founded in, in, they now sell via their Shopify store and wholesale via fair.

        02:42.189 –> 02:45.291

        [SPEAKER_01]: Currently sales have reached just under one million dollars.

        02:45.711 –> 02:53.976

        [SPEAKER_01]: Lynn is also the founder of the Power Beauty collab, which she launched in, in, twenty-twenty-two as a way for indie brands to help each other grow.

        02:54.036 –> 02:54.716

        [SPEAKER_01]: Hello Lynn.

        02:55.116 –> 02:56.397

        [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, thanks for having me.

        02:56.897 –> 03:02.400

        [SPEAKER_01]: Great to have you on the show so much that we can talk about, but how did you end up in the world of e-commerce?

        03:02.800 –> 03:18.227

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is a very good question, because I spent my almost thirty-year career in advertising, and I was running a large global agency and was just not feeling super fulfilled by that anymore, because my job had become very bureaucratic.

        03:19.007 –> 03:24.690

        [SPEAKER_02]: I was dealing with lawsuits, HR issues, finance meetings, not my jam.

        03:25.910 –> 03:28.272

        [SPEAKER_02]: So I decided to leave in twenty eighteen.

        03:28.292 –> 03:36.819

        [SPEAKER_02]: I was doing some consulting with startups because I really liked the idea of getting back to helping businesses grow and seeing almost, you know, instant impact.

        03:37.840 –> 03:44.065

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I ended up meeting my co-founder, James, who had been working on hair care formulations for ten years.

        03:46.326 –> 04:04.746

        [SPEAKER_02]: He had worked at Clara all for twenty years and I will admit I was very skeptical when I met him that he could come up with anything good because he’s one one dude trying to crack basically crack the number one hair issue hydration and he wanted to figure out a way to do it without weighing your hair down which I loved

        04:05.487 –> 04:06.588

        [SPEAKER_02]: But that’s not easy to do.

        04:07.249 –> 04:10.412

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it took them obviously, you know, hence the ten years.

        04:11.052 –> 04:12.293

        [SPEAKER_02]: But I tried the products.

        04:12.373 –> 04:13.074

        [SPEAKER_02]: I love them.

        04:13.094 –> 04:20.020

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it worked out great because he had basically products that were about eighty percent there.

        04:20.941 –> 04:21.762

        [SPEAKER_02]: And nothing else.

        04:22.322 –> 04:24.785

        [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, my background being marketing.

        04:26.187 –> 04:37.039

        [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we did, we actually started with cleaning up the products a little bit and then doing consumer testing, but then the brand name, the packaging, the e-com strategy, the good market strategy, all that stuff.

        04:37.880 –> 04:41.704

        [SPEAKER_02]: We’re able to do because he is like zero expertise.

        04:42.740 –> 04:47.522

        [SPEAKER_02]: in like commercializing a business or anything kind of marketing related.

        04:47.602 –> 04:53.665

        [SPEAKER_02]: So that’s a good partnership when you have complimentary skill sets and you don’t step on each other’s toes.

        04:54.405 –> 04:55.066

        [SPEAKER_02]: I love that.

        04:55.166 –> 04:56.987

        [SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like you found the perfect person.

        04:57.327 –> 04:57.567

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

        04:58.590 –> 05:00.332

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it’s worked out quite well.

        05:00.632 –> 05:05.556

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I think also, you know, when you can align on values, that is important too.

        05:05.596 –> 05:07.858

        [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted the brand to be inclusive.

        05:08.499 –> 05:11.401

        [SPEAKER_02]: So we tested on every type of hair we could find.

        05:12.062 –> 05:18.007

        [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we wanted to be sustainably minded, which goes well beyond just the formulas.

        05:18.327 –> 05:20.970

        [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, those were really important.

        05:21.410 –> 05:22.851

        [SPEAKER_02]: And we wanted to give back

        05:23.712 –> 05:32.402

        [SPEAKER_02]: And so we actually set up the Mosme Institute when we launched as a way to support ocean education and research where we get our heroic gradient in Japan.

        05:33.265 –> 05:33.845

        [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

        05:33.926 –> 05:42.032

        [SPEAKER_01]: And how has it been going from kind of high powered ad exec to start up e-commerce store?

        05:42.132 –> 05:48.677

        [SPEAKER_01]: Because there’s very, I mean, some of this, the concepts are the same, but the day-to-day is very, very different, I would have thought.

        05:49.218 –> 05:50.899

        [SPEAKER_02]: The day-to-day is very different.

        05:51.360 –> 05:58.886

        [SPEAKER_02]: It sort of takes me back to when I started my career and was dealing with a lot of, you know, the executional things, although back in those days, my God,

        05:59.880 –> 06:01.301

        [SPEAKER_02]: We didn’t really even have a email.

        06:01.542 –> 06:02.022

        [SPEAKER_02]: Let alone.

        06:03.304 –> 06:04.064

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s crazy.

        06:05.686 –> 06:12.933

        [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, when they when we did mechanicals for for creative, they were literally physical boards that were mocked up.

        06:13.013 –> 06:20.061

        [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, I digress, but it’s not that different in the sense of, you know, you are dealing with a lot of the.

        06:20.946 –> 06:31.134

        [SPEAKER_02]: inner workings and mechanical things around the business, whether that’s creative or apps or code or all that stuff.

        06:31.194 –> 06:42.222

        [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, but I really enjoy that part of the business because I feel like after you’ve been sort of high level for a while, you start to feel like you’re not grounded in anything.

        06:43.423 –> 06:45.945

        [SPEAKER_02]: And this is very grounding almost too much.

        06:48.598 –> 06:49.699

        [SPEAKER_02]: Can’t have everything, so.

        06:50.640 –> 06:53.341

        [SPEAKER_01]: So the product is, I mean, there’s several products now.

        06:53.382 –> 06:55.503

        [SPEAKER_01]: So tell us a little bit about the product set, please.

        06:56.003 –> 06:56.284

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

        06:56.384 –> 07:02.048

        [SPEAKER_02]: So we launched with four formulas, a shampoo, a conditioner, a shine serum, a styling cream.

        07:03.209 –> 07:13.776

        [SPEAKER_02]: About a year later, we launched a large size sustainable refillable bottle and pouches, because we’re trying to continue to grow our sustainability

        07:14.797 –> 07:19.727

        [SPEAKER_02]: Practice, then we also launched a scalp scrubber and a sustainable hair towel.

        07:20.148 –> 07:23.394

        [SPEAKER_02]: The hair towel is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

        07:24.858 –> 07:29.421

        [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we’ve been growing slow and steady.

        07:29.441 –> 07:39.326

        [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I will say like, I’m glad we haven’t added to our assortment yet, because I still feel like there’s so much runway with our current products.

        07:40.027 –> 07:47.691

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I think brands have this phomo of wanting to jump on the latest trend, whatever that may be.

        07:48.751 –> 07:51.093

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it can be really distracting.

        07:52.175 –> 07:56.057

        [SPEAKER_01]: It’s so much easier when you’ve only got a limited number of products to deal with.

        07:56.077 –> 07:59.598

        [SPEAKER_01]: So keeping things straight forward, what does the team look like?

        07:59.998 –> 08:03.740

        [SPEAKER_01]: Is it still just the two of you or have you expanded and you outsourcing anything?

        08:04.190 –> 08:09.413

        [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so James, my partner doesn’t really, he’s not really active in the business day today.

        08:09.994 –> 08:14.596

        [SPEAKER_02]: But I have a couple of sort of helpers, my daughter who does some graphics.

        08:14.837 –> 08:16.898

        [SPEAKER_02]: Thank God, she’s a really good artist.

        08:17.498 –> 08:23.522

        [SPEAKER_02]: My niece helps me with some kind of, I guess you’d call it retention marketing and operations.

        08:24.362 –> 08:25.963

        [SPEAKER_02]: My brother does the fulfillment.

        08:26.764 –> 08:29.686

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s, it’s, it’s really a family business right now.

        08:30.566 –> 08:31.407

        [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

        08:31.507 –> 08:42.921

        [SPEAKER_01]: So I mentioned in the intro that you set up your collaboration group, the Power Beauty collab to help indie brands work together to grow.

        08:43.421 –> 08:49.448

        [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a bit more about how that works and a little bit about why you decided to do it, too, please.

        08:50.245 –> 08:53.427

        [SPEAKER_02]: Well, okay, let’s start with the why I decided to do it.

        08:53.747 –> 08:58.650

        [SPEAKER_02]: I had launch Moss Me in twenty-twenty at New York Fashion Week and then COVID hit a couple weeks later.

        08:59.250 –> 09:08.456

        [SPEAKER_02]: So that first year we did a lot of brand partnerships, really out of pragmatism, but I really enjoyed doing them and they really were helpful for us to grow organically.

        09:09.096 –> 09:11.717

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then in twenty-twenty-one, I got breast cancer.

        09:12.398 –> 09:18.662

        [SPEAKER_02]: I had a rare aggressive stage three breast cancer and had to have chemo surgery and radiation.

        09:20.047 –> 09:24.449

        [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was going through that, I was trying to figure out, you know, my business was a year old.

        09:24.930 –> 09:27.371

        [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of keep that going, how to keep myself going.

        09:27.411 –> 09:35.575

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I realized the brand partnerships were so valuable for the business in growing organically that I wanted to double down on that.

        09:35.815 –> 09:38.476

        [SPEAKER_02]: And so that’s how we, we were born.

        09:38.516 –> 09:39.897

        [SPEAKER_02]: We, I decided to launch

        09:40.706 –> 09:53.074

        [SPEAKER_02]: The collective at the time it was called conscious beauty collective, but since we’ve we’ve rebranded, but we started with a location in Stone Sound Gallery in San Francisco for three months and did our own store.

        09:54.094 –> 09:56.796

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it was sort of a proof of concept and it worked really well.

        09:56.816 –> 10:10.564

        [SPEAKER_02]: We had thirty two brands and then we did a few of our other other stores and then now we do what I call pop-ins, which are curated shelves of anywhere between six and twelve products that we pop into and existing retailer.

        10:11.465 –> 10:17.529

        [SPEAKER_02]: So that is what we focus on, but we do a lot of co-marketing around that, whether that’s, you know,

        10:18.854 –> 10:26.700

        [SPEAKER_02]: We have a digital magazine, influencer outreach, live streaming, live shopping, giveaways, all sorts of things.

        10:26.820 –> 10:43.253

        [SPEAKER_02]: We do a lot of collabs, brands pretty much find me by word of mouth and referral, and then they pay a fairly small fee to join, and then we just try to do as much as we can to kind of help each other grow.

        10:44.142 –> 10:44.802

        [SPEAKER_01]: very cool.

        10:45.242 –> 10:58.747

        [SPEAKER_01]: So I love the pop-in idea of rather than the logistical challenge of staffing and managing a whole physical store for a couple of days or a week, you’re taking over a small part of someone else’s store.

        10:59.348 –> 11:06.950

        [SPEAKER_01]: But then still doing all the marketing, all the activation, all the collaborative activity that makes it a success.

