Today on the Winning with Shopify podcast.
I know for sure if I didn't do emails for our launches they
would do like 75% less than what they do.
He said your most unhappy customers are your greatest
source of learning. Button down shirt on the top of
a mountain like and it's a staged photo that does not work
for us. And so I just, I love hearing
those stories, and those are the stories I hear quite often.
When your your phone starts stinging from Shopify with the
the sales going. Through that lovely sound.
It's fantastic, but I actually had to turn it off that day
because it was it was too much. It was an amazing problem to
have. But let's talk about e-mail as
well. Say eventually using Saguna as
an e-mail platform. Your customers clearly are
engaged. I mean, you've got the TikTok as
one example, YouTube's another. Tell us about how you engage
with customers on e-mail and how you use Saguna to make that
happen. Well, before I was just relying
on social media and I was just, it was hard to get out a message
to everyone at once without posting so many different posts.
When in an e-mail, you can just have them scroll and it's like
loyal customers will subscribe because they want to be kept in
the know. I really underestimated e-mail
marketing in the beginning, but now I use it for a success of a
launch. So when we're launching a new
collection, for example, two weeks out or maybe 3 weeks, I'll
send like a sneak peek e-mail. I'll do a countdown.
Sometimes I'll post a giveaway in the e-mail, but I always make
sure e-mail customers find out everything 1st.
And then even launch day, I'll send out an e-mail to remind
people, 'cause like not everyone's going to set an alarm
for launch, they're going to rely on the e-mail.
So we rely heavily on those. And I've even seen, I know for
sure if I didn't do emails for our launches, they would do like
75% less than what they do. OK, amazing.
And what I love, I'm just, I'm just writing down some notes as
as anyone watching a video can probably see.
And what I love is that so many brands we work with are like, Oh
yeah, we, nobody engages us an e-mail, not enough people sign
up to our e-mail list. And these are obviously the two
big things. And the more people you get sign
up, the more money you're going to make sending emails.
And the more you improve your emails, the more money you're
going to make sending those emails and to a bigger audience.
What I love is 2/2 of the USPS that scream out immediately.
One is you'll be the first to know.
So we do launches all the time. You'll be the first to know if
you subscribe to emails. There's a reason to actually
subscribe there rather than just, it drives me mad
sometimes. So my clients do it as well and
we don't talk about it enough with them, I don't think join
our newsletter. And it's like why?
And yeah, and having spoken to some of our clients, they're
like, oh, because we send this, this and this, I'm like, well,
it doesn't say that. And I could never assume, you
know, always, always prescribe. And the second thing as well is
those launches, I mean, the launches must be massive for you
guys, like saying like, hey, there's been a big drop and is
in a new product drop. Not a drop in anything, but a
new product drop. Do you find that things like can
sell out really, really quickly? Do you, when you're creating
products, making products, do you, do you have to, I guess the
first question really is do you have to make them in advance so
that you've got them on the shelf or do you make them on
demand fund? And that probably leads into my
second question of when you're doing a big drop or a big launch
or a big announcement, how do you plan ahead for your
inventory and stock levels? How do you go, we're going to
need 1000 of these, but actually this other one we're doing up
here, we're already going to need 50.
Like how do you how do you plan that and not end up with loads
of excess stock? Well to answer the first
question, we usually sell out and when we were in my parents
basement we were just limited to the fabrics we could pick up at
the fabric store because I didn't order yet from our
current bigger fabric stockist And we would just buy 1 bolt and
that was all. Almost like maybe 50 scrunchies
per size and we would just make the most that we can in my
parents basement. Sometimes we would be making
them the day we launch, but I would pre count the numbers and
they would almost always sell out because they were limited
edition and there was just such lower quantities that we could
make back then. But they would sell out almost
the day of and we would be getting emails back to the
launch e-mail being like we just tried to buy.
They're sold. Out, yeah, yeah, I guess you
could almost say to customers like, OK, we estimate you've got
14 minutes or something, you know, to go and get your
product. So how different is it now that
you've got in essence like an unlimited supply of of sorry,
it's not product, is it, but unlimited supply of of silk and
other stuff that you need to make the scrunchies?
We still actually do limited drops and the Valentine's drop
we did, which I was surprised at because it was right after the
holidays. We sent emails.
We had to e-mail basically right after New Year's Eve, which I
felt for me, I was like, this is too soon.
Like people just bought, they're not going to buy again.
I just emails that following week and then the sneak peek
e-mail and then the launch day e-mail and all those crunchies
sold out that same day. Wow.
