eCommerce UnderCover

eCommerce UnderCover

By Michael Waitze MediaBusiness
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eCommerce UnderCover episodes

  • EP 34 - Jamie Brennan - Head of Thailand Global Selling at Amazon - Going Global With Amazon

    eCommerce UnderCover was joined by Jamie Brennan, the Head of Thailand Global Selling at Amazon.

    Some of the topics Jamie covered:

    • 15 years of work experience, starting in her family's radio business
    • Working for Lazada and Alibaba
    • Peeking into the CP world via True
    • Credit access for sellers
    • The tenacity of Thailand's eCommerce sellers
    • Some of the world's biggest companies getting founded during the Great Depression
    • The massive size of the eCommerce opportunity in Thailand
    • The impact of COVID and the trend in health food
    • How sellers in Thailand can accelerate growth working with Global Selling at Amazon
      • 57 min
    • EP 33 - Asher Ismail - co-Founder at Uncapped - Why Aren't You Borrowing More Money for Your eCommerce Business?

      eCommerce UnderCover was excited to welcome Asher Ismail, a co-Founder at Uncapped.  Uncapped provides business advances of between £10k and £5m allowing founders to access fair and flexible finance. It makes money by charging a low flat fee which is paid back from future sales revenue.

      Some of the topics covered by Asher:

      • His previous startup experiences and the lessons learned
      • Founding Uncapped based on a problem he experienced as did his Founder friends
      • Funding more companies in a day than most VCs fund in a year
      • The importance of funding for marketing and inventory for eCommerce businesses
      • The benefits of debt financing versus equity funding
      • Revenue-based funding
        • 50 min
      • EP 32 - Matthias Reinholz - Founder and CEO of Qreuz - Cookies Are Not the Enemy

        eCommerce UnderCover was joined by Matthias Reinholz, the CEO and Founder of Qreuz. Qreuz is a privacy-first tracking method for online marketers that provides clean and rich data that respects the privacy of customers.

        Some of the topics that Matthias covered:

        • Switching to ethical server-side tracking and leaving cookies and pixels behind
        • Online customer privacy
        • Is Google Analytics getting banned from some European countries?
        • Only collecting the data needed to understand business performance
        • The importance of leaving customer data where it belongs...with the customers
        • Eliminating the necessity of third-party tracking services
        • Building on open source software
        • Marketing attribution and cohort aggregation
          • 1 hr 4 min
        • EP 31 - Leonard Cheong - Founder, CEO, and Designer at Finix Wear - Freedom

          eCommerce UnderCover welcomed Leonard Cheong, the Founder, Designer, and CEO of Finix Wear. Finix is an inclusive unisex athleisure label designed in Singapore with a unique genderless edge.

          Some of the topics we covered with Leonard:

          • Starting Finix at the height of the COVID pandemic and the challenges of building the entire value chain remotely from the start
          • The birth of Finix out of a personal pain point
          • The lack of diversity in the looks and representation of the fashion fitness market
          • There is a Men's Department and a Women's Department and nothing in between
          • The challenge of finding the right factory for production
          • Starting with smaller product runs and growing with the brand
          • The recent launch of Finix's "Freedom" line
          • The importance of featuring models and talents from different social and ethnic backgrounds
          • Creating an inclusive fashion-fitness label that speaks to a rising generation of diverse individuals and lifestyles
            • 47 min
          • EP 30 - Valentin Radu - Founder and CEO of OmniConvert - I Could Not Afford to Buy a Pretzel

            eCommerce UnderCover was joined by Valentin Radu, the Founder, and CEO of OmniConvert. Omniconvert is a growth enabler for mid-size DTC eCommerce & retail companies looking to increase customer lifetime value and decrease customer acquisition costs.

            Valentin knows his stuff…and had a killer set up with a great mic, multiple cameras, a camera-switcher, and an awesome studio. He also has years of experience and cares about helping others improve their businesses.

            Some of the topics we covered with Valentin:

            • Growing up poor under communism in Bucharest, Romania
            • Why his father was against entrepreneurship
            • Built a company that sold car insurance online
            • CLC vs CAC, the North Star for eCommerce Businesses
            • Understanding the eCommerce growth formula
            • The (changing) mentality of an eCommerce entrepreneur
            • Marketplaces vs stand-alone eCommerce shops
            • Amazon consolidators - Do they really know more than the rest of us about how to scale these businesses?
              • 1 hr
            • EP 29 - Philip Johnston, a co-Founder and the co-CEO of Opontia - A Digital House of Brands

              Martin and Michael were thrilled to have Philip Johnston, a co-Founder and the co-CEO of Opontia on eCommerce UnderCover. With eCommerce aggregators all the rage, we wanted to learn more from the only team doing this in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

              Some of the topics that Philip covered:

              • Opontia’s recent capital raise
              • Marketplaces versus individual online shops
              • How Opontia leverages technology
              • How the team evaluates the companies it wants to acquire
              • The math applied to potential acquired companies
              • Does Opontia care if the original entrepreneurs stay on and how their opinion has evolved
              • What incentives are in place to encourage the founders to remain after acquisition
              • Post-acquisition process for integrating acquired brands
              • Are there concerns about rising prices of acquisition targets?
              • Would Opontia consider building its own online marketplace?
              • Powered by Opontia?
                • 1 hr 5 min
              • EP 28 - TJ Hyland - Director of Global Partnerships, Elevate Brands - What If We Want To Buy These Businesses?

                eCommerce UnderCover was excited to have TJ Hyland, Director of Global Partnerships at Elevate Brands, join us on the show. With all of the news coverage about the investment into Amazon aggregators, we have started to reach out to these teams to dig deeper into the business models and the strategies they are employing. TJ was kind enough to oblige.

                Some of the topics we covered with TJ included:

                • Elevate Brands was founded in 2017...so it is not copycatting like some of the newer participants in this space
                • What did James, Jeremy, and Ryan know or see back in 2017 that the rest of the market was missing?
                • How Elevate Brands grows the brands they acquire and the insights they have that the initial founders may not
                • What is the technology angle and how is the M&A process automated?
                • Business founders generally want to run their own businesses...what incentives are in place to ensure that the founders of the brands that are purchased stay around to operate them or is this not a concern?
                • What actually happens after a brand is acquired...what is the process and what is the experience like for the brand seller?
                • Was international always in the business plan or is this a new strategy?
                • As new competitors keep coming into the rollup market, will the prices of brands that everybody wants to buy just get too high?  Is the arbitrage disappearing?
                • What can we expect from Elevate as the market matures?
                  • 58 min
                • EP 27 - Damien Kerneis - co-Founder Siam Car Deal - I Think We Were Right

                  Back in the studio!

                  Martin and Michael were excited to be back in the studio and joined by Damien Kerneis, a co-Founder of Siam Car Deal.  Siam Car Deal is the leading platform in Thailand to find the best deals on new car purchases.

                  Some of the topics Damien covered:

                  • The health and status of the automobile market in Thailand
                  • The accelerating pace of digital transformation for car dealers in Thailand
                  • The impact of Carsome, Carro, and Cars24 on the new and used car markets in Southeast Asia
                  • The vertical integration of these businesses and the role that finance plays
                  • The development and growth of Chinese automobile manufacturers and brands
                  • The intricacies of the startups in the automobile space
                  • The growing influence of electric vehicles
                  •  Embedding Siam Car Deal deeply into the automobile sales fabric in Thailand
                    • 53 min
                  • EP 26 - Amy Read - co-Founder and CEO at Techsembly - We Had To Build It Ourselves

                    Amy Read is the real deal.  She is the co-Founder and CEO of Techsembly, an eCommerce SaaS solution and trusted partner for hotels looking to create new revenue streams and optimise operations through our marketplace and hotel management platform.  Techsembly enables teams to manage multiple online stores, products, and logistics on one platform.

                    Some of the topics that eCommerce UnderCover covered with Amy:

                    • Joining the graduate program at British Telecom straight out of university
                    • Building things from scratch inside of a big company
                    • Encountering success early and being told she may be rising too quickly
                    • The impact of losing out to a fellow employee for a promotion
                    • Moving into a great team with a failing business and turning it into a massive success
                    • The genesis of Gifts Less Ordinary
                    • How building GLO led to Techsembly and why
                    • Localization is non-trivial
                    • Creating brand new revenue streams for the hospitality business
                      • 57 min
                    • EP 25 - The MACH Alliance - Morten Naess, Jasmin Guthmann, and Dom Selvon

                      A few weeks ago, we had Morten Naess, the EVP Technology at Bluestone on the show to discuss Product Information Management. At some point during that episode, he snuck in a tasty nugget about the MACH Alliance. Martin and I were so intrigued that we asked Morten to come back on the show with some other members of the Alliance to dig a bit deeper and learn more.

                      We were fortunate to have Jasmine Guthmann, the Chair of the Marketing Council, and Dom Selvon, a co-Chair of the Technology Council at the MACH Alliance join the discussion as well. Jasmin’s day job is the Senior Director, Global Marketing Partner at Contentstack while Dom is the CTO of e2x.

                      Some of the topics we covered on this episode included:

                      • Why and how the MACH Alliance was founded
                      • How Bluestone found the MACH Alliance and what made it appealing
                      • What are the benefits to MACH Members?
                      • MACH Member or MACH Ambassador…what is the difference?
                      • What does it take to become a member from a technical perspective?
                      • Why do so many want to join the Alliance?
                      • Where is the MACH Alliance heading?
                        • 57 min

                      About eCommerce UnderCover

                      From the publisher's feed

                      Martin Ronfort and Michael Waitze discuss the future of eCommerce...because we are definitely not there yet.