        11:07.531 –> 11:07.871

        [SPEAKER_01]: It seems

        11:09.090 –> 11:14.371

        [SPEAKER_01]: I don’t know if anybody else doing it, but it seems such an obvious step in some ways.

        11:14.992 –> 11:15.632

        [SPEAKER_02]: That’s the thing.

        11:15.752 –> 11:20.093

        [SPEAKER_02]: It is interesting because I do have a lot of people saying, oh, that’s so interesting and so innovative.

        11:20.133 –> 11:21.213

        [SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, it’s really not.

        11:21.994 –> 11:26.075

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s kind of, you know, and there are other people that do it.

        11:26.175 –> 11:29.516

        [SPEAKER_02]: There are a couple other similar concepts here in the US.

        11:30.456 –> 11:38.338

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s not like it’s crazy, you know, innovative, but I think what we do a little differently is we pay rent to our retail partner.

        11:39.077 –> 11:57.900

        [SPEAKER_02]: And we pay twenty percent commission and the reason I do both of those is because the rent is meaningful because we we work with a lot of small businesses, salons, stores, boutiques, medsphas, but you know, they they’re hurting to it’s not like, you know, it’s that easy for us and they’re just, you know,

        11:58.857 –> 12:07.399

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s meaningful and then the commission is the incentive to get them to actually sell through our products because it’s one thing to put up a shelf and pay rent.

        12:07.439 –> 12:09.400

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s another to actually get the product sold.

        12:10.020 –> 12:18.863

        [SPEAKER_02]: The thing that most people don’t realize and this includes most of the founders in the collab is that getting your products into retail is not the hard part.

        12:20.072 –> 12:23.855

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s all the stuff you need to do to sell your products in retail.

        12:24.015 –> 12:24.896

        [SPEAKER_02]: That’s the hard part.

        12:25.617 –> 12:38.608

        [SPEAKER_02]: And so that’s why we use the money we get from the brands to do marketing around the store and help everybody make sure it’s a success.

        12:39.794 –> 12:42.776

        [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s kind of that scenario.

        12:42.816 –> 12:47.119

        [SPEAKER_01]: I think you’re so right, so many people think, all right, we’ve got listed in Walmart.

        12:47.319 –> 12:49.060

        [SPEAKER_01]: Life will be easy for now.

        12:49.100 –> 12:49.880

        [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no.

        12:50.441 –> 12:54.703

        [SPEAKER_01]: That was like the door opened a teeny tiny bit and you’ve got so much other work to do.

        12:54.864 –> 13:01.388

        [SPEAKER_01]: And it’s exactly the same if you’re doing a pop up or a pop in and even with your own store, but obviously when you’ve got

        13:02.463 –> 13:09.145

        [SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got the store owner incentivized to help because they’ve got that commission coming through and the rental on the shelf.

        13:09.225 –> 13:14.206

        [SPEAKER_01]: Then you’ve also got all your partners invested in it.

        13:15.007 –> 13:24.149

        [SPEAKER_01]: I would assume that when they go well, particularly well, you’ve got the store owner going, when are you going to come back?

        13:24.389 –> 13:25.289

        [SPEAKER_01]: Can we do this once a year?

        13:25.330 –> 13:25.910

        [SPEAKER_01]: Can we do this?

        13:27.170 –> 13:28.770

        [SPEAKER_01]: Does it become overkill, I suppose?

        13:30.883 –> 13:43.974

        [SPEAKER_02]: So actually what we do is we commit to three months for both the brands and the store, which allows us enough time to kind of evaluate whether this is going to be a workable concept.

        13:44.955 –> 13:49.239

        [SPEAKER_02]: And the right partnership, because not every partnership, frankly, is the right fit.

        13:49.599 –> 13:53.582

        [SPEAKER_02]: And also make sure the brands are the right fit for the store and the demographics.

        13:54.443 –> 13:59.326

        [SPEAKER_02]: At the end of the three months, we all kind of discuss it and evaluate and decide if we want to extend.

        14:00.147 –> 14:14.795

        [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, we have fourteen locations that we’re doing and about ten of them are extended from one of them, the very first one we did was June of last year and that one’s still going.

        14:15.456 –> 14:18.818

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have several from last year that are still going.

        14:19.838 –> 14:24.103

        [SPEAKER_02]: And when they work well, there’s no reason to stop it.

        14:24.223 –> 14:32.812

        [SPEAKER_02]: And the benefit for the brands and the retailers when your products are sold in a specific location and consumer start to understand that and expect that.

        14:34.006 –> 14:40.670

        [SPEAKER_02]: Then it becomes hopefully you’re not only acquiring new customers, but they’re coming back and buying more.

        14:41.490 –> 14:48.234

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then we also do samples, which work really well, because we’ll give out samples and people will come back and convert on the samples.

        14:49.134 –> 15:00.320

        [SPEAKER_02]: So having these B, I mean, the name sounds temporary and it can be temporary, but to have them be more semi-permanent is actually better.

        15:01.770 –> 15:05.472

        [SPEAKER_01]: Because I guess then you just have them kind of like slowly stacking on top of each other.

        15:06.233 –> 15:12.356

        [SPEAKER_01]: So they’re constantly driving new customers and awareness and revenue, but not stopping.

        15:12.697 –> 15:21.162

        [SPEAKER_01]: So rather than launching and stopping and launching and stopping in that constant churn going on, you’ve actually got something that’s stacking up and driving more and more impact.

        15:21.422 –> 15:28.246

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s more scalable because now we have, like I said, fourteen, we’re launching another one in San Diego and June.

        15:29.006 –> 15:29.867

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then from there,

        15:31.419 –> 15:39.685

        [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there probably will be one or two that I end up closing, but you kind of refine the system for the ones that work.

        15:40.526 –> 15:41.967

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then we’ll keep launching more.

        15:42.107 –> 15:45.110

        [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, by the end of the year, we could have twenty or twenty five.

        15:45.270 –> 15:53.236

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then it starts to feel pretty meaningful in terms of visibility, distribution, awareness, all that stuff that we need.

        15:54.231 –> 15:54.951

        [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

        15:55.091 –> 16:05.877

        [SPEAKER_01]: And so for you, is that more about new customer acquisition and brand awareness as like a traditional pop-up, you know, short-term pop-up would be?

        16:06.498 –> 16:13.322

        [SPEAKER_01]: Or is it now becoming more of a solid, reliable, revenue source?

        16:14.302 –> 16:15.543

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a little bit of both.

        16:15.883 –> 16:20.365

        [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them are reliable revenue, which is great.

        16:20.906 –> 16:22.346

        [SPEAKER_02]: And others are more

        16:23.623 –> 16:25.385

        [SPEAKER_02]: unexpected or unpredictable.

        16:25.646 –> 16:28.950

        [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is there are so many factors.

        16:29.571 –> 16:37.962

        [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, being in the US also having a pop-up in California is really different than doing it in New York for so many reasons.

        16:38.082 –> 16:39.564

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then you factor in things like

        16:40.545 –> 16:48.649

        [SPEAKER_02]: seasonality, you know, if you’re somewhere, and it’s, you know, I live in Palm Springs, it gets to be a hundred and twenty degrees here in the summer.

        16:49.550 –> 16:50.810

        [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know what that is Celsius.

        16:50.850 –> 16:52.411

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a lot, forty something.

        16:52.711 –> 16:54.292

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s uncomfortable.

        16:54.452 –> 16:55.993

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s super hot.

        16:56.113 –> 17:02.616

        [SPEAKER_02]: So like during the summer here, you know, the business is slow, but then it picks up in the winter.

        17:02.697 –> 17:06.358

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have, but it’s the opposite, you know, in

        17:08.153 –> 17:10.795

        [SPEAKER_02]: in the East Coast or in a Chicago or somewhere like that.

        17:10.875 –> 17:30.931

        [SPEAKER_02]: So having multiple locations and multiple geographies kind of allows you to sort of flatten that line across everything so that you’ll have blips and divots along the way, but across your business, you’ve got some consistency which is really good.

        17:32.091 –> 17:35.293

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then yes, regular sales is fantastic.

        17:35.353 –> 17:41.057

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then the ability to acquire new customers all the time, which is such an important part of anyone’s business.

        17:42.138 –> 17:48.702

        [SPEAKER_02]: And when you’re in beauty, which is so crowded, you’re constantly on the hunt because your customers are fickle.

        17:49.122 –> 17:56.988

        [SPEAKER_02]: And even though they may love your product, it’s just too easy for them to have their head turned by something else.

        17:58.183 –> 18:00.045

        [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, very much so in the beauty space.

        18:00.705 –> 18:04.948

        [SPEAKER_01]: So you obviously have that amazing marketing and advertising background.

        18:05.028 –> 18:20.921

        [SPEAKER_01]: So what, what would your key recommendations be for anyone else in, I guess in the beauty space who’s bootstrapping, who’s at the similar stage to you, what, what are your, if you’re willing to share, what are your go to marketing strategies tactics at the moment?

        18:21.481 –> 18:30.131

        [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the first thing is basic, which is understand your brand values, your brand story, and your foundation, which shockingly a lot of brands don’t do.

        18:31.052 –> 18:40.263

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it just means like take some time to map all that out so that you really understand it, because it really helps inform a lot of your marketing and your choices.

        18:40.944 –> 18:42.305

        [SPEAKER_02]: even like who we partner with.

        18:42.445 –> 18:50.149

        [SPEAKER_02]: And when I launched the Power Beauty collab, I wanted to partner with indie brands because I feel strongly about supporting small business.

        18:50.769 –> 18:57.773

        [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to partner with brands that were clean formulas by EU standards, forget the US standards because they’re all over the place.

        18:58.133 –> 19:01.134

        [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, there is no consistent standard here.

        19:01.875 –> 19:05.997

        [SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to follow the EU, which is much more rigorous and

        19:06.737 –> 19:07.057

        [SPEAKER_02]: better.

        19:08.219 –> 19:24.014

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then I wanted brands that share our values meaning you’ve got some kind of give back strategy, sustainability, minded strategy, your vegan fair trade or cruelty free like you have these things baked into your ethos, they’re not an afterthought.

        19:25.335 –> 19:28.117

        [SPEAKER_02]: And brands that are diverse as well.

        19:28.317 –> 19:39.062

        [SPEAKER_02]: And so getting all that sort of sorted for yourself and understanding how it’s going to also manifest in the real world, because some of these terms can start sounding generic.

        19:39.954 –> 19:42.075

        [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you need to make them real.

        19:42.695 –> 19:43.735

        [SPEAKER_02]: That step one.

        19:43.755 –> 19:54.117

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then step two is when you actually start to launch your product, you have step out there, you know, you have your go to market strategy and all that.

        19:54.838 –> 20:04.960

        [SPEAKER_02]: Just double your budget because whatever you think you’re going to need, it’s always way more because there’s there’s stuff that you just don’t anticipate.

        20:05.900 –> 20:07.320

        [SPEAKER_02]: I’m moving from New York to California.

        20:07.700 –> 20:12.882

        [SPEAKER_02]: California charges an eight hundred dollar franchise tax every year, just because you live here.

        20:13.402 –> 20:18.663

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like, well, that’s got to come, you know, like, all this stuff comes from somewhere.