Wow, and so you're still getting that same effect, even though
within reason, you can make a much higher demand of products,
which is incredible. I'm sure anybody listening is
like, I wish my products would sell out when I put those on
e-mail. So I think I mean, certainly
guys go and have a look at XSL scrunchie and see what see what
Tina's doing and see if there's any good inspiration on that as
well. How much do you and, and forgive
me, Saguno, for saying this because I know you guys were
listening. Your Canva Connect is something
that everyone raves about and I've not used myself and but
Tina, you, it's in my notes that you use the Canva Connected
Saguno quite a lot. Talk me through that process.
How do you use it? What benefit is it?
How much time does it save? Well, before I was just using
the templates, which I found weren't as customizable and it
wasn't as quick as using Canva Connect because I can just drag
and drop what I create in Canva into the e-mail.
And it's just a little faster to e-mail or to edit emails in like
an editor instead of in like locked templates.
Cuz I like to really customize and just drag and drop.
I'm really used to using Adobe Photoshop.
So canvas kind of like the next closest thing and it connects.
So it just saves me time and gets me looking to our aesthetic
a little better. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think it's so hard sometimes when you get a
template. The mindset I find when I'm
using templates in e-mail is I need to now change the template
to fit my brand and get my message across.
Whereas using Canva, you can sort of design like, or you can
even use the templates on Canvaing, which is obviously a
huge archive of things, but being able to customize graphics
and stuff and just drop them straight in obviously brings
things massively to life. I mean, it's, it sounds, it
sounds amazing. And the, the journey you guys
have been on. And I've got a note here that
when that journey began, you guys had a 50K launch weekend.
It's in 50,000 lbs of sales. Talk us through like everything
from what happened, but also like, and I love asking this
part of the question. Tell us about the emotional side
of what was going through your mind over that weekend that
launch. So, you know, I'm sure like
anyone who's started the business is a, you know, it's a
scary thought. You have this idea and you're so
passionate about it and you want it to succeed.
And I was fortunate in the fact that I had quite a large online
community already. So I had, I had an idea that it
would sell, you know, not to that extent by any means, but I
thought, you know, we're not going to lose money on the on
the first, you know, first month or so.
I thought we'd, you know, we'd be OK.
And so yeah, we did all the build up the photos, sort of
teased it for a week online and released it at, I remember it
wasn't so 9:00 AM December 1st on a Friday and it just went
insane. And you know that feeling of
when your your phone starts dinging from Shopify with the
the sales going? Through that lovely sound, Yeah,
yeah, yeah. It's fantastic, but I actually
had to turn it off that day because it was it was too much.
It was an amazing problem to have.
On the flip side, we really weren't prepared for that level
of first weekend and with it being a couple of weeks before
Christmas, obviously people were buying Christmas presents really
wanted, you know, them to, to get there.
And the model we had back then was, it was about, we managed
with our suppliers to get 7 day turn around from the orders that
weekend to being delivered to us, not really appreciating how
long it would take to fulfil that.
So when it did start arriving, you know, and we was doing it
from home, we didn't have a, a base or anything then it was,
this was supposed to be a home online business and.
So you had 50 grands worth of clothing suddenly suddenly
arrived. We had, I think at one stage we
had like 70 boxes of, you know, like like huge boxes of clothes
just spread out. And then obviously trying to
like, where's the black free XLT shirt to?
We put in someone's order and it just took so long and it was so
like I could. Just imagine the conversation
like eating pizza on the lounge floor one night, going What the
hell have we done? It was.
From the day the boxes arrived until the 23rd of December, it
was like 16 hour days, you know, and around that also trying to
navigate having 22 boys. And another thing that was and
that, that stress of because everyone's so connected, you
know, everyone who bought really was a, a follower owner.
And so, so I wanted it to be there before Christmas.
I was be there before Christmas. And yeah, that, that soon made
us realise that, OK, this isn't an online home business.
We need a. We need a base.
Yeah, Yeah. And I mean, when you said 18
months, like some businesses at 18 months are like they're still
trying to get that first order, you guys.
I mean, because of the weight, that 10 year kind of weight
behind the Shopify store, it's obviously got going really,
really quickly, which is amazing.
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What have been some of the challenges then?
Was it like kind of a big launch and then a massive lull?
Like as you say, like some of it was, some of it's, it's really
nice running the brand and having people buy products and
there's the kind of emotive, passionate side.
But you are a business at the same time.
Like how hard is it to balance those two things at times where
it's like we just need some more revenue through the door or our
sales are just too low, We're not sustainable like this
versus, oh, let's go off and do another event that's probably
not going to make us necessarily any money, but it's going to be
really, really good for the cause.
Like how do you balance those two things and keep them, keep
them in good kilter? Yeah, it's it's tricky I and
because we are new business, it's also understanding like
what is a seasonal low, what is a, how much should we be doing a
month compared to you know to the marketing that we're doing
or you know what's a good month, what's a bad month.
