Overdose & Chill: Live

In the next of our live Instagram Overdose & Chill interviews, our CEO Todd Welling talks with Dan Fertig, Head of Partnerships at BigCommerce, about his background, the BigCommerce journey to IPO, and what the future of SaaS Commerce looks like from the platform side.

BigCommerce is a public technology company that provides a SaaS ecommerce platform. The company was founded in 2009 by Australians Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper and has since grown to 600+ employees with headquarters in Austin, Texas. In July 2020, BigCommerce successfully launched on the stock market by way of an IPO.

BigCommerce

The company’s website markets it as “one platform to run your online business” that can help retailers to “save time and money with a platform designed for the functionality that SME & Enterprise businesses need. With more built-in features than other leading platforms, BigCommerce gives you the power to grow your business from day one.”

Dan Fertig

Dan believes there is a real market opportunity to get ecommerce users to believe in software as a service by developing relationships and building trust with merchants who are already thinking about how to maximise product mix, back-office processes, market places, and channels, and he expresses the ever-important need for businesses to develop online stores to complement their brick-and-mortar offerings. 

Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce had a vision of developing BigCommerce’s product to cater to more sophisticated, mid-market customers and soon realised that it would need to build strong and successful partnerships in order to do so. 

The combination of market opportunity and a belief in CEO Brent Bellm’s future strategy appealed to Dan’s “challenger mindset,” and he moved from Oracle to BigCommerce 4 years ago, relocating from New York to Austin in the process.

Leveraging our highly-regarded global digital expertise in a country that has the largest economy in Europe and almost 5% share of the entire global economy, Overdose’s ongoing expansion is led by Managing Director DACH, Daniel Höhnke. Daniel supports a rapidly growing portfolio of European and global brands by establishing a local team of senior project management, development, CX, and marketing specialists to expand the global Overdose offering into the European market.

The Interview

In the latest of our live Overdose & Chill Instagram interviews, our Group CEO, Todd Welling, chats with Daniel about the central European eCommerce market, its differences, challenges, and opportunities.

Daniel Höhnke

Daniel has spent 15 years working in German ecommerce and has run his own Agency for the past 9 years. He is pleased to be joining the OD team to spearhead its introduction to the German, Austrian, and Swiss (DACH) digital marketplace.

Today on Chill, we talk to Victor Castro, soon-to-be Vice President of Growth & Digital Product at Bonafide Health, about the brand’s journey, the “big” conversation, and how they manage to maintain traction.

Bonafide Health LLC is a North American healthcare provider that aims to provide powerful natural remedies for the common symptoms that often impact women’s lives, “from PMS to Menopause and everything else along the way.”  Bonafide’s vitamins and minerals, which are also available as supplements to the key products, are marketed as “all the essentials for feeling good without compromise.”

The Bonafide product range is advertised as “safe and hormone-free” and “is backed by experts with experience in medical drug discovery, clinical research, and patient advocacy.”

Essentially, the company’s unique selling point is that it has started a candid conversation globally about women’s health issues, which is long overdue.

The Chat

In a world where it feels like we are bombarded daily by information about everything, everyone, and every place, PMS, menopause, and their various symptoms are surprisingly still very much taboo subjects.  Bonafide plans to expand the conversation with determination: it is determined not to sugar-coat the symptoms, products, or solutions; it is determined not to use euphemisms; and it is determined to challenge the fact that female sex organs are forbidden SEO keywords, filtered to block their use in marketing information not only on the internet but also on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook!

Bonafide isn’t the only company facing this barrier to marketing content.  It could well be joined by brands that sell sex toys and feminine products in lobbying the digital platform providers to change their current processes and allow adults to have grown-up conversations, information, and choices, all while ensuring children are still protected from seeing age-inappropriate information. 

Bonafide does not want to be pushed into a private group to continue this very important conversation.  This brand has the courage of its convictions and wants to provide its growing audience with a safe space for communication, a trusted resource for education, and an environment where people can talk about their symptoms freely.

In the fourth episode of our Overdose & Chill Live, we talk to Andy Mackie about how Asset Factory can help retailers of all sizes to maximise their online marketing, and he gives us an insight into the four key photography machines that create the magic.

Asset Factory was established in Kingsland, Auckland in 2016 after LookDepot founder Andy Mackie recognised the growing link between digital capability and overall business success through content production timelines.

The company has paired its in-depth knowledge of digital commerce with the benefits of the world’s most advanced fully automated photography machines to create a solution that enables quality content to be created quickly and cost-effectively by businesses of all sizes.

Now New Zealand’s leading ecommerce and social content creation agency, the Asset Factory team works with brands from all over the country. Their clients range from small start-ups to established iconic brands spanning fashion, homewares, FMCG, health and beauty, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals.

This week on Chill, we chat with Matt Jones the Co-Founder of Four Pillars.