        20:18.743 –> 20:20.043

        [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to budget for it.

        20:20.123 –> 20:23.364

        [SPEAKER_02]: And there’s surprises, lots of surprises along the way.

        20:23.444 –> 20:24.264

        [SPEAKER_02]: Now we have tariffs.

        20:25.004 –> 20:26.904

        [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, people didn’t budget for that.

        20:27.205 –> 20:33.366

        [SPEAKER_02]: So just plan to have, because cash flow is the number one reason businesses die.

        20:34.537 –> 20:49.005

        [SPEAKER_02]: So if you don’t plan ahead for some of that, and especially if you’re in a business where you have inventory and you’re making products, every time I make, I need more inventory, it’s like fifty thousand dollars, which I don’t have sitting around, right?

        20:49.085 –> 21:00.472

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have to figure that out whether it’s getting alone or you’re anticipating your needs and kind of stockpiling, but that’s a big mistake I see a lot of founders make.

        21:03.749 –> 21:08.554

        [SPEAKER_00]: The Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

        21:08.714 –> 21:10.116

        [SPEAKER_00]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

        21:21.447 –> 21:26.850

        [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and all listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

        21:26.870 –> 21:28.471

        [SPEAKER_01]: Say, Lynn, are you ready for the top tips?

        21:28.891 –> 21:29.211

        [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

        21:29.711 –> 21:31.152

        [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.

        21:31.272 –> 21:38.256

        [SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

        21:39.396 –> 21:43.478

        [SPEAKER_02]: I actually got so much out of the book thinking fast, thinking slow.

        21:43.498 –> 21:44.619

        [SPEAKER_02]: I’m Daniel Kahneman.

        21:44.979 –> 21:45.820

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s not a new book.

        21:46.699 –> 22:02.286

        [SPEAKER_02]: But if you’ve never really dealt into the psychology of decision-making, it’s fascinating and very relevant for today more than ever because it really talks about how our reptilian brains are constantly trying to make fast decisions.

        22:03.106 –> 22:09.609

        [SPEAKER_02]: And that’s what we do with everything, whether it’s politics, brand choices, friends, et cetera, and so

        22:11.590 –> 22:20.232

        [SPEAKER_02]: knowing how to shortcut and rewire like you’re marketing to appeal to people’s reptilian brains is very helpful.

        22:21.532 –> 22:22.052

        [SPEAKER_01]: So helpful.

        22:22.353 –> 22:33.035

        [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you you’re a proper marketing strategist with that book recommendation because that is a proper hard core must read if you want to be a serious marketer books.

        22:33.095 –> 22:34.215

        [SPEAKER_01]: I love that recommendation.

        22:34.255 –> 22:34.855

        [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Lynn.

        22:35.496 –> 22:41.117

        [SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.

        22:42.018 –> 22:43.700

        [SPEAKER_02]: I’ll go with the doesn’t get the press.

        22:43.941 –> 22:44.482

        [SPEAKER_02]: It deserves.

        22:44.722 –> 22:51.272

        [SPEAKER_02]: We are very active on Pinterest, which is sort of like a stepchild social channel, right?

        22:51.612 –> 22:53.475

        [SPEAKER_02]: People kind of don’t really take it seriously.

        22:54.127 –> 22:57.189

        [SPEAKER_02]: It is fantastic for driving traffic to your site.

        22:57.750 –> 23:05.655

        [SPEAKER_02]: The tricky thing is those people don’t convert necessarily as heavily as traffic coming from an Insta or Facebook or TikTok.

        23:05.715 –> 23:14.921

        [SPEAKER_02]: But what we do is we use Pinterest to get the people to the site and then we have a couple tricks of our sleeve to push conversion.

        23:14.941 –> 23:17.323

        [SPEAKER_02]: The first is retargeting on Facebook.

        23:18.164 –> 23:22.948

        [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t do any Facebook ads to do customer acquisition anymore.

        23:23.228 –> 23:25.610

        [SPEAKER_02]: We strictly do retargeting it’s much more efficient.

        23:26.231 –> 23:43.566

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then secondly, we also use a retargeting solution called safe opt, which allows you to get identity resolution on those anonymous visitors and retarget them legally through their database.

        23:45.873 –> 23:47.670

        [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the combination is kind of

        23:48.135 –> 23:52.937

        [SPEAKER_02]: The thing, it’s very tough to find one thing that does everything on its own.

        23:53.097 –> 24:02.181

        [SPEAKER_02]: It’s usually you have to create these little flows or bundles of experiences to optimize the tools.

        24:02.981 –> 24:04.162

        [SPEAKER_01]: I love that that you shared.

        24:04.222 –> 24:06.122

        [SPEAKER_01]: And just one quick fellow question on it.

        24:06.583 –> 24:08.643

        [SPEAKER_01]: Pinterest eating adds organic.

        24:09.324 –> 24:09.944

        [SPEAKER_01]: I do both.

        24:10.744 –> 24:11.205

        [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.

        24:11.505 –> 24:12.405

        [SPEAKER_02]: But this is the thing.

        24:12.565 –> 24:16.587

        [SPEAKER_02]: On the Pinterest ads, I spend less than a hundred dollars a month.

        24:17.327 –> 24:23.311

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I get four thousand and visitors a month in traffic like from Pinterest.

        24:23.911 –> 24:25.973

        [SPEAKER_02]: So like, I think that’s worth it.

        24:26.393 –> 24:28.735

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously the organic is great too.

        24:29.135 –> 24:33.638

        [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I think it’s a very efficient way to drive traffic.

        24:34.599 –> 24:35.019

        [SPEAKER_01]: Love that.

        24:35.059 –> 24:35.639

        [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

        24:35.980 –> 24:46.367

        [SPEAKER_01]: The tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone up or just a way of working, is the record little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day.

        24:47.422 –> 24:51.204

        [SPEAKER_02]: So obviously, Canva is a must-have for anyone.

        24:51.764 –> 24:54.786

        [SPEAKER_02]: That is literally, I mean, Canva, twenty times a day.

        24:55.426 –> 25:14.095

        [SPEAKER_02]: But I will say, I just started using a social app, a social media scheduling app called Marky, M-A-R-K-Y, which I really love because even though the best practice in social media is to not post the exact same content everywhere,

        25:14.935 –> 25:19.121

        [SPEAKER_02]: When you’re a small business and you have zero bandwidth, I say, nor that.

        25:19.141 –> 25:27.834

        [SPEAKER_02]: A tool like Marky will post that content on not only Instagram, Facebook.

        25:29.205 –> 25:33.307

        [SPEAKER_02]: TikTok, but also Twitter linked in.

        25:34.247 –> 25:35.888

        [SPEAKER_02]: There’s something I’m missing Pinterest.

        25:36.428 –> 25:38.008

        [SPEAKER_02]: It will post on all of those.

        25:38.529 –> 25:44.351

        [SPEAKER_02]: And I have a philosophy that eighty percent done is better than perfect, right?

        25:44.991 –> 25:52.214

        [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s again, maybe not truly a purest best practice from a social media strategy perspective.

        25:52.334 –> 25:54.115

        [SPEAKER_02]: However, getting

        25:55.035 –> 26:00.941

        [SPEAKER_02]: easily scheduled posts on all those channels regularly is gold.

        26:01.601 –> 26:04.183

        [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, it saves me massive time.

        26:05.204 –> 26:06.846

        [SPEAKER_01]: We are of a mindset there, Lynn.

        26:06.906 –> 26:08.167

        [SPEAKER_01]: I totally agree with you.

        26:08.287 –> 26:09.708

        [SPEAKER_01]: And I love that recommendation.

        26:09.728 –> 26:12.130

        [SPEAKER_01]: Not come across marquee, so I have to go and have a look at that one.

        26:12.571 –> 26:17.715

        [SPEAKER_01]: And the carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

        26:18.554 –> 26:27.221

        [SPEAKER_02]: So there’s a lot of options to offset your carbon footprint and you can use something like sendle for shipping and they bake it into their shipping rates.

        26:27.922 –> 26:37.610

        [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think looking at your packaging that you’re shipping in is a great way to think about being more sustainably minded.

        26:38.491 –> 26:45.997

        [SPEAKER_02]: So we actually switched out some of our packaging to use recycled maillers.

        26:47.058 –> 27:00.281

        [SPEAKER_02]: as a way to try to avoid things getting in a landfill, but also trying to look at every piece of our ecosystem and how can we make it better, how can we make it more sustainable?

        27:00.621 –> 27:02.301

        [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a journey.

        27:03.281 –> 27:04.102

        [SPEAKER_01]: It’s so, Liz.

        27:04.122 –> 27:10.443

        [SPEAKER_01]: But before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?

        27:11.018 –> 27:11.639

        [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.

        27:11.859 –> 27:13.461

        [SPEAKER_02]: So I’m easy to find.

        27:13.661 –> 27:19.487

        [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me personally at Lynn Powered on almost any channel.

        27:20.068 –> 27:23.792

        [SPEAKER_02]: But social media for Massamy is our website.

        27:23.832 –> 27:29.338

        [SPEAKER_02]: First of all is lovemasamy.com L O V E M A S A M I dot com.

        27:30.058 –> 27:38.587

        [SPEAKER_02]: and our social channels are lovemasmy hair everywhere and powerbeautycollab.com and same thing.

        27:38.687 –> 27:40.829

        [SPEAKER_02]: Powerbeautycollab almost everywhere.

        27:41.510 –> 27:41.890

        [SPEAKER_01]: Brilliant.

        27:42.031 –> 27:43.872

        [SPEAKER_01]: Lynn, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

        27:43.892 –> 27:48.037

        [SPEAKER_01]: It’s been great chatting to you and I love your pop-ins idea too.

        27:48.057 –> 27:49.538

        [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you very much for being on the show.

        27:49.999 –> 27:50.820

        [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.

        27:56.690 –> 28:04.914

        [SPEAKER_01]: what a cool collaboration strategy, working with other brands in your space to create those pop-ins and pop-ins instead of pop-ups.

        28:05.574 –> 28:09.416

        [SPEAKER_01]: Love that idea, hold out of other great advice there from Lynn too.

        28:09.436 –> 28:17.780

        [SPEAKER_01]: Then you get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterpland.com.

        28:18.160 –> 28:22.963

        [SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our direct episode short links that’s ECMP.info for such

        28:23.723 –> 28:29.371

        [SPEAKER_01]: The number of this episode just drop that into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page on the site.

        28:29.952 –> 28:38.004

        [SPEAKER_01]: When you get yourself to the website, why not add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other stuff we share to help you improve your business.

        28:38.705 –> 28:46.291

        [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you liked this episode, then make sure you check out episode five hundred and twelve, which is another Clean Beauty product chat.

        28:46.691 –> 28:54.157

        [SPEAKER_01]: This time with Clean Beauty, I guess online department store, Naturalismo, and we’re chatting with Judith Harvey about how they grow that business.

        28:54.758 –> 28:59.442

        [SPEAKER_01]: And you can find all our beauty episodes at ECMP.info forward slash beauty.

        29:00.184 –> 29:04.407

        [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

        29:04.747 –> 29:15.093

        [SPEAKER_01]: 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 progressing along the path to net zero.