So we've kind of been learning that and for that first nine
months it was only me and sort of one other part time.
So since then we've, you know, taken on the shop, taken on the
staff and then, yeah, suddenly there's a, you know, there's
overheads every month and there's a responsibility and all
people that, you know, you're trying to help, you want to be
part of this company, you want to be employed, which means even
more because of the reason why they're part of the company.
And so, yeah, there is a, an added pressure and, and yeah,
it's a did you know, did that product not work because of the
design or did it not work because of the, the month for
the, you know, the, the socials around it?
There's so many things and, and things that I don't really
probably know the answers to still yet.
I'm still running as I go. But but yeah, it's been, you
know, that launch month was, was definitely our best month in the
18 months so far, but we've had some, some good months around it
too. And, and I feel like we're,
we're in a good place to grow now and that I think that's the
next step is, is how to, you know, what's the, where best do
we focus our efforts to do that? Yeah, yeah.
And I've worked plenty of brands over the years where they're
like they're making a little bit of profit or they're making a
slight loss or something. And they're like, we just need
to grow. And it's you kind of have that
stop and have that quick conversation with them.
Say, you do know if we don't fix some of the like operational,
financial, sustainable kind of parts to this or work out what
your team looks like internally, we're just going to scale up a
problem. And that like if you're making a
1% loss or 5% loss, that's a lot bigger in terms of numerical
numbers when you reach £1,000,000 turnover a month
versus when you're at £10,000 a month turnover.
And so I think it's, I think you're doing the right thing
obviously of just looking at like, do we have all the right
blocks? Then we kind of go up another.
I always look at it like a staircase.
You kind of get everything ready and then you jump up to the next
step and you kind of sustain yourself there a little bit.
Then we get the next set of blocks ready.
We jump up as if they're the next step on the on the
staircase. Talking about those merchants,
Chris or Jonathan, I don't know if which one of you guys wants
to go first or either of you guys, but are there any
particular merchants that really stick with you?
Using built for Shopify apps made a meaningful difference to
how they were trying to run their business.
And, and most importantly, I always like to bring it back to
revenue, something that actually helped the the store and the
merchants revenue increase. I don't know who which one of
you guys wants to go first on this.
You having something else? I.
Don't know if I was being very. Public merchant, yeah, I don't
know if I have any specific merchant story, but like I
talked about app developers often and I love it when they
come to me and say wow. Like, you know, even though it
was hard, maybe there's a bunch of effort to get into built for
Shopify. What they've discovered is that
they've, they've seen that merchants are now consistently
praising their apps now. And both both like qualitatively
and quantitatively, they're, they're ratings have gone up.
They've, they're now getting more and more growth for
themselves. And, and it seems like we're
making the right match, right? We're making the right
matchmaking experience happen. And so I just, I love hearing
those stories, and those are the stories I hear quite often.
Yeah. I mean, aside from like our
incredible customer support, the number one thing that people
mention in our app reviews is the integration with Shopify.
And so it is meaningful to folks.
It greatly reduces your learning curve when you're trying a new
tool because it works and looks like Shopify and they just love
that experience getting to stay inside of their Shopify admin,
not having to worry about, you know, duplicating data in
different systems and all that sort of stuff.
So yeah, we've definitely heard it from merchants through
reviews, through anecdotally, you know, and, and support
conversations. We've also seen, you know, apps
come, you know, potentially leave go for.
They hired an agency. The agency pulled them off to
another platform that they worked with.
They ended up firing the agency and then came back to shop or
came back to Seguno. And, and so that, that ease of
use that being built for Shopify provides, it enables merchants
to do more with less. And, and so they're actually
able to take advantage of the functionality that apps provide
and, and do more with it. And, and so we've, we've seen
that a number of times that people are, are choosing that
because it, it gives them more control and they feel like they
can do more with it. And one thing I love about
Saguino as well, just to kind of carry on from what you've said,
Jonathan, about people praising the apps.
And also I think I love your response as well, Chris, with
like the integration is so important.
Some of the feedback we've had with our clients where we've
jumped on a call with Saguno and said, right, these guys, they're
using this platform or they're on somewhere on Saguno already.
We need to be using it more like we need to work out
segmentations, audiences using customer data.
The way the pop ups work. The thing I love is it's so fast
on page speeds because the pop ups are already built within
Shopify rather than you've dumped some JavaScript into your
theme to get something to fire to offer a discount on a initial
purchase or sign up to our newsletter for XYZ.
Because it's so integrated. When somebody signs up, they're
now in your Shopify customers area.
They're not in some CRM or ERP system elsewhere.