Four Pillars Gin was born in 2013 when three friends and wine industry veterans decided to embark on their next adventure producing gin. Six years later, Four Pillars was named by the IWSC in London as the world’s leading gin producer. Four Pillars prides itself on being a modern Australian maker who produces awarded and unique craft gins right here in Australia. The brand is centred on combining intense creativity around gin with a huge passion for hospitality and fun.

Overdose's CEO, Todd Welling talks with Matt Jones about the Four Pillars journey, their modern Australian product, market challenges, and how they maximize their consumer experience.

This week on Chill, we chat with Dion Roosenbrand, the Founder and CEO of NZ Muscle. Overdose's CEO, Todd Welling talks with Dion about NZ Muscle's growth, risk-taking, the impact of Covid-19, the role of influencers in the marketing arena, and how to achieve a good work/life balance.

NZ Muscle retails high-quality nutritional supplements, health foods, vitamins, weight loss products, clothing, accessories, and sports equipment; all sourced from across the globe and available from a gym, four retail stores located across Auckland, and via an online shop to consumers throughout New Zealand.  The company caters to male and female customers of all shapes and sizes; from the hardcore bodybuilder to the everyday gym-goer, and is proud to be an organic New Zealand retailer.

When Dion Roosenbrand was a student and spending a lot of his time working out at the gym with friends, he realised that there was a limited choice of sports supplements available locally. From sourcing international products for his own personal use, the idea grew that the NZ gym community might also be interested in a better choice of products.  He was right, and the company that he started operating out of his parent’s garage in 2006 has since grown to be the NZ Muscle brand that we know today with four stores across Auckland.

In the first of our Overdose & Chill: Live Instagram interviews, we talk to Tom Franey, Head of Ecommerce @ Scotch & Soda Australia, about his journey, what makes the brand unique, the impact of Covid-19, and how the company is managing customer retention.

From his initial job in sales on a shop floor, Tom quickly took up an opportunity to train and gain experience in retail marketing and online content. He joined Scotch & Soda in 2019 to lead their digital transformation and omnichannel retail strategy across Australia and New Zealand.

Scotch & Soda

Scotch & Soda designs, manufactures, and sells eclectic, modern, luxury clothing for men, women, and kids. Its clothing range is supplemented by denim, footwear, and accessories, such as fragrances and eyewear, which continue to cement Scotch & Soda as a brand for discerning shoppers who consciously choose a lifestyle of freedom and choice.

From its humble beginnings in Amsterdam, the past 35 years have seen Scotch & Soda expand from a menswear-only brand to the all-inclusive global offering it is today. Its designs can now be found at over 7,000 selected retailers and in 247 standalone stores worldwide. Customers in over 70 countries can avail themselves of its growing online service.

The Brand

With a tagline of “Amsterdam Couture,” Scotch & Soda is a luxury European brand aimed at discerning consumers who demand style and quality in both wardrobe staples and statement pieces.

Speaking of the company’s emphasis on the importance of each customer’s in-store experience, Tom describes the impact of “the smell, the touch of the products… the brass and the gold finishings throughout the store” to the Fashion Hosts and Stylists whose priority it is to make a one-to-one connection with each customer who comes through the door, regardless of how busy the store is.

With Tom at the helm, Scotch & Soda has put its Australia/New Zealand digital transformation and omnichannel retail strategy in very good hands.

Overdose + Scotch & Soda

In order to help Scotch & Soda meet its desired business outcomes, Overdose has been working with Tom and his team to integrate launch a new Magento 2 Commerce Cloud website, integrated with its Apparel 21 ERP via Comestri middleware. The utilization of Comestri allows for bi-directional transfer of product, order fulfillment, shipping, and accounting functions whilst allowing the company to syndicate products to their additional channels.

Scotch & Soda has created a way of thinking that has helped shape today’s global brand. Its passion for original thinking and rejecting the normal and mundane has opened the way for its clothing styles to be seen as a key indicator of the wearer’s beliefs and an outward symbol of belonging to a distinct subculture and movement. This ongoing journey with Overdose and Magento will further enhance the digitization of the customer experience to grow and shape this global brand in the future and to amplify the retailing of its distinctive brand of shirts, sweaters, suits, outerwear, shoes, and accessories to individuals around the world who want to make a statement.

View the Scotch & Soda Case Study here.

This week on Chill, we chat with the great Matt Porter @ Kokatat.

Matt is Product Manager at Kokatat, an innovative, world-renowned paddle sports gear and apparel brand based in California. With over 15 years at Kokatat, Matt has been an integral part of the brand's success and has a wealth of knowledge and expertise across digital commerce. (He also knows a thing or two about paddle sports.)

Keith Karlick, Overdose Seattle’s Director of Strategy and Matt discuss continual innovation and expansion, the evolution of the commerce landscape, challenges and successes and strategies for successful growth.