        29:15.133 –> 29:20.597

        [SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

        29:20.937 –> 29:23.919

        [SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

        29:27.018 –> 29:30.323

        [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

        29:30.783 –> 29:35.590

        [SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at ecommercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.

        30 min
      • eCommerce MasterPlan | 555: Retention-First eCommerce: Inside Allure’s $2M Bricks-and-Clicks Strategy with Klim Yadrintsev

        Klim Yadrintsev is the founder and CEO at Allure, a luxury multi-brand fashion boutique based in the south of France. They sell via their physical store, and WooCommerce website. Founded in 2020 they now do around $2 million in sales a year, with annual growth at 20-30%. 

         

        In this episode, Klim breaks down the 3 strategies behind Allure’s rapid growth—and why retention, not ads, is their real secret weapon. 

         

        Hit PLAY to hear: 

         

        • The 3 retention strategies that power a $2M luxury eCommerce brand  
        • Why Klim believes your physical store might be your best ad channel  
        • How Allure builds personal relationships with shoppers using WhatsApp  
        • What happens when you watch customers shop on your website  
        • How a lean team of 7 runs a global boutique brand  
        • The unusual trick Allure uses to boost repeat purchases (without discounts)  

          •  

          Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

          [04:04] Fashion eCommerce Opportunity in France 

          [07:10] Personalized Wardrobe Consultation Service 

          [11:39] Retention-Focused Business Strategies 

          [14:02] Retail Operations and Marketing Strategy 

          [19:24] Personal Touch in eCommerce Segmentation 

          [22:03] Optimising Customer Purchase Journey 

          [23:59] Listen to Klim’s Top Tips! 

           Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/555

          This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

          Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

          —

          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

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          WEBVTT

          00:00.551 –> 00:02.953

          [SPEAKER_00]: My main pillar is actually retention of the customer.

          00:03.173 –> 00:09.577

          [SPEAKER_00]: So what we’re doing is we’re actually spending around the same amount of money as we got the customer back to keep the customer in.

          00:10.057 –> 00:23.806

          [SPEAKER_00]: If it’s delivery, fast delivery for free, is that maybe some additional presence we can give to the customer is that the customer’s support, the customer’s service, or maybe something in addition to that that we can offer the customer to actually make income back.

          00:24.147 –> 00:26.148

          [SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where the secret source basically is.

          00:29.207 –> 00:31.591

          [SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

          00:31.611 –> 00:36.218

          [SPEAKER_01]: It has to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

          00:36.739 –> 00:44.531

          [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.

          00:47.608 –> 00:49.130

          [SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.

          00:49.170 –> 00:50.451

          [SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.

          00:50.511 –> 00:55.637

          [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests in this episode.

          00:56.358 –> 01:00.423

          [SPEAKER_02]: We are exploring what I think is a very tricky part of e-commerce.

          01:00.483 –> 01:06.049

          [SPEAKER_02]: We are exploring bricks and clicks when you are so that’s physical stores and online store.

          01:07.090 –> 01:11.614

          [SPEAKER_02]: a physical store and online store where you are selling other people’s products.

          01:11.674 –> 01:18.281

          [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a luxury fashion company which sells other luxury fashion brands and it would be fair to say our guest has it nailed.

          01:18.681 –> 01:29.211

          [SPEAKER_02]: He’s doing really well the business is doing really well and as you’re about to find out he has such clarity on what his business should and shouldn’t be doing and he has lots of tips to share with you all about it too.

          01:29.271 –> 01:31.032

          [SPEAKER_02]: So if you’re looking at improving retention

          01:31.933 –> 01:41.656

          [SPEAKER_02]: If you’re selling in the fashion space, if you’re trying to juggle physical store and online store, or if you just want a few very cool tips to help you build your business, then you’re really going to love this one.

          01:42.116 –> 01:53.260

          [SPEAKER_02]: And listen out in particular for his three pillars and make sure you listen to the end of the episode because you don’t want to miss out on his top tips where he’s doing some great recommendations in there and you’ll also get my own take on the episode.

          01:59.130 –> 02:01.112

          [SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.

          02:01.512 –> 02:09.118

          [SPEAKER_02]: Clim Yadrin serve is the founder and CEO at LER, a luxury multi-browned fashion boutique based in the south of France.

          02:09.538 –> 02:12.900

          [SPEAKER_02]: They sell via their physical store and WooCommerce website.

          02:13.061 –> 02:20.286

          [SPEAKER_02]: Founded in twenty-twenty, they now do around two million dollars in sales a year with annual growth at twenty to thirty percent.

          02:20.366 –> 02:20.967

          [SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Clim.

          02:21.287 –> 02:22.928

          [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, very nice to be here.

          02:22.948 –> 02:26.671

          [SPEAKER_00]: I’m very happy to finally share any of you with them with you.

          02:27.518 –> 02:29.161

          [SPEAKER_02]: It’s brilliant to have you here on the show.

          02:29.181 –> 02:31.564

          [SPEAKER_02]: And thank you so much for asking to come on.

          02:31.684 –> 02:34.248

          [SPEAKER_02]: How did you end up in the world of Ecommerce?

          02:34.703 –> 02:54.328

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a funny story actually because I was studying back in UK and every single plumber basically seemed to have a website and at one point I realized that shopping dreaded usually actually was happening offline and I couldn’t find many solutions in my price range and for the brands which I was interested in online.

          02:54.708 –> 02:57.029

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a key point for me.

          02:57.689 –> 03:05.634

          [SPEAKER_00]: and basically an idea spark where I decided to start specific e-commerce with fashion for brands that I’m interested in.

          03:05.654 –> 03:11.058

          [SPEAKER_02]: And so you had the pain point of the customer and then you decided to get into it.

          03:11.238 –> 03:14.600

          [SPEAKER_02]: Was it your first e-commerce endeavor?

          03:15.145 –> 03:22.687

          [SPEAKER_00]: No, actually there were a couple and the most successful one was Elits, which was basically an e-commerce fashion marketplace.

          03:22.987 –> 03:28.728

          [SPEAKER_00]: We ended up being a fashion marketplace for USSR countries and UK as well.

          03:29.188 –> 03:38.851

          [SPEAKER_00]: Where basically I started off with a single brand which had an exclusive offer for me for this market and later I expanded into different brands.

          03:39.051 –> 03:44.972

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I have started in two thousand fourteen and grew it for ten years, actually exiting it successfully a couple of years ago.

          03:45.853 –> 03:46.713

          [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.

          03:46.873 –> 04:02.824

          [SPEAKER_02]: So, given you a running that successful site, what led you to want to also run a targeting similar product range, but a completely different market, both in all of language, region, currency, the works.

          04:02.904 –> 04:04.045

          [SPEAKER_02]: What led you to do that?

          04:04.720 –> 04:20.977

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it might seem like it’s very different, but in reality it’s very similar because in the south of France where I am right now, we get a lot of actual customers who are English speaking and who actually travel from USSR and from Dubai, from Eastern countries as well.

          04:21.277 –> 04:25.622

          [SPEAKER_00]: So in reality, our core market is basically the same as it was before.

          04:26.042 –> 04:42.099

          [SPEAKER_00]: The only difference is here in South of France, there are particularly no offline stores, which actually sell the items, or if they are, they usually mono brands by big brands and not by small direct and indie brands, which is customer might be interested in.

          04:42.559 –> 04:49.188

          [SPEAKER_00]: So my idea was actually also spotting gap in the market where I didn’t find anything to buy for myself.

          04:49.248 –> 04:54.495

          [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, okay, it’s a great place to start a business, start an fashion, e-commerce, and fashion retail.

          04:55.204 –> 05:02.126

          [SPEAKER_02]: So from day one was always going to be a bricks and clicks operation, a website and a physical store.

          05:02.546 –> 05:08.288

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so from day one it was actually a store only for a couple of months while we were preparing the website.

          05:08.888 –> 05:18.111

          [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason is is because with Alice I couldn’t actually test this hypothesis and this type of business where you have the offline presence and online presence.

          05:18.691 –> 05:24.613

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I always wanted to try it and I was extremely surprised how well it worked from the first day basically.

          05:25.637 –> 05:26.177

          [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.

          05:26.197 –> 05:27.898

          [SPEAKER_02]: Well, maybe we’ll get into more on that later.

          05:27.938 –> 05:32.860

          [SPEAKER_02]: First of all, let’s explain a bit more about the business to those who are listening.

          05:32.920 –> 05:35.401

          [SPEAKER_02]: So you’re based in the South of France, you’re selling globally.

          05:35.861 –> 05:37.782

          [SPEAKER_02]: What’s the product that you sell?

          05:37.802 –> 05:40.183

          [SPEAKER_02]: We’ve said luxury multi brand fashion.

          05:40.243 –> 05:40.784

          [SPEAKER_02]: Is it men’s?

          05:40.824 –> 05:41.524

          [SPEAKER_02]: Is it women’s?

          05:41.544 –> 05:42.724

          [SPEAKER_02]: What sort of brands are we talking about?

          05:42.744 –> 05:43.905

          [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us a bit more about your product.

          05:44.392 –> 05:47.315

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, so it’s actually both men and women.

          05:47.915 –> 05:51.859

          [SPEAKER_00]: And when I talk about brands, it’s actually Italian or French brands.

          05:51.919 –> 05:56.703

          [SPEAKER_00]: French, such as Bernoucouche, Nellie, Tom Ford, which is French, Slash American.

          05:57.124 –> 06:02.629

          [SPEAKER_00]: Then there are Magda Butrum, which is a Polish brand, but with really high presence in France.

          06:03.269 –> 06:08.912

          [SPEAKER_00]: and many, many other self portrait articles, courageous, very high in French brands.

          06:09.372 –> 06:14.434

          [SPEAKER_00]: So we sell it globally, but around sixty percent of our market is actually French based.

          06:14.855 –> 06:16.896

          [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it’s not French nationals.

          06:17.236 –> 06:19.557

          [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the people who come to France or live in France.

          06:20.430 –> 06:44.645

          [SPEAKER_02]: got you and those businesses luxury fashion can be challenging to deal with when you are one of their resellers or their what-up assignments or whatever whatever the word is we’re using it can be a difficult one to do especially in the online space so how how have you found I guess for anyone else in that similar space we’ve got the tips to share on how to make it easier and how to to build those strong relationships with the brands

          06:45.189 –> 06:50.633

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so for ten years I have been battling with myself because this is basically a type of franchising business, right?

          06:50.954 –> 06:52.635

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because you’re buying someone else’s brand.

          06:52.875 –> 06:57.399

          [SPEAKER_00]: You’re trying to bring value to the customer in a way that brand can’t, right?

          06:57.419 –> 06:59.480

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because the brand also has online presence.

          06:59.540 –> 07:00.921

          [SPEAKER_00]: They also have their own store.

          07:01.262 –> 07:03.143

          [SPEAKER_00]: They have offline stores as well.

          07:03.423 –> 07:07.827

          [SPEAKER_00]: So you can actually go as a customer to a brand and buying instead of my place.

          07:07.947 –> 07:10.189

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, the brand is the same, the items are the same.