They might go there later, but they're they're in Shopify,
which means they're also in Saguno.
And then you can automatically have the automations and stuff
flowing through. We've had clients where
automations through a third party non Shopify native app is
working completely independently and it stops working for a week
or two. And it's only when somebody
looked at a dashboard that had e-mail revenue coming in from GA
four that really noticed something was actually wrong
here. Like why are the numbers
dropping whereas Saguno's built into it?
So you just don't see that happen because of that
integration. So I think that I know it's not
completely native to Shopify. It's still an app on its own
server that plugs in, but I call it native because it looks like
that when you're actually in the interface, you don't have to
leave Shopify to do anything. Are there any specific features
I've missed there, Chris, that you also think are important?
But certainly that's what our clients are saying is so
important. I mean, just speaking more
broadly about the BFS program, right, Like I think like
Jonathan mentioned, there's performance, there's design and
then integration. And so the integration is an
area that I think is often overlooked and it's something
that Shopify is pushing even more and putting more
requirements there, especially for different categories of
apps. And that's what leads to the
great experience when you have data in the right places that
enables merchants to leverage in segments or discounting or, you
know, storefront things, all that, all that type of stuff, it
matters. And, and so even data
portability you could think about.
So as you're using one app and then you decide to switch it out
for another, if you have the data stored properly in Shopify,
you don't have to go through a whole migration process.
It's easier to kind of plug and play these things.
And so I, I just love how Shopify is, is just putting
forth the right way to do things and starting to incentivize apps
to, to go after that because it makes a better experience for,
for everyone. Absolutely.
And as someone who's in Shopify a lot working with clients,
making changes in my team are it's when you've got something
in there, it's so much easier across the board just to go,
let's just open the app within the Shopify interface.
It's already plugged into my theme.
I can customize things quickly and one of our clients they they
moved from Hybris and the site had cost them like 2 and a half,
$1,000,000 and they moved from Hybris to Shopify.
It was $110,000 build on Shopify and that included all the
integrations. And when we stripped back the
brief under all the different layers of the onion, right in
the middle was the marketing team wants to click new page and
add some content. Hybris, it was so complicated.
You want to look for the opportunities to break to, to
penetrate the market, to be different, to be unique.
So you want to on one way. You want to validate demand, of
course, because you want to buy inventory or produce a product
or produce a new product that people are looking for.
There is demand. But on the other hand, you want
to see what other competitors are doing, what features the
product have, Colors, sizes, packaging, services like
shipping. The money back guarantee, you
want to know all the details and then you want to put all
together and then make the decision this is a great
opportunity or not. Let me give you an example, OK?
For example, if I came across a seller that launched a product
just three weeks ago and this product already sold 10,000
time, OK? And this product only sell in
one unit, OK. But there is a need for this
product to be sell also in multiple units together, let's
say like a pack of five or stuff like this.
I have an opportunity, why I have a new seller, which means
it's a new seller who generate a lot of sales and already managed
to generate success. It's not an established branded
long time in the market, right? So as a, as a new seller myself
or as in or as a person who's going to sell new products for
the for the first time, I already know this guy succeed
very early. It means he's doing something
very good. The demand is there, the product
is there, right? So I already know the success
rate is higher. Now I, I second things.
I recognize an opportunity where I can offer this product in
bundles or I can add something else to the product.
Maybe I can improve the feature. Maybe I just recognize that the
SEO can be done much better. Yeah, yeah, I, I love that.
And it's when we look at competitors, the, the thing that
I I find mildly frustrating, I'll say.
So any existing clients listening, like, please don't
think I'm moaning here, but we make a lot of decisions and I'm
on a war against making decisions this way.
We do them based on what we think and we do them based on
gut feel, not based on data. And that I think is one of the
biggest crimes people commit. Come back to your murder scene.
The biggest crimes people commit on their own brand is to say,
we're going to launch a red one. This product's so popular, this
blue product, we're going to launch a red one.
Let's do it. And then it flops.
And because you've not looked properly at the data, as you
say, to understand what is the best color to be offering.
Well, why don't you actually do a sample run or use data that
you've got to say, well, actually on eBay at the moment
and, and, and in the Shopify marketplaces, there are 10,000
blue ones being sold, 40,000 yellow ones and no red ones.
And we're thinking of selling a red one.
Well, like you're trying to sell one that nobody wants to buy at
the moment. So why don't you?
I guess it's two sides to this, isn't it?
One is jump on the on the bandwagon and say popular
product, let's offer the same thing, sell the same thing,
offer our own variation on this. The other one that sprung to
mind when you were explaining that new seller that sold 10,000
units, I was thinking that actually if you kept an eye on
how much your competitors sold out on certain products and I
know a way to do this off the back of Shopify and it'll be to
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Every Shopify store has a shopping fee that comes out to
Google. So if you check those every
morning and set up some sort of alert to go my competitors
product here is has gone out of stock since yesterday.
You could use your data to go, it's gone out of stock and tons
of them are selling on the marketplaces and eBay right now.
Therefore, we've got some of those we need to e-mail our
customers about them, put it on our homepage, push it in our
marketing because we're not pushing it right now, but we
know someone else is selling out of it.
As much as, as you say, the devil's in the detail of looking
at these products are doing well and we're pushing all this stuff
over here. I, I so often see it with brands
as well where you've got like 10 kind of flagship products and
two of them sell really well. The other rate you're trying to
push because you accidentally ordered too many.
And I think again, using the data to avoid things like that
happening is is so important, isn't?
It of course and this and what you just say like this is like
the way you explain it. This is how every brand owner
should play your because imagine people are going investing
thousands of dollars on stock building a website, building a
brand, social channels, ads. You should use all set of
different analytic tools and combine the data together.
And we have few unique use cases of sellers are doing it and are
extremely well. They use, you know, like you
say, they come from you world, Google Shopping, Google Adwords
and all these kind of things bringing traffic data, but then
combining it with real demand and real sales.
And then it works both for ads and for SEO.
Why? Because suddenly it's not just
this this search term have 50,000 surges every month.
Is this search that maybe have just 5000 surges every month.
But the conversion rate and the sales that this search term
actually bring on Shopify and on eBay, which by the way, eBay in
this terms of SEO much more powerful because it's a surge
engine. Yep, it's it's amazing
conversion rate. So now I actually should go and
spend on this keyword much more money because the conversion
rate on this keyword is much powerful.
Yeah, yeah. We actually do a lot with our
STO team. We actually do quite a lot on
Amazon and eBay to optimize their listings to get them found
more and certainly on the Amazon side as well.
We started then doing paid listings and we get the most
incredible ROI on them because we've optimized them using
Google and Amazon data to do that, and the same with eBay.
This week's quote, absolutely legend Bill Gates, he said
something, and I'm taking this slightly out of the context, he
said it and putting it into our context in the e-commerce world,
he said your most unhappy customers are your greatest
source of learning. And he's absolutely right.
When I heard this quote, it was probably about six months ago,
maybe nine months ago now. My memory is evading me as I get
older. But the reviews, customer
service, etcetera, and other things that we look at in
e-commerce and the way we talk to our customers and hear from
our customers, I think this is so important.
There was something that happened with a brand recently
and we're helping them kind of get out of this rut at the
moment. What happened is their revenue
started dropping and they didn't know why.
And we've had a look and it's been a bit of a head scratch.
We actually don't know why. So what I love about this quote
is it's saying you're unhappy. Customers are the greatest
source of learning. So if you talk to customers that
don't buy, it's the devil you know rather than the devil that
you don't. So highly recommend you're not
talking to your customers, you start talking to them.
We always say when we're talking to various review platforms on
here as well and various store owners that actually are
negative review user just important as the positive ones.
Obviously it does level your star rating and that kind of
thing and everyone to chat about being a five star rated
business. But the learnings from the
really important and it doesn't just tend to reviews.
I'd also think about, as I said earlier, customer service, talk
to customer service teams and say what are some of the biggest
issues you get? And, and it's interesting with
customer service, especially to split them by pre sale and post
sale as well. So if somebody pre sale is
always asking about the dimensions of this product, even
if they're on the page that they're looking out on the
website, they're clearly not clear.
You need to make them as obvious as possible.
Given the, the movement into influencer marketing and
influencers using stuff, how, how much do you think that's
changed for both big brands and small brands like you guys?
I say, I don't want to say small, sorry, but very nimble.
Like you said earlier, Jackie, very nimble.
We make decisions. We can pivot quickly when
something changes. How is the influence the world
and the rise of YouTube and and Instagram and TikTok changed?
Actually watching people using products outdoors to go, there's
clearly a problem here and we can solve that very quickly.
And it's, it wasn't, it's not something someone would write on
a customer feedback survey, But having watched them try and open
the bag or put it on their back or as you say, my, it's really
bulky. Like how much, how much do you
guys use? Kind of just watching what
people are doing in the outdoors online to then drive how we're
going to build a product to solve something they might not
even know is a problem. Yeah.
I think the first part of that is kind of the influencer side
of this is more, you know, the brand really started kind of
organically with that influential movement on
professionals and users who were really looking for the products
that Mike was creating to solve what they were trying to do.
So you had like really professional people, very
technical people who kind of really led the charge of
building and starting kind of at the beginning of it.