          07:10.729 –> 07:18.474

          [SPEAKER_00]: So what we end up doing is actually bringing so much value to the customer, so many additional things to the customer that the brand just can’t do.

          07:18.874 –> 07:22.656

          [SPEAKER_00]: For example, we offer a full wardrobe renewal.

          07:23.037 –> 07:28.340

          [SPEAKER_00]: We offer the specific person who consult them on how to dress for specific occasion.

          07:28.880 –> 07:33.443

          [SPEAKER_00]: And we do a lot of simple things, but also things that brands will never do for you.

          07:34.163 –> 07:39.826

          [SPEAKER_00]: And on top of that, again, the proximity and the local market is everything you’ve got.

          07:40.166 –> 07:44.948

          [SPEAKER_00]: For example, for us, we’re based in a small city, next to Nissan France.

          07:45.509 –> 07:52.012

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, every single person who lives around there already know that they can, for example, go to, I don’t know, a big brand.

          07:52.472 –> 08:16.603

          [SPEAKER_00]: or they can go to us and not only by a single brand, but get, for example, ten different brands in two different looks with a specific help from us to how to dress and in addition to that they’re helping local economy and I mean, that’s also something that people really like even in online because people would prefer to buy from a beautiful store in one of the city in South of France instead of from a big conglomerate brand.

          08:17.495 –> 08:25.840

          [SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing which I find fascinatingly challenging about your business model is the boutique nature.

          08:25.960 –> 08:30.843

          [SPEAKER_02]: And by bout, let me define boutique for everybody listening and for you, clim before I ask you a question about it.

          08:31.104 –> 08:35.967

          [SPEAKER_02]: What I mean by boutique is a store that’s selling other people’s brands.

          08:36.527 –> 08:41.333

          [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the uniqueness isn’t in the product, the uniqueness is in the curation of the product.

          08:42.033 –> 08:49.582

          [SPEAKER_02]: And that works brilliantly in a physical boutique fashion store and is notoriously hard to do online.

          08:49.722 –> 08:51.044

          [SPEAKER_02]: Clearly you’ve cracked the code.

          08:51.124 –> 08:52.926

          [SPEAKER_02]: You don’t have to give us your secret source.

          08:53.367 –> 08:55.429

          [SPEAKER_02]: But how do you go about

          08:56.190 –> 09:01.734

          [SPEAKER_02]: You know, not just running an SEO or a Google ads race to the bottom against the brand themselves.

          09:01.794 –> 09:07.639

          [SPEAKER_02]: How do you manage to build the online sales when it’s other people’s products that you’re selling?

          09:08.343 –> 09:11.504

          [SPEAKER_00]: So there are so many levels to answer this question, actually.

          09:11.845 –> 09:17.187

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I can give you the free top ones, which are actually defining our business.

          09:17.307 –> 09:20.108

          [SPEAKER_00]: And you said correctly, put six style approach.

          09:20.608 –> 09:24.090

          [SPEAKER_00]: So our main pillar, that’s a pillar, three pillars.

          09:24.150 –> 09:26.491

          [SPEAKER_00]: My main pillar is actually retention of the customer.

          09:27.211 –> 09:37.079

          [SPEAKER_00]: And what I mean by that is that we’re paying for a customer, again, to raise the bottom in Facebook ads, in meta ads, in Google ads, in TikTok ads.

          09:37.480 –> 09:48.569

          [SPEAKER_00]: But what we are very good at is that once we paid for that customer, or we spent the money, we’re trying to make sure that the retention and altitude of the customer is as high as possible.

          09:48.789 –> 09:55.175

          [SPEAKER_00]: So what we’re doing is we’re actually spending around the same amount of money as we got the customer back to keep the customer in.

          09:55.655 –> 10:09.792

          [SPEAKER_00]: If it’s delivery, if it’s delivery for free, is that maybe some additional presence we can give to the customer is that the customer support, the customer service, or maybe something in addition to that, that we can offer the customer to actually make income back.

          10:10.132 –> 10:12.134

          [SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where the secret source basically is.

          10:12.795 –> 10:19.758

          [SPEAKER_00]: The second one, what we’re doing is actually the offline presence and only presence or Omni channel approach.

          10:20.138 –> 10:25.381

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s much easier and cheaper as it ended up being to actually get a customer offline.

          10:26.021 –> 10:31.083

          [SPEAKER_00]: And because you’re paying for rent, you’re paying for the person to see the window.

          10:31.523 –> 10:39.127

          [SPEAKER_00]: And so it’s much easier and cheaper to get the customer through the door and knowing about your brand instead of getting him from meta ads.

          10:39.647 –> 10:49.496

          [SPEAKER_00]: And we just convert the same offline shopper, which bought on the location in the south of France, and then came back to US to work basically and back to their home.

          10:50.036 –> 10:57.282

          [SPEAKER_00]: And we just communicate with him, do email marketing, do SMS, do retargeting on Meta, in order to bring him back.

          10:57.382 –> 11:01.506

          [SPEAKER_00]: And that has been the main key point for us to working with the customer.

          11:01.966 –> 11:07.512

          [SPEAKER_00]: And the first one is small, but also super important is personal communication.

          11:07.972 –> 11:17.722

          [SPEAKER_00]: We have because the average sale price is around one thousand years, which is I think one thousand one hundred dollars per customer per purchase.

          11:18.103 –> 11:18.703

          [SPEAKER_00]: It’s very high.

          11:19.004 –> 11:21.707

          [SPEAKER_00]: So what we’re trying to do is actually give the customer personal approach.

          11:23.308 –> 11:30.075

          [SPEAKER_00]: have specific person who basically takes around how did to five hundred people and he communicates with them by week basis.

          11:30.115 –> 11:32.417

          [SPEAKER_00]: So he sends them new arrivals in WhatsApp.

          11:32.758 –> 11:38.884

          [SPEAKER_00]: He sends them new things that they might be interested in, videos and just advise if they actually need it.

          11:39.793 –> 11:41.075

          [SPEAKER_02]: What are called three pillars?

          11:41.275 –> 11:46.482

          [SPEAKER_02]: And you said, I mean, guys, before we hit, we hit record, I said to claim it’s only in particular, you want to talk about it.

          11:46.502 –> 11:47.383

          [SPEAKER_02]: So we’re big in retention.

          11:47.403 –> 11:48.705

          [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, cool, we’re getting to retention.

          11:49.065 –> 11:55.634

          [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, listening to your three pillars and you explain them, I mean, all three of them are deep in the world of retention.

          11:56.555 –> 12:10.671

          [SPEAKER_02]: You know, in terms of growing the business and that third one, having, you know, what I would describe as a customer service rep, I’m sure you’ve got a better name for it, but that person who has five hundred people on their list, and they are proactively communicating with them.

          12:11.231 –> 12:16.998

          [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s kind of outbound customer service, but in a far more elegant way than that phrase suggests.

          12:17.578 –> 12:21.181

          [SPEAKER_02]: is just really, really demonstrate your commitment to retention.

          12:21.201 –> 12:21.581

          [SPEAKER_02]: So I love that.

          12:21.841 –> 12:24.503

          [SPEAKER_02]: And I want definitely want to get deeper into the retention piece in the moment.

          12:24.543 –> 12:27.886

          [SPEAKER_02]: But first off though, obviously, we’ve got these customer service people.

          12:27.926 –> 12:31.008

          [SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got the team in the store, the physical store.

          12:31.409 –> 12:33.370

          [SPEAKER_02]: How many of you are there across the whole business?

          12:33.410 –> 12:36.793

          [SPEAKER_02]: And is there anything you choose to outsource rather than keep in-house?

          12:37.515 –> 12:45.937

          [SPEAKER_00]: It’s a great question because I’ve been thinking a lot about the structure of the company, the structure of our workforce and how we’re actually efficiently operate the business.

          12:46.317 –> 12:57.459

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because I think in oak e-commerce it’s very tempting and super easy to get insane amount of people working in the business and then the margins grow slimmer and slimmer and till there is nothing.

          12:57.820 –> 12:59.680

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it’s a huge challenge and a huge

          13:00.140 –> 13:04.261

          [SPEAKER_00]: possibility to get the business rolling with as little people as possible.

          13:04.361 –> 13:08.343

          [SPEAKER_00]: We’re actually operating in e-commerce alone only seven people.

          13:08.883 –> 13:12.144

          [SPEAKER_00]: But across the business overall, we have around fifty people.

          13:12.644 –> 13:14.525

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, of course, there is a stock room.

          13:14.585 –> 13:25.088

          [SPEAKER_00]: For example, where we have around seven people working with getting the stocks from the companies, delivering it, then operating it, checking, fulfilling the orders and everything like that.

          13:25.469 –> 13:29.130

          [SPEAKER_00]: And because the items are so expensive, we cannot use outsourced stock room.

          13:29.870 –> 13:33.173

          [SPEAKER_00]: The other big part for us is the retail space.

          13:33.473 –> 13:38.396

          [SPEAKER_00]: So right now we are operating around four hundred meters square meters of retail space.

          13:38.997 –> 13:43.140

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that’s around eight hundred feet if I’m not afraid.

          13:43.160 –> 13:44.621

          [SPEAKER_00]: If I’m in front correct.

          13:44.941 –> 13:45.982

          [SPEAKER_00]: All right, four hundred meters.

          13:46.062 –> 13:46.462

          [SPEAKER_02]: Those math.

          13:46.683 –> 13:48.784

          [SPEAKER_02]: So everyone, everyone listening, I’m making a face.

          13:48.864 –> 13:56.550

          [SPEAKER_02]: I haven’t got a clue because I whilst here in the UK, we are pretty bilingual in terms of metrics and imperial measurements.

          13:57.150 –> 13:58.691

          [SPEAKER_02]: Can I convert between the two?

          13:58.711 –> 13:58.751

          [SPEAKER_02]: No.

          13:59.652 –> 14:00.372

          [SPEAKER_02]: No, in this lightest.

          14:02.013 –> 14:05.954

          [SPEAKER_00]: So we have around twenty people working for four hundred meters.

          14:06.094 –> 14:16.397

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, if you’re in the world of retail, it’s quite a lot, but at the same time, because we try to provide as personal services again, we try to keep that in twenty to twenty five people.

          14:17.097 –> 14:28.868

          [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have marketing, which is the pillar of e-commerce, actually, where all the money is being spent, where all the interesting things are happening in marketing, as well as operations.

          14:29.829 –> 14:39.638

          [SPEAKER_00]: For example, we have the buying office, which is in charge of actually stocking items, which items to buy, which to sell, and we have additional service, which is the folder service.

          14:39.999 –> 14:41.840

          [SPEAKER_00]: So the folder service is

          14:42.841 –> 14:50.987

          [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know how to say it’s basically operation space where we do the photography and video content for social media as well as for the website.

          14:51.527 –> 15:04.437

          [SPEAKER_00]: And we outsource some of it to contractors but we also have a little space next to our boutique where we can do some social media content or maybe record a video, for example, for the customer.

          15:04.977 –> 15:21.154

          [SPEAKER_00]: because it just made sense for us to actually get this physical place with physical cameras and everything ready for us at any point because we just calculated that a single video that we make at this location for the customer actually earn us around sixty dollars.