So they were influential in that way, but not like the
influential marketing that we kind of have now.
So I think it's definitely been a balance of keeping it
authentic with those core users who really started and helped
organically grow the brand, but then also balancing it with the
social aspect of this across YouTube reviewers and Instagram
people who want to kind of use the products.
But sometimes it's more the, it's still the intent of the
product cuz you can use it however you want, but it's just
kind of finding that right balance of the new shiny white
packs on top of a mountain compared to the really dirty
packs that have kind of been used.
And you know that they're using it for a while and have gone on
all these adventures with it. So again, I kind of think it's
more of a balance. And yeah, we get a lot of great
feedback from online, from YouTube and from Instagram, and
we get a lot of feedback from people who aren't on those
platforms. So I think that's kind of the
balance for us is really trying to stay authentic with that core
group of people that really kind of helped grow the business at
the beginning. I'd add to that, you know, that
authenticity piece is really important for, you know,
especially for our users or people that are going to these
places and have big goals in their life and big objectives.
And you know, so, you know, working with, with athletes and
guides and, and people who would just have ambitious goals.
I mean, and we're helping them achieve those goals.
You know, we'll get more orders and and more influence in the
market through that versus some of the actual influencer
programs where you'll see someone wearing a pair of jeans,
you know, and a button down shirt on the top of a mountain
like, and it's a staged photo that that does not work for us.
I mean, I've kind of, I've got it in my notes about an amazing
question about your growth. And I feel like we've spoken
quite a lot about this, but there's a second part that I
really want to ask. It's one of my favorite
questions to ask. With all your growth, are there
any pivotal moments that completely stand out to you guys
as being like that was a game changer or that was a day when
just things things changed better or worse, but that's a
day things changed. Yeah, One for me was the actual
transition to the new logo. We saw, you know, significant
growth through those years and and several years beyond.
You know, I'd say COVID was another, you know, big pivotal
moment when, you know, the lockdowns were happening and the
only thing people could do was get outside.
So I mean, that was a great time for the industry.
But yeah, there, I mean, there's, there's, there's some
big ones and there's so many little ones.
Every day I wake up, I hear some new story of something really
cool that happened. And it makes me proud to know
that we were part of making those experiences happen for our
users. It's amazing.
Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing. And, and over to your side as
well. Jackie, from a marketing
perspective, what have been some of the biggest strengths in the
growth of the brand? Because this is one reason I
love having you both on as well as Mike.
You're looking at stuff from the cockpit and going what a
beautiful set of scenery. Like we've made some tough
decisions. We've made some really good
decisions like over the time and all this has kind of changed.
But you're Jackie, you're much more on the ground of like, what
are we spending on Google Ads? What's Meta doing?
What's SEO doing right now? Who are we acquiring?
What does that look like on the ground?
Then having the weight of these kind of big ideas, very, very
customer kind of centric brands, what are some of things have
been pivotal to the growth kind of on the ground with marketing
them? Yeah.
I think we're in a moment right now for sure on kind of like
pivotal growth for us. I think a lot of the strategies
we had last year coming into this year was how do we really
identify a lot of the internal kind of value propositions that
we know people are choosing hyperlate, why they're coming
back to the brand. And then how do we think about
packaging that up and communicating it externally to
consumers in a way that can really be like digested and
understood? Because we would talk about in
the office and just like rattle things off like, oh, like the
products are just so durable and it's so lightweight and we'd go
to like these values kind of it, but we never really packaged it
together as like this whole proposition.
That could be a real big benefit for the consumers in a way that
they can understand it. So we're doing a lot of campaign
pushes right now specifically around this better backpacking
idea where it's all about education.
And it's about kind of sharing our value proposition and what
we built and how we're standing on it.
And just why at the end of the day, going with lighter gear is
just better for anyone trying to do any kind of adventure.
So we're leveraging different platforms, we're trying new
strategies and we're really kind of pushing how we're serving up
some of these ideas to our existing consumers and to some
new consumers, so. Yeah, and as a fellow marketeer,
I know I I can almost sort of hear some of the pain in in that
of going. We've got 50 reasons why this is
amazing product. Which two or three of those 50
is the best one to say to a customer to get the best
conversion rate. And the reality is like every
customer's like I want those three and someone else like
those three were the reason these three, the reason is
getting that across some pixels on a screen.
And then some genius decided to develop the phone that you could
go on the Internet on. And it was like, now we've got
less pixels on the screens, like, OK, we're going to scroll,
we're going to scroll up and down.
But it is a real challenge, isn't it, to work out what
really makes the brand tick. And I guess what's the sub
question on this? Have there been any really
important moments for you guys where you've had to make a
decision and almost go? We love the hyper light, the
durability, but actually there's something really, we think very
plain, boring and quite vanilla that people buy the product or
based on. Like it's actually, it's got
amazing packaging and it's a gift and I just want to watch
someone open the packaging. Or have there been any learnings
like that that have come out of the woodwork at the same time or
or do you feel actually we managed to get quite close to
the core from the get go? I mean, I'd say there's a couple
and we've obviously tried lots of things over the years.
And you know, another like real kind of value to us is trying to
keep it as simple as possible, whether that's the messaging or
the processes that we put in place.
And as some of us may know, like getting to that simplicity is
actually very difficult. And to me, it's a process of
elimination. Like tell me everything that we
could possibly do, OK, how are we going to whittle that down to
the two or three things that are the most impactful?
And we do that on campaign ideas.
We do that on our products. We do that on everything.
I mean, you look at even the color scheme that we have, it's
black or white. That's your only choice for
colors of products. We joke.
Apparently color's too heavy, so we don't offer.
I love that. But striving for that simplicity
is something that we're constantly doing.
And I think that's what resonates with people when they
see our marketing messaging or our value propositions or the
features on the product. If you put something hidden in
the depths of your website and someone puts the right search
in, you know, Gemini's going to know that and Google's going to
go right. Here's an AI result with that
on. How much, how much tighter do
you think brands need to be now with controlling that story,
that positioning? I think it's absolutely vital
and I think it's wider than your website as well because
increasingly those LLMS are using your social post copy to
learn about your brand. So everything you've ever said
about your brand is being recorded.
And I think particularly from an organic social perspective, how
you talk about your products and your USPS and all of those
things and the sort of content that you're sharing.
If you're just sharing the latest, you know, viral meme
about the guy at the Coldplay concert, what is that teaching
about? That a minute ago, yeah.
About your brand. So I think being like
increasingly clear about what you are and what you stand for
and what you talk about and what you don't talk about, rather
than just jumping on, oh, this is a viral trend.
Oh, we think that we should have a, you know, blog post about,
you know, whatever's, you know, hot right now match a coffee or
something like that. It's then teaching them the
wrong things. And I think brands that are
really focused on what they are and what they stand for are
going to win. Because I think it's not just,
oh, you're talking about like search snippets.
It's like being the right search snippet is increasingly
important because like, if you know, like previously, I'll
like, I'll, you know, I want to rank for, you know, number one
for digital marketing agency. Oh, I can do that by spending
enough money on PPC, but being, you know, saying, oh, actually
we're the best, you know, digital marketing agency for
brands on Shopify between 5 and 10,000,000 LB revenue being the
number one result for those that kind of multifaceted search,
particularly in LLMS, you know, that is where they, they really
excel is in that multifaceted environment that Google isn't,
is getting better at, but isn't brilliant at.
So really being clear about who you are and who your customer is
and what you do and what you don't do and being single minded
about going after that. That's where you win across the
board, both in terms of search and LLMS. Absolutely.
And I mean, just just to give an example of how to work that out
in e-commerce, so many brands that we're working with, we
started looking at things like loyalty programs and a massive 1
is then rewarding people that and Block your Ears, Trustpilot,
Judge Me and all the other review, plus rewarding people
when they leave a review, which is against some of the terms and
conditions, but it's a third party rewarding.
And I'll let the lawyers discuss that one.
But companies are doing it. I'm not, they are.
So you can have an argument with them, but the rewarding people
for leaving a review, especially one with an image and giving
them more loyalty points or bigger reward if they leave an
image. The same with posting on social
with their product. Suddenly you've got access to
actually look at your customers like you would in a physical
shop, but without having a physical shop and then
understanding who they are. I mean, immediately you said
actually for older women, but we're talking 25 plus.
It's one reason I love talking to Janice is you've you've
drilled down so tightly to who the customer is, which act,
which I'm going to say it's easy, but it gives you more of a
laser focus, doesn't it, when it comes to creating content and
what audiences to use. And actually TikTok probably is
a big platform for you now where when you first said it's, you
know, make up for older women you wouldn't necessarily
associate with TikTok. You go, well it's Facebook and
some forums isn't it? But actually TikTok is relevant
to a 27 year old, isn't it? It is, which is why we're we're
still on there. And one of the things that we do
is we regularly talk to our customers and we ask them things
like, are you on TikTok? And one of the things that I
find fascinating about that platform in particular because
we have been monitoring that over probably about two years.
And I can't remember the exact stats, but with ballpark, the
first time we asked, it was about 2% and it went up over
time to about 5% and then it's dropped back down to about 3%.
So within our demographic, which is very, you know, very much in
that kind of, you know, 60s, seventies, 80s, there was a kind
of level of interest, a bit of experimentation.