          15:21.554 –> 15:28.501

          [SPEAKER_00]: So in reality, it just made sense for us to make as many videos as we can to make as much money as possible, basically.

          15:29.172 –> 15:45.420

          [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you mentioned earlier about, you know, one of the factors in using the physical store for recruitment is you’ve got, you don’t have a marketing spend as such, but your marketing spend is sunk into your rental cost, which is obviously high because it’s a physical retail store in a, in a prime location.

          15:46.180 –> 15:49.203

          [SPEAKER_02]: And I wondered did that also factor into right.

          15:49.223 –> 15:53.107

          [SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got a physical space that’s got our clothes on hangers ready to be tried on.

          15:53.627 –> 15:58.492

          [SPEAKER_02]: It will be mad not to have some form of studio on site.

          15:58.572 –> 16:04.618

          [SPEAKER_02]: So we can take advantage of that square footage and the fact the products are ready to be used.

          16:04.678 –> 16:07.281

          [SPEAKER_02]: Was that a factor in deciding to have the mini studio?

          16:07.707 –> 16:08.487

          [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, of course.

          16:08.587 –> 16:09.727

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it’s ready.

          16:10.068 –> 16:11.268

          [SPEAKER_00]: It’s a really nice and neat.

          16:11.308 –> 16:14.489

          [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, it just made sense for us to have it right next to it.

          16:14.989 –> 16:20.090

          [SPEAKER_00]: And plus, people don’t know this, but in Europe, the rep is very, not very high.

          16:20.530 –> 16:22.630

          [SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, is that you have to pay Kimani.

          16:23.290 –> 16:24.971

          [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if you’re in UK, it’s a thing.

          16:25.031 –> 16:29.912

          [SPEAKER_00]: But basically, you pay around one million dollars, or around one million euro, just to get the ability

          16:30.372 –> 16:31.953

          [SPEAKER_00]: to rent the place.

          16:32.354 –> 16:35.436

          [SPEAKER_00]: And then in the end, you can sell it after you close down the business.

          16:35.636 –> 16:39.659

          [SPEAKER_00]: You can sell this key money, the ability to rent to someone else.

          16:40.059 –> 16:46.584

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s like a kind of big investment, but a small rental income, which you just have to buy and have to earn.

          16:46.644 –> 16:51.228

          [SPEAKER_00]: So for us, we were lucky to find a prime location without this key money.

          16:51.708 –> 16:58.013

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because everyone around us paid one million, two million dollars a year to actually be in this location.

          16:58.915 –> 16:59.695

          [SPEAKER_02]: Nice work.

          16:59.735 –> 17:06.879

          [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so often if you’re dealing with property and business, half the battle is how you buy the property or rent the property.

          17:06.959 –> 17:08.940

          [SPEAKER_02]: And it sounds like you did a very good job on the way in.

          17:10.301 –> 17:10.681

          [SPEAKER_00]: That’s true.

          17:11.541 –> 17:23.007

          [SPEAKER_02]: So you’ve got this strategy, which makes so much sense about recruiting the customers in the physical space where they get the great experience and then converted them into long-term, retained customers.

          17:24.514 –> 17:28.196

          [SPEAKER_02]: We’re all familiar with getting to the checkout or being accosted on the way.

          17:28.236 –> 17:30.697

          [SPEAKER_02]: And we’re going to give us your email address, give us your email address.

          17:30.737 –> 17:37.781

          [SPEAKER_02]: Now, that obviously massively jars with your customer base, the products you’re selling and the way you go about doing it.

          17:37.801 –> 17:48.367

          [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you do those most basic mechanics of turning in store of getting the information out of install customer to be able to do the retention piece?

          17:49.027 –> 18:00.921

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I’m surprised how many stores don’t do this, but having a loyalty program is incredibly easy to sell the ability for the customer to live their inner address and their phone number.

          18:01.262 –> 18:06.348

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you give, I don’t like the discounts in loyalty, but I like cashback.

          18:06.728 –> 18:31.078

          [SPEAKER_00]: So if for example buy a thousand dollar piece of item right and you’re getting five percent of that to your balance and then you can spend it so of course if the customer is interested in this type of fashion he will leave your email or his phone number because he wants to earn this practically money on his balance and also I think just asking goes a long way I was so surprised when

          18:31.778 –> 18:36.460

          [SPEAKER_00]: One of my friends who also has a retail store, he was like, oh, no one is living their emails.

          18:36.980 –> 18:49.064

          [SPEAKER_00]: And when we did a simple thing of having a script for the salesperson to ask, oh, do we want to leave your email to get the news about discounts, increase the sign-up rate by ten times?

          18:49.544 –> 18:51.405

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it just asking goes a long way.

          18:52.305 –> 18:55.510

          [SPEAKER_02]: So asking, but also training your team how to ask.

          18:55.610 –> 18:59.616

          [SPEAKER_02]: So they feel comfortable and so they know what sort of words to use and when to say it.

          18:59.656 –> 19:03.321

          [SPEAKER_02]: I’m guessing you never have anyone in the door trying to get email addresses.

          19:03.942 –> 19:04.804

          [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, yeah.

          19:05.772 –> 19:06.873

          [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, just no.

          19:07.393 –> 19:15.540

          [SPEAKER_02]: And you’ve given us the three pillars of your retention strategy and that it’s obviously highly personalized with those that human outreach.

          19:15.560 –> 19:23.887

          [SPEAKER_02]: Do you also do personalization, comes within it on a, on a bigger scale, so a more segmentation triggered, et cetera, scale.

          19:24.667 –> 19:27.748

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we have a lot of segmentation on a website.

          19:28.128 –> 19:36.049

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we all in e-commerce space love the fact of automation and automatic segmentation and personalization.

          19:36.089 –> 19:41.671

          [SPEAKER_00]: But I think the biggest thing you can do is actually bringing this automatic thing and making it personal.

          19:42.071 –> 19:51.093

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we do two million dollars in revenue, two million euros in revenue actually by only around four thousand customers per year.

          19:51.533 –> 19:52.553

          [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s not a lot.

          19:53.353 –> 20:01.637

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, when I just think about this, four thousand customers a year is around, what, four hundred customers per month, four thousand to four hundred, right?

          20:02.037 –> 20:18.726

          [SPEAKER_00]: And so it’s very easy to make anything automatic, actually personal and doing it by yourself, because when the customer gets a handwritten note, for example, he will actually appreciate it and get much more value from it than getting some automatic.

          20:19.066 –> 20:25.129

          [SPEAKER_00]: But of course, what we do automatically is email segmentation by a customer and what brand he bought.

          20:25.689 –> 20:29.411

          [SPEAKER_00]: We’re also doing SMS notification, which are personal.

          20:29.451 –> 20:34.493

          [SPEAKER_00]: For example, a customer checks out an item and it’s not available right now because someone also bought it.

          20:34.954 –> 20:40.656

          [SPEAKER_00]: We sign him up through SMS and deliver to him personal SMS when it’s available.

          20:41.036 –> 20:48.060

          [SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, we know, okay, he wants this brand this item, then we change the sequence and what he’s interested in and what we choose to adjust to him.

          20:48.620 –> 21:15.655

          [SPEAKER_00]: But all of this information is actually goes into our CRM where we see all the customer data and then the salesperson, like I talk to you about the person who communicates with the customer, sees, oh, okay, this customer bought this brand or he likes some addresses, for example, she likes some addresses or he, I mean, and we basically see that the customer wants that and communicate in that way.

          21:16.496 –> 21:30.624

          [SPEAKER_02]: That makes so much sense as like the best of both worlds, the one, the P to P as well as the best of the automation, but not getting, always taking the what is actually the best thing to do, filter to it rather than just building the next thing.

          21:30.644 –> 21:44.233

          [SPEAKER_02]: And then we’ve talked about the need for a great customer experience and how you’re doing that through the communication channels, but so often in boutique retail in retail in general, when you get this amazing experience in store,

          21:44.993 –> 21:46.594

          [SPEAKER_02]: and then you end up on a website.

          21:47.034 –> 21:49.935

          [SPEAKER_02]: The customer experience of transition drops back.

          21:50.035 –> 22:02.661

          [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you go about creating, not a similar experience because you’re never going to get the same experience, but a similar feeling for the customer when they’re transacting on the website versus when they’re walking through the doors of your store?

          22:03.441 –> 22:13.623

          [SPEAKER_00]: I think for us, the game changer was when we discovered that we can do cast devs and personal calls with the customer and just asking them, oh, how do you like this?

          22:14.143 –> 22:16.904

          [SPEAKER_00]: Or how do you actually go about purchasing something on the website?

          22:17.404 –> 22:25.185

          [SPEAKER_00]: Or in reality, what we used to do, not anymore, but we used to force the customer to buy something on the website when he’s in store.

          22:25.425 –> 22:28.846

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if we have a good communication, good rapport with the customer, we can do that.

          22:29.286 –> 22:31.307

          [SPEAKER_00]: and I just used to watch the costume.

          22:31.987 –> 22:58.739

          [SPEAKER_00]: What they were doing where they were struggling and that helped a lot because the most important thing on the website is practically make it as simple as possible to reach the conclusion, to reach the end of the funnel to basically purchase and if they confused or they don’t really understand how to buy the item even though of course we all know how e-commerce works but you will be surprised how many customers now on your websites

          22:59.499 –> 23:03.423

          [SPEAKER_00]: Not optimized for that and if that works, it’s fine.

          23:03.443 –> 23:08.747

          [SPEAKER_00]: So we just make it as easy as possible for the customer to land on the website and then purchase.

          23:09.107 –> 23:14.572

          [SPEAKER_00]: We even have a custom plugin where we can send the customer.

          23:15.132 –> 23:18.674

          [SPEAKER_00]: A specific link with items already added to the card.

          23:19.035 –> 23:25.239

          [SPEAKER_00]: So what he needs just needs to do is actually go to the card, write down the information for delivery, and then just purchase that’s it.

          23:25.719 –> 23:29.862

          [SPEAKER_00]: So we’ll make it as easy as possible to the customer to basically reach the end of the funnel.

          23:32.884 –> 23:37.607

          [SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

          23:37.787 –> 23:39.068

          [SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

          23:45.748 –> 23:47.910

          [SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top tips round.

          23:50.552 –> 23:55.896

          [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because he is me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

          23:55.916 –> 23:58.138

          [SPEAKER_02]: So, Clim, are you ready for the top tips?

          23:58.498 –> 23:58.818

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

          23:59.619 –> 24:02.181

          [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let’s start then the book top tip.

          24:02.241 –> 24:09.146

          [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?

          24:09.827 –> 24:11.328

          [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so I have two books.

          24:11.388 –> 24:12.869

          [SPEAKER_00]: Cool.

          24:12.909 –> 24:13.010

          [SPEAKER_00]: Cool.

          24:13.790 –> 24:21.593

          [SPEAKER_00]: So first one, of course, I mean, probably most of the entrepreneurs have read it already, but it’s Alex Hermosie, hundred million offers.