And it's dropped off, I think for mainstream brands, you know,
in a mainstream demographic, I think TikTok has been such a
game changer because of the fact that it's all about discovery.
It's less about, oh, these are the specific people I'm
following. It's like these are the people
I'm, this is the stuff that I'm interested in.
And then I'm naturally being served stuff that I am
interested in. And I think that whole kind of
AI algorithm stuff around social is really interesting, being
really clear about, again, what you are and who you know, who
you target, what you stand for, all of those things.
And using that to reach more of the right person is just a
really interesting proposition. What's the first thing Shopify
store owners should really be thinking about cleaning up in
their Shopify stores when it comes to sales tax, especially
across certainly across the US? Yeah, Yeah.
I think the the biggest thing I always tell people to start out
is just first understanding where you actually have what's
called in the US Nexus. So, so tax Cloud, we primarily
service businesses that are based in the US, So I'll give
that perspective. But I think this is applicable
to wherever you're selling today.
And in the US in particular, we actually have the challenge
where every state across the country has their own tax laws,
their own tax rules, and different requirements that tell
you whether or not you actually have tax obligation in that
state. And so this whole idea of
understanding where you actually have met the threshold in that
state is your first starting point.
There's an important consideration when it comes to
Nexus. There's this idea of physical
Nexus, and there's an idea of economic Nexus.
When you're talking about physical, as you may expect,
it's based on where you're actually physically located, but
it's not always that simple. If you happen to have employees
in different states or different areas, that can also trigger
physical Nexus in that state. Or if you have a warehouse where
you're storing product, depending on the state, that
could also trigger physical Nexus as well.
So that's, there's a lot to think about there.
And so you start with physical understanding that.
And typically if you're a small and you're just starting out,
you'll know that taxes in your state, that's where you have
physical Nexus. So get registered and start
collecting there. The other is the economic.
Typically, it's based on number of transactions or total
revenue, and that will give you a sense of where you're at
today, not to pitch Tax Cloud too early in the conversation
here. So whether you use Tax Cloud or
any other tool, generally any sales tax solution is going to
offer a free plan where you can connect your Shopify store and
get a very quick view of your economic Nexus.
So we always recommend starting there.
Again, Tax Cloud's great for it, but there's other tools you can
use as well. Connect your store, get your
orders in there and we'll tell you where you have Nexus today.
I can also speak to the the one other thing I could talk to is
the fact that some orders you deal with some exemptions.
The if, if you're selling different products, a lot of
people don't know that certain products are taxable and certain
aren't. This is where it starts to get
really tricky as well. So that's another thing to think
about as well. Birth where you have Nexus.
Also, depending on the sort of products you sell, do you
actually have to collect taxes on its products?
And there's a lot of interesting rules that you'll have to think
about when it comes to certain product lines.
Yeah, yeah. Now you've just bought back a
tiny bit of PTSD in my head of when I was in San Francisco and
I went into a cafe and compared to the coffee price in the US,
compared to the UKI went in and thought that's quite an
expensive coffee price. And they had a coffee called the
Gibraltar Coffee. I thought, oh great, this little
English town in Spain, which is English British, sorry, in the
from the UK. So I went in and ordered that
and I had a minor heart attack going, oh, it's only like half a
dollar or a dollar more expensive than the UK.
It's a bit pricey. And then they added the state
tax, the federal tax. And then this little lady at the
till was looking at me with a big smile.
And I looked down at the screen on the till and it said like
what tip would you like to give and look?
And it just a minor heart attack of thinking I've paid nearly
$10.00 for a coffee. And when I told an American
friend of mine out there, they said $10.
Where'd you get that from? That sounds really, really
cheap. I was like, are you crazy?
Like, right. Like even with the pound to
dollar ratio as it was back then.
So I think my, my point being, which I think is a really good
reason that you should, you guys should definitely investigate
something like tax cloud rather than which is the next note on
my list. Doing it manually is I think
you've just described really well, Ryan and done it in a
really very actually quite simple kind of broken down way
of like it's really flipping complicated.
Do you ever find that in your warehouse you have dead stock,
You can't sell it, no one wants to buy it and you can't get a
refund on it. Or alternatively, you're missing
inventory in your warehouse that you need.
You've got sales coming in and you're low on stock and you
haven't ordered more stock in time.
All these things hit profit. And I've been there.
I've run my own Shopify store and had exactly that problem.
But we've partnered up with Inventory Planner who have the
most incredible app to help you manage that and forecast exactly
what products, what skews even down to what colour of product
you need to order in advance to make sure stock levels remain
consistent throughout. They're also running a seven day
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emails every seven days and it takes the same amount of time as
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Both links are in the description.
Enjoy.