          24:22.333 –> 24:34.397

          [SPEAKER_00]: And why I’m recommending offers and not leads his next book is because I think in e-commerce, we all struggle so much with doing like offers and understanding how offer work for our product, so it’s super important.

          24:35.217 –> 24:44.686

          [SPEAKER_00]: And the second book, which I think is even more amazing, and can drive much more value to your comics, is entrepreneur revolution by Daniel Priestley.

          24:45.387 –> 24:53.195

          [SPEAKER_00]: And in that book, he goes about how entrepreneurship has changed, and how there is a thing as key person of influence.

          24:53.655 –> 25:10.945

          [SPEAKER_00]: I think in e-commerce and specifically in beauty, there is a huge trend and a huge show of specific people actually driving so much marketing, so much eyeballs to specific products and driving to one billion, two billion free billion evaluation and turnover.

          25:11.365 –> 25:20.230

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it’s super underrated in e-commerce how you can basically become or find the key person’s influence for the brand and just skyrocket your everything.

          25:21.362 –> 25:21.903

          [SPEAKER_02]: I love that.

          25:22.223 –> 25:23.725

          [SPEAKER_02]: Really, two great recommendations.

          25:23.826 –> 25:31.917

          [SPEAKER_02]: I’m fully aware of the Daniel Presley one, not come across the one hundred million offers, so I will be going and having a look at that straight after we hang up on this call.

          25:32.818 –> 25:38.085

          [SPEAKER_02]: Traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

          25:38.926 –> 25:49.734

          [SPEAKER_00]: I think the biggest thing that we all have looked at for past fifteen years or twenty years is email marketing and I don’t think many brands at many conferences do it well.

          25:50.274 –> 25:58.901

          [SPEAKER_00]: I think that if your e-commerce is not generating thirty to forty percent of your revenue from email marketing you are doing it wrong or you’re not doing it enough.

          25:59.401 –> 26:11.733

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that email marketing is so undervalued and underutilized by brands, specifically because I actually find that people say, oh, it’s too confusing or I don’t want the customer to be annoyed by me.

          26:12.133 –> 26:18.780

          [SPEAKER_00]: But in reality, people just don’t talk to the customer and don’t know what they can do and how they can make it as easy as possible.

          26:19.923 –> 26:21.904

          [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I could put that on a billboard.

          26:23.184 –> 26:24.885

          [SPEAKER_02]: Totally, totally agree with you.

          26:24.945 –> 26:35.689

          [SPEAKER_02]: I saw something on social media this week of someone saying that they’d had an email marketing consultant saying that someone had said to them, we make money through automations.

          26:35.729 –> 26:37.070

          [SPEAKER_02]: So why do we need a newsletter?

          26:37.130 –> 26:38.590

          [SPEAKER_02]: It’s like hang head and shame.

          26:38.610 –> 26:41.992

          [SPEAKER_02]: Oh man, a couple of people said totally agree with you on that one claim.

          26:42.052 –> 26:42.192

          [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

          26:42.752 –> 26:52.265

          [SPEAKER_02]: Tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone up or just a way of working, is the recall little tool you use to make you and your team more efficient from day to day.

          26:53.077 –> 26:54.458

          [SPEAKER_00]: I will cheat and give to again.

          26:55.078 –> 26:59.900

          [SPEAKER_00]: I think that the basic one, and again, I think it’s super easy to use as notion.

          27:00.200 –> 27:07.484

          [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, if you’re not using notion for your nodes for collaborating with people, it’s super easy to do.

          27:07.844 –> 27:14.147

          [SPEAKER_00]: And it has the best of Excel and also the best of any other note taking app and collaboration app in together.

          27:14.867 –> 27:17.169

          [SPEAKER_00]: And the second one is actually a mirror.

          27:17.689 –> 27:25.794

          [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know if many people actually know about it because it’s not something, it’s not something new and they don’t invest much in marketing.

          27:26.114 –> 27:33.739

          [SPEAKER_00]: But mirror is basically a whiteboard app which you can also collaborate with, brainstorm, do many, many different things.

          27:33.979 –> 27:40.963

          [SPEAKER_00]: And it’s super intuitive and it helps my team to brainstorm and actually get things released

          27:41.463 –> 27:44.584

          [SPEAKER_00]: by brainstorming together and having this nice sessions in mirror.

          27:45.224 –> 27:46.825

          [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s M.I.R.O.

          27:46.865 –> 27:49.985

          [SPEAKER_02]: for Mero, anyone who’s here, and yet it’s weird.

          27:50.025 –> 27:54.347

          [SPEAKER_02]: Lots of people don’t know about it, but it does get recommended occasionally on the podcast, so well worth checking out.

          27:54.867 –> 27:59.568

          [SPEAKER_02]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

          28:00.301 –> 28:04.982

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, of course, it would be different advice if I was producing my items, right?

          28:05.022 –> 28:06.762

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because I’m actually buying from the brands.

          28:07.263 –> 28:09.343

          [SPEAKER_00]: Because I think there’s a lot to do with production.

          28:09.443 –> 28:10.963

          [SPEAKER_00]: You can reduce the carbon.

          28:11.423 –> 28:19.025

          [SPEAKER_00]: But on top of that, what we do is we reuse the packaging that we get from the delivery companies and from the brands.

          28:19.485 –> 28:27.047

          [SPEAKER_00]: So you might not think that it’s much, but we estimate that we save around five thousand boxes per month.

          28:27.567 –> 28:36.798

          [SPEAKER_00]: by just reusing items for basically from the customer when we receive the return or from the brand-new receive return with use the same boxes.

          28:37.770 –> 28:40.732

          [SPEAKER_02]: I find that such a, or a, I think that’s a brilliant tip.

          28:41.013 –> 28:42.554

          [SPEAKER_02]: More, more businesses should be doing it.

          28:42.734 –> 28:49.279

          [SPEAKER_02]: But I find the reason why lots don’t is because they feel it could be seen as being embarrassing if they’re seem to be recycling packaging.

          28:49.659 –> 28:55.204

          [SPEAKER_02]: But you’re serving, you know, the top one percent with luxury fashion and you’re doing it.

          28:55.684 –> 29:01.449

          [SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything you would say to people who are like, oh, our customers wouldn’t be all right with that to help them get past that barrier?

          29:02.083 –> 29:10.890

          [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it’s a misunderstanding, in most cases, that customer is expecting you to have everything perfect, they have everything you.

          29:11.391 –> 29:20.058

          [SPEAKER_00]: If you say and your ideology on the website, is that you are recycling and you are doing basically carbon food, you’re reducing the carbon footprint.

          29:20.318 –> 29:23.321

          [SPEAKER_00]: It’s expected of you to have some issues with the packaging.

          29:23.401 –> 29:30.547

          [SPEAKER_00]: And on top of that, if you’re saying, oh, I don’t want the customer to see the bad packaging, don’t send the customer that you’re using packaging.

          29:31.307 –> 29:32.608

          [SPEAKER_00]: Are you using internally?

          29:32.908 –> 29:34.068

          [SPEAKER_00]: The recycled materials?

          29:34.469 –> 29:40.292

          [SPEAKER_00]: Are you using internally for example from one store to another or from example from the production line?

          29:40.572 –> 29:41.892

          [SPEAKER_00]: Are you using the same packaging?

          29:42.413 –> 29:43.933

          [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there is a way to save there.

          29:43.953 –> 29:46.054

          [SPEAKER_02]: I love that two more great tips.

          29:46.114 –> 29:47.295

          [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much, Clim.

          29:47.315 –> 29:51.117

          [SPEAKER_02]: Now before we say goodbye, could you please let us know where you can find you in your business?

          29:51.800 –> 29:56.442

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you can find us at alursjfc.com.

          29:57.122 –> 30:01.363

          [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I mean, it can also come to us that such a cup there are in France.

          30:02.204 –> 30:02.824

          [SPEAKER_02]: Marvelous.

          30:02.964 –> 30:05.905

          [SPEAKER_02]: And I believe you have a little bit of diary space.

          30:05.965 –> 30:10.787

          [SPEAKER_02]: How I have no idea to help other businesses grow their businesses.

          30:10.847 –> 30:13.768

          [SPEAKER_02]: So how does someone get in contact with you if they want your help?

          30:14.642 –> 30:19.146

          [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can always find me and my LinkedIn, which is also clean the address of.

          30:19.566 –> 30:23.729

          [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it’s a name and surname, you’ll find it probably in the description, right?

          30:24.190 –> 30:25.471

          [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, definitely.

          30:26.131 –> 30:26.451

          [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.

          30:26.591 –> 30:27.452

          [SPEAKER_02]: There you go, everybody.

          30:27.512 –> 30:29.734

          [SPEAKER_02]: Clim, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

          30:30.334 –> 30:33.897

          [SPEAKER_02]: I’ve chocked some quite tricky questions at you and you’ve met them all brilliantly.

          30:34.317 –> 30:35.558

          [SPEAKER_02]: It’s been a fascinating task.

          30:35.578 –> 30:36.739

          [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here.

          30:37.380 –> 30:38.120

          [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, girl.

          30:38.180 –> 30:38.921

          [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.

          30:44.742 –> 30:46.523

          [SPEAKER_02]: What a fascinating business.

          30:46.883 –> 30:49.024

          [SPEAKER_02]: And how much does Clim know what he’s doing?

          30:49.124 –> 30:57.649

          [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, brilliant advice and he’s clearly really learnt his craft over running these two different businesses in that same luxury fashion space.

          30:58.249 –> 31:00.290

          [SPEAKER_02]: Loved his three pillars for the business.

          31:00.931 –> 31:03.634

          [SPEAKER_02]: Both because he knows what they are.

          31:04.135 –> 31:08.301

          [SPEAKER_02]: He knows what his business is three pillars that they focus on are.

          31:08.782 –> 31:16.212

          [SPEAKER_02]: And then secondly, how his choice of three pillars fits together so well to deliver for his business.

          31:17.113 –> 31:23.494

          [SPEAKER_02]: The first pillar being the retention of long-term growth, how can they do that through gifts, delivery, bed of service, etc.

          31:23.554 –> 31:39.738

          [SPEAKER_02]: The second one was his omnichannel approach, so understanding the roles of each of those channels, the website and the physical store in the business, which is basically the physical store is about recruiting customers, the online store is about retaining them to put it overly simplistically.

          31:40.438 –> 31:53.583

          [SPEAKER_02]: And then thirdly, that smaller piece about the one to one or the P to P communications where he has a number of staff who each do one-on-one comes with their customers to build those strong relationships over time.

          31:54.463 –> 31:57.024

          [SPEAKER_02]: Really, really fascinating chat with him.

          31:57.525 –> 31:59.385

          [SPEAKER_02]: Lots for you all to take from that, I’m sure.

          31:59.765 –> 32:06.508

          [SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes about this episode, including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.

          32:06.988 –> 32:17.894

          [SPEAKER_02]: You could also use a direct episode shortlets, just put ECMP dot info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page of the site.

          32:17.974 –> 32:20.415

          [SPEAKER_02]: And when you get there, why not get yourself on our email list?

          32:20.455 –> 32:22.416

          [SPEAKER_02]: You don’t miss out on all the cool stuff we share.

          32:23.116 –> 32:33.647

          [SPEAKER_02]: If you like this episode, then you can find more of our episodes about fashion at ECMP.info forward slash fashion and you can find more with stores running on WooCommerce.

          32:33.667 –> 32:46.579

          [SPEAKER_02]: If we don’t get many stores running on WooCommerce, so if you run on WooCommerce and want to come on and be a guest, just apply on the website, but if you want more WooCommerce content, then go to ECMP.info forward slash WooCommerce.

          32:47.700 –> 33:01.625

          [SPEAKER_02]: And if you’re running high end luxury bricks and clicks operations then keep listening because in a few episodes time we’re going to be doing a very cool jewelry boutique one two which is really well worth listening to alongside this one.

          33:02.465 –> 33:02.665

          [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

          33:03.165 –> 33:07.949

          [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for tuning into this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

          33:08.349 –> 33:18.638

          [SPEAKER_02]: 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 all-important path to net zero.

          33:19.078 –> 33:23.742

          [SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

          33:24.203 –> 33:26.865

          [SPEAKER_02]: Hope you have a brilliant week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

          33:30.210 –> 33:33.498

          [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

          33:33.980 –> 33:38.772

          [SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.

          34 min
        • eCommerce MasterPlan | 554: How Oak Furnitureland Wins in Modern Retail with AI, Omnichannel, & CRO

          Ian McBeth is the Head of eCommerce at home furniture business Oak Furnitureland. Founded in 2003 as an eBay store!

          They now sell via their custom online store, telesales, and their 70 stores, selling over £230 million of furniture in the UK every year. Ian’s experience runs far beyond the world of furniture with past roles at Craft Gin Club, hair brand Josh Wood Colour, Vivobarefoot, Ted Baker and many more! 

           

          In this episode, Ian shares the smart strategies behind scaling a complex omnichannel eCommerce operation—plus his no-nonsense approach to using AI, data, and tech to drive real results. 

           

          Hit PLAY to hear: 

           

          • How Oak Furnitureland links online and in-store shopping with a clever QR strategy  
          • The AI use cases Ian actually recommends (and the ones he doesn’t)  
          • Why CRO and UX are the real secret weapons in scaling eCommerce conversions 
          • How Ian’s IT background gives him a major edge in modern eCommerce strategy  
          • The smart way to prioritize projects when everything feels urgent  
          • The biggest mistake eCommerce teams make with AI—and how to avoid it  

            •  

            Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

            [03:21] Evolution of Furniture Retail Career 

            [06:40] eCommerce: Tech to Marketing Shift 

            [10:34] Sofa Purchase Research: A Long Journey 

            [16:08] AI: Sci-Fi Future Realized 

            [17:05] “AI Solutions for Business Problems” 

            [21:31] Ensuring Secure IT Collaboration 

            [22:23] Listen to Ian’s Top Tips! 

             

             Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/554

            .

            .

            This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

            Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

            —

            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

            38 min
          • eCommerce MasterPlan | 553: La Matera’s Road to $4M: Growth, Founder-Led Content, and eCommerce Lessons

            JM Craddock is the CEO and owner of La Matera, a belt brand focused on creating artisanal products that last.

            Founded in 2012 they now sell via their Shopify site and wholesale channels are on track for $4 million this year. JM’s experience goes much further back though, as he was the first employee at Chubbies, including a key role in developing the returns system that became the first version of Loop Returns! 

             

            Hit PLAY to hear: 

             

            • How Jon-Mark used an SBA loan to buy La Matera (and why he recommends it)  
            • Why iPhone videos outperformed $10k ad shoots  
            • The 3-part framework he used to grow La Matera fast  
            • What makes belts a “perfect eCommerce product”  
            • The truth about expanding your product line (and what not to do)  
            • His role in turning Chubbies’ returns system into Loop Returns  

              •  

              Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

              [04:25] “Relocated Business: Spicewood, Texas” 

              [08:41] “SBA Loan Benefits and Process” 

              [11:21] Strategic Business Planning & Marketing 

              [13:46] Reflection on Business Experience 

              [18:51] Balancing Focus and New Projects 

              [21:22] Listen to JM’s Top Tips! 

               

               Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/553

              .

              .

              This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

              Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

              —

              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

              33 min
            • eCommerce MasterPlan | 552: Recommerce, Retention, and ROAS: Fashion Eyewear’s Secret to eCommerce Scale with Steven Westwood

              Steven Westwood is the Head of Sales and Marketing at Fashion Eyewear, sellers of designer prescription glasses and sunglasses, both new and preloved. Selling via Shopify stores in the UK and the USA, the business was founded in 2008 and now ship 10,000 orders a month. 

               

              Hit PLAY to hear: 

               

              • Why most people are still buying glasses the old-fashioned way  
              • How Fashion Eyewear turned pre-loved stock into a retention machine  
              • The Shopify app powering their buyback and recommerce program  
              • Smart ways to guide customers through a complex checkout flow  
              • What really moves the needle on customer lifetime value  
              • Why having just one pair of glasses is officially outdated  

                •  

                Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

                [05:32] “Prescription Glasses: An Untapped Market” 

                [09:42] Eyewear Buyback with TernEco App 

                [11:42] Innovative Glasses Buyback Program 

                [15:32] Eyewear Buyback Boosts Customer Retention 

                [17:32] Listen to Steven’s Top Tips! 

                 

                 Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/552

                .

                .

                This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

                Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

                —

                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

                27 min
              • eCommerce MasterPlan | 551: AI Chatbot Strategy that Delivers with Parts Town’s Paul Hancox

                Paul Hancox, SVP of eCommerce at Parts Town, a leading distributor of OEM foodservice, HVAC, and residential appliance parts. A predominantly B2B eCommerce business, selling via their custom website, and mobile app.

                Parts Town are based in the USA, distribute spare parts to over 140 counties, and the parent company Parts Town Unlimited had annual revenue of $2.5billion in 2024, with 55% growth in HVAC alone! 

                We’ve lots to learn from Parts Town’s Paul Hancox, including how they’ve been leveraging AI chatbots to improve customer experience, sales, and the team’s efficiency.

                 

                Hit PLAY to hear: 

                • Why treating your website like a product could unlock massive growth 
                • The one change that boosted Parts Town’s chat agent efficiency by 60%+  
                • How Paul’s team ships 400,000+ orders per quarter — and what powers it 
                • The secret link between site speed and conversion most brands ignore  
                • What it’s really like to manage eCommerce for a $2.5B B2B giant 
                • The smart way to use AI chatbots without losing the human touch  

                  •  

                  Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

                  [05:35] “Journey from East to West Coast” 

                  [07:11] Career Journey: Home Depot to Lennar 

                  [10:14] eCommerce Product Manager Focus Areas 

                  [15:12] Website’s Chat Functionality Needs Improvement 

                  [16:18] Enhancing Order Inquiries with AI 

                  [21:13] Managing Complex Serial Number Data 

                  [23:58] Curated Personalization and Experience 

                  [25:26] Listen to Paul’s Top Tips! 

                   

                   Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/551

                  .

                  .

                  This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

                  Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

                  —

                  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

                  35 min
                • eCommerce MasterPlan | 550: How Dapper Boi Bootstrapped to $1.3M with Preorders and Viral Content, with Vicky Pasche

                  Vicky Pasche is the founder and CEO at Dapper Boi, a gender-less body-inclusive apparel line. Selling via their Shopify store. Founded in 2015 in 2024 they hit $1.36million. 

                   

                  Hit PLAY to hear: 

                   

                  • How one viral video turned a year of no sales into $30K in 3 weeks  
                  • The bold preorder strategy that helped Dapper Boi scale without outside funding 
                  • Why “fun and scrappy” content beats polished ads every time  
                  • What it’s really like to build a fashion brand with your partner  
                  • The question that made them sell their house instead of giving up  
                  • How they’re expanding globally — and running lean with just 2 full-timers  

                    •  

                    Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

                    [05:19] Starting Fashion Line Without Experience 

                    [07:24] Entrepreneur’s Fashion Journey 

                    [12:43] Dapper Boy: Our Entrepreneurial Journey 

                    [14:24] Innovative Marketing Boosts Shirt Sales 

                    [17:31] “Why Dapper Boy Must Persist” 

                    [20:56] Optimizing Intro Pricing Strategy 

                    [23:41] Exclusive Membership Tiers 

                    [24:48] Listen to Vicky’s Top Tips! 

                     

                     Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/550

                    .

                    .

                    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

                    Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

                    —

                    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

                    34 min
                  • eCommerce MasterPlan | 549: Nip + Fab’s Secrets to Creating Profitable First Orders and Powerful Customer Personas in Beauty eCommerce

                    Frederica Watson is the Head of eCommerce at UK beauty brand Nip + Fab. Founded over 10 years ago, they sell via their Shopify store and wholesale, and the DTC eCommerce site has a 7-figure turnover. 

                     

                    Hit PLAY to hear: 

                     

                    • How Nip + Fab profits from the very first order (yes, really) 
                    • The customer interview that sparked a winning ad campaign 
                    • Why targeting by values beats targeting by age every time 
                    • The simple survey trick that reveals why customers almost didn’t buy 
                    • How to turn real feedback into high-converting marketing copy 
                    • The cross-team collaboration secret behind smarter customer personas 

                      •  

                      Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

                      [04:53] Rodial Group’s Dual Skincare Brands 

                      [07:07] Collaborative Business Approach 

                      [10:37] Effective Customer Acquisition Strategies 

                      [13:27] Interests Over Age in Marketing 

                      [18:07] Competitor Insight through Consumer Feedback 

                      [21:13] “Optimise Sales with Confirmation Surveys” 

                      [23:58] Listen to Frederica’s Top Tips! 

                       

                      Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/549

                      .

                      .

                      This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

                      Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

                      —

                      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

                      32 min
                    • eCommerce MasterPlan | 548: From Local Waste to John Lewis Shelves: The ReBorn Growth Story with Brian Walmsley

                      Brian Walmsley is the founder and CEO at ReBorn, the world’s first homewares brand made entirely from local waste. Founded in 2022 they now sell via wholesale, Amazon, and their Shopify store, and are doing £500,000 a year. 

                       

                      Hit PLAY to hear: 

                       

                      • How Brian turned local plastic waste into a £500K/year homewares brand 
                      • The prototype that bombed—and what it revealed about real customer tastes 
                      • Why relationships (not cold emails) get you into retailers like John Lewis 
                      • The #1 mistake brands make when trying to “go sustainable” 
                      • How to grow your team with sweat equity (and avoid legal headaches) 
                      • The genius supply chain move that became a brand story goldmine 

                        •  

                        Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

                        [04:04] “Sustainable Housewares Market Opportunity” 

                        [09:19] Recycled Materials Procurement Overview 

                        [12:55] “Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Insights” 

                        [15:15] Hybrid Teamwork Approach 

                        [17:30] Key Partnerships: Legal & Human Focus 

                        [20:55] “Category Building for Profitability” 

                        [21:50] Listen to Brian’s Top Tips! 

                         

                        Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/548

                        .

                        .

                        This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

                        Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

                        —

                        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

                        30 min

                      About eCommerce Master Plan

                      From the publisher's feed

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